Traveling

Brooklyn - Beirut - Mieh-Mieh.

Brooklyn seen from lower Manhattan.

Whenever I go to New York, I walk to this waterfront with a copy of Whitman's poems, I read "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" aloud while looking at the East River, and I cry. Look for me weeping on Friday morning at Columbia Heights.

American University of Beirut Museum

Mieh-Mieh, Sidon, Lebanon.

I leave today for the long journey home. Posting will be light or non-existent until I reach the internet cafe in Mieh-Mieh. Until then, be well...

Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

3

It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not:
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
...
I loved well those cities;
I loved well the stately and rapid river;
The men and women I saw were all near to me;
Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them;
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)

5

What is it, then, between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?

Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.

6

I too lived—Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine;
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it;
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.

Comments

[angela simaan]

you will have to fight the little boys gaming in the 'net cafe in mieh-mieh tooth and nail for your turn. I was sassed so much by some appallingly clever little monsters this summer every time I tried to squeeze a turn out of them.

that said, i'm sure you will have a wonderful and fun trip - you may run into my father (Toufic) while in Mieh-Mieh, he's taking my grandmother Angele the first week of October.

[Val]

It's not the destination, it's the journey that matters. And I hope your journey is grand!

[Alison Chaiken]

I've always thought that Whitman's poetry was greeting-card drivel. What appeals to you about it?

[Judy]

Have a terrific trip! I can't wait to read about it when you return.

[Leila]

Dear Alison - there's no accounting for taste! Kisses to you and all...