Spacers

Ashley, 1988….flaming orange hair, way too many freckles for a small face, and coke bottle glasses finagled only half successfully into this-went-out-in-1985-Strawberry Shortcake eye glass frames. I’m sitting in the orthodontist’s office pondering the now apparent disconnect between “oh Ashley, he’s such a nice man” with the man before me wielding way too many metal sharp things for “such a nice man”. I was given much as a child, but straight teeth were left out of my stork’s delivery. My teeth were so piled up that I needed spacers…rubber bands inserted between teeth to make room for the metal braces to come. So, I dutifully got my spacers and returned 2 weeks later trying to remember that children with a death wish for their parents or their orthodontist would go to hell. As I opened up for the biggest and longest “aaaaaah” of my life, I pondered the meaning of a benevolent God. To the mind of a 12 year old, God was good. He gave you spacers…slightly painful things that prepared you for more painful things. All through my life, I can point to “spacers”. In the last couple of years for example, I broke my foot right before Aedan seriously hurt his arm (as any parent would tell you, they would rather face certain agony than watch their child in pain for a mere minute). My parents’ dear (but very old and sick) dog died only a few months before our beloved (young and not really sick) cat. See…it’s spacers. Proof of a divine plan. Proof that God hasn’t left us alone and defenseless. Proof that it can always get worse.

Nineteen years later, I still remember those tooth spacers…that brief moment when the cool wind whistled between my teeth before the ear-screeching, blood-tasting metal that followed. I try not to think of my adolescence often but it unavoidably crept up when attending a really great party last night. A colleague of Joe’s and friend of mine had a “celebration with libation” (great name, huh?). It felt awesome to get dressed up in some wild colors and sneak out in the cover of Ramadan darkness escaping out of “ex-pat Maadi” to “trendy Zamalek”. True to form, I wore out before the night had worn on….and I was looking for an escape route. On my way to freedom, I was stopped several times with polite “so how ya liking Cairo?” and I found myself parroting phrases on theme “oh, it is really great! Cairenes are so welcoming!” (true), “Super…hardly different than living in DC” (less true). After maybe the zillionth time and a grim resignation that I was there to stay…I wondered when I had become so shallow. I mean, we have had this incredibly life-altering adjustment here and the best I can characterize it is…. “good”. Surely there is a middle ground answer to that question that is more creative and perhaps more honest? On the cab ride home, I figured out what was really bugging me. It wasn’t my depth, it was my sense of jinx. Life was good and I wasn’t going to risk it going downhill by blathering on to a group of people I just met. Not last night, that is. Yet, the jinx remains. Could our good times and reasonable level of homesickness, frustration, etc be the “spacers” with cold, hard, braces yet to come? Can anyone (without mind altering drugs, that is) suck the cool wind between their teeth forever?

I got my answer from my best friend. We were chit chatting forever when she said to me: “sounds like things are really good. I am so happy for you Ashley” to which I unwittingly topped the statement by saying “yeah…really great. I mean, if I could move our family and some friends over, I’d stay here forever”. Gong! Look out below…this elevator’s a comin’ down fast! To her credit, my BFF recovered with a convincing “really-that’s great!”. I mean, what was I thinking? It is so easy to get sucked into the vacuum here and I must have had my arms on the frame of the hose and my feet dangling inside. Calling Captain Obvious….it’s Ashley. Cairo is NOT…I repeat NOT North Carolina. Do you read the 14^th page of the international news? Boulders broke off a cliff and killed like 100 people here. Government response? Riot police! And it’s hot….and Starbucks doesn’t carry chai because the freaking Arabic word for tea is “chai” and they can’t figure out why I always come in asking for something and never leave having bought it! I think my daddy (next best thing to God) says it best (southern accent ready) “Honey, if Cairo were that great…the rich yankee snowbirds would leave Florida for the rest of us!”….The cool wind between your teeth is when you “go native” living in the moment and forgetting for a second, for a minute, who you really are. It’s the hard reality of reconciling two irreconcilable lives that straightens your path and aligns your values for the rest of your life forward.

Lest I leave my scientific roots…I took an informal poll of my ex-pat buddies and they feel similarly conflicted about their experiences abroad and in Cairo specifically. We are “good”….just don’t ask us how we are liking Cairo.

Lots of love (of that I am sure!),

Ashley