situational

Today I had a moment of profound clarity regarding my present place in time and space: I went to pick up my chest x-ray at the hospital with one of the best views of the Nile I know. I decided to walk back, although the “sidewalk,” if you can call it that, is adjacent to a highway with barely a raised platform to indicate separation. As I strolled along the highway/Corniche, cars whizzing past but not distracting me from my daily amazement at the beauty of the greenery that dots the small islands in the Nile at this particular point of the river, it then occurred to me—it nearly knocked me down with the realization— that I live in Cairo, Egypt. Another country. 8,000 miles away from everyone I love. but one. I suddenly saw myself as someone who lives in a different country from where I was reared, the borders between which resides nearly everything that is important to me. As I write this I realize how trite this might sound, how basic. I mean, duh, I live in another country and have for one year, nine months and counting. But it was the way I understood the distance at that moment along the Corniche: it was as if I, all at the same time, imagined/felt/thought I understood the perspectives and opinions of many people in my life. It was as if conversations, however small, that might involve my name or my doings came crashing into my headspace. I could hear, most prominently, my mom bragging about how her daughter lives in Cairo; yes, that’s in Egypt, she says proudly. I could imagine my dad shaking his head in the certain way that he does, slightly lowered, glasses crooked—by necessity as they attempt to balance upon his nose long ago broken during the days when he really believed he would be a major league baseball player—saying that yes “Rebecca lives in Cairo but I’m none too happy about it,” perhaps then recounting the news of the bombing that occurred last week at a major tourist site downtown. I imagined Hans standing around his BBQ in his backyard that he shares with Laura and his other roommates, tongs in hand, veggie meat on the grill, our longtime mutual friends and others gathered round, talking about the video link I sent him the other day about the class bifurcation in this here city. With more effort I can see Kate casually mentioning my name when she is in the Cobble Hill Park on one of her BoCoCa parents’ group outings, saying perhaps that I picked up the shirt enveloping Gus in Bangladesh or some other faraway place, maybe even here.