Tag Archives: Egypt

But see, we’re all doing it all for the first time…

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Today’s view: a sun-baked Cairo street, which I’m observing from a shady, cool Cairo cafe. I’m drinking Turkish coffee and smoking double apple sheesha as payment for electricity and wifi. The mid-day prayer is on the radio in the background. One of the waiters refreshes my coals, the other unobtrusively prays. The hostess leans against the front door, scrolling through Instagram.

Me, I’m writing, very much at peace, resting after a morning adventure of roaming the back streets of Mohandessin — the neighbourhood where I’m staying — and getting thoroughly lost — then found — in its slanted gird.

I won’t lie — I experienced a flash of panic at one point after my phone died, but oh, the exhilaration when I finally recognized a landmark and found my way back… Not quite as intense as the exhilaration that followed surviving the Blue Hole, but pretty close.

2

Last night, overwhelmed and overstimulated — Cairo is a lot — I open Instagram myself and get lost for a while in friends’ stories and strangers’ reels. The Instagram algorithm is confused or malfunctioning and throws me into Get Z/ young Millennial dating angst.

Get X dating angst exists, of course, but it must be different: We’re older, after all, and we remember (maybe) how to meet people offline and differentiate better between online and IRL. Also, those of us who were looking for the one true love, marriage and children have already done it and we’re now either unhappily married or happily divorced and in a very different place than a twenty-something looking for the one (or to increase their body count) (both laudable goals; no judgement here for either choice).

But maybe not — what do I know. Maybe it’s just me and my crowd and the rest of Gen X is as whiny as these Gen Z influencers. In any event, for me, my own angst at 50 is all professional and creative. As far as my heart goes, I’m at peace. And I really enjoyed dating in my 40s — enjoy it still in my 50s (that still feels so weird, btw, that I’m now in my 50s, how did that happen?).

And from this smug standpoint, I look at the Gen Z and Millennial dating angst — and advice — with amusement and compassion.

3

The Instagram algorithm throws mostly straight cis Gen Z men (I’m trying not to call them boys — they so desperately want to be men) into my feed. It’s not entirely broken so I’m ending seeing mostly dudes who a) are getting laid regularly (Congratulations!) and b) want to unpack toxic masculinity. The enthusiasm with which they offer advice to to other men and to women is… adorable. Yeah, I can’t think of a better word. Adorable.

(But also — is men giving dating advice to women mansplaining? Cause I sort of think it is…)

(But also — why is Instagram not showing me any women giving men dating advice? Cause I know it must be out there.)

(And also… why am I still doom scrolling Instagram? I’m in Egypt. I should be doing Egyptian things. Or Egyptians.)

Their advice to women, btw, boils down to, “Don’t date assholes.”

Their advice to men is, basically, don’t be an asshole.

4

Here’s some unsolicited dating advice from a queer Gen X women with no agenda: Think of dating as both exploring and building on existing connections. Date your friends. Meet your friends’ friends and families. Date your children — by which I mean, put as much effort and creativity into your plans and relationships with them as you would to a new romantic love. Do fun things with fun people, even if you don’t know them very well. Invite people to your home for coffee, for dinner, brunch, movie nights. Meet for work or reading dates in cafes. Go to art galleries and thrift shops as a group of friends.

Invite the strangers you’d like to get to know better to hang out with you and your friends.

Take the pressure off, you know? There’s no stress, no end-game, no agenda. Do fun things with fun people — build community in the process.

There doesn’t have to be an agenda.

There is no end game.

5

During my 2.5 weeks in Egypt, I meet many people, have lovely experiences and stay celibate.

This surprises me at first, because a) I’m very slutty, b) Egyptians are beautiful, and c) I’m here during my bad decision week (i.e., I’m ovulating). But I’m never tempted to escalate things and on reflection, it makes sense. I’m in a constant state of low-grade anxiety and hyper vigilance because everything is new, different, often overwhelming. As a result, my sex drive is suppressed. 

It’s not that I don’t feel safe — but there’s too much to navigate for me to feel sufficiently comfortable to want to get naked with a stranger.

Is that what’s happening with Gen Z? Too much to navigate all the time?

Maybe.

Back home in the wee hours of each morning (Egypt does not sleep), I check in on my kids, debrief with my partner, send photos to my loves and friends.

I feel at peace.

But I’ve already told you that.

6

Aging is weird.

It’s weird in an even more profound way that motherhood is weird.

Think about it — aging.

It’s inevitable.

Everyone gets older, more experienced — more physically fragile — eventually dead.

Everyone who’s older than you has been your age once. 

Everyone gets older.

But for each of us, every year, every stage — every day — is new.

This is the first time that I’ve been here, that I’ve been this me. Almost 51. (Or, as my daughter would frame it, basically dead.)

In a bizarre way — I’m new to me.

Isn’t that kind of weird?

I t feels weird.

Not bad.

Just, you know… new.

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I finish my coffee, sheesha and writing. Grounded in myself and solitude, I get ready for the afternoon and night’s adventures.

I’m so grateful — for this experience.

For self-awareness. For Loops and low prescription glasses. For this feeling of piece in the midst of chaos.

