Agua estancada • Tired water

Palma, a orillas del Parque del Mar, bajo las ventanas del palacio del obispo,
donde el agua se acerca más a la muralla.

Palma, along the Parque del Mar, under the windows of the Bishop’s Palace,
where the water is the closest to the wall.

White Christmas

A childhood dream. Freshly fallen snow, a walk on the hillside in the twilight, on the crunching snow, the light of the candelabra dissolving as the milk loaf, the sound of the snow being bumped off the branches. A dream becoming increasingly unreal with global warming. In only a few places has it become a reality. Jerusalem, for example, where Két Sheng / Gyuri captured the following scene:

“He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes.”
(Ps 147:16)

The countries poor in snow, what can they do? They borrow their Christmas postcards from countries rich in snow. This is what Canada does, from where in November we received this message:

I work for a non-profit organization in Canada. I saw a beautiful picture in your blog, which I would gladly use for our Christmas postcard. Would you please give permission?

Of course.



As to why the Canadian The Centre of Israel & Jewish Affairs sends a Christmas postcard, it can be questioned only by the most nitpicky. In fact, Hanuka and Christmas exactly coincided this year. And to make ecumenism even more complete, I received this postcard exactly today, on the day of the Orthodox Christmas, from Gyuri, who received a bunch of them from the Centre as a complimentary copy. So I forward it to our readers as long as the feast lasts.

Cuervos

El invierno es de las sombras, la luz tamizada bajo la seda blanca de las nubes. El ciclo del día, breve; un guiño del párpado celeste. La vida quiere que nos cobijemos, nos arrastra al interior, por fuera se eriza retraída por el frío temible, hostil.

Al vernos en el final del año ¿nos preguntamos si hemos aspirado de cada uno de los días toda la dulzura, si hemos propiciado bastantes momentos dignos de nuestro cuaderno de memorias? Bueno, tal vez nunca sean suficientes.

Las ráfagas heladas y la ronquera de una bandada de cuervos nos meten en los oídos los estertores de otro año. No importa qué frutas maduras se hayan recogido, un año más joven aguarda ansioso al otro lado del umbral, colmado de posibilidades que no sabremos prever.

Crows

Winter is bleak, the sunlight dimmed by thick milky clouds. Periods of daylight are brief, a blink of the celestial eyelid. Life huddles together, pulling inward, curling around itself, shrunken by a frightful, loveless cold.

When we find ourselves at year’s end, do we ask ourselves, have we sucked each day of all its sweetness, have we found enough moments worthy of our personal scrapbooks? Well, perhaps, we can never find enough such moments.

The cold winter winds and the hoarseness of the gathering crows, however, bring within earshot the death rattle of another year. But, no matter what ripe fruits have already been plucked, another, younger, eager year waits beyond the threshold, brimming with possibilities that we cannot foresee.

A Bridge in Winter

Yesterday, I happened to be in the center of Prague. I often go weeks without venturing there; most of what I need to do can be done more easily closer to home. But there I was, finished with my errand, and starting for home. A soft, light snow was falling. I thought, I haven’t been near Charles Bridge (Karlův Most) in a long time — I generally prefer to avoid the press of tourists. I thought, I shall go now to the Charles Bridge, to see what it looks like in this nice afternoon snow.

There were few tourists today, as it happens. January, by itself, keeps them at home; bad weather often keeps them indoors. Swans were paddling the cold brown waters of the Vltava and sea gulls floated effortlessly on the air, calling at each other with piercing squeals. The statues of the Charles Bridge, famous for their black and gold, had added white to their wardrobes.

A young couple made the traditional wish (throwing a coin in the river) at the spot where Jan Nepomucký, on 20 March 1393, was thrown into the water, his tongue cut out, for having angered King Wenceslas.

A tourist was feeding french fries to the seagulls.

It was quiet and cold. The Christians were shivering and pleading, as they always do, in their tiny cell watched over by the fat, indifferent Turk. As I crossed over Kampa Island and neared U tří pštrosů (At the Three Ostriches), where, in 1714 the Armenian Deodat Ramajan sold the first coffee in Bohemia, I needed to warm up. I headed for the nearest coffee house to enjoy one of Ramajan’s hot beverages.


