One of my favorite moments of 2008 was in Istanbul. The prayer service had just let out, and a sea of locals surged for the door. Being caught up in a crush of locals where the only way to get any personal space is to look up is, for me, a ritual connecting with humanity. I seek these opportunities out. It’s the closest I’ll ever come to experiencing the joy of body surfing above a mosh pit.
Going with the worshipping flow, I scanned the dark sky. That scene — one I had forgotten was so breathtaking — played for me again: hard-pumping seagulls powering through the humid air in a black sky, surging into the light as they cross in front of floodlit minarets.
Our society’s theme for 2009: change. I’ve been thinking about change and reflecting on the last year’s travels. Sometimes change is forced on you, as if caught in a teeming mob scene. Other times you plan for and dictate change — which seems like change, but is actually more of the same…just better designed.
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All societies morph with the push and pull of the times. Walking down to the Golden Horn inlet and Istanbul’s churning waterfront, I crossed the new Galata Bridge, which made me miss the dismantled and shipped-out old Galata Bridge — so crusty with life’s struggles.
Then I realized that, while the old bridge was gone, the new one’s been engulfed with the same vibrant street life — boys casting their lines, old men sucking on water pipes, sesame-seed bread rings filling cloudy glass-windowed carts.
Walking the new Galata Bridge and still finding the old reminded me how stubborn cultural inertia can be. If you give a camel-riding Bedouin a new Mercedes, he still decorates it like a camel. I remember looking at tribal leaders in Afghanistan — shaved, cleaned up, and given a bureaucrat’s uniform. But looking more closely, I see the bushy grey bearded men in dusty old robes still living behind those modern uniforms. I remember seeing a Californian who dropped out of the “modern rat race” in Katmandu — calloused almost-animal feet, matted dreadlocks, draped in sackcloth as he stood cane in hand before the living virgin goddess. Somehow I could still see Los Angeles in his eyes. The resilience of a culture can’t be overcome with a haircut and a shave — or lack of one — or a new bridge.
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On the sloppy adjacent harborfront, the venerable “fish and bread boats” were still rocking in the constant chop of the busy harbor. In a humbler day, they were 20-foot-long open dinghies — rough boats with battered car tires for fenders — with open fires grilling fish literally fresh off the boat. For a few coins, they’d bury a big white fillet in a hunk of fluffy white bread, wrap it in newsprint, and I was on my way…dining out on fish.
A few years ago, the fish and bread boats were shut down — they had no license. Now, after a popular uproar, they’re back. A bit more hygienic and no longer wrapping in newspaper — but they’re still rocking in the waves and slamming out fresh fish.
Regardless of where 2009 leads us (our retail sales, retirement accounts, stock market, the dollar versus the euro), we’ll still be rocking in the waves and slamming out fresh whatever-we-produce.
