Words That Cross

It was a brilliant ruse.

She would warn us (well, really my two brothers) that she would individually list our many infractions if we did not settle down.  The misdeeds would be shared with our parents upon their return.

In her left hand was a newspaper section neatly folded into one quarter size. In her right, a pen (not pencil) at the ready to jot down the misbehavior.  This was my grandmother's way of keeping order while babysitting us. It was also a marvelous slight of hand. Each movement of her pen served dual purposes depending on which side of the paper you viewed.  We saw our future punishments multiply as the diligent notation of bad behavior took place.  My grandmother saw the white spaces of her crossword puzzle dissipate as she conquered them with answers.

Four youngsters'  naughty list was one woman's solved puzzle. 

I love thinking about my grandmother's duplicity.  Talk about multi-tasking! She was able to double her pleasure as she maintained control and solved the daily puzzle, proving the pen is mightier than the sword.  Though as a parent I could never match her effectively simple scheme, I did come to love the addiction known as (and I use this verb loosely) solving crossword puzzles.  My two favorites are Merl Reegle's crossword inventions and the New York Times Sunday puzzle.

The puzzles, pristine as I begin my attack each weekend, transform into crumpled, smudged, tattered opponents as I enter the weekly mind bending wrestling match. I attempt to solve them in one day but keep them on my nightstand to return for more attacks during the week. Yes, I am not a speedster in this arena.  I remember seeing the 2006 documentary "Wordplay" marveling to the point of dumbstruck at solvers setting stopwatches to time themselves completing the puzzles. 

Here is the beauty of this playing field.  While the timekeepers are battling it out in the World Series and  I am playing stick ball on a dirt lot, we are all vying with the same opponent.  Now this is fair game!

To any fellow crossword nerds who are reading this, please stay with me now. Are we simpatico? Does the next sentence resonate with you?  If a blood pressure cuff was attached to my upper arm as I looked down the driveway each Saturday morning to see if the half of the Sunday Times was delivered, it would spike precipitously as I unfurled the plastic sleeve contents looking for the Sunday puzzle. Likewise, if the puzzle is missing, another spike will occur measuring profound disappointment.  The Times customer service is always so willing to quickly refund my money if the magazine is missing.  I suffer through the automated menu to reach someone live so I can explain that nothing but the publication containing the puzzle will suffice. (yes, you can get it online, but the tactile nature of the beast is essential.)

The overhaul of the Times Sunday magazine in March of this year readily assured readers that the puzzle was the one item that remained untouched.  In fact the editor's letter was titled "Everything But the Crossword." No matter what you think of the NY Times, you have to admire their common sense.  They may wrestle mercilessly with the Tea Party, tea leaf politics, and world issues of the day but they know better than to mess with crossword geeks ready to storm the castle. 

NY Times Crossword
Puzzle Editor, Will Shortz

For 34 years many of these very soldiers of solving have been meeting at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. "Wordplay" takes us inside once such tournament and it was here that I realized, in this funny little arena,  these are my people.  A little more ardent than I, perhaps, and definitely much more intelligent, we share fervor, humor and appreciation for the usually clever, often brain crushing construction of a puzzle created by a cadre of puzzlemakers,  names of whom I now begin to take note.  All edited by Will Shortz.  And yes, the Times puzzles are tops.  Jon Stewart puts it this way in the documentary: "I am a Times puzzle fan.  I will solve USA Today, but I don't feet good about myself!"

The paper's crossword blog, aptly named Wordplay, provides such quirky, interesting, insight into this wordy world it attracts my oddball sensibilities and delights to my freak core.  Here is a sample:
http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/terrorizers/?scp=2&sq=wordplay&st=cse

There is a minor athletic component to this crossword craziness.  We read the clues aloud, mumble possible answers, try to syphon through the double meanings, bang the table as we are outwitted, and yell at the puzzle maker du jour who teases us with hints that confound.  More than one pen has been chucked across the room as I labored over these moments. 

