What’s On a Man’s Mind

For more than 3 decades I traveled the globe as a health researcher and academic. I cannot even come close to counting in how many hotels, motels, pensions, and other sites I have slept in beds where many others had had their dreams.

This morning, as I was leafing through a poetry book, I found a piece of paper which I had carried with me during these decades. On it, I had handwritten verses from Boris Pasternak to remind me that one day I have to find a single bed to sleep in and a moment to myself.

It was a very selfish thought, in some ways. But that was on my mind.

The verses from Pasternak were from a poem titled “Out of Superstition” and read :

“The cubbyhole I lie in is a box

Of candied orange-peel.

Soiled by hotel rooms till I reach the morgue –

That’s not for me, I feel.”

Of course, it was Sigmund Freud (it is said) who sketched the optical illusion caricature and called it “What’s on a Man’s Mind”.  

Yet this morning I wonder if indeed that is the primary thought a man has.

However, I must have had that Freudian influence upon me when I took this picture in Barcelona. Like all street photography, it was the split second chance to have that man align with the banner behind him. What was written on the banner made this a Freudian moment when all came together in a frame.

… And the man saw me too!!!

September 17, 2017

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2017