July 2009

The morning begins in solace - bodies slowly emerge from homes and hotels.

Ding, ding, ding, ding…

Buses bustle back and forth on the busy thruways.  In the quiet back roads, mothers stroll little blonde babies. In the convent, the only sound remains the scattered voices of women shuffling through the short, sunny hallways.  During the week neighboring construction work grinds, cranks, and buzzes with nonstop activity.

“Where is your ticket!?” a beady-eyed weasel-man snares at me.
“I am paying on the bus.”
He does not understand.
“What?!” he screams louder, “Where is your ticket?!”
The bus driver explains something to him in Lithuanian.  Back at the supermarket, nobody had asked for money when I lugged my twenty pounds of groceries on board. My plan to pay before departing in the center of the city failed when the bus instead rode toward the opposite direction.  I instantly assumed that the same bus that brought me to the front of the market would also carry me back from the opposite side of the street.  Not so.  Instead, it circled through the entire outlying area.  The driver garbled indecipherable words in response to my panicked, “Uh, hello, Vilnius center? Centro? Gedimino?”
He had pointed at the nearby seat and signaled with a harsh wave for me to wait.  He then carefully wrote 43 on a scrap piece of newspaper and started the bus.
“Do I get out here?” I had pointed toward the bus stop ahead.  He waved his arm signaling me to sit.  So I sat.  We passed numerous stops until finally, Mr. Bead eyes hopped on board.

“Where is your tickets?!”
I reach for coins and hold out the fare in my palm.
“No! - him - get ticket!”
The driver glances over sympathetically.  He seems to say, “it’s ok” with his eyes.  I shamble over to the driver, balancing my enormous bag of liquids on my back, and hand the driver 2.50 litas.  The beady-eyes man tears the edge and scribbles something on paper.  The driver approaches the next stop and points for me to go.  First, he scribbles two more numbers on the newsprint, pointing toward the center.
Beady-eyed man follows me on to the next bus and waits while I pay at the impatient drivers box.  He then clips my ticket and hurls his snaky self around, searching out other ticketless hooligans like myself. At the next stop he walks off, logging information maniacally into a little computer pad.

“Sr. Igne!” I exclaim.  Sr. Igne appears in the doorway with two American-Lithuanian guests.  After the lengthy grocery excursion, a familiar face is truly welcome.
“Julie- Hello! - Let me show these folks around and then we can talk.”

Sr. Igne hurries around the convent grounds like a diligent director.  She switches from English to Lithuanian with each sentence.  Her goal is to help people in need, which she performs every minute of the day.  From the nuns who reside at the convent to the guests who filter in and out each day, Sr. Igne affects the lives of those she interacts with simply by the strength of her character.
“Julie! Ok - let’s talk - Ohhhh —————– !!!”  Igne notices a woman in white on a bike.  Sr. Igne speaks to her for minutes as two nuns ready to head home and myself watch.  “Julie, we are just talking about her bike - I noticed it but didn’t recognize it and now I see this wonderful woman who has claimed the bike!  Ok - now, let’s go in - ”
We hurry in to the kitchen, through the laundry room, and back up to the kitchen until I understand the workings of every nook of my new home.
“Are we good then Julie?”
“Yes, but, can I ask - when you have time - could you tell me the story of the convent - its history and such?”  I know that Igne has helped to pioneer the preservation of the edifice, but the details are vague.”
“Yes, yes - but you know what, I have to iron.  We can meet upstairs in about ten minutes and I can iron and talk.”
“Ok, wonderful.”  I run to the nearest post office and return minutes later.  Igne arrives long after.
“Julie! Sorry, I got distracted with guests here.  Now, the oven, let’s learn how to use this new machine.  I didn’t set it up so I don’t know where the manuals are.  Here we go-” She reaches for a heap of manuals.  We organize and read through the workings of the electric burners.  “You see Julie, I have to organize the languages so that we only have what the sisters can read.”  She places everything in perfect piles.
A bright blonde woman from Cleveland walks into the kitchen.  She wears a beautifully designed black dress.
“Oh! You two must meet - I have to go iron - you two chat,” Igne runs out of the kitchen at a rapid pace that neither a cane nor a hip replacement can slow down.

boom boom boom boom boom … fireworks interrupt the night silence.  The wine bar crowd roars.
People laugh on the streets, scream, cheer -

Chime chime chime chime chime chime chime, jingle, chime, chime, bong, bong, chime, bong, chimes….

