Amid Ra and Osiris

Achingly bright sun.  Irresistible sun that shines down relentlessly on the poplar trees and the asphalt and the roof top of all the cars out here on the Airport Expressway.  It’s been pending for a while but at this point we’re deep within the summer time in Beijing.  And I appreciate how cool it is, on the balance.  It’s probably only eighty degrees.  There’s a breeze.  It’s dry heat and you don’t necessarily sweat as you make you way from the phone in your pocket to the phone in your ear. 

Two days from now it will be different.  I know this.  I’ll explain so you can align.  We will be flying to Cairo.  I have wanted to do this for a very long time.  I have wanted to do this with my children for a less-long time, certainly .  But I have yearned to clear out the debris and get all in place so I could talk amid Ra and Osiris, and the other Egyptian pantheon in the land of the Pharos.  We land there on Tuesday at 5:30AM. 

I confess I am looking forward to a morning that includes, drop off our bags, freshen up, find a coffee and stare up at the Sphinx and the Giza Pyramid.  There is food, there are mosques and Coptic churches and the civilizational Louve-like museum there in town.  Learning, one night what real Egyptian food is.  Searching out some Egyptian jazz?  I’m ready. 

When we lived in Boston I seem to remember there were a number of Egyptians selling feta, halvah and tahini at the outdoor market that they used to have downtown.  “Where are you from?”  “Egypt.”  Oh?  Really?  I had no way of understanding just what that meant.  One more vacuum in the world’s culture constellation filled with proper experience.   I can’t wait.  I can’t wait.  I’ll be grinning when I stand in line and the next turn to go is mine and the person crashes down an Egyptian stamp on my passport.  This never gets old. 

Saturday, 6/29/19