And here is the final irony - we are required to think outside the box, all the while at war within one large box composed of many little black and white boxes!

My secret wish is to attend the crossword puzzle convention in Brooklyn as an observer, possibly a rookie. Yes, it's time to let my freak flag fly.  In the meantime I am about to make my Saturday walk down the driveway to snag my arcane addiction.

I have words and I am not afraid to connect them! I think my grandmother would approve.

"Noble Be Man, Merciful and Good"

It eventually was the studied quiet that surprised me the most. 

There I was in our nation's capital on the eve of Independence Day weekend.  I could feel the excitement starting to build with visitors filling the historic setting under the perfect summer weather conditions.  America was on the cusp of celebrating its youthful self at 235 years of age. 

Focused on how I wanted to make the most of this precious time alone, I pinpointed places I had never before toured. Topping the list was the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. I realize now that the forethought used in every aspect of this museum's design was subtle because its contents were so blatant. For example, while anticipating the timed-ticket entrance to the permanent exhibition, visitors are deliberately bathed in light in an atrium waiting area.  In contrast, light is used sparingly throughout the multi-floored exhibits, setting a purposeful tone.

I stood among my fellow tourists in clusters reading explanations and viewing photographs about the Nazi rising and assault.  It was somewhat crowded at first.  I found myself being concerned about craning to view the abundance before me.  It became all too clear that the crowds naturally thinned because everyone moved at their own pace, making the visit more personal than I had expected.  From the outset, the tenor was church-like.  People spoke in whispers, if at all.  The universal reverence surprised me a little. It sustained me throughout.  

It was a reassuring result of an unspoken agreement: we walked among the hallowed. 


Gerda Weissman Klein
(Photo by the US Holocaust
Memorial Museum)

The gradual immersion on the third floor titled the Final Solution created needed solemnity. The boxcar, the hair, the shoes, the photographs, the cement camp posts, the barrack bunks, the suitcases - artifacts of lives sheared off by unthinkable hate. 

Two final pieces of the exhibition deepened its impact: the Testimony Theater and the Hall of Remembrance.  Videos of survivors telling pieces of their stories played continuously in the theater.  These first person narratives gripped me, especially the one given by Gerda Weissman Klein. Under Nazi rule in her Polish homeland at age 14, Gerda was sent to a concentration camp at age 17.  She was among those on a 350 mile death march at the war's end.  While pausing in a bombed out factory, the 68 pound, white haired girl saw a jeep in the distance.  She became curious when she noticed it did not brandish the swastika but an unfamiliar white star. 



Kurt Klein
(photo by the US Holocaust
Memorial Museum)

The jeep driver stopped upon seeing her at the building door. Two US soldiers got out and one, named Kurt, addressed Gerda in English and German.  She replied in German immediately informing him almost as a warning, "We are Jewish."  His delayed response belied the emotion this soldier felt witnessing the skeletal collection of women before him.  He said, "So am I." Gerda then quoted the German poet Goethe saying "Noble be man, merciful and good." The soldier, dumbfounded by this young woman's wherewithal to quote exacting poetry in the desolate setting, moved him in a life changing way.

Gerda and Kurt were married in 1946.  The gasp of audience satisfaction was one of the few collective sounds I heard that day in the museum.  The couple celebrated 57 wedding anniversaries until Kurt's sudden death in 2004. 


I exited the theater and entered the Hall of Remembrance.  The light-filled rotunda signaled hope and I found myself crying in quiet gulps as the consummate power of the last three compelling hours was unlocked. I was grateful for the peaceful respite before heading out into the July day.  The faces I saw for the remainder of my visit echoed Goethe's optimistic reflection as I chose hope over despair on our nation's birthday. 

Noble be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Sets him apart
From every other creature
On earth.

