Against the Normalisation of Nationalism & the Personal Appropriation of Cities, Cultures & Countries

 A Personal Response to Orhan Pamuk’s Autobiographical Memoir

‘Istanbul: Memories and the City’

“Nationalism is an infantile thing. It is the measles of mankind.”

– Albert Einstein

For people who love reading, good writing is tantamount to magic. In my mind, in the modern age the closest thing we get to a magician is a good writer, for words have the power to produce magic. The act of mental transportation, suddenly being somewhere else through scanning one’s eyes across a page (a different time, country, planet, body, self) is nothing short of wizardry and witchcraft. If ever we could apply those notions to existence, it is in the domain of literature – within the very act of reading and writing.

The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk is the closest thing to a magician I have encountered in my recent literary travels. Upon reading one paragraph I was instantly sucked into a portal – partly composed of my own mind and memories, partly composed of his. Out of the emergence of this ebb and flow of words, written by him and experienced by me, a new experience is born. A symbiosis of thought, a concatenation of recollection – and with that power comes new thinking, new perceptions, re-imagined narratives, re-considered lives. I love how that happens and recognise the rarity of such writing. I have experienced that in poetry, but less often in non-fiction and even less in fiction.

My partner handed me Pamuk’s book ‘Istanbul: Memories and the City’ as I was boarding a train. My one brief experience of Turkey and Istanbul was not great; but my partner’s experiences have been very different from mine – overwhelmingly positive, at least before the advent of recent political upheavals. So it was with slight hesitancy and scepticism that I took the book, but after reading the first paragraph all my doubts subsided and five chapters in, I was captivated. It was a revelation to discover that Pamuk’s Istanbul was similar to my one isolated encounter. My anticipated defences were never erected, instead I felt myself soften to the city he so tenderly yet truthfully depicts.

Alongside Pamuk’s biographical meanderings through his childhood, through the cobbled melancholic streets of old Istanbul, I also explored my own roots and reflected, simultaneously with his, upon the nature of personal identity and what it means to feel attached, or not, to one’s country of birth. As a teacher of English to adults from across the world, it has always been apparent to me that very often a person’s sense of self is intricately rooted in their ‘home’ country. In some regions of the world the extent of this I have found both startling and often unsettling. Upon entering conversation with one Omani girl, for example, I casually said how much I loved Muscat to which I received a bashful giggle and coy ‘thank you!’, as though she was personally responsible for the creation of such a city! By an act of chance she just happened to be born in that country and that city, so what makes her feel so bound to it, so personally attached? Would she feel the same way if she had been born in Stockholm or Chicago, Santiago or Sheffield? Is it a valid response – tenable and virtuous or a less thought out existential position to hold? I have never felt a sense of pride or attachment to the locale of my birth – is this a fault on my part, my parents, my home town, or conversely, a perfectly authentic response to my past? It is these questions that struck me as I was reading Memories and the City.

Pamuk refers to ‘his’ city time and time again. This grand collocation, a personal pronoun linguistically attached to an entire city feels so strange, so alien, to me. What gives him, anyone, the right (or desire) to possess a whole city? Isn’t this habit of homeland appropriation so imbued with everything problematic about the world we live in? Isn’t nationalism one of the greatest evils society and civilisation ever created? Personally I have always felt separate from the country and town I grew up in – I certainly do not feel that one nondescript Surrey location has in any way shaped, defined or belongs to me, quite the contrary. Would I feel differently if I had been brought up in Venice, Paris or in a crumbling city apartment with views overlooking the Bosphorus? I wonder if particular places on earth inspire greater love, create stronger attachment. I suspect that my lack of attachment could be due to the fact that I am Anglo-Persian – a child of two countries and, consequently, critical and appreciative of both. But it may also be due to my interest in identity per se, and how my psycho-philosophical excavations have unearthed the illusory and shaky foundations of the arbitrary, fabricated concept of self.

I was conceived in Iran but born in the UK just after the Islamic Revolution in 1978. In the womb I subconsciously listened to the sounds of Persia, through my mother I received nourishment grown and picked from the soil of the Middle East, but I took my first breath in English air. My mother caught one of the last planes out of Tehran. I grew up in Purley, Surrey, had an idyllic, innocent and care-free childhood. My memories predominantly consist of time spent playing with my best friend, playing and fighting with my younger brother, being with my doting parents and often visiting extended family. I was largely oblivious to the wider world, cocooned in my own safe, happy existence. I paid no attention to the weather, the people, the buildings, the culture or the passing of the seasons. It was all background, just existent in a pleasant and insignificant way. I cannot recall poetic or profound experiences, watched no meandering river flowing past my window, had no sense of history, no real sense of self – and what a wonderful sheltered simplicity it was.

When I read Pamuk, and journey through his childhood alongside him, sharing in his discoveries and personal revelations, I cannot help but feel acute sadness. The melancholy of Istanbul seeped into his soul, permeated his pores, and saturated his existence – he was not free, in a childhood bubble, sheltered from the adult world with all its myriad adult problems. Later he would become a literary magician, but at such a cost. His adult life would be one of rich reflection and creativity, but how he suffered. I have come to realise more and more, as I move through life, just how significant our childhood is in shaping us and the way we perceive the outside world and our place in it. Deep and stable adult life contentment might only be possible once we understand and come to terms with the profound significance of our formative years.

As I read Pamuk I pondered the question: should we be so bound to the randomness of where our parents chose to live and raise us? I like to think, possibly idealistically, that we can overcome certain givens, overcome certain circumstances thrown our way at birth, that we can take control of our own choices, lives, destinies – not be at the mercy of what we had no hand in creating. I suppose, in this respect, I consider myself to be an existentialist. I believe a sentimental attachment to one place undermines and contradicts the unity that could exist between people of different countries and cultures. Love of the sheer randomness of where we lived as children is divisive. It creates unnecessary boundaries, creates imaginary separation, fosters difference, and promotes discord. It can also create a defence mechanism within us so strong that an entire town, city, country, creed, culture, even continent becomes as intimately associated with our identity as our immediate family. Couldn’t we, in all honest simplicity, attribute the flowering of wars and the poison of nationalism – to this ‘love’ of where we grew up? Perhaps loving one’s hometown is not such a benign human habit as it is often thought. My time spent living in China and the Middle East revealed how far this ‘loving one’s country’ can go – I observed first-hand the catastrophic existential limitations of lives lived in chains forged by the iron-grip of forced communal thinking and unquestioning faith in religion, culture and where one is born.

