HERE'S TO ANOTHER TWO YEARS!
Two years! That's 24 months, 104 weeks, 730 days, 403 posts.
That's right. Today marks exactly two years for A Place Called Roam; by design, a travel blog, but if you've been reading between the lines for the last two years, by default, it's my lifeline to understanding where I've been and where I'm going. Thanks for listening. I need all the help I can get!
I've never been sixty (and then some) before; never been retired before, either. My life has always been filled to the brim with purpose, kids, chaos.
I'm evolving, again, morphing into the new me, shedding my skin (alas, not nearly as effectively as my younger self did) along with the kids and the chaos. It's been as liberating as it has been frightening.
WHALE WATCHING IN THE ANCIENT SEAPORT CITY OF JAFFA
Sometimes, I can be such a woos!
Two years ago, Jimmy and I passed up the chance to go whale watching while in Iceland. When my sister shared the particulars of her whale watching experience off the coast of California (she said she was sea sick the entire time) as Jimmy and I debated the merits of our opportunity, I erred on the side of caution.
The captain of the tiny fishing boat in charge of the expedition admitted there was no guarantee we'd see whales during our four-hour expedition, but he thought the chances were good.
You'd think after three pregnancies, each with a minimum of four months of morning sickness morning, noon, and night (I once had to pull over while driving to take care of business), that I could handle a few hours of being green around the gills for the chance to be up close and personal with a whale.
Besides, I was sick later that night just listening to those souls braver than I wax eloquent about the experience of a lifetime; the experience I'd passed up, because I was such a whale-watching woos!
Not anymore!
KEEPING THE FAITH AT BETHLEHEM'S CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY
I'm really not sure what I expected, but in typical fashion, reality fell short of anything remotely close to my preconceived notions.
Maybe it was all those years of indoctrination as a child and as an adult. What would Christmas be without the traditional nativity scene. Thank you, St. Francis of Assisi.
Perhaps it was the tension that punctuated our border crossing between Jerusalem and Bethlehem that set the scene. The proliferation of armed guards wielding semi-automatics and the oppressive 26-foot tall concrete wall simply served to underscore the harsh reality of life along the West Bank barrier.
The West Bank Wall zigzags through 10 of the West Bank's 11 districts.
Guard house at Israel's West Bank border crossing.
Needless to say, my nerves were frayed by the time we reached Manger Square following a five minute hike through the narrow, busy streets of Palestine's Bethlehem.
HOLY LAND: MEGIDDO NATIONAL PARK, ARMAGEDDON
The site has seen more battles than any other location on Earth. No wonder Armageddon is associated with the end of civilization, at least according to Revelations 16:16 and about seven thousand years of history atop Har Megiddon. Armageddon is often considered a corrupt version of Har Megiddon.
Har Megiddon (Hebrew for hill of Megiddo) was just that, "the end", for dozens of civilizations (excavations have identified about twenty-five layers of settlements dating back to the 6th millennium BCE) as each fought to be king of this strategically located hill.
I can't really speak to the conflicts over the centuries, nor predict the end of civilization, but from the top of this UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Israel, the view alone was to die for.
Oops! Did I just say that?!
MOSES, MONKS & ST. CATHERINE'S MONASTERY
The monastery is sacred to three world religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism.
The door to the monastery was a tiny sliver of an opening in an otherwise massive wall of granite stone.
No doubt about it; St. Catherine's Monastery was a fortress, purportedly built on holy ground that to this day harbors the Burning Bush "that was consumed by fire, but was not burned" when God spoke to Moses for the first time.
Holy heart-to-heart!
If the monks believed it to be gospel, who was I, a humble, modern-day pilgrim, to question three thousand years of religious history and the oldest continuously working monastery (and the smallest diocese) in the world; a monastery that just happens to sit at the foot of Mount Sinai/Jebel Musa/Mount Musa/Mountain of Moses. Yes, the Ten Commandments Mount Sinai! The same 7,494-foot peak on which Muslims believe Mohammad's horse, Boraq, ascended to heaven.
Oh, yea of little faith.
It was a modern-day miracle, me standing inside the 60-foot walls of this medieval enclave, snapping at least three thousand pictures of the Burning Bush.
PETRA, JORDAN: AN ELEGANT, ROSE-RED STONE ANTIQUITY
I have to hand it to the Nabataeans; these ancient Arab tribes of southern Jordan certainly knew a thing or two about curb appeal, not to mention fortifications.
Walking the Sig (canyon) that gently winds toward the ancient, rose-red city of Petra was an exercise (lots of exercise!) in magnificence. The natural sandstone gorge was formed by flood waters thousands of years ago.