The church bells play an orchestra of bells and jangles.  Igne busies around the grounds, ironing towels and sheets that the early departed guests have left behind.
“Girls! Good morning!” she walks into the kitchen where the woman from Cleveland and I begin our day.  “It is going to be the hottest day in Lithuania - 90 degrees - so the news reports.  Wear lots of sunscreen!”  She leaves two books for the woman - A thousand Splendid Suns and Obama’s Autobiography, Dreams of my Father, and runs out of the room calling out, “So now you know, where sunscreen today!”

Rain pounds on the street where just moments earlier a hot haze of humid air loomed.   Hawk hawk hawk.  Birds in black and white encircle the round steeple.  The rain settles down and the sun glistens in to the room.

In the 15th Century, an apparition of the Virgin Mary appeared in the Old Town.  To mark this event, Lithuanians built The Gates of Dawn.  Here, people pray at the alter, before a golden Mary.  Silver plates surround the small room that looks out on to the main Vilnius road.  Below, tourists wander by fast food pancake joints and classy café’s.  A young girl stands in back, beside her balding father dressed in plaid.  He kneels with a group in prayer.

Down the streets from the convent, Vilnius University’s old campus is tucked behind a quiet courtyard.  In the 16th Century the Jesuits founded the school.  At the time, pupils were educated in Latin and Polish.  The Lithuanian language was not used in academia until the 19th Century, although it has been a part of oral tradition for ages.
Long yellow and coral, sun-lit hallways lead to dark rooms where fresco’s and mosaic murals illustrate myths, tales, and history.  In the 1970’s Lithuanian artists painted gruesome, evocative, scenes of love, lust, battle, and the tree of life - a prominent symbol in Lithuania.  In a separate room, tiny colorful tiles compose symbol of mythology.  The female sun is set on one end of the room, opposite to the male moon.

The gothic church consumes the center of the square at the tip of the Old Town.  A black clock with gold numbers tells the time above a grand white cathedral, dating back to the 17th century.  Inside a young woman with black hair and red, pointed shoes tours the small writing group through a chapel dense with symbols, and the catacombs beneath.
“Here, you see, are a lot of beautiful compositions on the top.” She points up toward the ceiling.  Romantic men and women seem to fly around the surface.  “Ummmm, yah.  You see?  Michelangelo painted that….  No, no, not that Michelangelo, Michelangelo Pallone.  He from Italy, but not that one you think of.”
She wears a classy red button-down blazer to match her pointed slippers.  “You see symbols?  Yah.  Snake, the snake is the symbol of truth.  Elk, what do you think elk is they symbol of?  Hmm?  No?  The elk is symbol of your life.  You see the horns?  Unfortunately, if you are too fast and you have too sharp of horns, you can have tough life - too short - because you move too fast, yah.”  She speaks in a high-pitched baby voice.   The second virtue among the Michelangelo paintings is the elephant.  If one were to, “drink one part wine and two part water, you would never be thirsty and remain sober.  Yah.”  The elephant is to represent moderation, “…to eat, to do, to want - to do everything in moderation.  Yah?”  We nod.
The goddess dances around the top.  In one hand is a sword, in the other a balance.  She represents justice.  “You see,” the guide begins, “in the chapel, the justice in the church is above justice in honesty.  Not to judge anyone.  Yah?  Judge not and you will be not judge.  Am I right?  Let’s move on.”

She leads the group down to the catacombs. I stoop down beneath a low stone doorway.  The scent of soil and stone drift around the cold, damp cellar.  In a thick, melodic Lithuanian inflection she explains the five stages of the church’s destruction and re-construction, starting with the original construction in the 13th Century.  Over the centuries, the church experienced a number of disasters.  The final one took place in 1931 in the form of a great flood.  “This is most impressive, from my subjective view.”  She flips through a binder of various layouts and sketches depicting the edifice in its progressive stages.  My ankles are freezing.
“…and, they found skeletons of remains of king and Queen - she was once most beautiful woman in Vilnius.  She was put in coffin with chalk and her body turned to stone.  She was found here - ” the guide points toward a dark corner, “it was burial place - a hidden place.  She was found in 1931.”
I snag tidbits of historical information between mind wanderings - most of which center on where she bought the cute red shoes.

