For 400 years the Alati family textile and clothing store served customers in the world famous La Medina Souq (Market) in Aleppo. Then the bombing started. Iad and his pregnant wife Safa fled with their baby to Turkey as their store was reduced to rubble.

In Turkey, Iad (pronounced Ee-ad) did whatever work he could find while Safa learned to speak enough Turkish to translate for refugees needing medical help. Eventually, Iad was able to open a clothing and textile store in Istanbul, with a long time friend. Still, at that time their refugee status prevented them getting passports for the children, or even green cards in Turkey. The UN helped them to get the paperwork they needed to come to the U.S. They arrived in Chicago the day before the president closed U.S. boarders to all Syrians

They arrived speaking not a word of English. Once again, they had to start over. “We did it in Turkey,” Iad said. “We can do it again.”

Today, with Safa’s eye for fashion and Iad’s contacts in Turkey, along with experience in the restaurant business Iad has picked up along the way, Safa and Iad are in business again. Safa sells Women’s fashions from Turkey. Iad makes Baklava from his family’s traditional recipe and cooks dinners for up to 100 people. Their vision is to have a clothing store and restaurant together, the Alati Souq reborn in America!

Last Saturday, I hosted the Alati Souq for a trunk show in my home.
We served Turkish tea in little Turkish Tea glasses, sampled Iad's Baklava, Yalangi (grape leaves stuffed with vegetables), and Fatayir (pastry stuffed with cheese), and tried on Safa's scarves and sweaters imported from Turkey.

Iad brought their two little girls, Juju (6) and Huda (7). The loving natures of both the children and their parents enveloped us all. When it was over, Juju gave me many hugs while we put things away, and Huda wrote me love notes with first grade spellings.

When I walked into the living room 2 days later, I could still feel the love and excitement of the event, like the fragrance of jasmine perfuming my home.
How can I explain the way this family has become a part of my family, and the joy it brings me?

Two of my favorite people are Safa Jneidi an Iad Alati, a Syrian couple with two delightful little girls. This is their story:

For 400 years the Alati family textile and clothing store served customers in the world famous La Medina Souq in Aleppo. Then the bombing started. Iad Alati and his pregnant wife Safa Jnedi fled with their baby to Turkey as their store was reduced to rubble.
In Turkey, Iad did whatever work he could find while Safa learned to speak enough Turkish to translate for refugees needing medical help. Eventually, Iad was able to open a clothing and textile store in Istanbul, with a long time friend. Still, at that time their refugee status prevented them getting passports for the children, or even green cards in Turkey. The UN helped them to get the paperwork they needed to come to the U.S. They arrived in Chicago the day before the president closed U.S. boarders to all Syrians.

They arrived speaking not a word of English. Once again, they had to start over. “We did it in Turkey,” Iad said. “We can do it again.”

Today, Iad and Safa can be seen with their food cart--Iad's Syrian Grill-- serving delicious Syrian gyros, yalangi food wrapped in grape leaves), and grilled meats on the streets of Vashon, WA. Their dream of having their own food truck is becoming a reality, the next step on the way to having their own restaurant.

Here are two bouquets for Iad and Safa, to celebrate Iad's Syrian Grill in America!

The other day I joined a group of friends playing music at the Snap Dragon Cafe. It's an informal group. Many of the musicians are graying, and most happen to be Caucasian. Whoever shows up has the opportunity to share a song while the rest sing along, listen, or accompany on their instruments. Sometimes I sit with them, sketching as they play.

This time a young black man joined us. Artis is from the east coast. He told us he moved out of his house and is touring and playing music with a group of friends.

When it was his turn to share a song, he sang of being together, as community. As friends. Just being.

I thought of "Black Lives Matter" and the backlash it is getting. I thought of how lately neighbors have called the police on black men, even when they are in their own homes or the yard of a relative! Even totally innocent, they have been identified as theives, as somehow dangerous, and shot, even killed. It occurred to me that Artis, is on a mission of healing, of helping to bring the races into better understanding, through music.

Artis is a treasure. I have known other black men who were gentle spirited as well, and never met one who was in the least disrespectful of me, and yet some people view black men as dangerous, as "the enemy". Why?
And who is the enemy?
When a neighbor calls the police on a black man who is in his grandmother's back yard and the police shoot and kill him when he pulls out a cell phone, who is the enemy? Is it the neighbor? The police? The black man?

My friend Edna says,
"I do not shrink from using the word "enemy": an enemy is any person or group who seek to do us harm, and there are now many powerful people who are doing great harm and need to be opposed."

For her, the enemy is "powerful people who are doing great harm", particularly to the environment and to less powerful people. For some people the enemy is black men, or immigrants, or liberals, or Republicans, or corporations, or....the list goes on. And there are people in all those categories who may be "doing great harm", but there are also many more people in all those categories who are doing great good.

Perhaps "the enemy" is not a group of people, maybe not even a particular person. Maybe "the enemy" is thought patterns that do great harm, especially when people act on them. What if we stopped fighting people who belong to this or that group we fear and instead oppose the actions of those people, and work to change the thought patterns?

So I've been doing Cat Scratches (Jackson makes a good model)

 and Flower Failures (flowers don't get up and walk away)











Until I finally feel confident enough to add some color.

But I'm still making mistakes!

It is said that at one time these slopes were covered with gold seekers tents!
Apparently the wild burros still come into town for handouts from the tourists.  I bet you can still see a "gunfight" staged in the street. Not that the gunfights ever interested me, and the burros got ALL my corn the night before I planned to harvest it one year, so I'm not overly fond of them!
And the hills are still there! I wonder if they've fenced or covered the mining shafts? Some of them were pretty darn deep! Once I dropped a stone down one, and counted to 12 before I heard it hit bottom.