Flambuoyancy

There are unexpected, yet wholly anticipated, twists in traveling. There are moments when the world is turned on its head and past understandings are lost to revelations of less steadfast certainty. Mostly, instances of paradigm revolution emerge from an interaction with a similar being whose life destroys a perception of truth in your own. They come at those times when a Buddhist alters a fundamentally Christian worldview, or when a Muslim blasts arguments against the hejrab (veil) into oblivion. They come when a Hindi swims in a river with floating corpses because it is holy. The moments typically stem from human interactions.

But this time, the natural world where mountains are stationary, where the ground is stable, where deserts are deserts and forests are forests has come into direct question. The world where water is water and acts as such has been blown into oblivion at new ideas of what could be. Sure, in physics class the theories are all presented in wholly esoteric who cares I need to go hang out with my friends in the GWHS parking lot sort of way; but they're never supposed to come to fruition. They don't exist.

Except they do - you dip into the liquidy familiarity of the dead sea only to find an unfamiliar sting in your eyes and burn in your throat as limbs and torsos are thrust to the surface. In the gelatinous goo created from an overabundance of soluble elements, it is all one can do to keep legs down where legs should be. Horizontal existence is unavoidable. Floating in the Dead Sea destroys ideas of what water is.

The diaspora of the giddy joy of the unknown contrasting to the acidic burn - to the pain of an overzealous pursuit of this newness - is perhaps fitting as a metaphor. Good versus evil - in this land where one must return to his microeconomics jargon of scarcity in choosing between visiting the site of Jesus of Nazareth's baptism, or the site where Moses first laid eyes on the holy land. Or perhaps skipping both to go down the road to Mohammed's home town, or to stop by the last remnant of the second temple. With history ignoring modern political borders, this land united is the land of monotheism. This is where Eastern ideas met western desires for singular simplicity of the insecure. So as we happen upon unforseen sights of Jesus's miracles, we are caught in wonder at what this world could be - and at this land pure ideas, but real war. This land where Bethany exists alongside modernising Islamic teenage women.

Moreover, we break through the mundane misunderstandings of the world that we harbored. Western Syria is a lush green mountain range, as is the Jordan Valley in the nation of that name. Lebanon is far from a barren desert strip, boasting several ski resorts with up to 17 lifts each. And Israel is far from a simple speck of sand on an insignificant strip of land (though I do hold fast that the artificially inflated esteem for the stip of not-so-sandy holiness has unnecessarily drastic consequences), itself boasting a ski resort, mountains, and the lush green landscapes of the Golan Heights (but don't tell Syria that it belongs to Israel.) The world is not as we had imagined. It never is.

Syria is, however, slightly dull for the traveler. At least, that is, for the culture shocking traveler fresh out of uber-hospitality land of Pakistan unwilling to spend his days having the monotonous "where you from?" conversation with participants wholly unable to comprehend the path he took to get there. "Why didn't you learn Arabic before you came?" Bug off.

A few empty roman ruins that I'm confident nobody went to in Roman times just to say "this ampitheater sure is pretty" left us only mildly inspired, and a few days in Damascus chatting with an Iraqi who fought the US in 1991 and now works alongside US soldiers, among others, had me confident that I was free to leave the political puzzle piece for more southern destinations.

A view over the Sea of Galilee, a glance into Palestine, a look northward to those Golan Heights provided our introduction to Jordan. This, another nation of Arabs that has found some way to justify a distinction from the northern, western, eastern Arabs in their vicinity, provides ever more destruction of illusion. This is still not a land of constant battle, or vicious instability. This is a land where people live and die and move and float. This is a land where history is, at least somewhat, shaped by an idea of water as being something eeriely buoyant. And still it is not altogether unfamiliar to us. There is a speck of recognition.

Then again, the Texan here to train Iraqi soldiers to go get "blown up" in their newly chaotic land perceives Amman as much more irrationally chaotic than we. Perhaps our entire perspective of planetary comprehension is squewed from what we would have had a few months ago, before the Subcontinent blasted "reality" into nothing more than a trivially insignificant idea. To me, Jordan feels too easy still, too close to rational home. Yet to him it is eons from comfort, and centuries back from the "present" of 2006 as North Americans would recognize it.

Either way, I'm off to see what Arabia has to offer me, and I to it. To find a little more truth, or a little less. And to see if a little more than "ahlan wa sahlan" can make it into my mental phrasebook. Or, maybe today will take me out of Arabia entirely, and into the "occupied" lands. Travel will tell.