Palmyra

The news is upsetting, to some more than others. We watch the news filled with the senseless destruction in Syria. Temples, artifacts, people, the environment, an ancient culture older than ours being wiped out from the face of our earth. Some of us watch in dismay, others have been there and breathed in this world. Can the rest of us begin to feel their horror? I have a friend, an exquisite writer who has put her feelings into words. I bow before her powerful description and have attached her writing to this week's blog.

           

            There is an oasis. It is in the middle of a desert not so far from the Euphrates River, not so far from Alexander the Great's fortifications....It is ancient, the date palms are so huge that they block out the sky, you feel as though you are in a magic tunnel with clear clean fresh water running in the hand dug ditches that follow the paths through the trees. People live there. They have small courtyard mud homes, everything is made of adobe really, the walls – ancient crumbly adobe walls...and you wander and find a kindly man in a long desert Bedouin robe...he greets you – he has a donkey, he is working in the dates. He invites you to his courtyard for Arabic tea, sweet and strong and served in small glass cups. His son comes out to shyly greet us; and brings with him the softest whitest sweetest baby donkey you can imagine. I get up – can't help myself – wrap my arms around the baby's neck and it stands so quietly. I am murmuring to it in Arabic – 'helwa helwa kathiir.. helwa...' Someone, a friend, took my photo. I opened three boxes the other day and found it. The Bedouin man is standing next to me watching. Always the sound of the ancient running water; the delicious taste of fresh dates washed in the water, the tea golden in color poured long distance from a special pot – glistening from the water. How precious is this place, how irreplaceable?

It stands, or stood, a mile from the ruins of Palmyra, and the Hotel Zenobia built in 1900. It is not describable the ancient links, the dirt path, the modern clangy noisy Tadmor. The Bedouin man had chosen wisely his place of residence, his work. It was probably from his family, the date keepers, keepers of the oasis. I don't know how many other people lived in the oasis, I can't remember.

          Hotel Zenobia, named after the Queen who ruled from this ancient ancient white against desert and blue sky Silk Road crossroads. Every morning I sat in a chair, gathered around a stone table made of a monument capital, they brought us flat bread, strong tea, apricot jam, goat cheese and dates. As we drank, ate, wrote and drew; we watched the morning sun illuminate the colonade of Roman columns. People had been sitting in my chair for 88 years, Agatha Christie, TE Lawrence, all the Arabists – had sat in my chair. No one will ever again have that greatest of unimaginable pleasures – to gaze at the history of our world as it played out on the Silk Road. The combination of apricot jam and goat cheese on flat bread in the hot hot Syrian sun; strong tea and freedom. Such freedom....

          Blue and white contrasts – robes of the Bedouin men wandering through. White white stark white of the marble columns and capitals – paths dusty from the feet of so many seekers; by camel, donkey, foot. You come down to it from atop a big escarpment coming from Damascus, it is far, you have driven for most of a day. You come down and there it lays spread across the valley, overlooked by a fortress castle atop a steep hill at the opposite end of the ruins. You get out of your cramped car – stretch – gape and gawk and are finally struck speechless at the absolute ancient beauty of this precious spot in the middle of no where. There were no fees, no gates, no brochures, no tickets, no maps, no rules, no guards. If you were lucky someone would find you with a key for the tombs and ask if you wanted to see inside. No fences – there is really no way to protect a site so vast and so integral to the countryside. You carry a big bottle of water, your camera, your sketch pad, and you just begin to walk slowly. In no time at all you have left yourself behind. You are alone in a city that was  the finest ancient creation. It is Palmyra – it is unique, irreplaceable and integral to an understanding of beauty and history.

          If you are lucky, the people who brought you, also thought to bring bread, cheese, and wine. You sit, on a marble impediment, back against a column. You eat like you are starving, and drink deeply. Someone cuts up an apple – passes pieces. They point out your hotel, the Hotel Zenobia, in the near distance. They suggest that we not attempt the climb to the citadel until evening, when the sun is beginning to loose it's power. They discuss star gazing; everyone wants to tell their favorite Zenobia story, show you their most special place in the ruins. The best place to photograph, the most interesting frieze to sketch, the theater, the temple, the tombs – just the marble paving blocks of the streets. You ask about the green in the distance and you hear about the oasis, how famous Tadmor is for its dates.

          You fall asleep in an antique bed in your small room in the Zenobia, and it is as if you have never slept before.

By Nancy Gregory, Hot Springs Author

"A piece I wrote about Syria as ISIS controlled my heart."