...light up

 Some Santa Barbara

California is indeed a menagerie of climates and atmospheres and moods. I didn’t see the entire south-north stretch, but I got most of it from Los Angeles through Sacramento and up to the Mount Shasta area before leaving the state for Oregon. I believe the Northwest really begins in the roots of Shasta. Though Sac and The City and L.A. and Santa wherever each have a unique feel, they are certainly all California-y. 

Some Hollywood

But as soon as the flatness starts rumbling again and that white capped mountain shines brightly in the distance, things begin to change. The pines come out in force, and rivers dig gorges into earth again and rocks thrust into the sky in a frozen excitement loom over the winding man-made highway. This is the Northwest.

But before I was there I was somewhere between the Southwest and the West.

Some Vegas

It seems like so long ago, now, when I was standing in Las Vegas looking up at sights I’d only seen in movies and feeling a bit cardboard, like I was in one of those movies, as a prop or scenery perhaps, that those facades would all be torn down when the final take is completed, to be replaced, that the illusion of three-dimension was accomplished by skilled artists and master magicians. I couldn’t do anything but stand and look around—besides, there isn’t really anything to do if you aren’t checking in somewhere and gambling. Perhaps that isn’t completely true—it felt that way—for it wasn’t void of excitement. No, there was electricity in the air—not just what was lighting up the whole strange colony—and everyone was in love. Couples meandered, took selfies and laughed, sometimes stumbling, and that joy was infectious. This is the city of sin, right? Well I didn’t have much time to indulge in many of my vices, so a cigarette had to suffice. I lit up, looked around, left.

Some San Simeon

After the long descent through Apple Valley the great state of California greeted me and I managed my way into L.A. Good thing for GPS; without it navigating the inverted labyrinths of roadways would have been impossible. Southern California was not without its perks—namely congenial weather—and the traffic wasn’t even so bad as the rumors purport. But you do drive everywhere. I know I drive everywhere in my own hometown, but the driving is thicker in L.A., or something. You want to wipe it all off like sweat, but it sticks too well. It may be some illusion—if it is, it is besieging—but everything seems so far away and takes so much energy to find and at the end of the day you wonder if you spent more time behind the wheel or away from it.

Some Los Angeles

It was a kind of relief to leave the valley and traverse the beautiful coastline up through Santa Barbara and then to Monterey and Carmel and Solinas and then to San Francisco (aka “The City”). The coast surprised me, actually. Thinking it similar to the golden shores of Miami, which is maybe the case in the L.A. area, it was oftener steep drops into crashing waves, like Icarine mountains that finally realized it was too hot and decided to go for a swim, somersaulting into the Pacific. As I went it proved to be a continuous (really) collision. North of San Francisco the coastal road was so windy I slalomed my way north feeling like a test driver avoiding orange cones in one of those commercials.

Some Carmel

But the Bay Area should not be passed over without mention. It is much larger than I ever anticipated—I’m not sure why—but just as hilly. The City is brimming with an energy, artistic, historic, diverse. The Spanish heritage is revived in authentic taquerias, and new and used bookstores speckle the strips of shops on roads filled with so many people dressed conspicuously that they are swallowed in a sea of eclecticism, like all those beautiful lights blinking at the same time in Vegas where the gorgeous marble statues go unnoticed. There seemed to be quite the “immigrant” population—all friendly—Easterners who abandoned their home for a Western one settle in the most Eastern city of the West. Honestly, Frisco’s a regular New York or Boston, in feel. But the city’s veins run west, and that attracts we who want something different, but the same, sort of.

Some San Francisco

So, I suppose it is like any other city in these regards. And maybe I liked it because all this time out West makes me long for home. Maybe that’s what’s nice about Oregon: how East it feels—they have a Portland even!—and no matter how close to the sunset I get, my heart is in his rise. Isn’t that what I loved about Santa Fe? How like morning she was, clear and fresh and crisp? Isn’t that what I left in Vegas and L.A., the cities who wake and live in the electrified dark?

The New Yorkian skyline of The City (not to mention the arrogance—our city is best) is familiar so far from familiarity. I lighten up.

Some Northwest

How good to bookend the trip, from one Portland to the other; from one pineland to another; from East to West. It makes me think how we really are all one, all United Statesian. Being at Pacific’s scratching fingers I am no farther from Atlantic’s reach. I stand on her shores and look far into the distance, to the Cathays and Tartars I may never see, may not even exist. Isn’t it true? Far enough West brings me still farther East after all. 

...do it tomorrow

All I kept saying was rad. The people, totally rad. The weather, the view, totally rad. The activities, professions, museums, performances, all rad. But what an outdated word for New Mexico! It is no longer the 80s, Simon; no one’s saying rad. Except me in New Mexico, apparently. But I couldn’t help it.

The Midwest is back there...ahead is the South West

Before I left I had a feeling I would like the South West, and I did. It began the moment I crossed into the state…something in the air shifted, perhaps. We were no longer in Kansas—thank God—and Oklahoma was behind us too. We were officially in the South West. The landscape responded immediately, as if to greet us from a deep sleep. First there were the easy, deep breaths in rolling hills. Then the mesas—glorious mesas!—rose in first movements and fresh eyes. That kind of love only morning sees gently grew into mountains in  the seated position, eyes rubbed with clouds. And that sun, fully awake, smiled at me and said ‘hello’ in a ‘good morning’ kind of way.