Pamuk writes: “I’ve never wholly belonged to this city, and maybe that’s been the problem all along.” I would say that the very notion that he feels it necessary to ‘belong’ to a city is the underlying problem. Pamuk continues: “Why should we expect a city to cure us of our spiritual pains? Perhaps because we cannot help loving our city like a family. But we still have to decide which part of the city we love and invent the reasons why.” Unlike the regard and attachment we have for our parents, who nurture us, care for us, shape us, affect us positively (or not), I would argue that it is erroneous and untenable to regard the arbitrariness of our childhood locale in a similar fashion. It leads to a kind of deterministic resignation, defines us before we can approach self-governance, keeps us indelibly bound to a particular culture, creed, communal thought pattern or regional mores – all at a profound cost to the development of self, and humanity.

Of course, sociologically speaking, nationalism, patriotism (including the social constraint mechanism of sport) and the maintenance of cultural traditions keep people from questioning the state and the people, forces, dictatorships, monarchies and powers that control them. Philosophically, psychologically, existentially, the problem is even more problematic. Reading the beautiful torment of Pamuk’s melancholic soul provides us with tremendous insight into the profound personal battles one can have when we link our sense of self to a particular country or city. I have never rooted myself to a particular place on an arbitrarily created map and feel so much more at home in the world and in myself than many others, Pamuk included. I feel that I am shaped by experiences of my own choosing, a person at the helm of my own life, a person ultimately unchained from the oppression of nationalism, religion, culture or attachment to geography.

I would argue that, ultimately, the personal appropriation of cities, countries and cultures only leads to a self-identity rooted in inauthenticity, self-limitation, and the divisive horrors of patriotism, nationalism (and religion). Travel, appreciation of the natural world, conversation, reading, creative pursuits…are good antidotes to this, as is philosophy – perhaps one of only a few endeavours that causes the unravelling, and potential re-stitching, of the very fabric of existence and that strange, slippery, oft-chaotic concept known as ‘self.’

“National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic, religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.”

– Carl Sagan

Having recently moved to Totnes in South Devon, after eight lovely years of exploring Berkshire and the environs of Reading, I soon realised that it is impossible to stroll down Totnes high street without being magnetically drawn to almost every single shop window. Unlike most high streets in the UK, Totnes is unspoilt by chain stores and chain coffee shops and offers an impressive breadth of consumer experience against a backdrop of old-world charm. What is also noticeable is the art – predominantly local artists are given window space in all manner of venues, from high-end clothes boutiques and dinky art shops to old-school barber’s shops and even the local butcher’s. And this is how I discovered the work of Lucie Smailes. A casual glance into a shop window and it was love at first sight! Staring out at me through the glass was a doll lamp constructed of doll limbs attached with chains to a torso made of a black tin box. She had pretty plastic flowers in her hair, a perfect Barbie face and deliciously deformed arms and feet. It was a vision of cuteness entangled with the grotesque, an object of beauty dusted with horror. It was everything within the world of art that appeals to me aesthetically and academically. Casually glancing into the neighbouring shop window my heart skipped another beat – gazing upward my eyes fell upon a glittering chandelier made with hanging hand mirrors! I have always loved the image of a hand mirror. For me it is evocative of fairy tales, mermaids and miniature doll paraphernalia – a motif of the feminine, a symbol of narcissism and the allure of beauty. Then, glancing downward, I saw another hand mirror with a pair of chubby doll’s arms reaching outward from the glass – adorable.

I was so enamoured with the art and so surprised to find an artist who appears to share my passion for freakish, surreal doll art that I wrote down the artist’s contact details and set about researching her more. I was not disappointed. Her website was packed full of all manner of twisted taxidermy creations, assemblage art, doll art and pieces alluding to the weird, wonderful and perverse. What also excited me were the titles of her pieces – some sexually explicit, shockingly rude and tantalisingly controversial. Viewing her art alongside these daring titles created a unique kind of magic in my mind and I began to write poetry inspired by the descriptions of the artwork alongside the art itself. And once I started my pen didn’t stop. The poetry wrote itself, as though some invisible mind was concocting story and verse at just a cursory glance at a stuffed fox, doll-head arcade machine, box of plastic limbs or sexually explicit title.

A number of weeks later and I had an entire book’s worth of Lucie inspired poetry. It was a fantastic creative ride – all manner of thoughts and insights flooded my imagination…from the myth of Jesus to romantic encounters from my past, from feminist anguish to defence of the exquisite experience of femininity, from love and desire to the accompanying sorrows of loss and loneliness. And throughout it all lurks the enduring theme of childhood. I have always been aware of the psychoanalytic component of my writing – for we are all walking echoes of our infancy, doomed as adults to perpetually chase after or run from the shadows of our formative years. And that is what attracts me to Lucie’s art – the symbiotic interplay between the motifs of childhood and raw, adult sexuality – a Freudian fusion of fantasy, family and fear wrapped in fur or pouting cherry lips.

I love the wild freedom of writing – how the unrestricted manipulation of language can construct meaning from the mire of lived experience. And I love the added component of incorporating art and image. Ekphrastic poetry (a description of a work of art) can add a deeper dimension to the power of the written word – can create new interpretations of an image, and thus construct new and multiple meanings. For me Lucie’s artwork provides a rich smorgasbord of inspiration and I revelled in the process of closely examining her work whilst weaving poetic narratives on myriad themes. Sometimes the ‘story’ was predominantly title led, other times it was one object or one image that sparked an idea. But always the end aim was the same: to craft a poem that represented something meaningful or thought provoking achieved through an interplay of my own personal philosophies, battles and experiences together with the images in Lucie’s work.

Upon writing a complete set of poems I then decided to create a prototype for a book, which I then sent to Lucie, in the hopes that she would approve and possibly agree to working with me on future collaborative projects. To my delight she loved the concept of the book and following on from a quick introductory chat over coffee one sunny morning in Totnes, we have become good friends. The book is currently in the works and due out sometime in December. We are also in the preliminary stages of planning a pop-up exhibition in Totnes which will be a wonderful experience – hopefully my poetry adding an extra dimension to Lucie’s fantastical work. Thus far my new life in Devon has been fun in so many ways and surprisingly fruitful poetically.