She leads us to a large dark room that feels like a bare basement.  “Capital Crib!  You know what it mean?  C’mon, you know.  What you think?”  We stand around her blankly, calling out random wrong guesses.    “Well, I will just tell you then?”  Minutes of false attempts pass.  “Capitol– Head in Latin, yah?  Kaput, sound like Capital, Kaput in German mean end - kill.  So Capital Crib mean be-head.  This was torture, yah, lose your head.  Now there are different ways to kill someone,” she looks down at the floor, scanning the polished black tiles, “but anyway…”  Her voice trails.  We walk toward another cold, stone room.  Small lights barely illuminate the way to the “…room of skulls, where bodies decompose because it wet.”  White electric boxes scatter around the murky space.

We move along.  Coins appear beneath a dusty iron grate that covers a gutter, singly lit from below. In the adjacent corner lies the oldest painting in Lithuania.  The subject is a crucifixion.  Dating back 650 years to the early gothic period, it is composed of wet plaster with charcoal and egg white tempera.  “You see,” she explains, “wet plaster absorbed the paint so it survived the flood.” The reproduction appears outside, accessible to the crowd.  It resembles a panel of batiked cloth.  Marble-like circles of negative space interrupt the classic scene, now shaded in dark umber tones. The actual piece is hidden behind an iron gate in a cold cove.
“You can see it from here, yah?”
“No,” I respond.
“Oh, well, look here,” she shows me a map of the floor, “you see, this is where we are, and this,” she points to a rectangle wall, “this is where painting is hidden.  You can see right here where this wall is on the other side.  You see?  It is very good location.”

We reach the final room.  “Ok!  You writers can read the stories, but I hope you are able to read the symbols also.”  She signals toward fragments of stone that hang along the wall.  A thick piece with a gallant design protrudes from the cold setting.  We look at it with vacant stares and continue to guess wrongly at its true meaning.
“It is to represent pastor!” She pronounces the word like pastoral and I envision warm fields filled with roses and red tipped shoes.
In the adjoining damp space are the coffins that hold great Kings.  Spread across a wooden casket is a sword and a crown, seated on a red velvet pillow.
“Ok, we are now finished!  I want to thank you so kindly and let you know you are guests in Lithuanian and I hope you have royal stay in this country and come back many times.”

Two men wearing blue pants and polo shirts check me in at the front office.
“Your camera we will need to keep here, and the phone.”  The guard awkwardly clips a guest badge to the end of my shirt.  “Mr. James will be here soon,” he says in a friendly manner.  A US man in camouflage uniform walks in to the small front headquarters to switch out faulty keys.  US NAVY reads in faint letters across a tattered patch.  A thin, middle-aged man arrives moments later and introduces himself as Mr. James.  He is the head of public affairs at the US Embassy in Lithuania.  We walk up to a bright conference room, while he explains the busyness of the morning.  His assistant greets us in the lobby.
“Hello, would you like some water, tea, coffee?” She asks in a gentle, mild manner.
“Coffee would be wonderful.”
“Uh,” Mr. James interjects, “this is not the coffee I think you would want.”
“Oh, ok, water would be great then.”
“Still or with gas?”
“Either one, gas is fine.”
Mr. James seems to laugh.  “Do we have sparkling water here?”  I overhear him say to the assistant.
“Still if fine,” I call over, “Really,” I say more closely to him, “You could give me water from the bathroom tap.”  He laughs.
“No, no, we will get you good bottled water.”
A fancy glass bottle arrives moments later and we begin.
“The floor is yours,” he declares.  Mr. James is from Connecticut.  His eyes are kind and his behavior well intentioned and thoughtful.  We talk about photographic possibilities in the arts in Vilnius - a way to create an exhibition in Lithuania that would be interesting and meaningful to Lithuanians, as well as means to highlight Lithuania in the States.  A young woman with soft features joins the discussion.  He introduces her and emphasizes that although he has ancestral ties to Lithuania, he is a visitor, and depends on her perspectives and input as someone who is Lithuanian born.  I present rough project ideas, to which he nods and responds by presenting the potential political difficulties.  I smile and nod and say I fully understand the challenges, though in truth I don’t.  Lithuanian culture is saturated with layers of grave history.  Their future is ambiguous.  A number of elements muddy Lithuania’s multi-layered move toward concrete stability.  Russia is the big looming power that still threatens to control the small country through withholding energy supplies.  Much of the progressive and educated youths are leaving for places, like the States, Ireland, and England.  As in any city, I notice the homeless who sit along the touristy streets with exposed sores.  I see the rebellious youth with long dreads and black costume make-up and I notice the graffiti, which is now plastered on ancient walls throughout the country.  I talk with tri-lingual students and eloquent Lithuanian writers.  But, despite my few observations, I have only grazed the surface.
I tell Mr. James that I would be honored to show images of Lithuania in the States and thank him for his time.  He is gracious.
His assistant walks me to the gate.  “I like your ideas,” she says, “But you know, it is hard, you need direct tie to the people here.”

