~~It rained all day yesterday in Yerevan, a light drizzle but raw to the bone. At night, the weather turned beautiful, foretelling, I hoped, of the day to come, sunny and crisp and alive. This morning, Ararat is a shimmer of light and shade, stasis and movement. (The photo does no justice to the morning awe. Photos never do; words are better. I wish you were here. )
Michael Arlen: “And the other part of my mind felt a deep shiver, perhaps what an archeologist might feel at uncovering some such towering ancient monument, some “god”, and realizing (even within his modern soul) that it was a god, and that men in distant times had surely prayed to it, had looked with joy and terror on its blank face, had lived beneath it, doubtless feeling a deeper shiver, creating legends and demigods around it.”
There are those rare mornings in Yerevan when the world seems immersed in light and lightness. It’s as if you’re in a different universe, a new city; that you yourself are new (and foreign) to yourself, star-struck on the balcony or from the seat of your plane, looking at Ararat as though for the first time, in that first encounter. Surely, that is what Arlen had in mind when he wrote these words. ~~
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