For more information on the work of Lucie Smailes please visit her website: https://luciesmailes.wordpress.com/

For a sample of some of my Ekphrastic poetry please visit here.

​

A short science fiction story.

Written Language Recognition Code Inserted Here: {                            } /Archaic English/

This is the final archival summary report logged from the last space centre still functioning on Earth

The last generation of us: EBHSU (earth-born Homo sapiens unmodified) are soon to depart Earth – to experience Star Sight for ourselves

We are destined for: MACS0647-JD

Feasibility of reaching destination: unknown

Arrival date: unknown

8,196,320 returners remain asleep: location: 50 miles beneath this location

A few radical EBHSU’s remain – inhabiting forest, jungle and desert

Earth date: unknown

Summary Report:

The first test reports came back inconclusive. Lab experiments on such a limited scale could never anticipate or even hypothetically assess the psychological, biological, even existential effects of long term hibernation. So the first expeditions within our solar system were the first catalogued experiences. 5 years in pod sleep was sufficient to know that the human body did not take well to it. Bone density and muscle mass were severely depleted and it took months of intense physical training to return to a sense of normality, to a state of pre-hibernation health. But nobody expected the dreams. What happens to the brain when it is suspended? Do the multi-trillion neurological networks just remain in stasis? Is memory simply frozen? Where does the mind…go? Scientists couldn’t predict what would happen. It was a risk. A risk the first voyagers had to take. A risk we had to take collectively.

The first voyagers returning on the 10 year space missions all reported strange dreaming experiences, even those who had previously never recalled their dreams. Vivid recollections of childhood and adult memories fused with events that occurred throughout their lifetime and before. Nothing too strange until in their recovery period they reported dreaming of the pod dreams, as though some part of their unconscious minds were processing the 10 years of brain activity as the body froze in induced artificial sleep. Some maintained that it was a consequence of the drugs that kept the human body alive, barely. Others speculated it was a consequence of the suspension liquid. It was hard to fully comprehend it all. The technology had suddenly made it all possible, one equation by one rogue biologist and the rest just followed. There just hadn’t been time to test it. And, of course, time itself was the thing needing to be tested.

The 50 year missions reported the same, but those voyagers seemed more unsettled, more disturbed by their hibernation recollections. Some also reported sensory changes. Smell and taste sensations had been dulled, and in other ways heightened. The scientists did their tests, made their calculations, but were unable to account for the phenomenon. At this point the experiences of hibernation were just minor side effects, a small price to pay for one of the most significant breakthroughs in all human endeavour. But once the missions began going further afield the side effects became more startling. Upon waking the voyagers reported acutely vivid ‘visions’. Some described the experience as floating, some felt they transcended the physical enclosure of the pod, others felt that they had travelled deeper inside themselves. Perhaps the brain tuned in on itself, created new neural networks, explored deeper enclaves of memory, thought and human cognisance. The science offered only speculation. The science only revealed our still limited knowledge of the human self…of where the ‘I’ lurks, of the separating lines between thought and matter, being and physical embodiment. Besides, despite all the questions, speculations and philosophy – physical survival was the only aspect of suspended life that truly interested anyone, was the only thing, ultimately, that mattered. That was until the 100 year missions were successful – then everybody started paying attention. Brief notes made on the voyagers’ post hibernation experiences and their ‘revival adjustment’ became long transcripts, and the long transcripts turned into entire books…page after page of vision, testimony, lived experience, recollection upon recollection sometimes bordering on the supernatural, sometimes incoherently surreal, sometimes undecipherable as though what had been encountered could not be put into words, perhaps some things, new things, were simply beyond the parameters of known language, beyond the tongued walls of known articulation. Some of the returners, unable to verbally articulate their dreams, chose to paint, creating spectacular visual forms. Some assembled enormous representations of unrecognisable regions of the universe. Imaginative dream-fabrications perhaps, perhaps not. Other images were impossible to understand – swathes of colour, twisted nebulae, swirling constellations, undocumented stellar forms, strange symbols and undecipherable mathematical equations.

And then everything was made public. Wild hypotheses were constructed. Some of the old religious zealots came out of the brickwork, resurrected the buried myths, dusted off the discarded texts that once blindly led man through millennia – led him through the misery of countless wars and eventually forced him to battle through his barbarism and come out the other side. Wiser, freer, knowingly alone and still as lost. Then, as before, religion lost its way, was outgrown…and the gods once again were laid to rest.

Once the 300 year missions were successful, people on the ground became more curious. New generations set to work attempting to decipher the dreaming experiences reported by the voyagers. New sciences sprung up, new theories invented. Patterns were emerging which were painstakingly decrypted by the new generation of computers. The old dreams of AI were cast aside, once these new machines had captured the collective imagination. New ways of thinking and living developed – civilisation continually evolving with the passing seasons. By the time the 500 year missions returned the focus of humanity changed. The old interests died a natural death, a small number continued their passions – their creativity and intellect still focused on the earth, still rooted to the old ways, but mostly the eyes of man were turned upward…wondering how far we could go…how long the human body could survive – drifting, suspended, unconscious. As the climate changed, worsened, the majority of survivors left – taking the hopes of man to new worlds.

Centuries came and went. Fewer people born, more leaving, the earth gradually repairing itself. The great cities of the world crumbled to towns, then deteriorated further to villages populated by clans who mainly lived surrounding the space centres – carefully constructed structures designed to send out new pods and receive returners over the ages. Eventually the ruination of cities crumbled away leaving little sign of the grand buildings, towers and dwelling houses that once littered the land. For those left, existence on earth was the best it had ever been. War, illness, politics, the divisive scourge of countries, race and nationalism, divergent and conflicting human endeavours, currencies, and the fight over resources – all became remote history. The richness of the natural world returned to a bountiful state prior to the crises of the 22nd century. The fauna of the planet largely went unobserved and undisturbed – left to run its own evolutionary course. And everything human became driven by one desire – to reach ever further into the universe, and in so doing learn more about the workings of the human brain in deep pod hibernation.

The very concept of time radically altered too – it had to. And with the shifting of time came a major shift in the very concept of being human. Individuality lost its meaning, the personal and temporal lost its allure, communities changed, the concept of family vanished, the limits of one lifetime expanded to encompass multiple centuries and beyond. The panic of death was overcome with the overcoming of isolated oneness. This was a by-product of the returners’ dream experiences. Consciousness itself continuously redefined itself – perpetually expanded with the insights accumulated from ‘Star Sight’, because ultimately that was what it was: seeing the stars. Some, however, argued it was not space and stars the voyagers saw but the vast internal geography of the human mind. Some philosophers argued they were one and the same – that the ancient Cartesian divisions existed on a grander scale – a scale encompassing the very possibility of infinity, of multiple universes.

