--lib.uchicago.edu, circa 1870
The tree is gone by now.
To the immediate left is another mosque-complex, it was a madrassah, there are little rooms opening onto a courtyard looking much like this where the students would stay. The soft earth beneath has rippled, the cobblestones make waves. The rooms opening onto the courtyard have become venues for overpriced artisans, they sell traditional designs to foreign tourists. Ivy climbing stone columns. i sat there for three hours five months ago, it started to rain. Trying to sketch a doorway, but mostly writing. Watching cats. An architectual design class from JD, two girls stood over my paper and watched, history repeating. The world moved around me. Feeling, so many currents sweeping around, and where do you lay your head at night: you are only an image. Z. and i prayed dhohr here on one of my first days here. There are days when the trees blossom, the sky is blue.
Damascus.
It's in the same complex as the Military Museum. There is a gargantuan golden bust of Big Brother facing you as you walk in, a soldier looking you over as you step in. A large model of an army jet.
When you step out you face the Ministry of Tourism or the Museum and JDHQ, and further yet the central post office and Hijaz Railway Station. And then the Old City. Traffic between, and a new billboard advertising a skin-whitening cream.
i'm in a netcafe a few metres from the Sham Palace Hotel, its movie theatre is playing /Shall We Dance/ and /Cellular/, and the 'asr adhan just began. Easter Sunday.
