Year End 2010

Well my friends. It's the end of 2010. I've been home for just about six months and I see I've not filled in for you what it's been like being back. It's hard to describe re-entry. At first all seemed utterly easy: hearth and home were as if I'd not left (except that Peter had redone our bedroom ceiling and walls - that was a treat!), the neighborhood looked the same,everyone speaksks English. It was the Fourth of July weekend when we landed and so we were ushered into a celebration of America, guests, fireworks, parades. I hurried off to Esalen for a board meeting. I flew to Chicago with mymom and sisters to celebrate birthdays and shop. I took the hedge back from months of overgrowth. And we went to our cabin in Maine for relaxation, kayaking and music-making.

Then I began to notice a gap, a vacuum, a space. From time to time I forgot where things were here -- streets, friends' homes, grocery stores. I watched the sidewalks for huge cracks and the curbs for deep dropoffs like our streets in Amman. Bread costs too much and there's nothing coming piping hot out of an oven, steaming, flat smothered in oil and zaatar. Cucumbers are large and bland. Stuffed rolled grape leaves are expensive.

Hommos here thinks it's Israeli.

I find that understanding all the words around me can be disturbingly banal.

Half and half in my coffee is padding out the lean I'd acquired in Jordan. No access to Petra jars my soul. No views of the great Hercules atop Amman's Citadel saddens my eyes. There is no Hashem restaurant a cab ride away for fabulous falafel and onions, clamor and tea. Beirut, Damascus, Bethlehem and Cairo aren't just a few hours away. I miss last year's world.

Most of the great lessons I learned last year were about living. Too many deadlines deaden. Drink sweet tea seated. Watch the sunset. Talk with friends using both ears. Time is shorter. And longer. And there's nothing you can do about it anyway.

So I've not rushed back into the fray. My last speaking event in Amman was the world premiere of my 1989 film shot in Jordan for NJN, "Classical Caravan," at the home of US Deputy Chief of Mission Lawrence Mandel. Beginning September here I spoke in the fall at Illinois College, Colorado State, the Air Force Academy, Colorado College, Maplewood and South Orange Middle Schools. Representing my family I presented the 2010 M.T. Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award to Helen Thomas. But there's been no big project consuming my time. No overlapping deadlines to fret about. I am able to attempt long form writing and produce shorter pieces for air or Op-Ed pages.

I've been a busy board member at Esalen, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and Masar Ibrahim el Khalil, promoting, raising money, encouraging people to participate in seminars, come see the plays, and walk. Maestro Istvan Jaray returned me to the principal flute chair in the Livingston Symphony Orchestra and there's great music for me to perfect. Muffins are becoming my specialty bake item -- especially made with leftover cranberry relishes from Thanksgiving Dinner. I just finished reading Isabel Allende's Island Beneath the Sea and I expect I'll go ahead and read everything else she's written. And do, in some way, what she does. This is a process of reinvention: what's my next phase?

Sit, drink tea, and figure it out.

I love watching Janna mature at Wellesley College. She's an activist in environmental affairs and justice. Passionate and logical in her arguments. Katie's marching band season was successful. She was named best "high woodwind" for her flute-playing. And she lucky duck, is going to Jordan for Christmas and the New Year. She's charged with bringing back zaatar and Ajloun olive oil.

Marriage is working out fine lo! these 25 years later with ten months apart. I didn't know how comfortably I'd fall back into sharing authority with the other adult or how I'd readjust to balancing independence with partnership. It's better than I could have imagined. We're both eager to dust the physical contours of our home, clear out stuff, rearrange, polish. We listen to records. I'm watching (American) football -- we are Patriots fans -- and enjoying it for the first time in my life. I'm not feeling pent up even if the view is not Herculean. I look out the window of my office on the third floor of our home and remember watching my daughters walk up that street when they were eight, nine, ten ... now seventeen years old. And there's only a year and a half left for me as a mom with a child at home. After that there's plenty of time, insha Allah, to roll out the next phase.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. May joy and success be abundant in 2011.

Letter XXXIII: Full Moons

1 July 2010

“The next time I see a full moon,” I wrote on August 6, 2009, “will be in Jordan."

Peter, the girls, and I were on the beach in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. We’d booked two rooms at the Atlantic Inn for the night en route our summer home, still four hours north and inland. It was a spectacular sight floating over the Atlantic horizon and above the dunes and grasses of the Maine coast. It was quiet except for the rhythm of the waves and my heartbeat. What was ahead? Interesting that the full of August 6 was also a lunar eclipse – but we didn’t know or see it.

Eleven full moons were ahead:

(1) A Ramadan full, September 4, midway through the fasting month; just three days after we’d moved into our apartment. We broke our fast that evening with Dr. Younes Assad who became

friend, physician and grandfather these ten months. He took us to the Oriental Cafe on the road to Sweileh, overlooking a great valley with Amman in the eastern distance. In the valley between is the Baka Palestinian refugee city. We enjoyed a refreshing Mint-Lemonade with our iftar. Remind me to make one for you in Maplewood ...