Omega Bridge outstide Taos, NM

Our first stop was in Taos, an artsy spiritual town unsurprisingly nestled in the heavens. In every direction you can see for miles and miles and then up even higher to surrounding peaks. In one corner lies the land of the Pueblo Indians, the other has a shrine to poet D. H. Lawrence, and in between are the shops and restaurants of tourist-fed wares and well-fed tourists. Indian artifacts and artwork, cowboy garb and southwestern spices were in the windows of shop after shop. But it is becoming with a view. Maybe even quaint. 

Easter sunrise in Arizona

At the Taos Diner II we interacted with genuine gals more concerned with contact and communication than orthodoxy, and I enjoyed every bit of it, from the off-color jokes printed on their menus to the casual way they poured coffee, to the matter-of-factedly way they denied service when the power went out. We sat and drank coffee until it went cold or the electricity came back on and told stories of bears in the mountains. Outside the restaurant the cook toked on her cigarette and laughed with the neighboring businessman about the situation.

It is the land of mañana, apparently, so this is par for the course. I met a transplanted New Yorker who told me that first when he explained the difference between “the way it works” in the North East and South West. Cowboy poet S. Omar Barker (aka Ol’ SOB) said it this way:

Mañana is Spanish word I’d sometimes like to borrow.

It means “don’t skeen no wolfs today that you don’t shot tomorrow!

An’ eef you got some jobs to do, in case you do not wanna,

Go ‘head an’ take siesta now! Tomorrow ees mañana!

Le Canyón Grande

But I like it this way—not so fast paced and crazed, with less stress clinging to us like our wintery garments.  I like that it is markedly different in the South West. The character is distinct from other state clusters. Maybe that's why I'm on the West Coast and finally getting to this haphazard post. Santa Fe is growing on me. Or maybe that’s why everything was rad—because it wasn’t cool, like California, or wicked like the North East. It isn’t awesome or tight or right-on. It’s just, totally rad.

...sleep lightly

I implied it in the last two blogs--to put away the technology and that it is hard to sleep here in Nicaragua. In writing those words I didn't suspect how they would turn around to both spite and protect me.

I met up with the group I would be traveling and working with in Managua and we began our trip toward Isla de Ometepe--the Island of Ometepe. As we moved we met people who asked where we were from. I caught myself a handful of times:

"I'm American--I mean, I'm from the United States." After all, I haven't left Greater America, and I share a continental, maybe hemispherical identity with the Nicaraguense who are also "American." In fact, it was in modern day Brazil that the name "America" was first planted, so perhaps I am only getting closer to real deal. Not surprisingly, it is an easier question to answer in Spanish, where my only option is Soy de Estados Unidos. They have understood this concept far longer than we have.

Despite ourselves, we arrived on Ometepe after half a day,  smiling and excited, and were carted over to the orphanage, CICRIN, where we were to spend the next week doing construction works. Indeed, exciting it was, even by the first night.

I have always been a light sleeper--or perhaps an ever-aware sleeper--and something near me stirred my senses the first night at the orphanage. A moment later I heard the delicate sound of two lips separating and curiosity led me out of subconsciousness. I softly turned my head and opened my eyes to a crouched figure, pawing through my friend's luggage, looking up intermittently in caution. I suppose you never think you are being robbed until it happens--it is too far-fetched to happen to me, I thought without thinking--and so I sat up calmly. I looked over, hoping my friend had just risen early in the darkness for a morning stroll and didn't want to wake the others. Instead I caught sight of the burglar darting out of the room on noiseless feet and in the instant I was able to make it to the door, he was gone with only a crunch of dead leaves left behind. He made away with my friend's money and my beloved iPhone. An iPhone I care little for except for the photos he stole with it.

It goes without saying that I spent the entire rest of my stay in Nicaragua not only without a way to contact home but also without a camera; I could only memorize the beautiful sights, not immortalize them. And this is much to my chagrin because I love to take pictures of my travels and use them to color this blog or my desktop background or just to armchair travel in the future. Either way it forced me to have even fewer barriers between me and my experience than before. A camera is a wall, and the call of Instagram and Facebook, a distraction. This situation gave me a more unadulterated perspective. And what came into focus was an older world than I would have thought.

I noticed that there is something antiquated about this place, perhaps in their faces which still have the markings of ancient peoples (some of which are even Asiatic, reminding me of the great migrations during the Ice Age). But the sun seems older here too. They wear it on their skin and in their wrinkles. The toughness of their high cheeks, the trenches that crack in expression, the flat foreheads, they are all tanned by a hereditary sun. This is not like me, who gets it on vacation; it is a recent and fleeting color. At the beach where I waited for the ferry to leave, I saw young boys in their underwear chasing one another into the bar for a quick, sopping look at the Real Madrid-Barcelona score. They are various tones of brown, and in their skimpy attire I notice that the color is everywhere. There is no tan.

