Finding My Way Back To Then

When you go out driving, it is important to know how to find your way back. As a new leaser of a new Ford Focus (don’t laugh! It’s not a shuttle bus or a taxi! These are real wheels!) I am reminded how important, how difficult, and how rewarding it is to find your way back.

Picture it: last week I planned to drive into Amman for my first time with an oratorio singing group. The conductor had given me explicit directions. (Now I must have an aside here about what “explicit” and “directions” means in Jordan—it means someone gave you a general idea. Street signs only started going up in Amman last year, so no one actually knows the street names, and everyone just says you pull over and ask for help. This is a city of over 2 million people! Moreover—nearly every building is the same color and every street really looks like the other!) I was to go into the 3rd circle, take a right, take the second right, and then up the hill on the left I would see the YWCA, the place where the rehearsals take place.

I get into my car, as cocky as a 17 year-old off to discover new terrain, popped a CD into the stereo (a great cast recording of a show entitled [title of show] about a group of thirtysomethings trying to write a Broadway musical and head off for Amman). It is about a 20-25 minute drive to where Amman goes off in a million directions. The easiest thing about directions in byzantinely-designed Amman—and the closest thing to any reference of a grid pattern—is that in one section of Amman there are these 8 circles that go from the outer edge to inner Amman. I go past the 7th circle, 6th circle—counting since they are not marked, I have 15 minutes to go before rehearsal begins.

I am following the directions to a tee—and then I make that 2nd right, and hmmm…there is not really a hill, and I don’t just “see the YWCA.” I drive down a ways and then decide to start all over again—I probably just miss it. I tick off the directions again—I see a number of hospitals, pharmacies, and florist shops. I stop someone and ask if they know where the YWCA might be. “I’m sorry, what is this WCA you are talking about” was the nice answer I got. I vroooom back to 3rd circle and try one last time. I am now 30 minutes late and cannot find my way.

Well, I failed. I couldn’t find my way to the YWCA—and no rehearsal. I had gone over that terrain three times, asked four different people, and came up a little bewildered. New destinations are exciting, but really only when you find your way there.

I decide that my trek into Amman should not be vain, so I go back to know where I know—that 7th circle intersection that gives me confidence in driving around Amman. I decide that I should make my way to a couple places I frequent and take a risk. I decide I gotta find my way there.

So back in 7th circle I go in search of the church I attend. I have been in cabs to this place for a year now, but drivers never go the same way, and I have only a vague idea as to how to find my way. As I said, this is a difficult town with long, marhabainshallahwallayallaabdullah street names, so I need to create my own landmarks. Okay, I think I can make it there by way of fast-food restaurants. Okay, I start east, seeing the KFC standing proudly on Zahran street. I decide to take the tunnel by the Colonel’s face that turns northward. Wait—good! There is the Burger King and the Popeye’s that seem familiar. In a little bit I see the PizzaPizza place where Zeina and I once had lunch. This is all looking familiar. There is a sign, an actual sign in comforting English that veers off to the right that goes to the traffic circle near the church. Okay, take that exit, and yes, there is the new Tony Roma’s Rib place I have seen from the cab. I come upon the Orange Mobile Phone company, and know that I am on the right road. Up the hill and around to the left, and there is the fence of the school! The Amman International Church meets in the Baptist School, and there it is! I found my way!

I make a U-Turn, quite satisfied that this goal was met—now I want to find one more place before I head back. There is a classy Italian restaurant, Romero’s, that we choose for special events. They make a risotto there that rivals the one I had in Rome in 2001 with my Hackley travel gang. It’s hidden on a side street, but I think I can find it—there is the hotel that is a nice landmark, and there is the Intercontinental diagonal—yes, there it is! I found it—I may have missed the YWCA, but I found my way to the church and Romero’s. I think I can make it.

Obviously driving and directions are on my mind these days since I have that freedom and burden of figuring out the automobile side of life in Jordan. And since my father arrived in Jordan for a two-week visit this past Thursday he has been obsessed with the driving habits of Jordanians. In fact his first impressions of Jordan all seem to revolve around his pronouncement: “these must be the worst drivers I have ever seen!” Indeed, as he has observed, they cut in front of you, double and triple park, never use turn signals, and make a driving experience an unpredictable melee.

We have taken care of most of the biblical sites so far on the trip—going to the baptism site of Jesus at the Jordan river, Mt. Nebo where Moses expired, and today a challenging hike up to Mukawir, the summer palace of Herod where Salome performed her infamous dance of the seven veils and then asked for the head of John the Baptist on a silver salver. As we were making the hike in the noonday sun, I wondered, should I have brought my 77-year old father on this hike?? It had 129 steep stone steps downward, then a flat bridge, then you walked up, up, up to this towering hilltop with the ruins of the summer palace. It has a commanding view of the Dead Sea Valley, and is perhaps the quietest place in all of Jordan. Of course, he did the yeoman’s work in stride—in fact, I said, ”why not just pretend we are doing roofing work today?” He smiled at me in a knowing way, not needing to utter the words, “If it was roofing we were doing, you wouldn’t be anywhere near the place!” My dad can say more with a look than almost anyone!

Today is my birthday, and it is the first time in exactly twenty years that my dad is with me on my birthday. It was in 1988 that he and my mother drove down to see me in Belmont, North Carolina for my 25th birthday. Twenty years. Who knew then that I would spend the next twenty years of birthdays in Providence, Charlotte, New York and Amman.

This morning I awoke to find a birthday card from my dad waiting for me in the bathroom. He put into a few words how wonderful it is to spend a birthday together again. His mind wandered “back over the years and other birthdays—I’m thankful for them all.” Of course it is pretty moving to spend the day together, and find my way back to other birthdays—the party in the backyard with laughing children on the new jungle gym; the 3rd grade party at my grandmother’s house with my classmates putting on a show with the costumes my mother had collected; the surprise 16th party with all my new exciting high school friends; the birthday in 1985 when my Denison clique found a gelato place in Columbus, Ohio to soothe my sweet tooth for the Italian ice I had discovered during my semester abroad; the birthday with my mother and father in Belmont, North Carolina, a time so innocent and sweet.

It is an irresistible invitation to take a drive down memory lane, a chance to savor the brilliant colors of past chapters. With so many demands on our time, the urgent tasks require our attention while we sometimes neglect those golden yesterdays that shaped us. My father—the fearless, loving man who has been the rock of our family for my whole life—exudes wisdom and experience. He is the embodiment of the Emersonian proverb, “patience and fortitude conquer all things” and with him nearby on this birthday it is easy to find my way back to my childhood, my adolescence, my early adult years, all shaping and burnishing these (gulp) middle ages. As we visit, I hearken back to shows in the backyard on the picnic table, lessons in Miss Wilson’s class, Sundays at church with the family in the third pew on the right, failures at learning how to do car repairs, advice and life lessons on pain and hurt, and examples of how to savor the joys that act as the arms of love in life.

Spending this time with my Norman-Rockwell solid father helps me find my way back to then—and that trip is always a sweet reward.