And I wish I could tell the Gen Zs that it will come to them too, with time, with experience — when they take the pressure off — and they don’t have to go to Cairo to get it (but hey, if the Nile, the desert and the pyramids call you, you should definitely come visit).

Of course, they won’t believe me.

Because they’re doing it all for the first time.

xoxo

“Jane”

Writing is easier with a view

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In On Writing, Stephen King describes how, after he faced up to his alcoholism, he rearranged his writing room, getting rid of the massive desk that used to dominate it, and replacing it with a smaller one, which sat in a corner of the room, while a couch and armchairs, where his kids could hang out, took centre stage.

It’s been a while since I’ve read On Writing, and the person I lent the book to never returned it so I can’t flip through it to check the details, but I still remember King’s moral in that section: “Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way around.”

Or, to put it less elegantly: Writing isn’t life. Life is life, and writing is part of it. Writing happens in the middle of life.

You can write anywhere. I can write anywhere: I’ve finished stories in hospital beds and on airplanes. As a professional writer, you would train yourself to write anywhere.

But still.

Writing is easier with a view.

The view isn’t about beauty or distraction. It’s about life — and what life provides for a writer is context. Connection. It reminds you of what what, the why… and the how.

Her: What does that even mean?

Jane: Hush. I know it’s nonsense. But I’m on a roll.

2

I’m in Egypt, sitting on a south-facing balcony in Dahab. Have you heard of Dahab? I hadn’t — it’s basically a resort town in Sinai, nestled between the Red Sea and a mountain range that includes Mount Sinai. Yeah, I’m basically a stone’s throw away from where Moses climbed a mountain to have a chat with a burning bush.

I’m here with a woman I met six years ago on a dating app and who is now a close friend of my heart. People here ask us constantly how we met and the conversation goes something like this:

Them: So how did you two meet?

Her: We met on a dating app. Six years ago.

Them: Oh, wow, I guess it worked out really well!

Me: Um, not really, we did not work very well as lovers.

Them: [Fall silent in confusion]

Us: Hee hee. Any more questions?

Disastrous as lovers, as friends, we are the secret ingredient. Also a little terrifying to the fabric of the universe.

Dahab was made for us.

We don’t really do much. We move from each cafe to beach cafe, drinking Bedouin tea and Turkish coffee, smoking sheesha, eating too much. At the end of each day, we swear we will never eat again. Every morning turns us into liars.  We’re starting to get concerned none of our clothes will fit by the time we get back to Calgary but who can you say no to street mahshi, enthusiastically sold to you on the street by a Bedouin woman with a TikTok account? Or baladi bread that’s made right in front of you and put into your hand scalding hot from the oven?

On the one that day we do do something, we snorkel through the Blue Hole, which boasts the most diver fatalities in the world. I don’t find this out until later — and we’re snorkelling, not diving. Free of this information, I still have the single most terrifying experience of my life.

So much blue. So much space. So much, so much, so much water.

My friend has a life changing experiences, becomes god, realizes she was meant to be a fish.

When we get to the shore, I sit on the steps and cry and shake for 20 minutes in sheer relief that I’m still alive.

She holds me and vibrates with joy.

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The next day, my view is turquoise water, red sand, entrepreneurial Sinai children, wild German shepherds and the occasional sun burnt Russian tourist. 

I have random thoughts. About generational trauma, childhood imprinting and the freedom stray dogs and cats enjoy — and its price. And how the thing that travel should teach you is that no matter where you go in the world, people are the same: They love their children. They enjoy sharing food with their friends.

They want to be happy.

What travel seems to teach you instead: Tourists are evil. Also, why is it that Western cultures export the worst of themselves — rampant capitalism, conspicuous consumption, so much fucking plastic — to every corner of the world?

Still. In the middle of all of this: People everywhere love their children. Get joy from sharing meals with their friends — and strangers.

Want to be happy.

4

Writing when I’m away from home reminds me how easy it is to write at home. Also, how easy it is to get lazy about tit.

And it also reminds me how lucky I am. Since before I could remember, I’ve had two desires: To be a mother and to be a writer.

I am both.

How lucky am I?

5

It’s only been a day but, back in Cairo, I already miss Dahab. Cairo is beautiful and intense — overwhelming. Dahab, for all of its fantasy-like quality (seriously the blue of the Red Sea looks fake), feels like home.

But I won’t come back.

What I love about Dahab is already being spoilt by development — new mega hotels, new summer homes, everything on a lavish scale. I was lucky enough to get a glimpse of what it was, to still enjoy what it is.

I will not love it five years from now, I know this.

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My view today is a soccer game on a TV screen in a sheesha cafe in Zamalek. I’m writing, thinking, reading, catching some solitude before joining my friend and her friends for a Cairo Friday night. There will be food and tea, enthusiastic conversations I can’t follow, maybe dancing, maybe Afghani vibes.

Afterwards, exhausted, I will sleep like the dead. Write in the morning.

Think about the discipline I want to bring back to my writing practice when I return home.

Life is not distraction.

It’s context.

It’s source material, an ever-changing view.

xoxo

“Jane”

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