The sun bakes the land like a tortilla in this dry season where everything is dead or dying--something I wouldn't have been able to notice if I wasn't told since I come from the barren northern winters. I feel like we are harvested maize, popping under heat or puffing like souffles in the rolling hills. I look around in my stuffed minibus ride (what the locals call inta mortales, or something like that, meaning "on your way to die") and see an aging orange haze that takes me out of the bus and into the realm of the Olmec, Zapotecan and Mayan civilizations which thrived for hundreds of years, each adding to the menagerie of technological and agricultural innovations. They produced uniquely accurate calendars, great religious structures and the world-changing maize. Quite a bit has been discovered about these peoples, and quite a bit more is left undiscovered.

But perhaps all this is what I want to see--the vestiges of a glorious ancestry--because it helps me with my Euro-Caucasian guilt for spilling their blood so thoroughly and systematically, and for destroying those rosetta's stones of cultural information. With it I'll sleep better, but even the young men with gelled hair and tight shirts clicking their tongues at the passing women seem more American than I. Their eyes are Mesoamerican and their blood reaches possibly farther back in time than mine does, even if I trace mine back to Mesopotamia. Everything here is baked--a timely process--like that tortilla, dry and crumbling but rich in flavor and reaching far back into traditional and cultural history. I am a gringo, a microwaveable import.

Well, maybe not. I decide a stolen iPhone isn't such a great big deal and I relax into the views passing outside the windows. Sitting in that bus, my knee in the crotch of the man facing me and his nearly in mine, I take the trip from Managua to Jinotepe to Rivas to San Jorje to Isla de Ometepe as a local, as an American. 

...swing like monkeys

I awake to warbles and cuckoos I've never heard before. There's this continuous coo, a passing crick-crick-criiiiiiick, staccatoed chirps--I start because someones creeping into my room only to realize somewhere out my window there is a bird that sounds like a slow squeaky hinge. I go outside and catch just the glimpse of a species I've never seen before, not even in pictures or television specials. I look up and see mangoes to my right, still green, and coconuts hanging higher; this place is ripe with biological diversity. The sun has been up and by seven in the morning is already bright and hot if you stand in it, or sit and read, as I did. A fairly consistent breeze greets us in the morning, though (and will rock us to sleep later at night).  

Perhaps we knew it would be a good day when we turned the car on with a chug-chug-eeeeerk and the blessed air conditioning worked. The cool air almost immediately caressed our sticky foreheads and necks. Air conditioning is a novelty during the hottest part of the year in Nicaragua, especially when your car is ancient, has an unfamiliar name, and is a chronic in-patient.  Before we left I thought about changing into a t-shirt for the sleeves so that I didn't stick out so clearly as a gringo, but kept on the cut-off to keep out the heat. I'm 25% taller than everyone here, and 95% whiter, anyway....not much chance for blending in.

But my friend's rig dig swell, and took us all the way to Granada (and back) with only one minor keys-locked-in-vehicle situation. We passed through dirt cow trails onto paved highways that yawn between rotaries, like arteries connecting the urban organs. Amidst chatter I watched as camels' backs rose lazily from the earth and were being herded as their peaks jockeyed with one another as my perspective changed. Elsewhere the green extended into near-jungle complexity, and beyond that the dust-veiled mountains were jagged like sharks' teeth.

Granada is a colorful town that sits on a big lake in Nicaragua and has all of those pesky characteristics found in touristy towns all over the world: carts selling promises of handmade wares, coffee shops  and bars, nice hotels, shops full of trinkets you can buy anywhere even though they claim their prices are lowest or quality highest, and so on. This town is strange though--at least, the central square is anyway--because you feel like you stepped awkwardly back in time. The architecture is clearly colonial, an uncomfortable reminder of the historic collision between native and European, a reminder which is augmented by all the Nicaraguan service and foreign patronage. I feel antiquated as I stroll through the park entertained by a big drum-and-puppet show and watching horse-drawn carriages cart people around. I find that it is easy to feel guilty, being a descendant of the conquistadors and colonialists and explorers who so unintentionally brought over genocidal microbes and (fairly intentionally) racial superiority and religious arrogance.

Grenada is a beautiful place, though, where buildings are separated more by vibrant color changes rather than spaces or fences or yards, and the people are kind, however persistent. We greet each other with a simple Bueno--Nicaraguans drop the "s," informally, it seems. We took a boat ride around Las Isletas and were struck not only by the incredible beauty, but also by the great divide between locals, who erected shacks on the islands they inhabited, and the others (mostly foreigners--we saw the Stars and Stripes hanging outside one), who have constructed mansions and pools and bars and docks on their paradise escapes. 

When we dock I ask my friend to take me to his favorite restaurant, expecting one of those dingy spots managed by someone's grandmother, one of those shacks you'd pass by otherwise, unaware of the magical meal provided, but no--instead he took me to TipTop, Nicaragua's KFC, where his eyes went wide with childlike excitement. It was good, but had no grandmother's recipe.

