The eve of DaBerg's Birthday

Jordan. It was a beautifully indulgent, ridiculous kind of a trip (aren't those the best kind?). Flying from Burma to Jordan. Who does that? De'Berg and I it seems - to meet with a group of friends from our dear university town on the Scottish coast. 


We also went to visit Selmo. Selmo - who I think is one of two people who read this blog. Selmo moved to Jordan the same time Da'Berg and I moved to Myanmar - four years ago. 


To witness Jordan through his eyes is to be consumed and enflamed and impassioned by the place.
He hunted out a 9000 year old city that only archeologists and bedouin know about. We camped in its shadows. He found hikes via desert springs and valleys of palm trees that spring out of soil so dry you cannot imagine anything would grow. We camped and we walked and we made fires. We walked from one ancient old ruin to the next. And met only bedouin and shepherds along the way. 

Something about it also made me sad. Watching us as grown ups. And realising how rarely I feel truly alive at the moment. The fish story and work consume every waking hour - every weekend - every spare creative bit of energy. 

And so we need to grasp these moments of freedom. They are so rare and so precious and transitory. When I close my eyes and remember Jordan - I see us at the end of a long hike through a river and down a gorge and across a canyon of deserts with small bedouin kids and two donkeys. We are all a little sunburned and covered in mud - our legs sore from walking and our hair full of twigs and dust and our faces with smiles. It's the eve of Da'Berg's birthday. Selmo, our Irish beauty and I have stashed birthday candles, balloons and streamers into our bags.

Below us are palm trees bright green against the setting sun (why is it that sun's setting never get old?). Someone pulls out some port and we are giddy from lack of water and too much sun and a sense of achievement. The world is so far away from us. Or perhaps we are closer to the world than we have ever been. Drunk on it.