(in The Divine, Goethe, 1783)

Here is the link to Gerda and Kurt's videos at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:
 http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/phistories/phi_individuals_kurt_gerda_klein_uu.htm

 

I've Got The Music In Me

The music is definitely in me. My great frustration is that it does not come out of me like Joni Mitchell or Aretha Franklin or Barbra Streisand (ok, a tad old school but I'm good with it!) Undaunted, I navigate the music world as 'maven wanna be' and this month my cup runneth over.

In a funny, unexpected confluence of events within a recent ten day period, I am reminded how vibrantly music connects us.  It is the unbounded expression of our inner rhythms. We have just 26 letters in the English alphabet to create a seemingly limitless bank of words. It is no surprise that the breadth of sound that can be created from a modest set of notes, sharps and flats also provokes measureless wonder.  We not only listen to what is being sent, we cloak our souls with the artist's intention.  It is a gift that blankets us if we are open.

While I cannot argue with Simon and Garfunkel's assertion that silence is golden, I usually exchange house silence with the sound of music and have my iPod player on especially when I am cooking. Silence was anything but the case when my daughter and I along with two of our mom, daughter friends recently stepped into the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia to the energized throng of teens and tweens. The cast of the TV show Glee was in the house.  Even from our seats in the last row of the upper level, the energy was palpable.  The sound potency rivaled the unexpected power of the stage show.  This group of talented twenty-somethings delivered their show's catalog of ballads, pop and oldies with verve. They convinced me that not only did they want the audience to have fun, they too, were having a fantastic time.

The tone, mood and vibe all changed in the same arena when I attended Sade's concert later in the month.  After a ten year gap between albums, Sade released "Soldier of Love"  last year and announced a tour in October spurring me to grab the chance to see her perform live.   There is something to be said for delayed gratification.  Strolling to my seat I savored the well dressed, couple-centric crowd also sauntering to their respective spots.  No anxious faces, no squeals of expectation here.  I gauged a deep, controlled appreciation for the sultry songstress and her opening act, John Legend.


Filling a large concert venue with high volume, high energy music poses little challenge in my estimation.  Connecting subtle, gloriously soulful, delicately composed sound in the same open venue would seem to be a bigger quest which proved effortless for Sade and her band.  My fellow concert goers and I were made to feel as though we just happened upon a secluded jazzy blues club, so intimate was the resulting show.  Sade really is a smooth operator. 

She ably communicated the bliss of Love's triumphs and the ache of its demise all with her steamy, soothing vocals. And when she was not singing, she stepped aside to give her band their due in their magical solos. Her performance was minimal with maximum results! When introducing each band member, she turned the usual raucous, inaudible effort made by most headliners, and quietly, lovingly shared something specific about each man.  She ended the Father's Day concert asserting "They are fathers all" evoking broad smiles from each musician and connecting us to the performers beyond their music. Sade is, as her song title commands, a soldier of love. 

It is no small feat to create that kind of intimacy in the same arena where hockey players bash each other mercilessly to the lionized cheers of those watching.  I am forever a Sade fan.

Intimacy unexpectedly played a role in the final night of this concert trilogy when I saw Florence and The Machine perform riverside at Philly's Festival Pier the next evening.  Shoulder to shoulder with a twenty and thirty something crowd, my friend, my daughter and I found ourselves four people from the stage to witness the ethereal, powerfully voiced Florence Welch belt out her anthem laden songs in open throttle.  All the while she floated across the stage in wispy spins and leaps taking us along for her waif-like musical attack.  Our proximity to her full charged vocals and opposing soft spoken comments gratified the adoring throng.  On the eve of summer's first full day, cool breezes and breezy Florence combined for an energy packed effort.  The mixture of gut thumping drums and delicate harp mirrored this Brit's duality as an impassioned powerhouse inside a gossamer spirit.

Whew! The music was in, around, above and below me.  I continue to revel in its many forms, confident that in my next life - the music will be me.

Say What You Mean

I am usually not at a loss for words.  This, of course, can be a blessing or a curse. That choice is left up to you, dear reader.
 