Nearby the city we went for a zip-line adventure where I just about maxed out the system's weight and size limits. Guided by friendly--quite friendly (they put my harness on for me and I thought about asking them if they'd like my number first!)--Nicaraguans, we traversed through a Robinson Crusoe kind of course. From treehouse to treehouse, and in all kinds of positions, we swung through the air, quite like monkeys. Well, quite unlike monkeys, being strapped in a harness and attached to a cable. But still, potato-potahto.

 My favorite line was the highest and longest one, where I was attached in the back and flew like Superman high above everything else, and I thought, This must be what flying feels like...And then I thought, This is probably not what flying feels like,  seeing as my harness was cutting into me and I couldn't breathe and this Nicaraguan was holding my legs like I was giving birth upside down...like I said, potato-potahto.

The good day ended well though, bruises aside. I may not be too monkey-ish myself, but I did get to play with a real, live monkey. Dexter is a white-faced monkey who was initially intimidated by his more advanced cousin, but quickly preferred my predictable touch to the childrens' erratic behavior. He clung to my arm with all five appendages, ate the bread I fed him and curiously pulled the feathers of our parrot friend who stood on my shoulder. What an incredible species! And after washing my arm quite well, I found myself in bed, being lulled by a fan which blocked out the chatter going on outside. As interesting as it is to listen to and interact with, it's near impossible to fall asleep amidst.

...switch all electronic devices to the off position

I am surrounded by people mostly transfixed by the pallid glow of LED light hovering before their eyes. Ten years ago this would have been the scene in some freakish distopian movie set in the distant future; now it's a reality.  There are a couple families with young children who are devoid of the technological distraction. Good. The news above squabbles the results of a recent study which reveals that parents who put their phones away at the table have better behaved children. This is news?! 

Isolation can be a crowded environment.

It certainly changes the way we travel. We don't greet the person next to us on the plane, who might happen to be an interesting, theatrical person on his way to work at an orphanage in Nicaragua, an orphanage which sits underneath an active volcano, and who has read the very book you are reading and lives in the same city. No, that could be too uncomfortable. But the Atlanta-based belles in blue order us away from our touchable screens, so I stuck out my hand--I'm Simon, he's Mike--and a couple sentences later we were a mile-high and swallowed in the pages of the books we brought. At least they weren't iPads, like everyone else. At least we said 'hi,' unlike everyone else. 

We are so eager to get where we are going we forget that there is something bound up in the process of getting there, something we would be remiss to miss.

But I am guilty myself. I sit here click-clacking away, occasionally looking up for a passing descriptive word or an  inspiration rushing to her connection. And I check my watch hoping that more than three-and-a-half minutes have passed and I'm closer to ending this layover in Atlanta. However, this is the doldrums of travel and they've existed since Amerigo Vespucci sat in the Atlantic wondering where the wind ran off to. Well, even before then, but we didn't much know of their existence. The lull is a part of this process--it forces you to sit back, actually look around and think. You may even meet a nice guy named Mike who works as an event salesperson who does business with an army base in Georgia and lives where you do. But you have to work up the courage and say 'hi.' May we continually be unafraid to greet one another. We're only human, after all. Each one of us.

...arrive, already

I have this need to write, right? It is that itch on your back you can’t reach until you do and then—ooooh, that’s the spot. Or perhaps that elusive itch on your foot somewhere you can quite find exactly…right under the Tibia’s medial malleolus, perhaps, or the Fibula’s lateral malleolus (either way, it’s the ankle). But it is there, and I can feel it, and so I pen this and that, but nothing to publish, or even keep. I have a journal for sneaky midnight dances for which I slip out of the covers and click on a light. Often it’s just a waltz, but occasionally my fingers tango. This journal is filled with private thoughts, my silent sounding board, my record keeper. It is the place to answer the nagging question:  About what shall you write? But journals can get ingrown. I did this, then that happened. I feel like…it is cyclical.

But it persists. This need to write, this molten lake within one’s mountain of creativity is a volatile force. It can be grumpy! One can wipe clean entire cities, leave mothers clinging to their crying babes because of it.

So I write, but I am unsatisfied. These words are not interesting, nor are these events noteworthy. This description is not poetic, not even dryly real. It is crumpled into the garbage, deleted from existence. The very world is in turmoil around me, but I am frozen.

Is this writer’s block?

But I wrote.

But I still want to write.

And so it seems my need is not really to write; my need is for something to write about. Like Clifford “Cliff” Bradshaw of Cabaret, who city-hops through Europe in hopes for his novel’s inspiration, countless travelers have run away to write. They chase the story; run from the stale. Krakauer climbs into thin air and descends with a horrifically beautiful tale. Steinback travels with Charlie in a romantic way, that horn-rimmed romance held up with suspenders and traced with typewriters—the kind of romance that rides the Trans-Siberian Express or sails to South East Asia and finds enlightenment somehow.

I have this need. It is wanderlust and itchy fingers and writer’s block, all an infant growing within, and he’s got his feathered cap and longjohns on already. And I shall call him Adventure, because he will save me from my stillness.

Adventure. From Latin advenio, meaning arrive. From where we pass through adventus, or arrival, but Advent has gone by. So now we cling to adventurus—future active participle—something about to arrive. In the vocative I name that which I speak to—adventure­, come forth!