After the 10,000 year missions returned humanity’s project shifted again. The desire man once had – to exist in multiple solar systems, to inhabit multiple planets had been achieved, and later down the line, lost its appeal. The project of being then became directed singularly toward Star Sight – to travel vast interstellar distances purely to experience longer and deeper expanding (un)consciousness, with no other agenda. For countless centuries the visions and experiences of those who returned were deciphered, analysed, picked apart any way possible – and then reassembled with the perpetual reworking of the craft once known as science. Until it all came to a sudden end. Past 10,000 years the mind seemed to close down – the stories, pictures, descriptions, philosophies and myriad artistry created by the returned travellers lessened. For a while panic set in. The first new returners came back blind and deaf, until at 10,500 years their bodies came back to earth silent and motionless, but still alive. The space centres decided to connect the hibernating minds to the largest computers ever built – in an attempt to understand what the returners were experiencing, in an attempt to reach them, revive them.

At 10,500 years of hibernation the human body, it was concluded, finally reached its limit. Beyond this the perpetual stillness and immobility seemed to pacify the flesh – make limb, bone, cell and gene – redundant, obsolete. Yet the mind continued, and still needed a warm home to thrive in, still needed a host to feed and sustain it. And what the vast technological brain of the computers churned out was, ultimately, undecipherable. The only conclusion possible was that Star Sight had grown beyond the comprehension of earth-bound thought. Some analysts thought there was movement in the black silent screens, some detected obscure sounds, some were convinced they felt something strange move within them as they gazed into the dark abyss. And some thought, radically, that the darkness, at times, was actually omitting light.

Unlike most voyagers born on other worlds who either volunteered to return to Earth for research purposes or who felt psychologically compelled to return ‘home’, these computer-connected returners never woke up – never regained conventional consciousness. So they were put away, held in pod-tombs beneath the surface of the earth – left to dream their dark dreams with flesh still warm and hearts still beating. Occasionally they were looked upon…the suspension fluid keeping their bodies in stasis – the rot and decay of time kept at bay just enough for their brains to go on existing. And the computers, however long the scientists stared, never gave back any clues. The detachment – of brain from body, mind from matter, once a dream desired by many, was never possible. Without a beating heart the machinations of the mind slowly go out – a flicker of light finally extinguished.

Despite the distances reached by the voyagers, no evidence of other life forms have been detected, this remains a catastrophic disappointment. We always hoped others were out there. Some returners claim to have had mysterious encounters but tangible evidence remains elusive. The colonised planets sustain pockets of life established by us – orchestrated by the endless stream of voyagers who found inhabitable zones and executed the protocols to establish sustainable life. Some offspring of the voyagers, born of extricated and modified DNA, chose not to experience Star Sight – chose instead to live out their days on other planets reviving the habits of their distant ancestors. Talking in old dialects, using the old tools, reliving the old rituals of birth and death seamlessly stitched together with that one enduring human trait that never quite disappeared – biological desire. But most of man drifted out to sea – alive, sleeping, on rustless, ageless ships pulled by the gravity of myriad planets, moons and stars – achieving man’s enduring aim that was with us from the very start – for Star Sight has given us, not a detachment from blood and bone, not just other worlds to call home – but cognitive immortality.

I saw it first by accident through the rain-blotted lens of my binoculars. I was reluctantly watching Oystercatchers on the behest of my partner when to my sheer delight (because buildings are far more interesting than birds!) I noticed a square shape on the horizon. Almost entirely swallowed up by cloud I could just make out a ruined mansion and beside it another hollowed out structure. I gasped – the last thing I expected to see on the northern edge of North Uist was a romantic spectacle such as this. I eagerly consulted the map and there it was as if out of a Tolkien wonderland: Vallay.

According to some frantic researching I did via the sporadic phone signal, the Baronial residence I could see through the binoculars was built in 1902 by Erskine Beveridge, a Scottish textile manufacturer, historian and photographer who passed the house onto his son. His son, however, drowned and from there the trail of Vallay House goes quiet. So, with my imagination at full throttle and with a few days left of our holiday we decided to check the following day’s tides and attempt the walk to the island.

So the next day we set off from the boggy edge of the strand – a seemingly infinite stretch of sand disappearing into mist – sometimes giving way to sparkling slivers of stream and tidal current. Because of the height of the water it seemed impossible to do the walk other than in bare foot and so we began our fast-paced and slightly nervous walk across. Our toes were numb from the icy water, but the hard sand felt lovely and it was wonderfully soothing to plod here and there through stream and river…interesting too to trace the movement of the tide…a rare chance to actually be in the midst of lunar gravity. This really was a thrilling experience as the weather seemed to throw everything at us at 5 minute intervals. First it was bright blue skies and dazzling sunshine, next ferocious wind and battering hail – downpours that whipped your skin turning clothes to rivers in seconds. In the Outer Hebrides soggy clothes and wind-whip are close companions.

Passing little islets and large stones covered in slippery seaweed and barnacles, the island, still engulfed by billows of cloud, drew ever closer. As if by magic as soon as we reached the edge of Vallay the sun made a brief but dazzling appearance. Eager to get exploring before the bad weather returned, I hobbled across the pebbles and weeds and once on the island I raced toward the Gothic ruin. The path leading up to it was dramatic in itself – the entrance had two turreted stone structures either side with an old farm gate half-open. I felt like a heroine in a Gothic novel racing up the path to meet her secret lover! Usually derelict buildings are boarded up and surrounded by fences and barriers – but not Vallay House. The doorways and window hollows were open and if one dared it was possible to go inside – to move among the broken walls, bits of fallen-in roof and general damage and detritus. I didn’t dare. The rain returned and so I circled the building – swooning and sighing and taking as many photos as I could. Parts of the old fireplaces were still intact, as were the original tiles and bits of coloured wall. I was devastated and enthralled in equal measure – what a tragedy to let such a beautiful building fall into disrepair, yet there is something so alluring about the process of decay. I felt like an intruder, a voyeur spying on something in the final throes of dying.

