East is Eden
(Warning: Highly gag-inducing entry)
December 14, 2006

So as most of you know I was in the US from November 17th to December 8th. When I decided defer going to Belfast I figured I'd use my vacation days to make a long-awaited (by me, hopefully by some of you too) return to the US. I left the US on January 9, 2004, so I was about two months shy of having been out of the US for three years when I arrived. It's the longest consecutive period I've ever spent out of the US in my life. Even when we lived abroad before we'd always return there at least once a year.

In any case, the lack of US exposure was made very apparent to me as soon as I landed in JFK. I went into an absolute state of culture shock. Here was America, land of the bizarre. Everyone was kind of fat and haggard. The food was over-processed. I searched the airport for a single whole grain or fiber; I came up with one piece of leafy lettuce and spongy bread which cost me $7. The air was so clean I was out of breath just sitting down. It was like my body couldn't handle all the oxygen (well, that's my excuse).

But mostly I was struck by the utter loneliness I felt. That same underlying feeling of loneliness and aloneness was, believe it or not, what I loved most when I lived in Philly. There was something so romantic about that feeling. The inability to have that feeling in Cairo - because I am constantly surrounded by people and because my life in Egypt is such that I'm never just thinking for or about myself - is what I found most suffocating about living here.

Funny thing. I thought maybe it was just the first week spent on my uncle's isolated farm outside of Pittsburgh which was influencing my feelings, but I spent four glorious days in Philly during which I immediately fell into the way things had been when I lived there, and 3 days in exciting New York and here is what I realized - I really love my life in Cairo. With the exception of missing my solitude sometimes, my life in Egypt is everything I think life should be. I am surrounded by warmth and people who love me (upon arrival at Cairo airport I opened my phone to find my inbox already flooded with �welcome back! We missed you!� text messages from most of my friends). And even if it's often the same thing there is always something going on here. I realized it especially when I was showing my uncle's wife pictures of my life in Egypt - pictures from the trip to Siwa, to Sharm el-Sheikh, Alexandria, Ras Sudr, and of course Ireland and London and Tunisia and she said, "Wow, it seems like you're really living your life." And I realized, I really kind of am.

That was always my biggest gripe and concern about my life in Egypt - I felt like maybe I was missing out on a lot. But it seems like the only things I'm missing out on are long hours in the office, the opportunity to be a constant consumer, and deliciously processed space food. (Seriously, I gained about 8 pounds in 3 weeks in the U!S!A!) My point is this trip may be the best thing I've done in years. I got to see friends who are even more wonderful than I remember. I got to spend time in the city I love (and think about how odd it felt that it didn't feel odd at all to be back after 3 years). I got to meet some new people. And most importantly I realized that though I eventually want to get somewhere, right now I am exactly where I want to be.

I'm sure it doesn't hurt that the whole time I was in the US I was missing someone intensely, and I couldn't wait to get back to him. As with so many things in my life lately he's not the type of guy I would have ever expected myself to be happy with, but I am, uninhibitedly so. When his flatmate, one of only 3 people in Cairo who knows about our relationship so far, first found out ("Newgy, did I just catch you two holding hands?" "No, Jack, he was warming them...") he asked me, "So, is it love?" And my immediate, absolutely inappropriate and equally inaccurate response was, "No, it's erosion." As if life had worn me down. But the truth is I've gradually opened myself up to other ways of being, and I couldn't be happier. My only concern about the relationship is that it can pretty adequately be summarized by an Alannis Morisette song. But other than that great shame things are moving along just swimmingly.

Every once in a while I will wonder to myself, or we will wonder aloud to each other, why we didn�t get together sooner. Why we waited so long to enjoy something that seems to make so much sense now. But the truth is the timing and the feeling was never right before. I thought he needed to become tougher; he didn�t know I was capable of being this affectionate. Or something like that.

Whatever it is, my notoriously bad timing and instinct have taken a turn for the awesome. My trip to the US came at a time when I was becoming increasingly bored and frustrated with my life in Cairo. While I was in the US, major changes and overhauls occurred where I work and, as horrible as it sounds, I didn�t have to be around to witness the layoffs or the office changes. I was lucky enough to come back and find I still had a job. I returned to Cairo from the US three days before I was set to have an interview for a scholarship I�ve applied for to study in Belfast. Though the interview, which was yesterday, did not go well, I have somewhere discovered that I've adopted an attitude of �Everything�s going to be alright.�

And last night when PG picked me up off his bed � on which I�d been standing trying to get a full-length view of myself in the mirror � and held me up in the air for a kiss which was right out of a movie set in Paris, and which seemed to last a delicious eternity, I found myself thinking that everything is much better than just alright.

go west + go east