Trio Bayanistov (А. И. Кузнецов, Я. Ф. Попков, А. Ф. Данилов): Дунайские волны, 1940

Hip

Él da la nieve como lana

«Él da la nieve como lana,
y derrama la escarcha como ceniza»
(Salmo 147:16)

El salmo que corresponde al día de hoy en la liturgia católica es el 147, pero se nos hizo presente hace dos semanas, junto con casi todas sus imágenes, cuando huíamos del invierno danés en Israel, buscando un poco de primavera. El primer día fue realmente primaveral: veinte grados y buen sol. Emprendimos una larga caminata desde Nazaret a través de tantos paisajes pintorescos para subir finalmente al Monte de la Transfiguración o Monte Tabor, como luego se le ha llamado. Avanzamos extasiados por una espléndida alfombra de flores que lo cubría todo.

«El Señor hace crecer la hierba de los montes,
y las plantas para uso de la gente»
(Salmo 147:8)

No imaginamos que éste sería nuestro primer y último día de primavera israelí. Por la noche empezó a llover y así continuó sin remisión durante varios días.

«Él es quien cubre de nubes los cielos, 

el que prepara la lluvia para la tierra»

(Salmo 147:8)

Llovió incansablemente durante tres días, lo que para Israel, que siempre lucha contra la sequía, fue sin duda una gran bendición. No tanto para nosotros. Bajo la lluvia desoladora fuimos en autobús a Jerusalén, donde el agua convertía las calles en ríos y la temperatura no pasaba de cinco grados.

«Él deja caer las piedrecillas de granizo; 
y a causa del frío todo se congela»
(Salmo 147:17)

Era realmente terrible. Me puse dos jerseys y encima dos abrigos para pasear por la ciudad; porque una vez que se llega a Jerusalén, no será una maldita lluvia la que consiga encerrarnos en el hotel, ni toda el agua que pueda empaparnos las zapatillas de verano.


A la mañana siguiente, dos de marzo, ocurrió sin embargo un milagro que suele acontecer en Jerusalén cada cinco años y que nos hizo olvidar todas las penalidades de los días anteriores. Comenzaron a caer gruesos copos de nieve. Nevó durante aproximadamente una hora, a ratos con una intensidad de tormenta, y el suelo se cubrió finamente de blanco. Por descontado, la nieve no nos llegó hasta la cintura, como en aquel invierno de 1921 del que no hace mucho vimos las fotos, pero fue una nevada de verdad, espesa y permanente. Y nos sumergimos en el bullicio que se provocó en las calles de Jerusalén.

«Él da la nieve como lana
y derrama la escarcha como ceniza»
(Salmo 147:16)

La gente de allí se emocionaba con este fenómeno extraordinario. Algunos incluso llegaron a Jerusalén desde el campo, la noche anterior, al oír la noticia de la inminente nevada, no fueran a perderse el acontecimiento. La insólita nevada se puede ver en unos cuantos vídeos en la red: aquí sólo quiero compartir dos breves secuencias muy hermosas. El primero está filmado en la ciudad vieja, y el segundo en la parte moderna, al oeste de Jerusalén. Los podríamos haber filamdo nosotros mientras paseábamos exactamente por estos mismos lugares:


Los vídeos fueron tomados por dos personas distintas, lo que hace sorprendente la similitud de la música elegida para acompañarlos. Esta música atemporal, de guitarra acústica, suave, en vivo contraste con la más fuerte, más dinámica y en general con toques orientales que vierten las radios israelíes, revela bien el asombro y la admiración con que los lugareños experimentaron este fenómeno natural excepcional —en las pocas horas que tardó en fundirse.

«Enviará su palabra, y los derretirá;
soplará su viento, y fluirán las aguas.
Alaba a Jehová, Jerusalén;
Alaba a tu Dios, Sión»
(Salmo 147:18, 12)

He spreads the snow like wool

„He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes. ”
(Ps 147:16)

In the Catholic liturgy, the psalm of today’s Holy Mass is the 147th. It was exactly this psalm which came to life before us, together with almost all its images, when two weeks ago, in the last days of February we escaped the Danish winter and headed to Israel in search of some springlike weather. Our first day was springlike indeed: twenty degrees with sunshine. We started for a long hiking from Nazareth, wandered through picturesque landscapes, and finally successfully climbed the Mount of Transfiguration, or Mount Tabor, as it is called today. And we were enraptured by the magnificent spring flower carpet covering everything.