...pay for tea

View from Landruk

On the first day of our trek we stopped in a little mountainside village called Landruk. We sat down after many long hours of trekking and it felt good, ordered some hot lemon tea and began stripping off anything wet or muddy. We indulged in that wonderfully simple pleasure of taking off your shoes after being in them all day. And then we took off our socks in euphoria. What a sweet truth in life it is that putting on clean socks feels so gratifying, and taking them off does too. There were quite a few young Nepali girls who waited on us, with coconut skin and vanilla bean hair. They flitted around, working, half-playing, watching the strangers that come into their home day after day. They find my inability in Nepali to be a grand comedy and as we get ready to leave the next day in the pouring rain, they chuckle behind veiling hands when I learn how to say "I'm crazy."

But we have an evening in front of us, nestled in the slowly disappearing mountains. A young Dutchman approached us looking for company and we couldn't help but like him and we invited him to join us for the tea that was brewing. We sat and shared stories of home and of culture and of trekking. Nathan's agnostic, we're Christian, and so our conversation even touched on religion and life, as it does often in the non-Western world. We're loud Americans; he's actually Czech, but was raised in the Netherlands. He told us that in the Netherlands people are "cheap" and never pay for one another. Even if you are invited over to eat, be prepared to pay something to help cover the cost. We balked at this, said good-night and he went to his own lodging. He didn't pay for tea. How Dutch.

In the morning we looked for our Dutczech friend, but sadly had to go before he woke up. The torrential downpour was a bit hard to navigate through, anyway. It was here, looking down the face of the mountain, when I said “I’m crazy.” But eventually we got moving. However, we came to discover that what follows is typical. Almost a week later two of us were on our way to dinner in Pokhara and spotted a hairy-faced, v-neck and flat-cap wearing oaf. We laughed and embraced and invited Nathan to eat with us. He accepted, but only for a drink, he said. 

photo cred: Bonnie Cohee

At Shiva's Tea House we shared even more stories and traded pictures of mountains, but as we waited for our food Nathan dove back into questions of religion and faith and life and morality. Nathan is one of the best question-askers I've ever met, and his blunt honesty is why. He ordered a beer and drank it and when we couldn't finish all the momos, he gladly accepted our leftovers. We parted ways again, smiling and satisfied. We bought the food, he bought the beer.

A week later, after we'd arrived back in Kathmandu, we decided it was time to go get some good lattes. Himalayan Java is the Starbucks of Nepal and so we rolled up, bleary-eyed and annoyed by the urban cacophony for some real espresso. We ascended the stairs, turned to sit and were staring directly at a smiling Dutchman. A chorus of love and reunion erupted between hugs and laughter and short stories. We coined the term/hashtag "smc" for "small world connection" and immediately set to posting pictures to Instagram (simonwskold). We all ordered something caffeinated and spent our time sipping in the pleasure of this serial relationship. 

photo cred: Bonnie Cohee

We expressed our growing fondness for each other, exchanged information and gave open invitations to our homes and cities and when Nathan departed in a flurry of smiles and hugs and ‘Namaste’s’, we set about our own business. We even mentioned to one another how much we were blessed and impacted by Nathan’s friendship.

And after an hour or so, we went to leave and asked for the bill. The man behind the counter, however, looked funny and said "that man before paid for you all." Our jaws dropped. We couldn't help but comment (loudly, of course) on how sweet Nathan really is, how much we really do love him and how un-Dutch he'd become.

photo cred: Bonnie Cohee

...accept the offer

I woke up in this room I had just entered for the first time the day before. I am in one of two beds that form a right angle with the cement corner. Windows open to the alleyway below where if one looks at the right time, one can watch some of those excitingly feminine ways the young unmarried neighbor goes about the kitchen. She's an excuse to blow smoke politely out into the air, rather than fogging up the room with that sooty odor. A rug warms the floor under my feet, but I am most thankful for the fan that hangs above the door and hums with a repetitive crick. Without her, the Augustine Arab sun would bake us whole.

Outside the window, which looks somehow alive with the mystical curtain dancing sensuously about it, there are the flat roofs and water tanks and hanging laundry so familiar to this Middle East. An elaborate minaret rises dramatically from all the sharp architecture around it, but it too is that beige color that paints every other structure. The uniformity absorbs the sunlight and stands out from the smoggy browns of further earth.

I am in Sahab, Jordan, a small city outside of Amman, the capitol. In the moment I take to watch the curtain, and perhaps capture her spirit in a picture, I thank God that of all the cultures I was stranded in, it was an Arab one.

Last time I checked in I was on some street, and that's indeed where it all began. Muttering Let's see what happens, I said a prayer of need and gave up all my plans for whatever might come my way. I walked down the street toward traffic. I knew there stood in glory a great old Roman Theatre in Amman, and so I figured I would go there, since I had wanted to visit it before, but didn't get the chance. So I make it to the end of the street looked up and down it, and settled in to wait for an empty taxi to drive by.

Meanwhile, at that moment of surrender, two half-Jordanian, half-European young women were driving around talking about boys and how they would never marry another Arab. It was at the precise moment when they crested a hill when one of the two said,

"Why aren't there any good foreigners around here."

