Nostalgia and getting reorganized

Montaza Palace Alexandria Egypt
Montaza Gardens , Alexandria

So I finally got all my documents and files onto one hard disk which upon the advise of my son I finally bought . Awhopping 160 gig in a casing that comes complete with a fan. I am now in the process of reorganizing my files, scattered over several pc s and notebooks. My scatter brained habits that save me time in the short term make me slave over my files in the long term. How on earth do I expect to write my book when my writings and notes are all over the place?When I upgrade my computer, the older ones I pass on to the front desk , hence I do not bother to save all my documents. Recently a friend asked me for one of my articles which she said is in one of the Risalah Pemimpin publications of my organization. Would you be surprised I could not find it?And the dozens of articles I wrote for Utusuan under Wadah Wanita Islam..I cannot find half of them!Somebody from a publishing house phoned me and suggested I write a book on communication and said I already have half a book in all the writings I had already. If only I can find them. In december of 2003 I made a nostalgic visit to Egypt namely Cairo and AlexandriaI went with dear hubby and my last born. Alexandria , beloved Alexandria was as lovely as she was when I studied there more than 25 years ago. I wrote this when I got back .

25/12/20003

25/12/20003
Just back from Egypt with travel insomnia !!! It is way  past midnight
and my body clock says it is the late afternoon!


Here is a reflection I wrote just now relating my experience in Egypt, I
just got back less than 24 hours ago!  It is about anger and
intolerance, my own , which I share with you .

I have learned so much about myself by going back to my roots in Egypt
the place where I spent 7 years of my life studying, , mostly in
beautiful Alexandria, and I looked in wonderment at it's beauty while I
also knew of it's miseries, I focused on the beauty and found much peace
although my peace will always be tinged with a sadness for the human
condition


Memories of my past stirred within , I realised a lot of things I had
done that I wish I could have done differently The sadness and regret I
felt over people I had hurt in the past was from my anger..and now it
was as if scales had fallen from my eyes as I saw things from a
different perspective than before and realised my anger was from my own
selfish vantage point and I could not see from the point of view of the
people I had been angry with, shopkeepers, landladies.....etc I saw them
now so differently.A  palpable regret washed over me as I looked into
the fresh young face of the grandson of my now deceased landlady from
more than 20 years ago..I did not remember what the quarrel with her was
about, I only remember my anger, if only I could turn back the pages,
how differently I would have handled it....

I had not been able to see from the point of view of the people I had
been angry with, shopkeepers, landladies..now , returning as a tourist
after 23 years, used to comfort, used to ease, seeing the difficulty
with which the people lived and eked out a living through no fault of
their own except for being born in the wrong place, my perspective had
changed.

A resolve within me strengthened, to try to never hurt anyone with my
words or deeds, something I knew was quite impossible but indeed I would
try my best.

Even as I knew it would be  futile of me to think I could succeed
perfectly in being the light that shines in darkness, the rose that
blooms in barreness, the tree that shades from the burning sun, I
realised that I tried too hard sometimes to be all of this, yet, perhaps
it would have been far better for me to just be in the moment,
appreciating people, forgiving them their wrongs and not wronging them
in the least.

I almost succeeded though not quite in discarding my activist mantle, my
healer mantle and my teacher mantle, I still found myself explaining
things in the way I' m quite used to in my teaching mode, even though I
had resolved to be just another tourist...I wanted to just take in the
sights and sounds without getting heated up over things, , to be healed
not to heal, to learn and not to teach , yet a part of me would not let go.

I became very angry when I visited Montaza though, because the beautful
sea was marred with rubbish, the lovely beaches had garbage because in
winter the workers are on holiday but thinking back on it, who am I to judge others

When I came to the  Hussein Mosque in Cairo (near the famous Khan Khalili market
 where foreigners get respectably and willingly slaughtered every day with cut
throat prices that seem fair to us greenies ) where Imam Hussein's head is
buried , with sadness overwhelming me over the sad affairs of Muslims with tragedy
 written into it's history almost as soon as the Prophet died, I saw the people
who came to visit this shrine, and heard the beautiful zikr  being recited  I saw
 love and compassion and a deep yearning for perfection which is also the
 human state ... Sallu ala Nabi Sallalahu Alaihi wa salim taslima

I also saw how the simple faith of a simple person who shone in goodness..in
the man who offered hot tea to one of my fellow Malaysians when he braved the
cold and dark to pray in a mosque for fajr, was eloquent in its language of deeds
 ( lisan ul hal).The friend said to me,this is a land of the good ,
 the bad and the ugly and I wanted to add, the beautiful...as my mind's eye
 remembered the achingly beautiful Meditarranean sea and the lovely coast road ,
 with it's date trees , the leaves wrapped up to protect against the raging winds
 that I remember put me back 2 paces for every 5 I took when I was foolish enough to
try to walk against the wind. There is some kind of lesson in this somewhere,
don t walk against the wind walk with it, don t swim against the current ,
swim with it.Don t go against God's will, surrender to it.

Can I then not forgive the shoe polish man who asked for more for
polishing my shoes than he originally agreed upon? He saw in me a rich
foreigner who could well afford more.. no reason I thought , no reason
for anger..there are far more important things to be angry about,
certainly I did not have to have anger over a man who asked me for money I could
afford to give.