Navel Gazing

Long time, no blog!  I joined Justin in Maadi, Cairo just shy of a week ago.  Fully adjusted to the time change, I'm ready for life and ready to share news of it all with everyone back home and abroad.

My first thought has nothing to do with Egypt in any direct way, rather with someone I knew who passed away two and a half weeks ago.  Bill Densmore Sr. was eighty-eight years old and a humble paragon of a blessed, fulfilled life.  I suppose I know Bill's wife and daughter more closely, but I was lucky to get to know him a bit over the past couple of years.  I flew to Egypt five days before the service organized in celebration of his life, so I was touched to get an email copy of some of the words spoken.  I read them here in our new dining room, after a day of the usual misadventures that often happen while traveling and can lead to hours of self analysis and doubt.  Bill Jr. made mention of his father's preference for focusing on the world beyond the self and less on personal introspection.  Too much "navel gazing," as he called it, was not time best spent.

The first days of life in a new and foreign city felt like a gauntlet of challenges designed to defeat one's spirit.  We would set out on foot in the late morning with the intention of heading directly to a kitchenware shop to buy a decent knife and return home four hours later covered in dust, empty handed, and thinking...  so Eins-Egypt Organic Cookware and Kitchenware really means overstock Tupperware, hoop dresses, and bean bag chairs in someone's living room, with a catalog full of knives from all over the world!  We learn that what we believe is the Arabic word for 'park' is actually the Arabic word for 'parking lot'.  The consequence of that mistake, as a stranger told us, is 'blog-worthy' so I'll wait to elaborate.  We learn that the vacuum store opens at ten o'clock, which actually means 10:15, and the shop with space heaters that allegedly opens at ten o'clock, really opens at eleven o'clock...  which actually means 11:15.  

My natural tendency is toward navel gazing, so day after day of these and other mini-disasters left me sinking in the quicksand of self-doubt.  Reading the words of Bill Jr.'s while feeling so stuck...  and reading them in reference to someone deeply respected and revered by hundreds...  pulled me from the muck.  The beauty of what's going around and inside of me right now came quickly back to the fore.        

Our 'house' slowly becomes a home.  Houseplants and a Golden Retriever named Harley fill it with life and loving, faithful company.  Fresh foods fill our refrigerator and bodies and the magic of vinegar makes delicious raw fruits and veggies possible.  Egyptian women everywhere look at my belly and smile kindly at the three of us.  The baby moves more and more, as I feel him/her do somersaults in my belly.  The ghostly cooing of early morning birds signals a new day; the warm sun follows.  I haven't traveled too far beyond our neighborhood yet...  but already, I sense that layers upon layers of civilization, stories, and history cradle us.  I doubt the most advanced archaeological tools could take us to the deepest layer of this place.  Scroll through Justin's photographs from the Pyramids...  really look at the people.  What he captures amazes me and surrounds us here in Cairo.

We live in Egypt.  Bill Sr.'s daughter Deb recalled a favorite quote in the opening remarks of her father's celebration ceremony and it reads, "The world is run by those who show up."  Yes!  Damn my navel!  And though we might have to wait or walk or navigate for hours upon showing up, we will check our American pace at the door...  be patient...  and notice all that lives and breathes around us in the meantime.