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What's that about hindsight? Looking back, waiting until my ninth month of pregnancy to take an author photo probably wasn't the wisest decision. Had I been stateside, I would have hired the oh-so-talented Chicago-based photographer Lisa Beth Anderson for the task. Instead, K. sat me down in our living room last weekend and started snapping away. We've narrowed it down to two images. If you have a second, please vote for your favorite (see poll at right).

Bay Area poets and writers take note: Lisa will be in San Francisco this week and is available for bookings. A recent rejection slip will earn you $50 off a session. Click here to see sample images from Lisa's recent work with fiction writer Eugene Cross.

Scenes: Ramadan in Amman

From TIME (photo credit: Muhammad Hamed / Reuters)

"The fast is traditionally broken by first consuming a date.
Above, a woman displays dates during the fifth Jordanian Dates Exhibition
at the Professional Associations Complex held right before
the beginning of the observance in Amman."

Lined across a table: four cups of juice, water, tea. Dressed salads and soups. Pastas, bread. Steaks and chicken cut into pieces.

A twenty-something hovers above his plate, first bite speared on the fork he doesn't touch...

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Siyam: fasting (without food or drink) twelve to seventeen hours between sunup and sundown. The fourth pillar of Islam, siyam is obligatory for adult Muslims. Exempted are the sick and elderly, those pregnant or breastfeeding, people traveling extended distances.

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A restaurant in old town Amman has already been shut down after openly violating Ramadan restrictions by serving hummus and falafel to cabbies before sunset. Only those businesses designated by the Municipality can serve food during daylight hours -- mostly hotels, tourist destinations, and fast-food joints with their shades securely drawn.

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What's amazing about Jordan this time of year (and there are many things) is that people are, for the most part, joyful. Exhausted, yes -- evening gatherings run well into night -- but joyful nonetheless.


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As dusk turns to darkness, volunteers at streetlights offer taxi and bus drivers water and a serving of dates to take the edge off. The roads are practically clear. Most people are already home, preparing to celebrate with their families.

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Saturday: 7:14 p.m.

Like the other patrons, we order and are served before the call to prayer. The place is packed, not an open table to spare. A half hour feels like forever. People laugh and chat, celebrate. No one touches their food.

Phone timers going off. Two minutes down. Some turn toward the flat-screen t.v. tuned to a live broadcast from King Hussein's mosque.

It's a now matter of seconds. The call begins. Evening prayer. All conversation ends...

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Iftar: meal served at the end of the day during Ramadan in order to break the fast.

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Tonight near an intersection, a boy taps on the window of our car and presents a date.

Ramadan mubarak, he smiles: a blessing.

Shukran, I say.

The light turns green. We drive away.

"The Bell Jar at 40"

From Emily Gould's article featured at The Poetry Foundation:

"Of course not everyone was as sensitive as Plath was, and not everyone was such a compulsive overachiever. Trying to be all things to all people, especially if two of those things are “creative genius” and “mother,” still seems like a recipe for unhappiness, if not certain death. While I do think of Plath as a feminist icon, I don’t think it’s necessary to essentialize her in the way the feminists who chipped “Hughes” off her gravestone did. Those feminists want Plath to be a victim—specifically, a victim of Hughes and America’s repressive 1950s perfect-housewife culture. And Plath was a victim: a victim of not being able to see any situation she was in clearly. She wanted very badly to live in a reality where she was a good, kind person who was also a good mother, but that part of her was always fighting with being a very selfish person who wanted to devote time and resources to her work. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to want—it’s just not compatible with being a pretty, popular girl who is nice to everyone all the time. Instead of acknowledging this impossibility, Plath tried to keep both sides of herself going until the whole precarious enterprise broke down. It broke down in New York, and then it broke down again, forever, ten years later in London..."

Ramadan Kareem!

Sunday's sunset marked the onset of Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting and inner reflection. This is our second year of experiencing the season in Amman. I plan to write more extensively about the city's atmosphere during Ramadan, as well as our Jordanian friends' sacrifices and celebrations. Until then, here's an excerpt from Ellen Kobe's article out of The Oregonian:

"For a month last year, Jordan Pahl, 16 at the time, awoke each day before sunrise. She dragged herself out of bed at 4 a.m., trudged down the stairs and grabbed an apple or yogurt out of the refrigerator. It was to be her last bit of sustenance before nightfall. Jordan was fasting for Ramadan, the ninth month in the Islamic calendar, during which Muslims abstain from eating and drinking from sunrise to sunset. But Jordan isn't Muslim; she's Catholic. She chose to fast with her Muslim friend, Dahlia Bazzaz. This monthlong sacrifice wasn't just a heavy mental and physical challenge -- it was also a time in which Jordan's global perspective expanded..."

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K. and I planned to fast this year in support of our Muslim friends, but my pregnancy is running interference. Next August or September! Hope you'll click over and read the rest of the above article, which ends with the celebration of more than one kind of fellowship.

 

Episode V: (Embassy) Clown Strikes Back

Blame the forty extra pounds or sudden spike in heat. Blame lack of sleep. Blame swollen joints, or third trimester sickness not limited to morning. This week, blame Dr. O., who, finding my blood sugar (a wee) two points above average, banned my eating lasagna for breakfast and most forms of macaroni. Impossible.

Friends, X-number of days stands between me and the birthing table -- and I'm grouchy!

Sadly, K. (codename "Embassy Clown") bears the weight of my mood swings.Thankfully, he keeps me laughing off crying jags and bouts of anxiety. Case in point: some months back, we set up a registry not to solicit gifts, but track supplies purchased in anticipation of our baby's arrival. Since March, I've ordered items piecemeal and watched the boxes stack up. Last week (without my knowledge), K. apparently got in on the action and ordered a shipment. His contribution included several packs of diapers that arrived with a gift receipt and note reading "poop here." Today, four more packages turned up at the post office -- along with the K.-the-Clown's own little full-rhyme quatrain. The boxes' contents:

1. breast milk bags: "for the sips"
2. tender care lanolin: "for the nips"
3. nursing pads: "for the drips"
4. newborn bottles: "for the lips" 

Did I laugh out loud? Yes, I laughed out loud. I love my (Embassy) Clown, a scientist by trade who teases me by inquiring about the health of good folks like "Bobby Pinsky" and "Louis Gluck," and often congratulates himself when in everyday speech he "makes" what he calls a "good slant rhyme." 

Although doctor's orders declare this a noodle-free zone, things are still pretty great around this place -- thanks, of course, to the Clown. All things considered, I'm lucky to have a partner who salivates while discussing organic chemistry, yet also recognizes the book jacket of Meditations in an Emergency when it pops up in a scene of Mad Men. Can't imagine doing this whole push-out-a-kid-thing with anyone else.