(2) An Esalen full on 4 October when I was in Big Sur for the board meeting, and Katie and Peter were forging Wadi Mujib ...

(3) A Sisters moon in November at the reception for Directors of Admission for Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard at ACOR (American Center of Oriental Research) in Amman ...

(4) December’s first full was on the second, the day I delivered “Inside Mecca” with Arabic subtitles to Alain at Fulbright to give to Basma at the US Embassy (she has since become one of my best friends) to be ready for the screening of the film at the University of Jordan on the sixth ...

(5) December was a blue moon month. It’s second full was New Year’s Eve. We celebrated with Peter and Janna here and a party for our local friends ...

(6) Under January 30th’s full moon we took my niece Maeve Chandler to the airport after her ten day visit with us. She's on the left enjoying photos taken in the Soldiers Tomb in Wadi Firasa, Petra, with Katie and my first cousin once-removed, Nadia Mehdi, who also visited us in January from London ...

(7) In late February I was in Jericho – I know I didn’t tell you; I was saving that story as I saved the Jerusalem story, which is still an unfinished narrative. In Jericho, staff of the Abraham Path Initiative was meeting with its new Executive Director, Dr. Yunus Sola. I was honored to attend as both a board member and media strategist. In fact I departed Jericho and crossed back that barbed, desolate no-one’s-land late at night under that full moon. I was the only non-Palestinian at the border there so they let me ride the bus with the locals back home to Jordan. Usually we are segregated. You'll hear more in the upcoming "Pilgrimage: Part Two" ...

(8) The March full was at Petra with my dear friend Alyce Faye Cleese ...

(9) On April 28 I gave a talk at Amman’s SAE – a training center for broadcasting and filmmaking ...

(10) Katie played Juliet, Lady Capulet, and Tybalt in the Modern American School’s drama club presentation on May 27. Need I say she was the most skillful actor on the stage and but for another boy who was a complete stage-hog, she stole the show ...

(11) June 26 we saw the full moon in Umm Sayhun, the Bedouin village above Petra where we had dinner, once again, on Ismail’s roof. This time it was Katie, Mark Tremblay and I. Mark was back on business. We went first to Karak Castle and then a farewell pilgrimage to Petra.

The next time I see a full moon I expect to be in Maplewood, New Jersey. Perhaps I’ll pack up from a day at the pool and grill some eggplant and then cook sweet sage tea – Bedouin whiskey -- in our backyard fireplace until the cheap metal pot turns black.

Letter XXVIII: Preview of "Wellesley" Summer 2010 -- Little Petra

We went to Beidha, nicknamed "Little Petra" in early April. It is Nabatean, like it's big sister namesake. The canyon leading in is shorter in ength and height. The sandstone wadi more narrow. The site is contained, impressive, and far less traveled. But in its day, this was a place for feasting.

Inside the wall-cut rooms are carved benches. You can imagine firelight, laughter, and reverence.

My complete piece on our visit to Little Petra will appear in Wellesley, the alumnae magazine of my alma mater, Summer 2010. And I don't plan on scooping myself, so here is just a preview:

And so, eight months into this ten-month-meditation, we are at Beidha, a site nicknamed “Little Petra,” about 10 miles from the famed Nabatean capital in south central Jordan. Here, too, the Nabateans carved tombs, cisterns and waterways into pink sandstone; here they carved grand dining rooms and on one ceiling survives the only example of intricate Nabatean painting, with colorful leaves, fruits and figures…

... On Fridays Beidha is a favorite family spot for Jordanians from the south, and we fell in with some folks walking through Little Petra’s canyon to a narrow staircase carved at the end of the gorge. Except for the mother, who was probably my age but looked more worn, it was a youthful assembly. Sisters, brothers, their spouses and three babies. The girls wore traditional garb: long dresses and scarves covering their hair. The boys were in slacks and sandals. Everyone wore smiles -- including the babies who were handed from walker to walker up the narrow, uneven stairs. I got to hold one of them, too. It was completely natural to turn around and reach up for the little boy when his dad faced a three-foot drop. Dad didn’t think twice about turning his son over to “a stranger.” Nor did I think twice when an older son who was helping the girls get down some of the steeper spots, extended his hand to me as well.

At the end of the climb was a small rock plateau with a vista of rugged rocks and the streambed that Peter assures me still rushes with water in mid-to-late spring. There we sat, united in our accomplishment and divided by language.

“Where you from?” It’s a familiar opening gambit, well timed and welcome.

I answered that one in Arabic, since I’m fluent in the openers. “We’re from the USA, from New Jersey. Do you know New Jersey?”

“No.” Smiles, giggles. Next move. “Are you Muslim?”

“Yes.” Ooohs of delight from the girls.

Then Amena, sitting next to me, asked in Arabic, “But if you’re Muslim, where is your scarf?” She tugged at her own, snuggly wrapped around her hair, to emphasize and clarify.

