Leaving on a Jet Plane

June 05

Omar and I are off to the States in two weeks, barring catastrophe--something one always has in the back of one’s mind when one lives in a country as chaotic as Egypt. Whenever I move from place to place, I tend to ‘leave’ before I leave; I check out mentally about a month before the event itself. I think it’s a reflex against sadness. It’s very strange to think of Life Without Cairo. I had the last dregs of adolescence beaten out of me in this city, and like we do all places that test us, I will miss it intensely; in proportion to what I had to endure in it. This is, perhaps, the mercy inherent in leave-taking--you only remember what you love, and come to love what you suffered. It’s one of the mysteries of human experience.

I’m suppressing an urge to quote The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.

On the other hand, as I have been waxing poetic about to the posse, I am very ready for Starbucks. And level roads. And efficient transportation. And American culture--there really is such a thing. People like to pretend there isn’t, but it’s a front. I’ve missed that very particular American subtlety, coupled with that very American bluntness. It’s the contradiction that works.