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.