We only had an hour or so to explore the island until the tides would start coming in. So we briefly explored the other buildings and generally enjoyed being there on Vallay – entirely alone – surrounded by water, rock and carpets of entangled Machair. Given more time we would have explored the pristine stretch of beach we could see over the verge of a rolling hill. Given more time I would have lingered more in and around Vallay House. Reluctantly we made our way back across the strand, turning every so often to see the island grow ever smaller and bury itself ever deeper into the clouds. Visiting Vallay was the highlight of my trip to Scotland, an unexpected hidden jewel, and a place I hope to return to again and again.

Think of Syria now and you think of war. When I thought of Syria prior to teaching there in the summer of 2009 I thought of anything but. I pictured the bustling streets of old Damascus, Rapunzel-like minarets, glittering mosques burning in the fiery middle eastern sun, camels, markets and faded old doors. What I found was exactly that and infinitely more.

Seeking adventure and teaching experience anew I left my job in London, packed a suitcase, and accepted a summer school job for the British Council (BC) located in Damascus. When boarding the plane I had no idea what to expect…

Upon arrival I certainly did not expect to be hurriedly bundled into a taxi in the pitch dark of a sweltering Syrian night, driven in silence by a clearly irritated chain smoker through winding back alleys devoid of street lights, only to find myself and my suitcase unceremoniously thrown into a random unlit house in the middle of nowhere and abandoned. I had no food or water with me and by this point I was feeling physically exhausted, psychologically overwhelmed, slightly terrified and ravenously thirsty. I searched the walls for a light switch and managed to get my bearings. The scene that confronted me was both thrilling and worrying in equal measure. I was standing opposite a beautiful tiled fountain in a courtyard which opened to the sky. Huge leaves were scattered across the dusty floor; to my left and right were rooms, and across the other side were sofas, a large table, and a small TV mounted on the wall beneath a make-do ceiling. I tried to open the first door to my left but it was locked, it didn’t dawn on me at the time that someone could be sleeping inside. I made my way to the other room and found it empty, dusty, stiflingly hot, and alarmingly devoid of air conditioning. Realising I couldn’t possibly sleep in such airless, panic-inducing heat I dragged my suitcase up the staircase which I spotted near the front door. The one vacant bedroom I found was equally as suffocating. By then I was utterly shattered and had no more energy for clear thinking or further exploration. So in desperation I went back downstairs and decided to sleep on the sofa beneath the stars. My body was drenched in sweat, my mouth and throat were painfully parched, my eyelids heavy, and my mind was lost somewhere between the romantic exoticism of my new surroundings and the sheer horror of the situation. Before morning came to my rescue I was abruptly awoken, though not even aware that I had been asleep, by the sound of someone shouting at me. I soon realised, however, that it was the early morning call to prayer! It was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had. The sheer volume combined with the intoxicating rhythm and echo of the voice was simply unreal. I was totally enraptured. Though still semi -delirious from dehydration and exhaustion I quickly fell back asleep with a serene smile upon my face. The next thing I heard were birds singing on the tiled fountain behind me and I soon experienced the thick dusty air and blinding sunlight of my first morning in Damascus.  And that is how my summer in Syria began.

The first few days were an anxious, chaotic blur of getting to know my two fairly unpleasant housemates and the other, also fairly unpleasant, summer school teachers while becoming familiar with my local area and the way to and from the BC premises. For some bizarre reason myself and three other teachers had been housed behind a market street in a religiously conservative part of the city called Bab al-Jabiya (Gate of the Water Trough), one of the seven ancient city-gates of Damascus. This meant that upon leaving for work every day I had to run the gauntlet of hostile-looking, staring, glaring, scowling men. I often reflected upon their rancour and inferred that to them I was a) a woman, b) an uncovered Western woman exposing a little naked flesh, c) a non-Muslim, and d), on top of all the above, a smiley, unperturbed, seemingly-confident  independent woman. Nonetheless, once I got used to the stares I thoroughly enjoyed walking through the market streets taking in the sights and sounds which mainly consisted of animal carcass detritus, stalls with luscious fruit and vegetables, and small saucepan shops. The walk also consisted of sporadically hopping over bloody puddles and dodging the tooting, fume-belching motorbikes and occasional taxis trying to squeeze through.

The teaching was wonderful. A wide variety of levels and a wide variety of people. There were students from all over the Middle East, business men, university students, a few Africans and a few housewives. I remember teaching a Saudi student who, though very pleasant, engaged and respectful, for approximately eight weeks never once looked directly at me. When we conversed in class he would simply focus his gaze on a nondescript area above my left or right shoulder. Should I have been flattered that to look upon me would have filled him with overwhelming desire, or be cross at the absurdity of it? I settled on feeling baffled and amused. I believe he was also a fellow, among others, who considered women’s lower arms to be sexually titillating, hence why, according to them,  it was advisable for us teachers to cover our limbs completely during Ramadan. However, being in Syria during Ramadan was generally unproblematic. Non-Muslims could happily go about their business as normal, unlike in Oman, where I taught for the BC in the summer of 2015. There teachers had to hide behind screened doors to eat or drink, and where even chewing gum or sipping water in public was illegal (not easy in 40+ degrees heat). I very much respected the attitude of one Syrian boy who said something along the lines of: “teacher, please drink in class, we must be tempted and learn to fight it.” Indeed, isn’t that the whole point? To surround yourself with all manner of devilish temptations and through will alone, conquer them, rather than avoiding all encounters with temptation and actually fighting nothing. So all due respect to the Muslim contingent who observe Ramadan in the West.

Syria, as I experienced it, was a relaxed, easy-going, tolerant, happy place to be. Of course, this was a surface impression. I had no real understanding of what it was like to live as a Syrian, and no clue whatsoever of the bubbling political volcano that would rise to the surface in such catastrophic horror only a few years later. Crime was low, people didn’t lock their car doors  – a sign of a civilised society or perhaps of a brutal police state where being involved with the authorities, in any capacity, could have terrifying consequences.

People of different faiths, and no faiths, lived side by side. Cliché but true. Alcohol, clubbing, dating, holding hands – all were permissible. This doesn’t sound particularly radical but in most parts of the Arab world, then and now, such things are not acceptable. It was also a country where women were visible in public and for the most part were not openly harassed as a matter of course. By contrast, in Jordan, Libya and Tunisia, for example, when walking the streets of major towns and cities, I would see only a small number of hijabed women moving uncomfortably between the hordes of men and overpowering maleness. As a foreign woman I was not only noticed and glared at, but sometimes on the receiving end of unpleasant suggestive looks and gestures.