A woman wears a cerulean sweater and a sheer white scarf.  She steps on to the bus and sits beside me, clutching her cloth bag tightly to her chest.  She peers over to see what I’m writing and says something indecipherable in Lithuanian.  I shrug and she turns away.  “Sorry,” I say with my eyes.  Her thin fingers look tan and worn, like re-used burlap.  She relaxes and rests the bag on her long magenta skirt, staring out the window at leggo-like glass buildings, old wooden homes, and billboards depicting cruise ships and crowned lion.

At the top of a hill that looks out onto Gedimino Street lies an open-air antique market.  Every Saturday morning the center buzzes with the energy of old vendors, curious onlookers, and a stream of shoppers eager to find treasure.  At 7am merchants arrive.  They encircle a white building surrounded by empty flagpoles.  The space is like a mish-mash picnic, featuring old typewriters; instruments; stamps depicting old posters, politicians, and swastikas; grey army coats; amber ringers; gold plated pocket watches; dolls dressed in red; purple-clad marionettes; porcelain trinkets; rifles; gas masks; furniture; dishware; antique film cameras; paintings of idyllic landscapes and Soviet rulers; Singer sewing machines; and wide-eyed rubber ducks.

American symbols tuck into the jumble.  A locket reveals the statue of liberty.  A man sits behind a table of lenses and old cameras holding an American flag.  He drinks coffee out of a tin thermos, like an old marine, set on a lawn chair instead of a battlefield.  Brass candlesticks stand on a fold out table in front of a huge white van.  Suitcases display on the roof and pins hang on linen fabric clipped in to the passenger window.  A jolly vendor stands proudly before his mobile store, hands resting on his soiled blue button-down shirt.  An old woman tucks her hands into a wool jacket.  Her back curves forward.  She keeps watch over her knit wares, manning a blanket of plates, aprons, and teddy bears.   A white-haired man in a khaki vest sells a faded green baby carriage.  Brass menorah’s stand out in a crowd of circus horses and toy automobiles.  Top hats rest along a row of chairs beside a table featuring rusted combat helmets.  Hidden beneath a stack of books is a tattered Old Testament written in Hebrew.  The pages tear as I turn them.   A bald, pale skinned man in camouflage shorts oversees a table of rifles.  “Don’t take my picture!” he screams in Lithuanian when he sees me raise my camera.

A gentleman in white sells me a stack of black and white photographs.  The subjects are both historical and surreal.  A fairy with white wings reads a book.  A woman sits before a mirror, reflecting the four identical versions of her suited body.  A classroom of similarly dressed schoolchildren stares at their stolid, straight-backed teacher.  The image of a Soviet leader hangs in the classroom.  The last image I choose is a curious picture of an official meeting.  Men in dark suits sit seriously behind a long table.  When I show the image to Laima Vince she gasps, “Do you know who this is?  It is the French ambassador to Lithuania.  He was exiled.  This image may be worth something!”