I very often struggle for just the right words in many circumstances.  Joy-sorrow-disappointment-anxiety-even elation can trip me up in my hurry to connect with someone. Writing, hearing or reading an especially well crafted phrase is one of life's simple pleasures. When I finish reading a book or an article, the content may or may not resonate but the style and word choice are the first yardsticks I use to measure its value.

I remember the scrambled phraseology of toddlers and it was a word phase I relished when my girls were that young.  My eldest daughter's blending of the words 'escalator' and 'elevator' to come up with the hybrid 'escalvator' each time we saw one at the mall cleverly created a composite that worked either way.  The choice of 'bay-bin soop' by my youngest daughter for her 'bathing suit' was a version I did my darnedest to keep in use even as she became wise to the correct pronunciation. I still slip it in once in a great while simply for my own pleasure. Toddlers alter everyday words and unknowingly make us think twice about what is being said.  They also give new meaning to common language. 

Why do we often miss the chance to do this as adults? Comedian Norm Crosby's malapropisms (I am really dating myself here) not only act as a clever ploy to get us to laugh but equally get us to think about what we mean!

The times that are most challenging for expressing myself effectively are times of sorrow.  I am strong in the empathetic feeling but challenged in the verbal execution.  Often the desire to say something gets in the way of whether or not any words fit the bill. 
 
Bruce Feiler's recent article in the NY Times titled "You Look Great and Other Lies" takes a firsthand look at the chestnuts worn out by those of us talking to someone who is dealing with a serious illness.  Mr. Feiler's three year experience with bone cancer and its treatment gives him a front row seat to some tired phrases (as well as many fine thoughts).  It sure makes me listen.  He mentions phrases such as My thoughts and prayers are with you and What can I do to help? as a few of the ones we can kick to the curb when it comes to saying what is best. I plead guilty on both counts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/12/fashion/what-to-say-to-someone-whos-sick-this-life.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=style

Is it that greeting cards have infiltrated our thoughts so deeply thus making the go-to phrases so tired? Do we slip into mental automatic pilot and say the very first thing that comes to mind?  Are we thinking less and becoming less authentic?  And who are we really trying to soothe with these phrases?  I think the intention is to be kind but often our discomfort in dealing with discomfort results in a quickie salve to ease our natural unease. 

We often trip up in expressing joy as well.  So happy for you.  This little ditty gets plenty of air time for me.  Nothing is wrong with it but am I really responding in a specific way? No one gets hurt in the process except perhaps the chance to connect in a more unambiguous manner.  What am I really happy about? Why not be more explicit?

In her final show, Oprah acknowledged a primary motivator in her approach to connect to her guests and audience.  She noted that we all want to feel that we matter and she designed her conversations to recognize these needs: "Do you see me? Can you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?"  Oprah managed to connect with millions of people following this validation road map. This inspires!  If I can pause and replace regurgitated phrases with more connective efforts, perhaps the person I am speaking with will feel more like they matter.  Perhaps.

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Oprah-Winfrey-Show-Finale_1/7

Mr. Feiler offers solutions in his article to what is helpful when speaking to someone who is ailing.  My favorites are: I hate to see you suffer and Would you like to hear some gossip? Making a meal or running an errand also provides help through precise action (provided the recipient gives the thumbs up).  However we choose to respond to loved ones when life's ups and downs come a knockin', we can be better at it if we try to really think about what we are saying and mean it.

Magnificent!

"The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.

Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize." Robert Hughes

Say what?

I listened again as my co-worker and lunch companion, Gene, repeated this quote upon request.

Greater?  Less? Which one was it and, more importantly, how did it relate to my fears about a presentation which I mentioned in an offhanded way? This type of exchange long ago became the fodder of our brief hour together at a Glenside deli.  It was one of dozens we would spend digging around for the whys and wherefores, or as Gene would say it, the "puts and takes" of life's foibles.



