Fasching

Remember the MardiGras, the carnival in New Orleans, that winter when we lived in DeRidder Louisiana? As I kid I hardly remember the parade, the music and dancing. I didn't understand much about letting go of all restraints, of borders, the need to eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow it's all over, gone, gone, gone. We never ate meat on Fridays anyway, and we sometimes tried to think twice about the candy, at least during Lent for the forty days before Easter.

The message on Ash Wednesday continues to make a much bigger impression: As I go up to the priest and have the ashes rubbed onto my forehead He says: "Dust thou art to dust returneth." Here in Sweden He says either "Vänd dig om" or "Av jord är du kommen till jord ska du återvardas". As I walk back to my seat, down the aisle, and later onto the streets, I sense that I am marked. I notice that people look twice in the winter sunshine along Skeppsbron, and often wonder why, until I realize that it is of course because they wonder why I am so black, so dirty. I continue on, happy enough to be seen for what I am, even if they have no idea what I mean.

The message between Tuesday and Wednesday, between the carnival and the 40-day fast, is that despite the fact that we are finite and fragile, we can transcend. Yeah, though I walk in the shadow of the valley of death. Though Cinderella's coach is turned into a pumpkin at midnight, that's not the end of the story. Several years ago, I was in Berlin on Fasching, i.e. German 'MardiGras', Swedish 'FetTisdag'. It was just a couple of years after the wall had fallen, but the borders were still there, however invisible. I wrote:

Who is on the side of God
on the side of man
in no man's land
where police and priests once
patrolled our iconostases?
Before the sun rises
lashes will fall
masks will be removed
on stage and worn off.
Men and women will grope
in the wings
before learning to fly.
Music will stop to
find a master key
a common beat,
the same rate of exchange.
People will wonder who you are
in the danger zone of a depressed market
where western lawyers sell life insurance policies
in a polluted environment
and eastern doctors treat sick children.
They'll want to know how you intend
to survive the rubble of the east or
the bubble of the west.
All this and more remains
to be seen like the sound
of silence at all the old checkpoints
and in the pauses
between the acts between the stations
of the Ubahn.
Listen carefully where
ashes are falling before our eyes
let me see you, be seen.
For who we are.

Love, your devoted granddaughter