Issue No. 605
Living
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26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Living |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Mood Swings: True love
New York City and I have an intense history. To start with, the city gave me toe cramps, something I had never experienced before, and have not encountered since. I was so captivated, so eager to see as much of Manhattan as I possibly could, that when I left my cousin's apartment on 37th Street and First Avenue (by the UN building) on that humid summer day, I did not return for another 10 hours. All on foot, of course.
I was 15 then, passing through the city on my way to tennis camp in Texas.
"I'm never coming back," I announced to my mother on the phone that first night. "I love it, it's amazing, incredible. I have to live here."
I reluctantly flew home to Cairo at the end of that brainwashing summer, determined in my mind to live in the so- called Big Apple one day. That was 10 years ago and not much has changed since then. The only difference, maybe, is the fact that I did eventually live there. And by choice, this time, I returned home.
My year in Manhattan was a mix of pure pleasure and pure pain. In graduate school, studying journalism, I worked hard, played hard, thought hard, and struggled with everything like hell. In many ways I felt right at home; the cars, the traffic, the seemingly endless horizon of buildings, the men selling fruits and pretzels off carts in the streets, and the masses and masses of mismatched people strolling, marching, and window- shopping down the streets. Like Cairo, New York is a hodge- podge of mini populations. In Cairo they are sub- communities, predominantly Egyptian, grouped by social class, trade, or family history: sub-cultures, in a sense. In NYC, they are real sub-cultures; immigrant communities that flock together to create their own littler versions of a far-away home. Little Italy, Little Brazil, China Town, and Jackson Heights, the home of Little India.
Little India happened to be my favourite of the littler parts of town that year. As cities, Manhattan and Cairo have many similarities. But in terms of culture, the little Indian hideaway mirrored much of the Egyptian warmth.
Little India is about networking. Most people know every other person in the neighbourhood, and many of them know a lot more. People sit around and drink tea, shops tend to have one more minder at least than necessary, people stop and help, go out of their way to get you directions if you ask and they don't know. And maybe one of the things that sticks out in my mind the most, is the way they all call out, "Hello! Where are you from? Welcome!"
I visited the area quite frequently, comforted by the ease of escape to hard-core Manhattan when the familiarity got too much. Then, I would sink into the numbing buzz at some coffee shop, with a book, friend, or simply myself to people- watch. That was one of the great things about being away from Cairo; being able to fade into the drone of the city, dissolve in the masses; no bumping into someone you know, or who knows your father, or brother, or someone.
The efficiency was also great; making a list of 10 things to do in a day, and actually managing to get them done. Then there wasn't the hassle of parking, because few people have cars. And the pavements, sidewalks, as they are known in "American" English, are wide, and flat, and clean, for the most part. Sprawling beyond some of them are the parks, incredibly mismatched, yet perfectly placed, in the middle of one of the world's cosmopolitan cities. New York City, in a sense, seemed like the centre of the world. It had Broadway, and every shop, movie, outing you can think of. And for the writer in me, books and books and books galore. My year, like the city, was a non-stop dose of intellectual, academic, cultural, and sports-linked stimulation. I went to book readings, lectures, tennis matches, ice-hockey games, horse races, movies and shows, poetry recitals, and of course, press conference after interview after press conference.
But there was something missing. And it caught me quite by surprise. For years I had been saying I could no longer live in Egypt, that I had to get out; far and forever. I left Cairo on the night of 15 January 1998, never expecting to return. But on a particularly windy weekend in February, or maybe March, something hit home. Lying in bed in my tiny 8th floor bedroom, I stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep, and began to think of home. It was 3.30am there, which meant 10.30am Cairo time; my mother was probably tinkering around the house, or at work, or drinking coffee and eating grapes on the terrace. My father was probably at work, or at the club playing tennis or swimming. And my brother, well, I wasn't quite sure about my older brother, since we didn't really communicate for the first 22 years of my life. But I knew at that moment, as they started their day and I ended mine, and we lived our lives in different time zones, and countries, and continents, that I missed them terribly.
The year went on, and graduation came around, and my parents finally flew over to New York City. I daydreamed through classes that day, and smiled through the red marks on my stories, and when 5pm came, I hopped on the subway at my "home" station of 116th Street at Columbia University Station, and rode downtown. My stop, that day, was the World Trade Center (WTC): tower number two; the WTC Marriott was where my parents were staying.
As I hopped off, and climbed the steps into the tower, and through the revolving doors of the Downtown Marriott, I caught glimpse of my parents in the centre of the lobby. And at that moment, tower number two reflected the epitome of me; the one thing that was missing in the city I still call my own. The World Trade Center, on that rainy day in May, took me right to the heart of home. And that, to me, remains the meaning of 11 September.
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