Eugene P. Simonson

Fast forward 30 years and, once again, Gene reminds me of the above noted and long forgotten phrase.  He pitches this to me as I explain my newest fear of an uncertain career change.  Our conversation is rich and invigorating, as always.  Gene is like an infantryman when it comes to any dialogue - he comes prepared to dig in and face whatever verbal artillery is fired.  He is fueled by discussion and ably dispenses ideas, little known facts, and well thought out lessons with precision.  He is a fearless "go to" guy.

What makes this fairly recent conversation more poignant is the fact that Gene begins with a battering ram of personal news - he is fighting stomach cancer.  As he knowingly says with a hint of resignation, "You only get one stomach."  Our talk starts with his health and moves from the space of "what" to the deliciously exposed level of "why" and "how" we feel about things.  Gene just cannot help himself with his bottomless sense of wonder - it is the spark to our friendship that has burned for almost three decades.

On June 7, 2011 that spark extinguished in this world when Gene died.

I hate typing that weighted sentence.  Yet, I am gratefully buoyed by Gene's reply to his son Patrick's question, posed days before his death. Patrick, the eldest of five Simonson children, asked his dad for a word that best described his life of almost 79 years.  My friend, who consistently respected a well chosen word, replied, "Magnificent."

This one-word review is the perfect consolation prize for those of us who were lucky enough to be touched by the momentum of Gene's orbit.  We supped at the banquet of his ferocious appetite for life, even as life's menu held many unanswerable challenges. At the dessert course of his life, Gene's singular critique is a sweet niblet of comfort that resonates beyond measure. 

Gene equally loved life's flavor filled joys with its merciless disappointments because he respected and appreciated a challenge.  The more life stung, the more it motivated him to understand it or create alternatives to deal with a course correction.  He savored it all because he valued honest effort of any kind. 

Gene's enemies were ideas or actions that were not fully fleshed out.  He was confounded when people did not seek to correct a wrong or push to completion.  He struggled to understand why stumbling around in the dark is a sometimes temporary, but often regular, course of action for some of us.  Gene lived in the light because the dark held no purpose for his sensibilities.  I believe this luminous clarity is why people sought him out.  It sure is one reason why I was happily on the receiving end of his friendship.

 In her remarks of remembrance about her dad at the end of his funeral Mass, Gene's youngest child and only daughter, Eileen, shared her idea of why her father's time here ended - his curiosity got the best of him. It is the finest and most plausible explanation yet. Gene's curiosity was limitless.  Eileen's pinpoint observation brought it all into focus for us at St. Luke the Evangelist Church last Saturday.

And here's one more poignant fact that can be understood only as the universe operating as it should: Gene's wife of over 50 years is named Regina. Gene and Jean.  It is syncopation personified.

Jean will travel life using her singular metronome for now.  She is fully equipped for this challenge.  She and Patrick, Tom, Mark, Tim, and Eileen along with their respective families will carry this tempo set by the maestro over the course of their lives.  I am humbled by and grateful for their collective effort to keep playing the music that was the symphony of Gene's magnificent life.

The Little Ship

I stood watching as the little ship sailed out to sea. The setting sun tinted his white sails with a golden light, and as he disappeared from sight a voice at my side whispered,

“He is gone."

But the sea was a narrow one.
On the farther shore a little band of friends had gathered to watch and wait in happy expectation. Suddenly they caught sight of the tiny sail and, at the very moment when my companion had whispered, “He is gone” a glad shout went up in joyous welcome,

“Here he comes!”

Facing a Cover Up

The timing this month seemed perfect.  I turned on CNN and saw a report about the French government having officially enacted a law to ban hiding the face in public. This report grabbed my attention because I had just spent my first of five days touring throughout Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where many women wear abayas (long black overgarments)  and hijabs (face veils).  Many, but not all who wore abayas, paired it with the hajib, even at the hotel pool and beach area while their children splashed, swam and played in the desert heat. 

