I had been to the Tonhalle that evening for Bach’s Mass in B-Minor and had sat for over two hours, letting the surging waves of divine perfection wash over me. Afterwards, I walked alone along the river into town, careful with every step in the snow. It had fallen the night before and covered everything, lending a muffled, indoor feel to the sound of my footsteps upon it. I continued on through the Old Botanic Gardens then across into Zurich’s Old Town and to the Café Zähringer.
I ordered a tea and sat, sipping it, still in the thrall of the music. It had evoked in me a deep longing. A door ajar and beyond it bright light, promise. A door ajar, leading to eternity. It seemed that every moment of my life was with me as I sat, pondering; past difficult to distinguish from present and imagined futures hovering like unborn memories. Life and death just two sides of the same page, both filled with illegible scribble. But when held up to the light, the two sides becoming indistinguishable, fusing to form a whole, finally making sense. It seemed to me too, at that moment, that my long deceased father was somehow with me. In the same way that my distant but very much living family accompany me even when I am away from them – through love. Love is that door left ajar, leading to eternity, to the divine.
On the table next to me two young proto-scientists, one Swiss, one German, pored over their books together, united in their quest for knowledge.
On the other side sat a pretty, young blonde, playing draughts with a male friend. It seemed I was the only person there by himself. I thought about my flight the following morning, my imminent baptism into a world profoundly foreign to the one I was sitting in. I couldn’t help feeling a bit apprehensive about it – perhaps this was amplifying my awareness of my own mortality. It’s easy to become too comfortable living in one of the wealthiest and safest countries in the world. The reactions of my friends when I told them I was planning a 9-day trip alone to Lebanon and Syria had done nothing to calm any sense of uncertainty. They ranged from disbelief to outright horror. But perhaps that said more about my friends than about the actual dangers facing me.
A draughts piece fell on the floor, I lent down, picked it up and handed it to her with a quiet smile.
I ordered a tea and sat, sipping it, still in the thrall of the music. It had evoked in me a deep longing. A door ajar and beyond it bright light, promise. A door ajar, leading to eternity. It seemed that every moment of my life was with me as I sat, pondering; past difficult to distinguish from present and imagined futures hovering like unborn memories. Life and death just two sides of the same page, both filled with illegible scribble. But when held up to the light, the two sides becoming indistinguishable, fusing to form a whole, finally making sense. It seemed to me too, at that moment, that my long deceased father was somehow with me. In the same way that my distant but very much living family accompany me even when I am away from them – through love. Love is that door left ajar, leading to eternity, to the divine.
On the table next to me two young proto-scientists, one Swiss, one German, pored over their books together, united in their quest for knowledge.
On the other side sat a pretty, young blonde, playing draughts with a male friend. It seemed I was the only person there by himself. I thought about my flight the following morning, my imminent baptism into a world profoundly foreign to the one I was sitting in. I couldn’t help feeling a bit apprehensive about it – perhaps this was amplifying my awareness of my own mortality. It’s easy to become too comfortable living in one of the wealthiest and safest countries in the world. The reactions of my friends when I told them I was planning a 9-day trip alone to Lebanon and Syria had done nothing to calm any sense of uncertainty. They ranged from disbelief to outright horror. But perhaps that said more about my friends than about the actual dangers facing me.
A draughts piece fell on the floor, I lent down, picked it up and handed it to her with a quiet smile.
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