Only on two occasions in Syria did I experience anything seriously untoward. Once, as I was strolling at night with a friend through the beautifully lit-up Al-Hamidiyah Souq we encountered a flasher. He followed us and kept randomly appearing in dark alleyways, but it was more amusing than anything else. The second time was in a taxi. Whenever stopping  at a traffic light the driver unzipped his trousers and began playing with himself. At first I was in shock and wasn’t sure he was actually doing anything as he continued to converse with me in sensible conversation, but once I realised that he was doing it I made the bold move of leaping out of the car at the next set of lights. I then found myself stuck in a random suburb of Damascus with the dilemma of choosing another taxi to step into. From then on I chose older taxi drivers who never appeared interested in me or interested in such shenanigans. Luckily I never had a repeat experience until six years later in Oman. On that occasion the taxi driver in question kept turning round to manically shout hotel room numbers at me while touching my knee and somehow managing to negotiate the Muscat traffic. Ten minutes later, shaking and in tears, I arrived at my destination. I was told that it was a very rare thing to happen and that during Ramadan unlicensed Bedouins replace the usual taxi drivers.

Whatever the reason such unwelcome advances and male behaviours are often a reality for women in the Arab world. In my view, the sexual repression of Islamic countries is profoundly hypocritical, pitiable, sad and more humiliating for men than for women. There has to be something deeply wrong with societies and religiously inspired moralities that overtly treat women as sexual prey and whose male citizens find exposed female arm flesh sexually alluring. Regardless of rights, religions, cultures and norms, I have always found predominantly Islamic countries to be inherently sex obsessed. Be it overtly in public spaces, by subtle averted gaze, by generalised misogyny, or in the form of the Islamic clergy who creatively construct a thousand and one bizarre rules surrounding the sexual act, and what they consider constitutes appropriate, usually female, moral conduct. Tiresome on one end of the spectrum, violent and abusive on the other. I cannot help but conclude that perhaps at its core, Islamic ideology has an intense fear of women. A fear of liberated female sexuality, for sure. In such countries sexual desire, so often controlled, repressed and maligned, inevitably rises above the surface and manifests in a myriad of strange, dysfunctional and often unpleasant ways.

One way to navigate the unwanted interest from men and the male gaze, of course, is to hang out with them. And this is exactly what I did, about a month into my stay, in the shape of my Iraqi student called Ali. Like me, he was new to Syria and we got chatting one evening during a class coffee break. During the next few months we explored Syria together, while he dramatically improved his English, and I learned to enjoy having his driver pretty much on call!

Together we travelled all over Syria. We visited Krak des Chevaliers – a sprawling medieval Crusader castle, the magnificent Roman Theatre at Bosra, The Umayyad Mosque (which contained the tomb of the legendary Saladin and also according to legend, the head of John the Baptist) explored palaces, museums, mountain caves( including Mount Qasioun fabled for being the place where Cain killed Abel), sipped iced coffee in beautiful cafes, visited countless quaint restaurants with hibiscus trees and courtyard gardens and, in contrast, a few times we dined in the largest restaurant in the world known as Damascus Gate Restaurant. Situated just outside the city it cost approximately £40million to construct (possibly something to do with all the fountains, waterfalls and plaster copies of Palmyra) and had at least 6000 seats! Ali would always smoke a hookah pipe and we pretty much always ate the same kind of thing: grilled meat, chips, hummus sprinkled with pine nuts and pitta bread. On one occasion, after finishing a meal in a pretty restaurant somewhere random, Ali became violently sick. His driver managed to get him to the nearest clinic where he was put on a bed and instantly poked with numerous needles until the vomiting subsided. It was interesting for sure…the panic and then the procedures. Medical adventures (other peoples I hasten to add) in foreign countries are always fascinating and insightful. In Asia and the middle east, at least, access to healthcare always seems far easier than here, and far less formal. Turn up and get treated seems to be the general idea.

Exploring new places with Ali wasn’t limited to weekends either. A BC summer school adult teaching timetable usually consists of starting work around mid-afternoon and finishing late in the evening. Perfect for me because I could indulge my ideal lifestyle of reasonably late nights and leisurely lie ins. So, for about two months it seemed like every day was one fabulously long Friday night! Weather wise it made sense too  – stay tucked up watching DVDs and lesson planning under the air con as the midday sun blazed outside, then quickly brave the heat while battling to work, teach, and then hang out with Ali and go adventuring in the sultry Syrian nights.

Possibly the most memorable experience of my time in Syria was the day Ali and I visited the ruins of the ancient Semitic city of Palmyra. We set out early as it would take nearly four hours to get there and we had decided to make it just a day trip. We soon found ourselves on long, straight, dusty roads with nothing to look at except passing lorries, sporadic rundown petrol stations and large signposts to Iraq. We got stopped at some point at a checkpoint and Ali had to show his papers. It got hotter and hotter the closer we got. Outside become dustier until the barren bleakness started to soften into a more sandy hue. Three hours in and we were in the desert. The air was thick and the sunlight, piercing. Unlike the pristine gold of the Libyan Sahara, the Syrian desertified interior was more stark…more like a landscape of powdered dirt and stone than fine yellow sand, more reminiscent of middle eastern backdrops of war, than childhood fairy tales. But still it was beautiful and I felt, at that moment, extremely far from home. We spent the day drifting from temple to tomb, meandering between towering columns and fallen pillars half buried in dust. Aside from the heat I vividly remember the ferocious wind. I never expected the desert to be windy, I always imagined it would be hauntingly still, silent and breathless. Before beginning the long journey home we drove to the foot of the 13^th century Fakhr-al-Din al-Ma’ani Castle which menacingly, but romantically too, overlooks the city from atop a high, almost volcanic looking, hill. It was breathtaking and one of those ever so precious moments when you know, unequivocally, that this is one of the stand out moments of your life.

