we walked in silence.

i will not write a blog about damascus.

i can't tell this story. there is too much story to tell.

suffice it to say i love[d] it. suffice it to say that i was moved. suffice it to say that i came home with a bracelet i'll never willingly take off. suffice it to say that i wrote in my little book, in a cab on the way out of syria, that i felt like home. a strange, and sweet-smelling, and utterly unfamiliar home. isn't the idea of home exactly the opposite of that? i'm gonna have to do some thinking on that one.

there is much i can't talk about. but i will try, because i have seen, and maybe it is my job to write about it? because much, much, much has been written by people who haven't seen. i will try. but keep in mind that this is nothing. i can't talk about hardly anything. what i can talk about is the ridiculous. as if my life could have gotten more ridiculous than a last-minute trip to syria for the weekend.

we had a picnic on the syrian border, with apple juice and nutella and digestive biscuits. and we ate pringles and (obviously) transformed ourselves into pringle ducks and wandered around duty-free staring open-mouthed at the $800 swarovski toucan and the giant lollipops as big as my head and more nutella than my eyes have ever seen in one place. we played cards and ate weird-looking alien peanuts and told stories and smoked argeelah and made friends and had a really, really great time on the syrian border. figures. i guess that's just us. yom yomii shway legit.

damascus by midnight. it was gorgeous. beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, we paused to capture our first moments standing next to the citadel on a syrian sidewalk. and bashar welcomed us on a billboard, assuring us that he believed in syria. we believed in syria, too. and we saw a young couple out late, holding hands, walking together on the sidewalk. which was amazing because
a. they were holding hands and b. because there was a sidewalk to hold hands on. in celebration of physical contact, we had a group hug; and in celebration of the sidewalk we walked and danced and stumbled on it all weekend.

love, love is a verb, and all we did was walk all weekend. we just wandered, to the old city and the citadel and the old souk and the trendy european neighborhoods. and there were times and places, hours and city blocks, where we were the only women. and we wondered where they were. we would wake up in the morning and look out the 3rd floor window, and it was like a theatre set, with men putting up banners in the street and men standing in their windows and men perched on roofs like chimney sweeps. maybe it was because i hadn't slept all night yet and 8am felt earlier than ever, but i was genuinely surprised when they didn't break into an a cappella song about themselves.

but there were few places we felt uncomfortable. once we were spit on, by which i mean sprayed probably about 4 times. and the 1st time i thought he was sick, and the 2nd time i thought he was crazy, and the 3rd time i realized that 3 of us were american women out at night, and the 4th time we got into a cab. even better was the next night, walking in the old souk, when a man sneezed behind us and we all of us walked faster instinctively, assuming we were being spit on, and then laughed at ourselves.

most people were very welcoming. we would be walking or sitting and people would come ask us where are we from and do we like syria and have we been to xyz yet? and they would show us around and smile and tell us how much they loved americans because we are so friendly. "the american government, no. but the people, we like them very much. they are always smiling." and we were sitting on a curb and a girl holding red roses, probably 12, came and sat with us and smiled and giggled at our bad arabic. and then she skipped away and we were just in awe and i thought of paris and how this girl might be the first person i ever met who was the antithesis of a place.

"what is your opinion of george bush?" (you know me. insert my response). "*smile*. well, then welcome. welcome to syria."

and we walked miles, and mountains, and laid down on empty sidewalks and watched babies play soccer in sunny fields while their mothers prayed, and ate hummus and falafel and drank pineapple juice, and men with carts of blood oranges squeezed us juice on the spot, and sat around color-lit fountains at night and talked, about how this was the most beautiful place we'd ever seen, and the most misunderstood, and how baghdad is a city- my god, baghdad is a city-, and how little boys in roller blades really should watch out for that hole in the- ohhhh ouch that one hurt. and i left fingerprints like flower seeds, everywhere we went.

"i am not from syria. i am from old damascus."

and a friend- as flowers go, she will be daylily, and if she ever reads this she'll laugh about it- and i stayed up all night and talked about more than i've talked about in a long, long time. and we told stories and watched the sun come up through our window. we were planning to sleep, already in bed even, but the call to prayer at 4:30 exploded our hearts and that was that. so we talked until it was light and went outside to watch the morning and read poetry on our tiny balcony and watched the musical of men working and talking and walking and perching and the gangs of cats roaming the metal awnings. and then we copied them, and slept inside like cats, each of us a circle.

fallujah boys. 6 or 7 years old, maybe, curled up on the sidewalk, with the orange they'll eat for lunch in their hands. eyes open, eyes closed, waiting. they've been waiting so long i don't know if they ever knew what for. and 11 years, singing in the night, praise songs in a voice more beautiful than i've ever heard, shatter me. and 18 years, and beautiful, begging to shine my shoes for almost nothing, and my heart chokes into my throat and i've no idea what to say except im sorry. im so, so, so sorry. and i feel guilty even about my apologies, as if i thought they mattered. i don't. i don't think they matter. but i have nothing else. and every time my heart would drop and my hands would clench and my eyes would water, and i would feel like a child. a spoiled, arrogant, filthy rich, indifferent child. helpless is the word, i believe, for wanting desperately to do something and knowing there. isn't. anything. you. can. do. and their voices crept inside me and their smiles broke my heart. quieted me. fallujah boys.

and every time the call to prayer sounded i stopped walking. and i closed my eyes and i felt the words i really only pretend to understand. i mean i know the words... but words aren't really words. words are context, and connotaions, and language, and history. and i can't pretend i know any of that. the call to prayer means more to me in damascus. more passionate. more haunting. more authentic, maybe? pretty is a word i am hesitant to use, but keep in mind that i thought it.

then there was a mountain. it was beautiful. i can't explain in words. but i was moved, my thoughts were whales- giant and ancient and blue and full of music. and i was brimming with them, looking down from a mountain where the prophet did the same, at a city with no end and only haze to hide it from me. and it was night, and the green lights of faith and ritual floated everywhere above the city. and i sat there for a long time, with flower seeds and written words dropping from my fingers, and wind warm and cool at the same time moving through all of us differently.

we walked in silence after we came down.