Although I managed to doze off for most of the flight here from New York, I did wake up at 4am last night and could not get back to sleep. If my internal clock is still on New York time that was about 9pm, which although not my usual bed-time, is certainly no cause for an inability to journey to dreamland. So either my clock is somewhere over the mid-Atlantic (hopefully on a beach in the sunny Azores) or nerves about my first day in the office were keeping me from my slumber (I prefer the former explanation). Actually, it is most likely due to the expanse of bed I had to occupy by myself.
Regardless of the cause, one of the benefits of being up at 4am is that I was awake for the morning call to prayer. I can still remember the first time I heard it, standing on a balcony in a ritzy Istanbul neighborhood on the European side of the Bosporus, watching the sun rise over Asia. There is something about a beautiful religious aesthetic experience that renews my faith in the essential brotherhood (and sisterhood) of mankind. Be it an architecturally perfect shrine (Meiji Jingu in Tokyo is my favorite example), a great statue of Buddha or the Ode to Joy. All of these are expressions of a love of life, fellow humans and some form of higher being, and they all resonate in some primal place deep down inside which perhaps goes to show that we aren’t that different after all…
Kind of soppy, I know. I promise to post some pictures soon, along with a review of the local fare so far.