Of course, I didn’t spend all my time with Ali. That summer I was also lucky enough to meet a lovely Lebanese girl called Vivian. We met through the BC, I believe she wanted to meet a native speaker to practise her English with, and we instantly became good friends. Her family lived in a hilltop suburb of Damascus with absolutely spectacular views of the city. We would meet for coffee, go shopping, spend time being silly in her house, and sometimes go on longer daytrips. I have wonderful memories of travelling with her and her youngest brother in the back of a small van, Mahmoud lying on watermelons and happily posing for photographs. One time we had lunch in this strange little garden which had the most magically beautiful pink damascene roses, tall pomegranate trees, old broken chairs, rusted swings and a pack of weathered playing cards scattered across the grass. It was a burning hot day and I recall the image of dirty red hearts and laughter followed by a barbecue picnic at the side of a busy road. This happy day is all the more happy and poignant when I think of what happened to Vivian’s lovely family during the civil war, what unspeakable horrors befell two of her sweet, gentle brothers. When you know people affected by war it isn’t just an abstract nightmarish TV news broadcast, a passing thought or something that happens to other people in other countries. It is all too real. For Ali too. He used to jump at loud noises and take medication for anxiety. He always maintained that living under the Saddam regime was far better than what came after.

Although I dreaded the hours of lesson planning in a staffroom bristling with competitive hostility and suspicion, one redeeming light arrived in the shape of a new teacher, Ian, a late arrival who turned up unexpectedly one evening in our house. Ian soon became my surrogate brother and he was to make hanging out in the British Council offices just that little bit more palatable. Some evenings Ali would come round with pizza and he would help Ian with his Arabic. We three would sit at the large table in the courtyard watching the ants strolling in single file past the fountain, or on occasion watch a random film on the little fuzzy TV above our heads. It was on that TV one morning that I heard the news that Michael Jackson had died.

I turned 31 in Syria just a few days before I left, and just a few years before the whole country would crack and burn and change forever. The landscapes, the students, the friendships, the adventures and the struggles all melted into one long blisteringly hot beautiful summer. Most of all I remember Ali, who I never spoke to again, and Vivian – in the garden with the dirty hearts and perfect roses, and the beautiful city of Damascus with its crumbling houses, old doors and shadowy alleyways that have since fallen into dust.

Could there be a more memorable, more exquisitely beautiful opening to a film than: “I had a farm in Africa…I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills…” with a haunting echo of sadness over the word ‘Arfrica’, delicately whispered by the comfortably familiar melodious tone of Meryl Streep plausibly delivering a soft Danish accent? Before one minute has passed we have already been treated to an array of cinematic riches including the music of Mozart gently rising from a safari scene, aerial footage of a biplane and a steam-powered locomotive gliding above and across the lush plains of Africa. Before two minutes are up we move from a snowy, wintry Denmark to a dusty, colonial Kenya in the 20^th century.

We already know this woman will leave Africa, we know she is haunted, that she is heartbroken. Once the words ‘Sydney Pollack’ appear on the screen we can be certain that the film unravelling before us will be nothing short of a romantic epic perhaps equal only to The English Patient or Gone With The Wind. The unromantics of the world need not venture beyond a minute, they will gain nothing from the approaching feast of film almost three hours long. The opening section, with credits rolling and an evocative score by John Barry slowly gathering pace against the stirrings of sorrow, has already sealed the fate of the viewer and the status of the film itself. Words falter, description fails, we are now captivated, lost….somewhere in Africa.

A beautiful film is a piece of art that has the power to change you forever, be it through influence, information, or pure inspiration. This film wins out to the latter, for what Venice does to the traveller, Out of Africa does to the film lover. It moves, stirs, enchants. Such films transport us to other worlds, other times. Just as imagination creates the story for the reader of a book, so too in films we bring with us a narrative, we bring with us our own lives, dreams, torments and truths. Once introduced to Karen we will either empathise with her or else turn away. Dreamers will empathise. Those who have known exile from a country, society or even the self, will empathise. Those who yearn for adventure in foreign lands, those who can’t help but romanticise the world, will empathise.

Released in 1985 and inspired by the life and autobiography of Isak Dinesan; the film won 28 awards including seven academy awards, testament to the fact that films of this grandeur are not made every day. Interestingly though, on certain film review websites the film has scored remarkably low, citing ‘excessive length and glacial pace’. I for one, once submerged in a film of such grace and beauty, would want it to go on forever. Such contrasts in experience, taste and perception also bring into focus that precarious line between entertainment and art. Without delving into excessive diatribes upon modern day cinema and filmgoers, too often today artistry is side-lined to immediate dramatic impact and thrill; the slow, soft focus, dreamy subtlety of sweeping epics are considered boring or overly sentimental. But there is nothing dull or sentimental about romantic love, especially when it ends, as it so often does, in tragedy. Love, for many, is the pinnacle of all human experience, the peak of pleasure and so too of pain. Out of Africa, like my all-time favourite film The Bridges of Madison County (also starring Meryl Streep), raises the eternal question of whether, in the words of Tennyson, it is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Still less than three minutes into the film we arrive in Kenya. The steam train moves from sunlight to shadow. The train stops. It is morning, it is hot, the African sun is bright. Carrying enormous tusks of ivory we are soon presented with Robert Redford, and a Robert Redford we recognise: laconic, dashing, seemingly an outsider leading an unconventional life on the margins of society. The story begins from the very beginning, and thus we begin our own cinematographic journey into one of the most beautiful films of all time….a saga that carries us ever so gracefully into Out of Africa.

“ The gorgeousness and wonderful reality of Venice is beyond the fancy of the wildest dreamer. Opium couldn’t build such a place, and enchantment couldn’t shadow it forth in a vision. Venice is above, beyond, out of all reach of coming near the imagination of a man. It has never been rated high enough. It is a thing you would shed tears to see.”

(Charles Dickens)

Lovers cannot compete with the beauty of Venice. I learned this early on having explored the city at various times over the course of my life with lovers both young and old. La Serenissima, humanity’s defining masterpiece, is the ultimate distraction from romantic love. Yet still lovers flock there as though in pilgrimage, as though being in Venice and in love will somehow elevate them, magnify their tender affections, transform sensual sentiment into something loftier, more profound, otherworldly. More often in Venice I have quarrelled with lovers than kissed. For Venice, drawn in exquisite watermarks upon the face of the earth is singularly unique, awakening in the mind a particular form of romanticised ardour. So herein lies the irony; despite its status as being the most romantic city in the world, when in Venice your only lover is Venice. From the very first encounter she leaves her mark upon you indelibly, multiple encounters merely deepen your affection, tie you to the city with both entangled dream-memories of her and new, fresh vision. Venice is a lover whose allure never wanes, whose loveliness never fades, a lover who will never leave, deceive, or disappoint.

