None Shall Know Me: A Crayola Christmas.

“Match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,

A rose-red city - half as old as time!”

I arrived in Dahab tired and anxious, knowing there was much I wished to do while in the area. I went to the Sinai Peninsula for many reasons; among them was the ease of crossing in to Jordan. I would not stay long there, but one of the highlights of the trip was there in Jordan, among the many mountains and deserts stretching beautifully in to an infinite blandness. My reason for going to Jordan was to visit Petra, one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, and an absolute must for me while living in the Middle East. I say only a small highlight of Jordan, and it enticed me to want to return and see more. A bus drove me up and over mountain ranges that seemed like giant stalactites, craggy and brown, and barren, cone shaped, mound shaped, rounded, pointy, and they rose and dipped and swayed like a perfect desert mountain range.

Petra itself was spectacular. I hiked my way down The Siq, or narrow canyon adorned in colored walls where the sun leaked in to breathe vibrant shades on to red, and orange, and yellow, and black walls, highlighted by the luminous glow of a warm and creeping sun. The Siq reminded me of southern Utah, or of Arizona, red sandstone cliffs carving out narrow canyons in a hiker’s delight of scenic mazes. The Siq ended at the most famous sight in Petra, called The Treasury, what looks like a giant house carved out of the canyon wall in a collage of autumnal colors. Everything there was carved out of mountainside or cliffs or canyon walls, the hundreds of caves and monuments, the large Roman style amphitheatre, everything. The mountains rose around with donkeys and goats wandering the hillsides and Bedouin people cooking over small charcoal fires and resting in the caves. All of Petra is enormous, and I covered but a taste of it, and wished to camp there among the cliffs and caves and explore for a week in some solitary séance. Give me proper shoes, a sleeping bag, and the necessities for food; give me a pen, a journal, and a book to read, and with that and the freedom of my mind, I could have stayed there hiking each day farther in, new canyons, new caves, to the tops of new mountains, perfectly and wonderfully alone. There are places I have seen where I think of people from my life and how much they would enjoy being there, and in Petra, I imagined my father and uncle with their backpacks, their far-fetched stories, their lively banter and cheerful talk. I could see my father staring at each mountain with some unquenching curiosity. I imagined his gazing eyes in wonder and bewilderment at the streaking lines of bright color, whole canyons a scribbling of primary colors in a child’s coloring book. They would love it there, and appreciate it there, like they do the red-rock cliffs and canyons of southern Utah. My father will never visit Petra or Jordan, and it is a shame, because few people would ever appreciate the beautiful simplicity of color and canyons as would he.

As great as the monuments were, the mountains and cliffs and canyons leading to them were, at the least, equally impressive. It is a touristy place, but at moments it had such authentic charm, and often I caught myself in the canyon with no person in sight, only the red colored cliffs and the silence of a solitary moment. Horse carts drove through The Siq with Jordanian cart drivers singing out Arabic songs, likely Quran scripture. From the treasury and beyond camels carried those either too lazy to walk or those wanting the experience of a camel ride. I walked and roamed alone up the cliffs and ascending slopes. Petra is a panorama of caves and cliffs in a collage of desert colors. I sat in the shade of arches or the hump of some lonely hill and stared out to an extending horizon that stretched out beyond the large canvas of Crayola that is Jordan. I strolled leisurely through and unhurried, the calm and quiet of my own inner self and the still rhythmic breathing of a slowly rising chest connected to and conscious of the swirls and shifting turns of the wind and the silent pulse of canyons and mountains and valleys and miles of a vast and beautifully empty wilderness of dust and stone.

The drive out of Petra was a beautiful sight. The sky morphed shades of red and yellow and orange that crashed abruptly in to the black of coming night rising above dark outlines of a thousand mountain peaks. I pressed my face against the window, crinking my neck so not to miss a single dive and rise of the road, the contrast of dark night and the bright fading light of day that is dusk, the steep drop down to valleys and the sharp rise of mountains that only seemed like smudges and outlines in the retreating light of empty valleys.

It was Christmas that day, and I suppose my present to myself was the smile that comes with new journeys and amazing places. I hardly knew it was Christmas, far from family, far from friends, and walking out through warm deserts of Arabian lands. Holidays spent alone do not seem like holidays at all. It is the time of year for celebration with family and the revelry of friends, and I was entirely on my own, as I most often have been the last 2 ½ years. This part of the world does not celebrate Christmas of course, and there are only a few reminders, and although my family may have been far in distance, never in thought, so I remembered that day, if only because I knew how important it would be to call my family, and my own pleasant imaginings of Christmas mornings back home and passing out the Christmas presents for everyone to open. Some memories never die. Some reasons for celebrating go on through eternities with the enormity of profound blessings. My own particular blessing and gift on this specific Christmas was small in comparison, but small things become grand, and I will always remember my celebrations in dust and sand. I will always remember my own special Crayola Christmas.