Mukawir

Life is very strange, as we all know.  I was taking a break from writing to devote some much-needed time to cleaning my desk.  Yes, I hate writing so much that cleaning seems like a good option by comparison.  I love researching and thinking about how projects might come together - spiriting out connections is one of my few intellectual gifts - but there comes a point where you have to stop reading and researching and burrowing down rabbit holes and actually have to write.  To be fair, I have written a lot this summer, and some of it is actually fairly interesting, but I'm still miles and miles away from this project coming together.  So, anyway, I was taking a welcome break from writing and found a years-old package from Bob Dash, who taught for years at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.  I didn't know Bob that well, and spent exactly three weeks getting to know him years ago on my first trip to Jordan.  I was there on a State Department grant to study Islamic and Arabic culture, and was thrown together with twelve amazingly friendly professors in what was doubtless the best academic experience of my life.  At the beginning Bob seemed like more than a bit of a grouch, but he ended up being a great guy.  A couple years later he sent me a package with two CDs full of pictures, which, in the midst of the general chaos of my life, I never opened.  Later, in one of those odd inexplicable coincidence that only happen in Dickens novels and real life, I found out that Bob had died of cancer.  So, here I am today, and what do I find at the bottom of a drawer - about three offices later - but this original package.  In addition to bringing back a lot of great memories, it was also more than a bit of a gift.  it reminded me of a great time, and of a man that I wished I had gotten to know better.

A picture that I spirited from his collection, this of Mukawir.  I've always said that it was exactly at this moment - and at this spot - where I fell in love with the Middle East.