Golan Heights

One week from today, I’ll be sitting on the beach at Aqaba with term over and my labours temporarily at an end. Two weeks from today, I’ll be waking up in the comfort of my own bed once again, looking out over the Sussex Downs. Three weeks from today I’ll probably be back in Kent with the family, to see my brother in especial before he leaves for University. And one month from today, I’ll be sitting in the bus station in the sunblasted Plaza de Armas in Seville, waiting for the coach that will take me northwards to what is to be my home for the next nine months.

It’s all moving thick and fast roundabout now. I’m taking some time out in Ali Baba to work on the novel for a bit. Most everyone else has gone off in different directions: some to Wadi Mujib, some to grab a falafel lunch, others to one of the nearby cafes for some quiet study. I’m here in search of my voice, which I seem to have lost whilst I’ve been out here. I spoke to Andrew for quite a bit about this last night, reading back over some of my notes that I penned last year, in various states of emotion. Andrew gave me quite a jolt when he opined that my writing was a great deal better back then. Those aren’t easy words to take for somebody who’s set himself on the path to bettering his writing… How could this be, I wonder? Is it because I’m writing every other day, so I’m drip-feeding my thoughts rather than saving them up for a grand oeuvre? Or maybe it’s because I’m not finding enough time for myself to think properly out here in the city? I think there’s a bit of truth in both of those. My writing has become rather acerbic of late. Compared to all the self-help greenie moralising I used to throw about, my later work comes across as bitter, over-excitable, and above all else more than a little opinionated. I hope it’s not a lasting trend. I took the time to read over my notes a second time after I’d discussed them with Andrew and I’m a lot happier with them, though I know I wasn’t at the time. Maybe I’ll look back on these blog posts in the same way, and maybe not. My saving grace is that there was a victory achieved last night, however small; after comparing my writing, Andrew conceded that maybe sticking it out in a city really isn’t good for me at all. Because if there’s anything that might be described as a true window into the soul, it’s the way we express ourselves, poetry, paint or prose.

My summary of Amman a week ago was misinterpreted by some as an all-out attack on Jordan. I’d like to come clean on that point and confess that it’s really not that. In many ways, I’ve loved Jordan. The dizzying views up into the Golan Heights from across the river, the crashing waterfalls of Wadi Mujib and the stars stretched out like glittering velvet over the desert. Dana in all her majesty. Jordan is beautiful. And capital city though it may be, even Amman has its bright sides. In my melancholy, I’ve been unable to see it; largely, I guess, because I didn’t want to see it. It eludes me still. Picture this: you’re at the cinema, and the guy in the row in front of you turns around and asks you to stop kicking the back of his chair. You didn’t even realise you were doing it. Of course, you then spend the next five minutes wanting the kick the chair even harder – or is that just me? There’s a window into my mind and a half.

What I’m trying to say is that I have a bad stubborn streak, and this city – or any city, for that matter – brings it out of me like never before. When somebody tells me to stop doing something, or that I’m going to like something, my first instinct is to disobey. Watch Mean Girls, they say, ‘because it’s unavoidable… it’s part of our culture’. Instinct tells me therefore I cannot, under any circumstances, be made to watch it. Wait it out in Amman, they say, and try to learn to love it ‘because city life is just something you have to get used to… and Amman is actually a really cool place once you get to know it.’ Sod’s law dictates that it cannot be. It’s the old ‘I’ve come this far, I can’t turn back now’ line.

When you set it down in writing, it’s really quite pathetic…

What’s a guy to do? I reckon the thing that I’m missing most of all, perhaps even more than escaping the metropolis, is time. Time to think, to write, and to be myself. It’s not just my writing that got bitter out here, it’s my personality. It sure is helpful having people around to point that out before it gets rotten. The year abroad is such an important part of your degree that it can feel criminal to ‘waste’ even an hour of it. As such, the last two months have been almost non-stop. Wake up, class, study, go downtown, shopping, sightseeing, studying, repeat. I rarely have more than an hour or so to get my head straight and that’s seldom in the solitary silence that I crave. Maybe I’ve made myself too dependant on ‘me time’; if there’s one common feature in all of my notes from last year, it’s a heavy emphasis on the importance of ‘me time’. I was busy then, too, rushing from class to rehearsal to gig after gig – and yet, I still managed to find time to wind down every week or so and defuse. Not so here. And it shows, right?

Oh, there’ll be one last big reflection on everything that’s gone down out here in the Middle East before I go. I hope that will be a better read, too. A blog in itself is a funny old thing, pasting your thoughts and feelings for the world to see. But that’s what writers do, paper or pixels. Some of my best writing was set down when I was in the throes of a hopeless crush, some time ago. Or maybe it’s just because we’re human, and we all love a good gossip. I don’t know. I’m going to keep looking for my voice, and I hope that I can find it again before I leave this place, if just to leave you with Jekyll’s view on Amman rather than Hyde’s. I think that would be fair. (Oh look, I’ve gone and done a JK Rowling, leaving the explanation of the title to the very last line of the chapter. Now I really do need to get reading some more!) BB x

There’s a Palestine sunbird flitting about amongst the branches below, a dusky little thing with an emerald sheen on each shoulder. What difference does it make to her that there’s a tall iron fence all the way along the length of the cliff on the opposite bank? One little flutter of her tiny wings and she’s over. It seems a little ridiculous that a bird no bigger than my thumb can do things a human can’t.

I’ve found a shaded spot for myself in a makeshift bathhouse on the south side of the River Jordan, just a few miles to the north of Umm Qays, and closer still to Israel itself. The Golan Heights tower high above me, shining a brilliant gold in the midday sun. Down below is an offshoot of the Jordan, rushing westwards to its mother before the Sea of Galilee. A night heron flapped lazily past a little while back, and there’s a couple of geese paddling about downstream. The bulbuls aren’t exactly making themselves inconspicuous and all the while the hardy little sunbird is keeping herself busy hurrying to and from a crevice in the cliff. I guess she has a nest in there somewhere.

The others are frolicking about in one of the swimming pools under the lazy eye of the locals. I just had to get away. It’s so quiet here. Who’d have thought that I’m looking at a former war zone, just a few decades back? Legend tells that this is supposedly the place where Jesus drove the Gadarene swine into the river, but the landscape looks decidedly more Ethiopian than one of those colour drawings of Israel from an illustrated Bible. There’s even a laughing dove calling from a fig tree down in the valley. Ho-woo-hoo-hoo. A little slice of Africa in the Middle East. This is my idea of money well spent. If only there were places this idyllic nearer Amman.

And I’m now even more hungry for Israel; I’ve spent two days looking at its green hills and cool lakes from the dry Jordanian side. It’s enough to drive a man mad. Now more than ever I begin to understand why this place has seen so much conflict. Who would not fight to hold on to a home in a land like this, Arab or Hebrew? If there is a heaven-born hand guiding us all, let it lead me to Israel, just once, VIATOR or no VIATOR. I feel a strange pull to the place like never before, as though I have wanted nothing more my whole life. This, surely, is the stuff that wars are born from. Wars and jaded dreams.

The wind’s picking up a little. I expect we’ll be leaving for Jerash soon. Another sunset in an idyllic setting, and still holding true to a promise I made three years ago. I’ll paint this valley onto the backs of my eyes to keep me going over the next five days.

A flash of brilliant purple and the sunbird’s back. It’s the male this time. He clings to a vine hanging over the roof and looks my way before flitting off in the direction of the nest. If there are moments like this to wait for at the end of every week, I have strength enough to last out here. BB x