The Northern Star

I was transfixed. I watched the Big Bear night after night traveling through the sky. One day I traced a line from Dubhe and Merak to Polaris. It always amazed me that the most important star in the Northern Hemisphere is not the brightest of them all. That night Polaris was particularly dim, almost invisible; the sky was translucent in the strength of the full moon. I watched the Northern Star until my eyes started to water, and then as if in attempt to reach Polaris I found myself on the road again.

The road took me from Osh to Istanbul, London, around the coast of Ireland and then unexpectedly looped into a merry-go-round of Central Asia, Istanbul, London, New York and around and back over and over and over again. This merry-go-round had an almost psychedelic pattern of seemingly predictable yet bizarrely random detours to Ibiza, Vermont, Paris, Madrid, Brussels, Washington DC, Bilbao, Rome, Budapest, Warsaw and a myriad of tiny villages, forests, and mountains whose names were lost in the fog of my memories.

This laundry list of places might seem not particularly unsual given the years I spent on the road. Yet this time the road was shrouded in the fog of memories. They clouded my mind with years passed; they muffled my senses with a thick cotton wool of grief. It is quite possible that at that point I became insane. Now looking back I only remember pulsing Polaris guiding me all through night and day, and in and out of weeks and over a year. I hoped against all hope that the Northern Star will lead me back to my very own room with carved wood where I will find my supper waiting for me still hot.

The fog of memories was so thick I did not hear boisterous water under the Golden Horn Bridge nor did I see the gold glistering in the water around the Debod Temple. I did not hear the music floating in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields nor did I see the rolling hills of Ireland shrouded in misty rain. I did not feel the snow melting on my skin in the forest of Vermont nor did I see the lights staring with unblinking eyes into the Hudson River. I did not see the sun-beaten hills of Batken nor did I smell the air filled with sage and yarrow in Khujand. I did not see giddy patterns of market stalls in Kurgan Tube nor did I smell the food cooked on fire in huge iron woks in Bukhara. I found some respite in the serene walls of monasteries scattered along the road. I welcomed the hardness of cots the monks sleep and meditate on. I relished the quiet of those spaces, interrupted only by singing bowls that instructed me to wake up, to eat or to work …

With every call of singing bowls the fog of memories started to thin down. With each step I took the cotton wool wore down. I started to see things, at first darkly. I saw clocks that seem to always show thirteen minutes to two, even though I could not hear them tick towards the hour. I saw cups of coffee before me, even though I did not smell their aroma. Then I started to feel things, at first barely. I felt rain on my face even though I still did not hear it tap its happy song. I felt sun leaving its burning kisses on my skin, even though I still did not smell the scents of the park. Then I started to hear things, at first faintly. I started to hear tango songs and felt the touch of my partners as we moved across the floor. I heard a cellist playing on a busy street and the world exploded with senses of fresh morning that filled my lungs to the point of intoxication, with the wind in my ears that whispered me its seductive stories, with the beauty of sheer being that left me breathless and tearful in awe.

And then one day in a definitive gesture to finish our jam, my friend put bandoneon on a chair. I followed the suit and leaned my ukulele on it. I laid on the floor allowing my back to soften into the smoothness of the hard-wood floor. I watched the music dissipating in the room. I extended my arms and uncurled my fingers to stretch them from the hours of play. My friend caught my palms, and traced the lines on them and then started to examine a ring on my left hand. The ring has molded into me with years; the sharp corners rounded up; the matte finish wore off into a shiny rounded band; the engraving in Persian started to smudge.

I grew aware of the warmth of my friend’s fingers. I felt the tingling of my skin under the touch. I took the ring off to allow for the closer inspection. The inner inscription in Hebrew remained as sharp as it once was. Just like the outside, it said this too shall pass. “Is once not enough?” my friend asked. I shrugged my shoulders: “Some of us are very slow on the uptake.” My friend kept twirling the ring over and over studying the engravings and then asked: “So, did it pass?”

Somehow startled by the question I sat up and looked at my friend. A ray of light was playing with stray strands of hair that escaped the captivity of a messy bun. The smooth olive skin was touched by a hint of pink on cheekbones. Another black strand was resting on the right shoulder. The black eyes were as deep as the night sky. This face that I had known for years suddenly looked so new, so majestic, so royal. I saw why persons of stunning beauty are told to have a star shining in the forehead and a young crescent hiding in the braids. And those full lips, how delightfully sweet were those lips.