And they looked up and saw a bearded vagabond with two pieces of luggage looking worse for the wear, I am sure. They had to do a u-turn to work up the courage but in another moment they pulled over, slowed down and opened the right-side window.

“You need a ride?” The timing was miraculous. People may encourage you to display a bit more caution than I when traveling abroad—and certainly in the Middle East on high alert—but I asked for some divine intervention and a car pulled up. There isn’t much room to weigh options, let alone decline an offer. I said yes and climbed in.

These two were Diana and Linda and they giggled at their own courage. They told me without shame that they had pulled over because I was a non-Arab and perhaps it would be love-at-first-sight. And so I was recognized, not for looking like someone, but for looking not like someone.

I was taken to the theatre for the ladies had to return home to their families. It was Eid after all. But I took Diana’s card and she said she’d come and get me later. Her friend had just returned from a Director’s conference at Julliard in New York City and had a spare room. I looked forward to meeting an Arab who does what I love for a living, thanked Diana for the ride and the room, and climbed out.

The Roman Theatre was absolutely gorgeous and I stood at the base of her broad, ancient beauty and imagined players moving about in their fashion. I thought of Seneca, the brilliant tragedarian, and his macabre Oedipus being staged here. My feet sank into my history as I looked around at the scene coming to life before me. I walked around and touched these stones that supported feet two-thousand years old. I sat in timeworn seats and disappeared into a crowd, rapt and horrified at the despair of Medea as she slits the throats of her own children in vengeance. Then we are laughing at the farce of Plautus whose wives and lovers interact with the wrong Menaechmi.

But I am pulled out of history by three young men I greeted outside the theatre. They had followed me in and began a conversation with me. We climbed to the top of the theatre and sat there for a couple hours. And in learning what I was doing in Amman and what my favorite Arab meal was, he invited me over to his house for it. I gratefully said the only thing to say: “yes.”

But I had lodgings that evening so we eventually parted ways, Diana picked me up and took me to her friends where I spent my time engaging contradictory nihilistic philosophies and too much smoking. I met Mohammed, my host, and passed out after a long day.

The next afternoon, I left the director’s house, thanking him for the hospitality and took a bus to visit my new friend from the theatre—also a Mohammed. And that is where I woke up the next morning, in Mohammed Hasan's humble home.

Mohammed is the oldest male in the household by tragedy: his brother Hitham passed away in his sleep undeterminably within a year of his father dying in a car crash. I saw the pictures of the mangled car and the sleeping brother after his autopsy. This family has many reasons to be in grief.

Mosa and Rania

But they welcome me heartily, providing me with a bed, food, company and even some clothes I need. Rania is the youngest and she is sweet and serves me with joy at all times. Mosa is the younger brother who eats and eats and is fat and jovial, but likes to make trouble. Then there are two other daughters who I barely saw in the two days I stayed there, for they had to remain hidden and covered. They cooked for me and cleaned the room I stayed in, but when I was around, they locked themselves in their room. Such is the custom when a non-believing foreign man is under your very roof. Mohammed’s mother, however, did not have to hide. She was a kind woman with some English to work with, she was hospitable and sought to all my needs. She also took some delight in being the only mother with such a foreigner in her home, and many guests “happened” to swing by over the days. Sahab is no tourist attraction.

That first night, though, as I lay in the bed, with everyone around me, talking and playing, Mohammed first noticed something. I didn’t fit on the bed, and he said that it was just like Hitham, his brother. He was tall too. In fact, we were pretty similar in height, and I stood to confirm this suspicion. I assured him that it was no problem about the small bed and we finally slept.

In Hitham's alley, in his pants

But that comparison kept coming up. His mother noticed it in my facial structure and the color of my eyes. They gave me his favorite pair of pants to wear because I had nothing long enough to cover my knees and it set the resemblance in deeper. And as I spent all my time with this family I found myself becoming a kind of brother to Rania and Mosa, the friend to Mohammed that Hitham was, and the son their mother misses so much. But it was in small ways, or so I thought. Mohammed relaxed in the false idea that he wasn’t the head of the household anymore; he could shelve that while I was around. Rania and Mosa always sought out my attention and laughed with me, took silly pictures with my camera and sat out on the roof-deck with me as the sisters went about business inside. And we all ate together in a circle on the floor.

Mohammed Hasan, me and Mohammad Rizeq, our friend

But our mom looked at me from the locked chests of her eyes. She showed me pictures on her old phone and glanced up at me in double-check. She asked me to encourage Mohammed to do better in school and to work harder and to come home when he says he will come home and say thank you, for goodness sake. Her expectations are very high and she’s missing the help to get him moving. She even offered one of her daughters as a wife, if I would convert. And as I finally prepared to leave she went through old clothes of her son’s and husband’s, and in a quiet way she relived some memories. I saw her store special items back in the closet, undoubtedly because of the memory they coat. I gratefully took what was offered and said a bittersweet farewell. 

