Endings

They say that all good things must come to an end. That is in fact true, but is missing a huge piece of information. You see all bad things also come to an end, so do all mediocre things and so on. Everything eventually ends. That is really a blessing that we often mistake for a curse. Can you imagine if your childhood never ended? or your exams, or dental visit, or... ugh, I shudder at the thought.

No I'm eternally grateful that my life is really composed of a series of endings. It is the endings that I will remember, not the beginnings and certainly not the middles. It is at the end that we gain understanding and, more often than not, regret the beginning. I can't tell you how many memories I have where I cherish the ending but try to forget the beginning. I'm looking forward, with great anticipation, to the ultimate end... the time when my greatest understanding will occur. I only hope that my hindsight then will not be too hurtful. That my regrets won't be as big as my learnings and that there will be at least one memory where I cherish the beginning as much as the ending. That memory is yet to come.


Eventually, once we learn enough, our endings and our beginnings become memorable. Like nature has learnt to set the sun just as majestically as it raises it... no matter where you are.

Travel – Part II

Travelling is an obsession for some people. It’s an addiction, a need to see what’s on the other side, be anywhere except home. I have that illness, I need the distraction. The more stamps on my passport, the more I want. I’m still a novice traveller, but I’ve already learnt a few things.

I learnt that people always behave the same, no matter where you are. I learnt that a common language is not essential for meaningful communication. I learnt that sunsets look just as beautiful no matter who you are. I learnt that souls recognise each other, that bravery is needed for the world to go round and that we are all thinking the same things.

Maybe I could have learnt the same things if I’d stayed at home, but seeing is believing, and you’ve never really travelled till you’re alone in a place you don’t speak the language. It’s the perfect escape, complete anonymity. It’s priceless and it’s fleeting, because very quickly people will get to know you and you loose your hard earned anonymity. Then the choices come back, more confusing and more overwhelming than ever before.

abstraction

I must be one of the most ungrateful people in the world. I keep being saved from myself and I never realise it until it’s all over. By then of course there is inevitably some other obsession, something else to dream about and wonder. Yet deep down I know none of this will matter in the end. There are other things hidden away even from my own dreams.

Let me ask you something: Do you ever wonder what’s in the future? Of course you do, silly question. Everybody does. But do you wonder with hope and expectation or do you dread what the future will bring? Are you afraid of it?

I often imagine that I’m watching my own life from outside. If I weren’t in it, feeling it, what would I think? Would my choices be any different?

Eventually we will all look at our worlds from outside. Our past is already unreachable. Yet it makes us what we are. If I knew what was to come. If my decisions were always informed, I wouldn’t have any of the experiences. I’d miss out on the learning.

I thought about that as I walked away, knowing this would be the last time. I hadn’t said everything. I didn’t explain and I doubt I was understood. But I walked away. Another chapter had ended. It didn’t have to end this way, but this was one thing not in my hands. No amount of explaining would have been enough. People can cross paths but experience the same things very differently. Sometimes we are at different places in our lives and can never see other than inside ourselves. Eventually, some of us can look back on distant memories and see what had been invisible. I wonder what will appear for me. Yet I’ll always be fond of this memory and I’ll always be thankful that I got away. I had escaped with my life.

The next chapter has already started. There is always overlap. I walked away wondering what will the future bring. I wondered with curiosity, as if I’m not in it at all, for I know I’m only briefly visiting.

Gateaux

Our fridge is full of this stuff. It's one of those things I associate with Egypt, because Egyptians seem to love it. Or at least I always thought they loved it. Personally I can't stand it. It's a dessert that I can't find one single redeeming quality for. It doesn't look good, is extremely fattening, makes the consumer nauseous and on top of that tastes really bad. Yet every single visitor we've had so far, without exception has not failed to produce a box of the stuff. One uncle brought the identical box twice!

The real irony is that the visitors, the same ones who bring the stuff, refuse to eat it themselves.

There must be a reason for this absurdity.

