Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The Jane in Spain 2009 version

Here’s a tale I may or may not have told you before. Let's go back three years. I’m in my living room knitting myself better after a long illness. The phone rings. I pick it up only to find a bad connection and a garbled voice pretending to be a woman with an accent. I immediately think it’s to be my friend, Steve, a former actor, radio host, and jokster, pulling on another clever accent to fool poor little me. I tease him back and hang up on him…three times. The next time I answer, the voice comes across as clear as a bell: “Hello, my name is Amal. Please don’t hang up on me. I saw you on the web and we are kindred spirits. Would you like to visit me in Spain?” (the exact words have been edited but the gist remains the same). I say yes with hardly a moment of hesitation. Not for a second did I guestion who I’d be visiting or why I’d go spinning all the way across the ocean to a country to which I’ve never been, to visit a person I‘d never met. It all felt so right, better than right. A month later I’m on my way, having just escaped from active duty at a job that had begun to feel like endentured servitude. Stepping into a wider world with broader boundaries just felt so necessary.

Spin into the now. Amal (artknitsbyAmal on Ravelry) and I have been to Morocco together twice, to Istanbul once, and continue to plot and plan ways to explore the world with our yarn. Every year, my husband and I visit her and husband, Anis, in their home in Spain. We are sisters. I’m her ‘little sis’, she my ‘big sis’, and through her I have experienced expansion that is about more than my hip measurements.

Amal is Palestinian, born in Jerusalem. She’s lost two homes and one country to political turmoil and yet remains one of the kindest, most expansive, souls I have ever known. Within the beauty of her knitting, you’ll see a spirit who understands loving connectivity and who works that passionate commitment to humanity alive in her art. She has taught me so much. In her company, I have journeyed through Muslim lands, increasing my understanding far past my narrow roots into the rich world of Islamic art and culture. I have learned never to judge a people or a religion by it’s radical elements and always to seek the deeper, uncorrupted truth in people and their beliefs.

Jane, Anis and Amal High Atlas, Morocco 2007