And I left, and once again they were missing a son. I wouldn’t have thought so much of it until that very moment of departure when Mohammed and I walked out of the alley onto the street. Approaching us was a young man who looked up at me, and his expression melted into a kind wonder. His eyes went wide and his mouth slacked slightly. He recognized me. But as we greeted each other, it faded. He swore he had seen Hitham standing next to his younger brother, walking out of the house as they had done many times before, but knowing him to be dead for unknown reasons, he might have believed, even just for a moment, that an equally unknowable reason could have brought Hitham home.

I suppose that did happen, though, and humble, sweet tears greet my eyes when I think of Um Hitham at home longing for a return of her son that will never happen, but did. Even for just two days.

So, sorry it wasn’t love-at-first-sight Diana and Linda; I guess I am too Arab for you after all. 

...see what happens

I was standing on the side of a street somewhere in this web of a giant city. I had all my earthly possessions in two bags, a backpack and a duffle. I looked up and down the street waiting for a taxi to somewhere and took a moment to chuckle at how I even got here.

I had been to Amman once before on a short trip to renew my tourist visa in Israel. Then too I had been charmed, perhaps bewildered, by her size. On and on she spreads, hardly a five-story building anywhere, or so it seems when you look out over the city from a high point. In the yellowy purple of a hazy twilight she twinkles like gold dust and at night the lights of dinnertime or ongoing business shine out from their place like stars in the heavens, and so they seem as far away too. At any point I was surrounded by the city as far as I could see and I felt it a bit eternal and I a bit lost and where was the edge of time and space anyway? Getting from place to place we are shuttled in taxis, but this is an expensive endeavor. The buses are so much cheaper, but you trade price for a far-longer trip. And a good walk after you disembark.

But this time I am not here to renew a visa, but in punishment for even trying to get one.

On Wednesday the 7th I flew into Amman, paid for a week-long visa, and took a bus and a shared taxi to the Jordanian border control. Everything was going all-too smoothly. It was a great pleasure to speak Arabic again, though, and I figured my familiarity with the language and culture was helping things run along well. But that all changed quickly.

The process is extensive and expensive. I paid for the visa, then the bus ride, then the shared taxi. At the border control center there is an exit tax I didn't have to pay, but I did pay for the ticket to the bus which transports us over the River Jordan to Israeli customs and for my one piece of luggage I was forced to store below. My anxiety grew as we inched forward; I knew what was coming. Approaching Israel is always stressful. Perhaps I should have been confident, for I had been through this many times, and it is never pleasant, but always eventually over. But we sat and sat and waited and moved forward and stopped and waited and turned two kilometers into an hour of shortness of breath and not enough room and restless hands. When we finally got off the bus, I took a deep breath and gave some thought to the insanity of anxiety. Was I overreacting to a day full of travel or did I know things were not going to go well? And why has Israel become a nation unmarked by blessing, anyway?

My last trip to Jordan

It took four and a half minutes to get summoned by a pectoral, automatic-rifle boasting, scruff. I was pulled out of line and taken into detention number one. I had some extra screening to go through and I guarantee my beard had something to do with it, but I got to skip ahead of a long line at least. After one round of check up I was allowed to go to the passport checkers. I have never once made it through these unscathed. This time was to be no exception. And so I found myself in detention again, this time with many other men and women. We began chatting, laughing at how ridiculous it all was and sharing stories about Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Two Muslim sisters were there. One was married to a tall American who got his stamp with no problem, though she and her sister sat for four hours before were given access into the country. And her husband sat there too and we laughed together. A half British half Tanzanian man had been there for over six hours by the time we arrived. He couldn't speak much Arabic, wasn't an Arab or a Muslim, but he could have passed for one. He was repeatedly taken away and each time he returned with a goofy smile on his face. In that formal way Brits speak he said,

"They keep speaking to me in Arabic, and I say every time that I am not an Arab nor do I know much Arabic." We all join in on the joke, our only power in this situation, which we cling to to feel less like cattle. We look around and find not one officer or employee older than thirty. The uniformed men and women look pubescent and we shudder at how Maoist it seems to have the decisions of entry and exit made by kids who use there work time to flirt and laugh and take little moments to gossip or talk about their weekend plans. With M-16 in hand. At some other point we came up with names for our band, if we had one, and what we would all do. Really, we developed some terrible ideas, and all we had was a hype-girl, a rotten beat-boxer and a knee-slapper. But we were determined to succeed. And everyone did. Except me.

Five hours of this nonsense, this back-and-forth, this questioning and answering and waiting, a young woman, certainly younger than me, came out and approached me.

"It's going to be a no." I argued with her politely and intensely. I used reason, but to no avail. My passport was receiving the red stamp of rejection anyway. And so, in a desperate and deeply quiet rage I was escorted to my luggage, and then the bus back over the Jordan, where it is free. 

The only other man on the bus was a husband separated from his wife and children by the choices of unmarried children. We had to pay for the bus back, and then shared the price to a hotel this man had already been staying at. There are few options after midnight.

In the morning, I woke up, checked out of my lodgings, paid the expense, and walked to the nearest place to find wifi and food. Now I had planned to be in Palestine with my family that day, for it was the first day of Eid, and it would be a time of joy and laughter and love. Instead I only found a McDonald's that was open, and I felt bad for all the other people who were separated from family on that day.