„He makes grass grow on the hills,
and plants for people to use.”
(Ps 147:8)

We did not know that this would be our first and last springlike day in Israel. That evening it started to rain, and it spilled  hopelessly for several days.

„He covers the sky with clouds;
he supplies the earth with rain.”
(Ps 147:8)

It was pouring non-stop for three days, which for Israel, which is struggling with the drought, was certainly a huge blessing, but not so much personally for us. In this desolate rain we went across by bus to Jerusalem, where the water was running in streams over the streets, and the temperature was not more than five degrees.

„He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
Who can withstand his icy blast?”
(Ps 147:17)

Well, we certainly could not withstand it. I had two pullovers and two coats on while roaming about the city, because once you are in Jerusalem, you will certainly not lock yourself up in your hotel room for some bloody rain, however much it flows in streams through my summer shoes.


The next morning, on the second of March, however, a miracle occurred which happens once every five years in Jerusalem, and which made us forget all the hardships of the previous days. It started to snow in huge flakes. It was snowing for about a hour, at times with the intensity of a snow storm, and it covered the soil with a thin layer for some hours. A waist-deep snow, like during that ominous winter of 1921 we have recently shown photos about, there was not, of course, but a real, thick, permanent snow, yes. We threw ourselves into the bustle of snowy Jerusalem.

„He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes. ”
(Ps 147:16)

The locals were also completely excited by this extraordinary natural phenomenon. Some even traveled from the countryside to Jerusalem the previous night at hearing the news about the impending snowfall, just not to miss the big event. The snowfall itself is presented in several videos on the net: I just want to share two beautifully cut short ones with our readers. The first one was made in the Old City, and the second in the modern, western part of Jerusalem. They could have been made by ourselves, too, as we walked through exactly these places:


The two videos were taken by two different local residents, so it is very striking how similar the music are which accompany them. The timeless, gentle acoustic guitar music which is in such a sharp contrast to the louder, more dynamic, oriental-spiced music generally pouring from Israeli radios, renders really well the awe and admiration with which the locals watched this rare natural phenomenon – for the few hours until it melted.

„But he sends his word and melts them;
he stirs up his breezes, and the waters flow.
Extol the LORD, Jerusalem;
praise your God, Zion.”
(Ps 147:18, 12)

Snow in Palma

In this part of the world we know about the snow only from its imposing presence in Central European literature, in Nordic literature, in Russian literature. We recall vividly some endless snowfalls, where the slow falling of the flakes appear to raise the earth to the gray sky, but this snow falls in the works of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Pasternak, or it covers everything in the winter of Nils Holgersson crossing Sweden at Selma Lagerlöf’s hand… There’s plenty of snow in the books we have read, in Jack London, in Andersen, in Maupassant, in Kawabata, in Danilo Kiš, in Ádám Bodor… Therefore, when it snows in Palma, we go out to the streets, trying to understand it with all five senses, to register its mysterious form as if it were a sign of another world that we know will disappear very quickly. We do not get anything. It melts as soon as you touch it. Seen and unseen. Like a rainbow, like a wisp.

La nieve en Palma

En este lugar del mundo sabemos de la nieve gracias a su presencia imponente en la literatura centroeuropea, en la literatura nórdica, en la literatura rusa. Recordamos vivamente algunas nevadas inacabables, donde la lenta caída de los copos parece elevar la tierra hasta el cielo gris, pero estas nevadas caen en las obras de Tolstói, de Chéjov o de Pasternak; o en la nieve que todo lo cubre en el invierno de Nils Holgersson, atravesando Suecia de la mano de Selma Lagerlöf… Hay muchísima nieve en los libros que hemos leído, en Jack London, en Andersen, en Maupassant, en Kawabata, en Danilo Kis, en Adam Bodor… Por eso, cuando nieva en Palma, salimos a la calle intentando entenderla con los cinco sentidos, registrar su forma misteriosa como si fuera un signo de otro mundo que sabemos que desaparecerá muy rápido. No conseguimos nada. Se deshace al tocarla. Visto y no visto. Como un arcoiris, como un fuego fatuo.