#26/ HIDRELLEZ

Welcome to issue twenty-six of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam. Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature.

🎙️ an audio version of the attention span newsletter is available on your favourite podcast app: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Overcast…or to listen on the attention span website.

It is spring already
I hung a red pouch to a rosebush
wished for a house with two rooms
in the name of my beloved.

Do not cry Hidrellez
do not cry for me
where I have sowed sorrow
love will bloom
on another spring.

—Hidrellez, Sezen Aksu and Pakize Barışta (my translation)

When I was a child, we lived on Avenue de l'Université in Brussels. I dreamed of one day studying at the ULB – the Free University of Brussels, which was at the end of our street. My youngest aunt had come to live with us for two years to learn French. I remember one day, we went out, my mom, my aunt and I, very late at night, with small pouches buried in the palm of our hands, each one containing a wish, a prayer. We were going to hang them on a rosebush in a garden on the avenue for the night, and recuperate it in the morning to then throw in water, or if there was none nearby, plant into the soil.

At the time, I had no idea what this nocturnal adventure was about. I know now that we were celebrating Hıdrellez.

I remember those moments that have remained engraved in my memory, listening to the music of Goran Bregović, and particularly this song, Ederlezi from the soundtrack of the film The Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kusturica, covered by Sezen Aksu in 1997, a decade after Bregović performed it as Đurđevdan with his band Bjelo Dugme (see playlist on Spotify).

Aksu added lyrics that sound a lot like what my aunt and mother used to do on those Hıdrellez nights in the heart of Brussels.

Ederlezi is a traditional folk song of the Romani people, named after the festival Ederlezi, celebrating the return of springtime. It is the Romani name for the Feast of Saint George, celebrated by both Muslim and Christian Orthodox Roma. In the Orthodox church year, St. George's Day falls on the 6th of May, but the festivities may begin earlier and last longer than a day. In my family, we write our wishes on the 5th of May to attach it that night, before we recuperate them in the morning of the 6th to then throw in water.

Hıdrellez is a compound noun of Hızır or Hidir, and Elias or Ilyas, which are believed to be the protectors of earth and water and the helpers of individuals, families and communities in need of them. According to a legend, a meeting between the popular patron Saint Hızır (El Khadr) and the prophet Elijah in the 9th century was at the origin of the spring celebration. A lot of this knowledge I have gleaned online, here and there, I have even come across a source mentioning a Palestinian holiday commemorating Saint George, known as Mar Jeries or Jirjis and al-Khader.

How cultures and rituals travel, mingle and transform is magical.

Three decades later, Hidrellez has become the moment every year when, in the WhatsApp family group, my mother and my aunts pour rose emojis onto our memory.

Hıdrellez coincides with the commemorations of the Second World War (4 and 5 May) in the Netherlands. Since I moved to Amsterdam, I have recreated the ritual in my own way, and it carried more meaning as celebrations intersect.

I repeat the ritual my mother has taught me, of writing down my wishes into a small piece of paper, which I then roll and wrap with red and navy blue thread. I then hang the little pouch on a rosebush for the night, and in the morning, I pick it up to throw in the water. Unlike in Brussels, Amsterdam offers plenty of possibilities.

I went to the canal named ‘Schaduwkade’; the Shadow Wall monument on the Nieuwe Keizersgracht in Amsterdam, named in memory of the two hundred Jewish deportees who lived in the neighbourhood near this canal. Every year, I repeat the same gesture, in the same location. Not because I was told to so by an official narrative, but because it felt it. I have been living in this neighbourhood for fifteen years, I made it my home, and it has become a part of my history.

I put a lot of intention in my gesture as I release the prayers into the water. Repeating this ritual is an attempt to insert myself into a certain collective memory, adding in my personal experience, to enrich it in my own way. Just as this gesture from my mother was also, for her, an attempt to reclaim a new city where she had to start her life over, learn a new language, express herself in codes she did not yet know.

We carry rituals from one generation to another to pass on knowledge and love. This is how we transcend place and language. This is how we translate our lives into a history that may not always want to embrace us. But we just keep doing it, today is Hidrellez, tomorrow is remembrance day, the day after another moment recalling our memory. From the personal to the collective, our wounds and roses we carry.

LISTEN
On Sunday 5 May 2024, writer Percival Everett was a guest of Private Passions on BBC3 radio. His novel The Trees was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022; an earlier book, Erasure, was adapted into the recent Oscar-winning film American Fiction (which I wrote about in issue 22 of this newsletter). His latest novel, James, is a re-telling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of Huck’s enslaved friend Jim. In this episode of Private Passions, Everett shares his favourite music; jazz and blues, along with Dvorak, Schoenberg, Gustav Holst’s The Planets....

READ
Since the announcement of Paul Auster’s death, I’ve been diving back into his books. I will not recommend you one specific novel, essay, poetry or translation. Auster is the kind of writer you must allow yourself to find “au hasard” (by chance - letting the randomness of life take you into his world). Instead, I’ll share what I wrote on social media right after his death was announced:

Paul Auster has died, and it feels like I lost someone close. His writing has been a part of my formative years, and beyond. I started reading his work in high school, first in French translation, then I moved to reading him in English. But I have always kept my copy of the "Trilogie New-Yorkaise" (translated by Pierre Furlan, Actes Sud), even if I later read it again in English. I open my copy now, and I find an old piece of a flyer I kept from 1998 with an Egon Schiele painting (it was from an exhibition in Brussels, "L'Autriche Visionnaire" at the Centre for Fine Arts, where I would start working a few years later...).

Our libraries tell so many stories about our lives and how we connect with the world. It might sound strange to be crying for someone who didn't know you exist. Grief and our experience of literature is multi layered. It is deeply personal and yet collective. As readers, we are part of writers' worlds as much as they're part of ours, and this is the beauty of literature, the capacity to create such a connection through imagination.

For those of you who would be tempted to correct my grammar: I did write “has died” instead of “died” on purpose, I did choose to use the verb “move” when talking about reading him in French then English. His death is past present, and my journey in languages always happens in movement.

WATCH
Paul Auster has also written screenplays and directed films. In my memory, I loved Lulu on the Bridge (1998), I think I had seen it at the cinema in Brussels. I remember Mira Sorvino and an intense blue colour and light in the film. I couldn’t tell you what it was about, but I remember some fondness, which may be related to the emotional space I was at the time. I am curious how I would feel watching it again today. Auster also has other films: Smoke (1995) with Harvey Keitel, Blue in the Face (1995), and The Inner Life of Martin Frost (2007) with Irène Jacob (who has shared a poignant message on French radio last week after his death). I am now hoping that MUBI will create a curated space where the films will be on show soon.

SKETCHBOOK PAGES

FROM THE ARCHIVES

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ABOUT

Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil (she/they) is a writer, literary translator and artist based in Amsterdam. They established The Attention Span website and its newsletter to publish their work independently: making the time to reflect, analyse and imagine.

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When quoting or sharing content, make sure to attribute it to the author. Unless otherwise stated, all content (writing, photography, design) created and published in this newsletter is authored by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil.