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 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.

X: Jerash and the Internet, September 26-29, 2009

The Iron Age, Raad Hammouri told us, can also be called the Age of the Kingdoms. He’s probably not the only one to say so, but hearing it in the shadow of the Triumphal Arch at Jerash makes it stick. I learned Spanish history more thoroughly living in Seville, and recall the visceral power of the Declaration of Independence as I gazed at it in the National Archives. What kind of learner to they call that?

The Iron Age always seemed so long ago. Longer ago than kingdoms.

Pharonic Kingdoms, Hammurabi, Alexander the Great Greek, the Roman Empire. The latter two at least (then the Byzantines, then Omayyad, then Ottoman, British) left monumental marks on this landscape. Glorious gateways and the colonnaded street; two amphitheatres with magical acoustics (one of which was featured in the opening scene of my 1989 film “Classical Caravan.” See blog ___). Byzantine also shows through with mosaics a la Madaba on unearthed church floors.

Raad gives fabulous tour. I’d been hoping to find someone I to whom I could deliver family and friends when they come to give a deep appreciation for Jordan and its history. Here he is. I don’t know his charges because we got him with car and driver on a barter agreement through Siyaha: I’ll go back with my camera and videotape dazzling tour guide bites promoting Jordan tourism on the Internet. So look out, friends, when you come here you’ll have to work out your own arrangements but I found the guide.

There’s a fun, hokey and educational event twice a day at the Hippodrome here: men dressed as Centurions demonstrating military tactics straight out of Lord of the Rings – whoops, it’s the other way around! Gladiators fight to the near-death, then the audience is asked to deliver the sentence: thumbs to the side, he stays on Earth, thumbs down, he descends to Hades.

Whoops, again! Jerash reached its peak as a Roman city, not Greek. It would be Vulcan, not Hades, right? Except that the people of Gerash (sic) preferred their Greek occupiers to the Romans who were apparently arrogant and cruel. The Greeks beguiled its conquered citizens with art and culture not raw force, as Raad suggested was the Roman way. Generalities, yes, but useful. The people called Jupiter’s Temple that of Zeus and so it is called still today. The temple meant for Diana is instead known as Aphrodite’s.

Four hours we walked and learned. One more tidbit: somewhere in Europe archaeologists have discovered a kind of wood crane used in those days to hoist sections of columns atop one another. We also found that our Katie can be quite the goddess statuette. Dianaphrodite, watch your back!

By Sunday we all came back to Earth. Katie off to school and Peter and I to figure out how he can get work done remotely. First, we found he couldn’t get wireless connection. The only way to get to the Internet was to plug the Ethernet cable right into his computer. Happily it turned out that the modem we have is superfluous: the wireless Internet signal lives in our apartment. Period. One hurdle jumped, we find the VONAGE box didn’t work. So phone calls would either be on very expensive international mobiles or through SKYPE, which has been entirely reliable. Except when Internet is down. Which happens, it seems, a little bit every day. Peter managed to run his office and even win a job from here.

Then the big social event of the month: we hosted a dinner party. I wanted people in our new life to meet Peter and vice versa. Alain McNamara, Kathy Sullivan and daughter Dunya came; Hala Zureikat, Naif, and daughters came. The adults had a fine time, as did the girls. We wisely ordered mixed grill and shish taouk from the Great Amman Restaurant near the Sheraton, which was dee-licious! Our guests kindly brought appetizers and dessert. No one really wanted to leave by 10pm but it was a school night and reason prevailed.

Suddenly we were facing my departure to the USA for the Esalen board meeting and donor weekend (www.esalen.org). I’d be returning via New Jersey, where I’d get to be home for a few days, feed cats, celebrate Janna’s 18^th birthday, give a talk at Interweave, and see “Hamlet” at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (www.shakespearetheaternj.org). Peter and Katie get Amman to themselves.

All that seemed so far away last June at Fulbright Orientation. The march of time is relentless. Be it counted in days or centuries, time’s dominion defeats all the others.