Issue No. 602
Living
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5 - 11 September 2002 Issue No. 602 Living |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Mood Swings: Back to life
There is something exhausting perhaps even disheartening about the end of summer. Summer does not end on 21 September as you might have been led to believe. It ends with August, with fleets of cars driving south down the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road, with crowded airports, bus and train stations. The luggage has been packed. It's time to bid the summer vacation farewell and the back-to-school syndrome sets in. There is something justifiably saddening about that fleet of cars returning home. Even if you are (mercifully) not going back to school, that sense of the end of good times persists.
The September melancholy affects even those who have not had a "summer" vacation. Young journalists are reprimanded for the persistent summer languour, it's September already and it's time to work -- toughen up.
The summer vacation still revolves largely around the beach. You may be tempted to have a cultural experience, or find a "real" shopping mall. You may even be intrigued by the tastes of foreign food and the undiscovered territories of new parks. But if your vacation does not involve a beach, then it is not truly a vacation. With this in mind, finding a Mediterranean beach is a necessity, and for many it continues to be the more feasible option. Scores of Egyptians habitually descend on Alexandria in July and August. Despite the business these summer Alexandrians generate they are not always welcome. Cairenes are thought to bring noise and litter to an otherwise orderly city.
In recent years the focus of holiday-makers has shifted west. And so was born the phenomenon of the North Coast Summer Vacation, an altogether different experience than the Alexandria of childhood memories. It is more commercialised and frenzied. Vacationers compete in everything -- from having the biggest villa or chalet, to redecorating it (yet again), to installing a private swimming pool in the garden and giving the most talked-about party, and owning the most daring collection of swimming suits. Whether they vacation in Alexandria proper or on the North Coast or even at one of the many Red Sea resorts, many still manage to have a fun vacation among family and friends. Many enjoy a summer full of leisurely sunbathing on the beach and swimming in the pool, beach ball games on the sand, Scrabble, cards and outdoor grilling in the evening. Come September this is all packed up and turned into memories.
There is something saddening -- in fact positively unpleasant -- about September. Mangos are still around, yes. The weather is tolerable, compared with the unbearable August heat. But it's no longer summer -- the vacation is over -- nor is it fall or winter. You have to learn to readjust to a non-vacation routine, when staying up late is too costly to be practised often and going out in the evening feels like a distant dream. This is particularly torturous for the little ones. While their parents run around trying to acquire the right school-uniform outfits; an appropriately sturdy set of notebooks, a new array of textbooks and study guides, the cool backpack (otherwise "Junior" may well feel embarrassed) and matching lunch box. Soon the pace at which they sprint to make it on time for a club football game decelerates considerably; training sessions become less frequent, only to be replaced by frenzied private-tutoring routines. On the last Friday of September daylight saving time becomes something of the past, it is sunset before you realise. The day is suddenly, frustratingly shorter.
The September syndrome does generate excitement and positive energy, for endings by definition imply beginnings. And happy-new-year energy facilitates the back- to-life transition. There are the rolls of film documenting the summer vacation, with photos anticipating their exact position in the family album. New acquaintances you plan on keeping up with during the year. Determination to do things differently, and if at all possible, step over all those pitfalls -- some of which, let it be admitted, will never be avoided: whether you like it or not, every year, you do become part of the 31 August rush.
There is the dream vacation we still look forward to and please, please, can we finally, next year, buy a fancy barbecue grill? And while we're at it, are we going to buy a new air-conditioning unit for the TV room? There are the beaches we fantasise about and the cities we dream of visiting. The essential end-of-summer haircut -- fashionable, sustainable, curiously satisfying after months of cursory pony tailing to suit the humidity, the perspiration and your every-other-day swim. Yet there is comfort in returning to a sedate schedule; the kids will be in bed earlier, ready for the dawn wake-up call to catch the school bus. Which means grown-ups can reclaim their nights. Some shops still carry the red SALE signs, yet what is exciting is that winter clothes will soon adorn boutique windows; even the simplest article of clothing, you must admit, looks more chic than its summer counterpart.
Right now, a certain young woman, my closest friend, is still lying on some exquisite beach in Cyprus, enjoying the water and the sand and sending devilishly happy SMSs every hour. Will she too catch the September syndrome when she finally returns?
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