The little AU: Summer Winds: Wisdom
The little AU: Summer Winds: Wisdom
slashfairy
~~
It's one of the wonders of the modern world, how fast things change.
Maybe they've always changed this quickly, but he's more aware of it now.
Or maybe they've never changed quickly - time has always been the time of the great Cathedrals, built over centuries, lifetimes of men, and the change in Sarajevo from the Winter Games of 1984 (watched by him with delight and awe, his 6-year-old self skating on the sofa back until Sam stopped him with a smile and a whisper of Hsst! Orlando- Mum!) and the Sarajevo of 2008, with its new buildings and new trees and new optimism is not time at all but the blink of an eye, 24 years come and gone in that space between opening and closing and opening again.
He stands in front of a tree that's -maybe- all of 15 years old, planted to replace the city trees and urban forests demolished during the siege, and talks over the plans for the day. This meeting, that tour, dinner here, conversation over food and coffee there, while things take shape around bringing Carter's book to the screen. Odd things catch his attention: bullet hole patches in plaster walls visible under paint. The amputees. The very few signs that the Olympics were ever held here. A wall that is, in part, from the 1500s, survivor of everything Sarajevo's been through in 600 years.
At night he calls the men, talks with each of them, both of them, about what he's seeing, what he's learning. About this place, about time and history, about himself. Taken aback by catching a glimpse of himself in a window, seeing Sonia's face on Colin's frame while he's about Harry's work, seeking truth, healing the division that lies cause.
Dom'd said, look at the trees. They used up their parks, their street trees, got shot going into the hills to take the trees for wood to cook on, to heat their homes. He notices the trees, how people don't take them for granted, how there are stands planted with help from this or that project in other countries: help, almost too little, not quite too late, and so there are trees to shade the streets and refresh the soul.
The libraries, Viggo'd said. The university. The schools. But look for murals, for art- find what's new, what celebrates. So much lost. Hundreds of years of written work, of icons and carving and tile; thousands of days of living. It makes him solemn, makes him appreciate anew how much it takes to protect what's precious, how little it takes to lose it to what's least human. But the plaques and sculptures and poems and paintings are vibrant and honest, and restore his spirit as much as the trees do.
Karl wanted to know how much of the Olympics are left. Almost nothing, they tell Orlando. Bombed, or made into graveyards, or built over after the siege. Karl says, when Orlando tells him, I watched the skiing. The luge. The skating. Made me exhilarated, seeing all that.
It's ironic then that disabled skiing was a demonstration sport for the first time in those Olympics, innit, Orlando says. And 8 years later, all the amputees...
He trails off and Karl holds him, over the phone cradles him in his arms while he takes it all in, every bone ever broken in his body echoing with the shells dropped, the snipers' bullets.
's going to be hard, he says down the phone.
Yeah, it is, Karl says, not quite in Bones' voice. But we're there with you. She's there with you. And you can make this happen. You can help this story be told.
After the phone calls he goes to meet some more people, have a bit more coffee, hear a few more stories. The building dates at its oldest from the Ottoman Empire, once a synagogue, now a drama school. There are posters for Sufi dancing, for Shakespeare, for Fiddler on the Roof and for a dramatic reading of Rumi up on the walls, and under those they talk into the night, fielding suggestions, making choices, firming up decisions.
There are the things you can change. There are the things you can't.
The gift is to know which is which. It's art that saves the human soul. Not war, not violence, not vigorously defending artificial divisions. Make art/Not war says the t-shirt hanging over the chair in his hotel room. Change what you can. Live as well as you can with the rest. Know the difference. That's humane. That's human.
That, he knows he can do. Mother Teresa said, Love until it hurts. Then the hurt will go away, and there is only love. That, he can do.
previously: Courage
next: Composition
slashfairy
~~
It's one of the wonders of the modern world, how fast things change.
Maybe they've always changed this quickly, but he's more aware of it now.
Or maybe they've never changed quickly - time has always been the time of the great Cathedrals, built over centuries, lifetimes of men, and the change in Sarajevo from the Winter Games of 1984 (watched by him with delight and awe, his 6-year-old self skating on the sofa back until Sam stopped him with a smile and a whisper of Hsst! Orlando- Mum!) and the Sarajevo of 2008, with its new buildings and new trees and new optimism is not time at all but the blink of an eye, 24 years come and gone in that space between opening and closing and opening again.
He stands in front of a tree that's -maybe- all of 15 years old, planted to replace the city trees and urban forests demolished during the siege, and talks over the plans for the day. This meeting, that tour, dinner here, conversation over food and coffee there, while things take shape around bringing Carter's book to the screen. Odd things catch his attention: bullet hole patches in plaster walls visible under paint. The amputees. The very few signs that the Olympics were ever held here. A wall that is, in part, from the 1500s, survivor of everything Sarajevo's been through in 600 years.
At night he calls the men, talks with each of them, both of them, about what he's seeing, what he's learning. About this place, about time and history, about himself. Taken aback by catching a glimpse of himself in a window, seeing Sonia's face on Colin's frame while he's about Harry's work, seeking truth, healing the division that lies cause.
Dom'd said, look at the trees. They used up their parks, their street trees, got shot going into the hills to take the trees for wood to cook on, to heat their homes. He notices the trees, how people don't take them for granted, how there are stands planted with help from this or that project in other countries: help, almost too little, not quite too late, and so there are trees to shade the streets and refresh the soul.
The libraries, Viggo'd said. The university. The schools. But look for murals, for art- find what's new, what celebrates. So much lost. Hundreds of years of written work, of icons and carving and tile; thousands of days of living. It makes him solemn, makes him appreciate anew how much it takes to protect what's precious, how little it takes to lose it to what's least human. But the plaques and sculptures and poems and paintings are vibrant and honest, and restore his spirit as much as the trees do.
Karl wanted to know how much of the Olympics are left. Almost nothing, they tell Orlando. Bombed, or made into graveyards, or built over after the siege. Karl says, when Orlando tells him, I watched the skiing. The luge. The skating. Made me exhilarated, seeing all that.
It's ironic then that disabled skiing was a demonstration sport for the first time in those Olympics, innit, Orlando says. And 8 years later, all the amputees...
He trails off and Karl holds him, over the phone cradles him in his arms while he takes it all in, every bone ever broken in his body echoing with the shells dropped, the snipers' bullets.
's going to be hard, he says down the phone.
Yeah, it is, Karl says, not quite in Bones' voice. But we're there with you. She's there with you. And you can make this happen. You can help this story be told.
After the phone calls he goes to meet some more people, have a bit more coffee, hear a few more stories. The building dates at its oldest from the Ottoman Empire, once a synagogue, now a drama school. There are posters for Sufi dancing, for Shakespeare, for Fiddler on the Roof and for a dramatic reading of Rumi up on the walls, and under those they talk into the night, fielding suggestions, making choices, firming up decisions.
There are the things you can change. There are the things you can't.
The gift is to know which is which. It's art that saves the human soul. Not war, not violence, not vigorously defending artificial divisions. Make art/Not war says the t-shirt hanging over the chair in his hotel room. Change what you can. Live as well as you can with the rest. Know the difference. That's humane. That's human.
That, he knows he can do. Mother Teresa said, Love until it hurts. Then the hurt will go away, and there is only love. That, he can do.
previously: Courage
next: Composition