Over the years I have been attached to a photographic image that means the world to me. I’ve added it to Home pages, framed it for my office, and now I’m writing about it. The image is my son Gabe’s beautiful photo of the al-Hambra at dawn, the Medieval ‘Red Fort’ of legend in Granada, Spain.
Why am I so obsessed with this image? Because my child made it? Because my favorite color is blue?
Yes, but here’s the real story.
My wife Sarah, Gabe, and I visited the Costa del Sol in Spain one winter (off-season cheap timeshare deal). During this season’s cold snap in upstate New York I can dream of that wonderful Spanish excursion. The one thing I was determined to do on that trip was see the Medieval Islamic fortress, The Alhambra, in Granada.
I knew that its history, a testament to both harmony and tension between Jewish, Islamic, and Christian communities that had lived there, would show up later in the 1001 series.
In fact, last month I wrote a story set in the Alhambra, about a Catholic monk who befriends a Jewish orphan as his apprentice in a scriptorium converted from an Islamic library. Very Alhambra.
Once we arrived in Granada, I wanted to take in the Alhambra’s magical atmosphere. I was told you could get same-day entry tickets if you went to the gate well before opening. We camped out at a hotel at the foot of the huge hill The Alhambra sits atop, and before dawn I made the half-hour long walk up the side path alongside the fortress walls, waited in the bitter cold for an hour, and proudly faced the Spanish ticket seller. He told me the early tickets were only good for the first entrance of the day
– in less than an hour!
Miraculously, a taxi pulled up out of nowhere. With barely enough money left, the cab crawled (!) down the hill, waited at the hotel while I terrified my family into getting dressed and racing back up to the Alhambra. Worried about my sanity, they jogged along with me as we entered the grounds, huffing and puffing toward the Nasrid Palaces that had twenty minute entries. This architectural shrine was the main place i wanted to visit!
We got there just as the guard was about to call it for early entry tickets, and staggered into the first room. The sun was just rising as the moon began to set.
At that moment, Gabe calmly snapped this beatific picture out the portico pillars, framing the dawning azure sky with the moon above and the old palace walls in the distance.
It meant so much to me that we had made our victorious entry into the palace, held forever in this image.
I will always treasure this picture.
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