I smiled and tugging the purple Iranian scarf over my shoulders I said, “Here it is.”

Everyone howled with laughter. So far, very good. Only one step to go...

Letter XX: Taxes and Times

14 February 2010

February is tax time because Janna wants to transfer from Temple and all those college application documents are due March 1. Doing taxes, stressful as it may be, is always interesting. It's better than New Year's Eve for reflecting on the past and dreaming what's next. It's a chance to see how different one year was from the year before ... from a place in the next. From my rooster listening post in Amman, I see that numbers this year are different from last but also my ambition, lifestyle, productivity and opportunity. 2009 held a few consulting gigs, a few lectures, and the Fulbright. 2009 -- nice and quiet compared to the chaos and tumult of '08's Dubai escapade, and the Jordan TV documentary training program. The latter was prequel to my Fulbright work at Jordan TV this year. Fortunately Internet access is intermittent today and my tax documents are in a file in Maplewood so I'm on hold and in this break I can write to you.

It's been quite a while since I've posted. January was flush with family: Peter and Janna, then

my cousin's daughter, Nadia from London, and my niece, Maeve from Canada. I'm not complaining about Petra twice in one month or revisiting Amman's non-tourist hotspots, like El Quds Restaurant for mansaf, or Habiba's for kanafe. Waiters at Hashem's recognize us by now and they really appreciate the 1/2 JD tip on the 4JD meal that leaves us stuffed with falafel and hommos.

There's a clothing shop deep in the

old souk with great buys and

saleswomen who know Katie, at least, by name. Jafra DVD shop is now the balad's exclusive distributor of "Inside Mecca" with Arabic subtitles and I have enough copies to be generous. Moreover, I'm up to renting cars and driving. I'd promised myself I'd never drive in this crazy town. But it's not as crazy as Beirut; it's just a notch nuttier than New Jersey, really, and renting gives Katie and me more independence and reduced travel costs. Hey, how about the Dead Sea on Friday?

In early February I wandered around Shmeisani (that's our neighborh

ood) taking photos of what doesn't work about walking in Amman. Security guards got nervous at the bus stop on Mecca Street and at the unused amphitheater and abandoned amusement park under the rusted gondola on the other side of the hill. Taking pictures at the Citadel, that's one thing. Photographing a neighborhood is quite another.

Katie, Janna and I walk ed to the American Embassy in January to collect the "second" passports we applied for so travel to the western neighbor is on the horizon. That's a place where walking is prohibitive. Not only is the sidewalk blocked off but half the street. Armed tanks sit at each corner; military men patrol the length of the block. Pedestrians can't enter but for one spot between cement barriers. I am always saddened by the reality of this formal relationship. Still, nearly everyone we meet says he loves America; they don't even take the bait when I badmouth the Bush administration, although they smile when anyone says "Obama."

We hope to cross the western border later this month. A staff retreat for the Masar Ibrahim el Khalil comes at the end of February in Jericho. Katie and I will spend a day there after walking the Palestine path and seeing el Quds (Jerusalem). Being here has allowed me to play hard as a Masar board member. At the end of January I helped interview for the organization's new executive director. That process let me got to know Susan Collin Marks of SEARCH for Common Ground.

She introduced ed me to an expanded concept of tribe -- one that goes beyond DNA, geopolitical borders, and may stretch throu

gh centuries. You know what it's like to meet someone and feel an instant connection, an ease of relationship, a comfort and intimacy that firstcontact ought to preclude -- but it's there. That could be a member of your tribe-by-designation, not by birthright. Coming from a small family with it's count us on two hands and two feet members scattered across the globe, the notion of belonging to something bigger, deeper, pre-destined and chosen, shook me. It brought me to tears. You members of my tribe reading this, you know who you are.

The Masar here in Jordan is feeling growing pains right now. This weekend a delegation of prominent guests from the Global Philanthropists Circle came for a walk and an overnight. These were pretty big players staying in some pretty humble homes. Reports are all of graciousness, gratitude, and good food. Katie and I are getting to know this Jordanian back woods pretty well. We're pointing out the ruins of the Ottoman irrigation aqueducts and flour mill, the pomegranate and fig trees. We know Abu Ibrahim, the region's mayor, and Um Ahmad, Um Ihab, and so many other Mothers-Of, who cook, bake, jar, and make goods for sale to the increasing number of visitors who walk the trail from the Soap House of Orjan to the remains of the Church of St. Elias (Elijah) on the highest hill above the towns of Al Ayoun, Orjan, Baoun, and Rasun. Women are the engines of economic opportunity here. Pilgrims on the Masar are fuel.

February promises to be full of activity beyond the Masar adventures. For one, I'm on another film project. For another, Jordan Television is undergoing a major shuffle, with the Director General summarily ousted a few weeks back and the aftershocks still coming. I don't know what my role will be there in the near future. And the college applications must be completed. I am not welcoming the return of multitasking. It will be interesting to see if juggling skills return like riding a bike.