So, with my limited research opportunities here on my dial up connection I did what every self respecting researcher would do. I looked it up in the dictionary. It said:
noun ( pl. -teaux pronunc. same or |-ˈtōz|) a rich cake, typically one containing layers of cream or fruit. ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from French gâteau ‘cake.’

Makes sense, it does seem like one of those overindulgent atrocities Egyptians are so good at copying from the French, like the furniture. I doubt the French themselves are as obsessed with it as the Egyptians. And why do Egyptians call it gateaux in the first place? It seems to be a theme. They love anything that comes from abroad, no matter how ridiculous it is, and they have to call it foreign names that most people don't even understand.

A pair of slippers are apparently called "sabeau"... or something I can't spell. What exactly is wrong with shibshib? isn't that a perfectly meaningful word? Menus say hot chocolate written in Arabic script... and here I always thought the original word for the drink made from coco beans was cacao.

Why swap the original for a fake? Why are we so proud of anything that comes from outside and treat this place so badly. Why replace the farmers' fresh produce markets with French chains of supermarkets and then smoke in them? Why is it people here think it's acceptable to open a can of drink and without a thought just drop the lid on the ground where they stand?
Doesn't that sort of behaviour hurt them? It hurts me.

Just once I'd like to meet someone who appreciates this country for what it is and respect it. Someone who calls things what they are, in the language they are speaking in... and just once I'd like a visitor to bring some nice Egyptian desserts instead of fake French cakes that I didn't even want to try in France.

Now

It’s not a secret that in the first week of my holiday I regretted coming at all. There is no shortage of other things to do or places to go. But then I woke up one morning and made a decision. I decided I was going to live in my present and make the most of it. I’m not sure how much difference this decision made, if any at all… but here I sit. Everything in my past is exactly the same. Everything surrounding my present is exactly the same, but I’m somewhere completely different. I really feel like I’m in a cartoon. I SWEAR people are speaking to me as if in script and I hear applause after each sentence. I still haven’t decided if I’m in a bizarre place, or if it’s just my own frame of mind.

Let me elaborate. I’m staying in what can only be described as a retirement village (although they call it a resort)… but you know what I like it. So what if I’m hanging out with a bunch of 70 somethings telling stories of how things used to be and how things used to work. It’s actually entertaining. I’ve learnt a lot about some incredible people. I’m learning about my own family history, and I’m appreciating life. I don’t know if those same people will still be around the next time I’m here, but for now this is right. I doubt if these people had planned or could imagine they would be here now, but they put their all into their lives and here they are. Who wouldn’t dream of this?



Then there is the place itself. I’m at my uncle’s summer home on the north coast of Egypt, west of Alexandria. The Mediterranean has the best swimming I’ve ever seen in my life. The water is warm, salty and just feels good. We have a salt-water pool. The sunsets can only be stolen from heaven. The weather is not too warm, not too cold. A bit humid, but the breeze carries dreams of worlds that float in fairy tales. In a word it’s beautiful.

Late yesterday afternoon, I went for a swim in the sea. Throwing yourself at frothy waves in salty water is a wonderful game. It’s the closest anyone can ever get to playing with angels here on earth. Then I went for a dip at the pool. Watching a red sun sink into the sea from the safety of a pool is indescribable. I don’t know if I’ll ever be here again, but I can appreciate it while I’m here… now.

This morning, it was a women’s session at the pool. Old women exercising, in this heavenly setting… talking about recipes! Recipes will never leave me alone…. But never mind. I’m going to enjoy this slice of heaven. This is my present and I’m going to live in it. The future will take care of itself, if I just live in the present. I did a few laps. Then a most brilliant thing happened. A group of six year old kids ran, excitedly towards us and jumped into the shallow end of the pool. They were orphans! It’s the best thing in the world to realise that someone out there devoted enough thought, effort and planning to make this possible. A group of orphans are taken care of well enough to place in their memories regular trips, I am told, to such a wonderful piece of heaven. Very few people are able to come here. Yet it is precisely because these kids were orphans that they can come here. If they had been living with their parents, chances are they would never have been here. Sometimes the worst thing in the world is really not so bad at all.