The women I saw covered in black shopped, conversed, texted, dined, mothered with ease in this modern emirate. I found myself paying particular attention to how they ate while their faces were covered.  Though it seemed inconvenient to my American sensibilities, the women showed no stress or discomfort - why would they?  It did strike me when I saw a man and woman dining together on a river cruise, he in western dress and she in an abaya and hijab.  She lifted the hijab slightly to put the forkful of food in her mouth and I just felt uneasy for her.  However the unease was my problem - not hers.   I did notice that often it seemed women dressed in this fashion traveled together.  I don't recall seeing an unveiled woman walking with one who was veiled. Unfortunately I did not get to converse with any Arabic women wearing the traditional garb.  

I did, however, pepper two separate and quite affable male tour guides with questions about why women opt for this way of dressing.  Modesty and tradition were the oft repeated answers. Women are free to choose dressing this way. Often I saw very high heels peeking out of the base of some garments and found myself wondering what style clothing was underneath.   I also noted some extravagantly made-up eyes exposed.  One woman appeared to have tiny crystals decorating the trim of her outerwear. (I, along with other women with whom I was travelling, speculated on how close this was to the finale of the "Sex and The City 2" when designer clothes, shoes and jewelry were exposed from underneath the black garments of Abu Dhabi women). Mostly, however, the garments were plain or had very modest trim, if any. 

 So why the fuss in France? Elaine Sciolino of the New York Times notes several explanations in her article, "The French, the Veil and the Look."  Some are cultural but I believe she comes closer to the real reason when she writes one explanation as, "the deep-rooted French fear, resentment and rejection of the “other” — the immigrant, the invader, the potential terrorist or abuser of human rights who eats, drinks, prays and dresses differently, and refuses to assimilate in the French way."   She also clarifies that the face veil is not a burqa, the garment which immediately brings to mind the cruel, oppression of the Taliban in other parts of the world.  "The face-covering veils in France are different. Even though many here mistakenly call it a burqa, the garment worn by women here is a niqab, an improvised cover in black with no religious or traditional significance beyond what a wearer or observer gives it. "   http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/weekinreview/17BURQA.html

My limited exposure to this style of dress did not raise concerns for me until I heard the CNN report regarding France's restrictive law.  Does this law ironically  objectify women by singling them  out for covering their faces? Estimates in France hover around 2,000 in the number of women who choose to wear face veils.  This is in a country of approximately 62 million people.  How is it that a woman in Dubai can dress with a face-veil and be honored and yet, in France she is breaking the law?  The law says it is illegal to hide the face in the public space, but makes exceptions to allow for motorcycle helmets, traditional ceremonies such as weddings or Carnival costumes. The law never mentions "women," "Muslim" or "veil."

Dubai touts itself as a modern emirate but it made me think about my western notions and what is it that makes a nation modern?  A large segment of the female population dresses in abayas.  Some local women choose to wear a head scarf with western style clothing.  Many men wear the traditional dishasha, a white ankle length robe. Tourism, not oil, is the economic engine that drives this current day Dubai. As a female visitor, I was not restricted in my dress, however, the hotel asked guests to use discretion and honor local custom when walking through the lobby and common areas meaning they did not want bathing suit clad guests strolling around the hotel. 

A few days ago I was channel surfing and stumbled upon the 1991 movie "Not Without My Daughter" starring Sally Field.  Based on the experience in the eighties of American Betty Mahmoody, the film dramatically depicts an impossibly oppressive marriage in Iran and a wife's battle to leave with her daughter.  Criticized for making troubling racial and moral assertions in its depiction of Iranians,  the film shows women wearing all black long dresses and head covers.  It melded the disturbing marriage with these images and was one of many influences on our ideas about life in that country.  Through film, news accounts, documentaries, and novels, dynamic and varied depictions are available as to why many Muslim women cover up.  I realized my ideas were being influenced by the broad spectrum of possibilities and it was mostly negative.  This trip began to tip the scales for me.