Hours of wifi and meditation and contemplation later in a next-door coffeeshop I had my only plan: go to the Israeli embassy in Amman and plead my case. I found the address, climbed in a taxi and soon found myself on the side of a street somewhere in the web of this giant city. The guards informed me that everything was closed and the Israelis had gone on vacation, or was it evacuated? There had been some travel-warnings and Al-Quaeda threats, so perhaps it was the latter. A manager came out, spoke in English with me and then ended our interaction:

The web expanding

"Enjoy your time in Amman." 

He smiled and walked back inside. I had realized that rejection was one of two outcomes, and though I wished it wasn't so, I turned around. Let's see what happens, I thought, and put one foot in front of the other on the side of this street somewhere in the web of this giant city. 

...celebrate friendship

A couple of days ago it was the worldwide celebration of friendship. I didn't wake up knowing this; it was too early. Before I could know much of anything I was flying into Lakeside (the touristy part of Pokhara next to Phewa Lake) to meet my dear friend Raaz for a bike ride. We had planned to go on a substantial ride together with one of his friends, Sudess. So we met up, strapped up and were off before the shops were opening. Later that morning a couple of texts came in to phones handled by sweaty, tired Nepalis who informed me that, apparently, it was Friendship Day. 

Those hands were sweaty and tired because the three of us were biking in Nepal, which never goes as flat as one would hope it would go. No, instead we spent a solid 4 hours climbing Himalayan foothills on bike. It was exhausting.

There is a place high above Lakeside from where the paragliders leap and soar. This is a big tourist attraction and brings in substantial monies for the Nepali. You can see them up in the sky, like great colorful birds enjoying the breeze, like a swarm circling, searching for prey below. And yet, on our bikes we looked down on them. I kept saying, "We're crazy."

But you have to be a bit crazy to bike around in Nepal. I thanked God every time I successfully made it through a certain intersection on my way between where I was staying and Lakeside. I grew quickly thankful for horns because drivers would use them as they approached and at least then I knew to glide as far left as possible. Yes, left, they drive on the left here. 

Yet, however crazy, it was a friendship day well-spent. We reveled in it once the climb was over. We hit pavement again and went downhill. For six solid minutes. That doesn't sound too impressive, but watch the clock and see how long just one minute is, and then realize we were flying downhill for six of them. I wondered if I'd get altitude sickness, but we stopped before we even reached the bottom. Sudess took us up a side road and then down through the thicket where the sound of rushing water rose. We had made it to the swimming spot, a gorgeous, clean river descending down from Macchupucchre, the holy mountain also known as Fishtail Mountain.

We stripped down to our underwear and left our sweaty clothes out to dry in the intense heat (which made our climb that much more enjoyable, actually). And for over a half-hour we sat in the refreshing current, allowed the stampede to massage our body and the purity to take away all our grime. We spent some time just laughing. "This is like Paradise," said Raaz who initially wasn't going to get in until he saw the change in us, the pleasure that relaxed our faces, when we submerged ourselves. 

Indeed, it was a friendship day well-spent. When the ride was over we ate a couple helpings of Dal Bhat--no, we eagerly ate a couple helpings of Dal Bhat. And then I hopped onto the bike, which is also a friend's, and rode over to her house. And that night I went home to where I was staying: the spacious blue home of another friend. 

But the friendships all had to take another form, for Bonnie and I had to leave Pokhara for Kathmandu where we would fly elsewhere. We decided we wanted some more time with our friends and less time on a bumpy, hot, annoying, strangely-tiring, seven-hour bus ride. So we bought plane tickets and were there in twenty-five minutes. Twenty-five minutes. It cost sixty-four dollars and when we landed in twenty-five minutes--did I mention that yet?--I decided that it was the best sixty-four dollars I ever spent. 

And though Kathmandu is the worst place to have to be after Pokhara, even if it took just twenty-five minutes y'all--twenty-five!--we fortunately found ourselves in an area not so afflicted with all those diseases of Kathmandu. The afternoon--which we had because we took a plane that lasted only twenty-five minutes(!!)--was spent at a children's home that is run by the family of our good friend Paul. The twenty-something children and teenagers that live there sang for us, introduced themselves, and let us peek into their lives. Most of them were studying for exams, though, so we left them to their studies and had a delicious meal instead. It was a lovely time, and had not some parcels of luggage been in Thamel waiting for us, we might have just stayed. 

We sat on the roof in a sweet breeze from atop the lime green boys' house and looked around at all the great cake-houses of Kathmandu. These crazy colors would only fly in certain neighborhoods in the States, but here yellows, pinks, blues and purples all sit side by side, like a row in Cake Boss' display. It is a farther cry from the Middle East, where the local stones cover every building.

Here in Amman, it is uniform, and I like it that way, for it is just like Palestine. The cakes people live in color Nepal; here the Earth they walk on rises and shelters. And so my thoughts tumble backwards to those friends I have said "see you" to, and forward to those friends I have said "I'm coming" to.

And in the aloneness of Amman, they keep me company.