Are unheard melodies sweeter or have I started to view the world through a westerner’s eyes? Picking up a random scribble on memory, the mind swiftly wove a thread, like one deft movement of the wrists of the knitting woman, that lead me to looking up Istanbul. I said the name out, Istanbul, with a respiratory air, bringing out the residue of my reading of Pamuk’s melancholic ruminations and recollections on that city of antiquity.
I saw an image, a beautiful stamp-sized Istanbul sunset, under which someone said, “I am from Istanbul, the only city…..
The line awoke a need in me, a need to say I am from a city, a city of antiquity, a city where the legions of Christ and Allah built the fountains of blood that still stand in its square, a city nourished by a wide river that has a huge bridge across it, a city with a history, a history I can recount when I say, “I am from…..
What do I want? Do I just want to recount a grand history or do I, as Borges’ whispers in my head like me to believe, want to recount my history since I was first born.
I no longer am writing what I wanted to write. I have ended up thinking instead of writing. The thread that the mind had started to weave has run out. I don’t know what has been made of it. You tell me, dear reader.
Tony Xavier 