To visit this Italian nonpareil is to experience an existential and intellectual climax. No other cityscape or man-made edifice can rival the brilliance of Venice. Her beauty is complete, thorough in its splendour, myriad in its sublime details, graceful as it is grand. No doubt part of its resplendence is the complete absence of the motor vehicle. As the world becomes ever more congested and polluted, Venice becomes even more a refuge from the absurd menaces of modernity. Daily battles fought against the onslaught of people, consumerism, capitalism, political misadventure, war, technological overload and noise, evaporate upon entering Venice. Through the slender streets, against the facade of palazzi and church and against the lap of aqua waters, footsteps echo, voices rise and fall, shadows stir. Timeless. The miracle of Venice is that she still exists, slipping from one century to another, despite the encroaching waters, despite the gradual subsidence. To experience Venice today is to step back into the past, to experience a living, breathing, delicately corroding history. When falling asleep within her walls the thick silence envelops you. A church bell may waken you or nearby shop shutters may pull you from dreams, but the lack of intrusion from the sound of cars makes being in a city in the 21st Century quite remarkable.

 “I wish I could give you an idea of the moonlight there, but that is impossible. Venice by moonlight is an enchanted city; the floods of silver light upon the moresco architecture, the perfect absence of all harsh sounds of carts and carriages, the never-ceasing music on the waters produced an effect on the mind which cannot be experienced, I am sure, in any other city in the world.” (Benjamin Disraeli)

Another notable difference which sets Venice apart is simply the scale. Many European cities have an old quarter where a particular area has been left unspoilt, left unscarred by the scourge of concrete, functional buildings and urban sprawl. Other countries may have their historic buildings intermingled with the new. Venice however, being solely navigable by foot or by boat, is entirely ‘as it was’ and feels never-ending. The statistics put this into perspective. The 177 canals separate the city into no less than 118 different islands linked by more than 400 bridges. This is dazzling and dizzying in equal measure. Venice is a labyrinth of fairy tale proportions. And this does not only apply to Venice per se, for the Venetian aesthetic extends to outer regions of the lagoon encompassing Murano, Burano and other hidden dominions such as Isola de San Michele, the island of the dead.

Without doubt the main draw of Venice beyond its history, beyond the art, canals, ornate bridges, picturesque vistas and absence of cars, is the magnificent architecture. Characterised by Venetian Gothic, Venice is a living fantasy of possibly the most elegant architectural styles ever created by man. Combining influences from a Byzantine and Moorish aesthetic and unifying them via a Latin Christian foundation, the result is nothing less than breathtaking. Situated in a lagoon and built atop a sunken forest of wooden piles made from alder trees, picturing what Venice looks like beneath the surface and reflecting upon its fragility and surreal genesis makes its existence all the more extraordinary. “There is no more magnificent absurdity than Venice. To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself; but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.” (Alexander Herzen)

Poets, writers, artists, musicians, philosophers – all have been captivated. No other place on earth can do what Venice does, can inspire like Venice inspires. Rome, Paris, Prague and Vienna, with their crowds, cars and little reminders of reality, fall dismally short. For Venice is a city of imagination and fantasy, experienced more in the mind’s eye and the oil painting than in the stark reality-jailer of the camera lens. The works of Canaletto are testament to this for many of his large vedute (known as capricci) depict a fabricated version of the city, with manipulated proportions, rearranged landscapes and fabled representation. He painted Venice partly how it was, partly how he dreamed it to be.

My own love of Venice began in the realm of image and imagination. As a child I had a few beloved books with quaint illustrations that conjured up the typical motifs of Venice: gondolas, arched windowpanes, shadowy palaces, caped and corseted buxom maidens and the pencilled silhouettes of menacing door knobs and mysterious carnival masks. I remember being fascinated by my friend’s large plastic gondola (which may have lit up) – tacky by today’s standards but intriguing for a child. Before I ever saw the city I was filled with thrill and excitement at the prospect of seeing it. It was always my dream destination until I finally went there as a university student, and then it became forevermore my destination of dreams. Since then I have visited Venice every few years and in all seasons. For a short period of time I taught English in the small towns of Rovigo and Bologna, where I would visit Venice on day trips by train, becoming familiar with her winding alleys and narrow canal paths. For me, there is nothing not to love about the city. Invariably criticism comes in the guise of a few choice adjectives:  overcrowded, touristy, expensive. In response I would say that despite the crowds flocking to the main sights and piazzas, despite the school parties, conflux of Asians taking selfies with selfie sticks and the unavoidable souvenir stalls, all one has to do is turn a corner, walk down a narrow alley, turn again, and you will find yourself both wonderfully lost and wonderfully alone. Very few tourists seem to stray from the main pathways, something I have never fully understood but have always delighted in. And yes, Venice is expensive, but perhaps rightly so.

One defining feature of Venice, hitherto unsaid, is the dramatic beauty of its slow, crumbling deterioration. Ruination, for me at least, has always been utterly romantic and the very height of refined, architectural splendour. It is a dying city. It is a city of death. Stagnant waters, stained walls fringed with moss and mould, broken plaster, peeling window shutters, eroding stone, the sinking, the flooding, the constant footfall  – all these things define Venice and only add to its grace, grandeur and singular exquisite atmosphere. Poets are reminded of mortality, painters, of time, dreamers, of reality, and lovers – lovers are made conscious of the inevitable passing of romantic love. To love Venice is to love decay. And herein lies another irony; that perhaps through such journeys into the imagination, through admiration of such ephemeral landscapes, through the aggrandisement of peeling plaster, things crumbling, through contemplation of the moribund and mystical visions that constitute Venice, we somehow embrace reality.

“You desire to embrace it, to caress it, to possess it and finally a soft sense of possession grows up and your visit becomes a perpetual love affair.”

 (Henry James)

Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee;

And was the safeguard of the west: the worth

Of Venice did not fall below her birth,

Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.

She was a maiden City, bright and free;

No guile seduced, no force could violate;

And, when she took unto herself a Mate,

She must espouse the everlasting Sea.

And what if she had seen those glories fade,

Those titles vanish, and that strength decay;

Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid

When her long life hath reached its final day:

Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade

Of that which once was great is passed away.

 

(William Wordsworth)