And then came Alyce Faye Eichelberger Cleese.We are trustees of the Esalen Institute, and like rooming together at board meetings. Making connections between Jordan and California is not terribly difficult. Lots of golden, rolling hills that turn green with rain – and we had good rain here this winter. Hiking. Adventure trails. Desert. Good coffee. A penchant for kicking back. And natural hot springs. In fact Jordan is one of the few places in the world besides Esalen that boasts the coming together of the Earth’s three waters: salt water, fresh water, and hot springs.
There are big differences, too, of course. Most obvious is the absence of ocean. Our (very salty) Dead Sea (into which the hot springs and cold creeks run) has two visible shores and very little surf. No otters or whales or anything that breathes underwater.
And making me quite at home there’s a rooster on the Esalen campus in Big Sur, California, too. It doesn’t understand that the sun will come up with or without its crowing; it also crows throughout the night in hope. Alyce Faye and I grew to loathe the rooster since usually we were up late and wanted to squeeze in as many extra minutes of sleep as possible before our own early swim in the pool and mad, freezing cold dash to the hot tubs where we luxuriate before breakfast and hours of reports and spread sheets. We called the rooster “Cheney.”
Alyce Faye has a very good eye. Our favorite public beach at the Dead Sea looks like a five star resort.
My bedouin friends, Manal and her brother Ismail at Petra, made us tea on the high cliffs leading to the Deir (Monastery).
Not to mention visiting Samaher Khameis's special mosaic workshop in Madaba. Samaher teaches at the Institute for Mosaic Art and Restoration in Madaba. My short film on the Institute will be on YouTube soon.
And she didn't miss charming downtown Amman.
This was Alyce Faye's first visit to an Arabic-speaking nation; like most people who come here, she loved it. Ambassadors all of us, who return assuring Americans that it’s safe, friendly, respectful of women, respectful of people of varying faiths, easy to get around, visually compelling, and fun. Of course that sentence is laden with generalities, but generally they are true.
Anywhere we go the evil and nasty is an exception. Except, it seems, when we go to the front page of newspapers or to top-of-the-hour headline news. (Whoops! No offense to my dear friends in media who struggle to balance accuracy, information, commercial interests, subjectivity and good writing every day.)
Peter arrived while Alyce Faye was here and we all went to Lebanon.
SEE "NEW EYES" PART TWO.
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