During an outdoor dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in downtown Dubai on my last evening there, four women in abayas and hijabs sat at the next table enjoying each other's company. While they conversed in Arabic, their actions spoke louder in that it appeared to me these were four friends enjoying a social evening together complete with a table side shisha (a glass based water pipe used for smoking).  I was witnessing the familiar 'girls night out' Dubai style.  I loved the universality of this scene and smiled as I heard the familiar sound of sisterhood. Travel always brings understanding, whether or not we agree with what we see.  I quickly understood that no matter how it looks on the outside, it is vital that we seek the story underneath and settle for nothing less.

Crossed Purposes



Victory Arches sometime in 2004 



Statues. Monuments. Arches.  

Whether made of stone, steel or sand, monuments are erected to honor the good, sometimes the bad, and perhaps the ugly.  To marvel at the ancient wonder of Egypt's pyramids, or perhaps the majestic 19th century L'arc de Triomphe is to witness accomplishment embodied for the ages.  Yet controversy in a recent rebuilding of an overseas monument raises the question of when are symbols worth saving and others worth destroying especially when they have been erected by a despot?  



Victory Arches being restored in 2011. 
Photo: Jehad Nga for The New York Times



The recent reconstruction of an Iraqi monument located on a former Baghdad parade ground inside the Green Zone has draw some quiet attention.  The Victory Arch, (also known as Crossed Swords) erected during Saddam Hussein's regime was built to honor Iraqis who died during the Iran/Iraq war.  Steel shaped hands clutch swords which cross at the tips creating an arch underneath which Hussein rode atop a galloping white stallion after his country proclaimed victory over Iran.   According to a New York Times article,  Hussein ordered the structure to be built "from weapons of fallen Iraqi soldiers."  Conversely, helmets of Iranian soldiers are cemented to the bases of each sword wielding hand symbolically defining the victor and the conquered. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06iraq.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=victory%20arches&st=cse

While much of the Saddam inspired statuary has been demolished in Iraq, the crossed swords were spared.  They are out of view from most Iraqis because they are located within the Green Zone which continues to be a restricted area.  The parade grounds, according to the Times, have become overgrown and the pommels of the sword bases fallen.  Yet the upcoming summit meeting of Arab League leaders in Baghdad has been the impetus for some in the Iraqi government to spare and repair the Victory Arch. Flowers have been planted across the city where the visiting dignitaries will pass, and even line the road from the airport, once known for being a  "white knuckled gauntlet through insurgent badlands." 

Why, then, does this restoration make me a bit uneasy?  After all, portions of several concentration camps in Germany, Poland and Austria remain standing as distinctive reminders of the Holocaust.  Pieces of the Berlin Wall are displayed around the world as reminders of the post World War II schism in that city. I think I look at the Victory Arch's sword filled hands and can almost imagine the rest of the phantom body symbolically attached to them in subterranean Baghdad threatening to re-emerge, if only figuratively.  Perhaps Saddam's tyranny is still too fresh. The tenuous nature of Iraq's emerging government keeps me leery of this symbol of autocratic rule.

I am reminded, however, that for Iraqis to face the demons which damaged this country and feel strong enough in their own power to retain this symbol of former might, they hold ultimate authority over it.  Colloquially, it could be said restoring the arch lets Iraqis bite the dog that originally bit them.  Split feelings over the arch's restoration naturally emerge in Iraq, from the sculptor who did not want to be quoted in the Times article to various Iraqi lawmakers divided over the over-sized symbol. "We are a civilized people," Ali al-Mousawi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said in the Times article, "and this monument is a part of the memories of this country."

It is, above all, interesting to consider the power of symbols and what might they can lord over us if we allow them to do so.   

(My niece Beth is a US Defense Department analyst who has done two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.  During her winter/spring 2005 deployment she took some photographs underneath the arch and they show the gargantuan size of the monument.  Below are the photos she graciously shared with me. Note the helmets at the base and the scale of the arch.)