Air Head

(sometimes you don't need to search for the thing that was lost)

Egypt - October 2021

I usually attract conversations on plane journeys. One time when returning from Cairo, I talked about henna inking nails with two Sudanese men. Another time on route to Johannesburg, a woman doped with Valium insisted she tell me all about the audio book she was listening to. Eventually, she sold it to me and I suddenly found myself holding the woman's phone, my ears plugged in and my mind two hours into being led around the streets of Mumbai with a fake passport. Shantaram. 

The conversation for this flight is Quantum physics. I am travelling to Cairo for the third time on board an indirect flight stopping in Vienna. Austrian Air have sat me next to a Physicist who claims to be one of the few scientists who had discovered the Higgs Boson particle. He is first to initiate small talk, remarking about the contradictory rule of having to a wear face mask despite the airline company constantly gifting us drinks.

‘Just drink slowly,’ he says to me, ‘then you can breathe.’

The Physicist has greying hair, clean academic hands and a small face. He has an American accent though is quick to mention that Geneva is his home. He tells me that he is on an international oral tour, giving lectures on his recent findings. He is travelling to mainly prestigious Western institutions including Cambridge to Harvard. His next stop is the University of Vienna. 

Conversation continues as I sip my coffee slowly, as suggested. Then, after small talk runs dry, I ask the Physicist for an overview of his recent discovery. It is a brave request, I realise, considering that my knowledge of the universe has been acquired only through dreams and poetry. 

'Do you know much about physics?’

I lie and say a little.

‘Well, the theory is called Geometric SMEFT,  Standard Model Effective Field Theory.’

'Right.' I nod my head and wonder again why I asked. 

What the Physicist explains is that he has discovered patterns in the subatomic particles which are identical to the patterns that exist in the gigantic structures of the universe. He uses his hands to model meta and micro, crisscrossing them like two racing dolphins, parallel and then in line with each other. It reminds me of my Geography teacher at secondary school, Mr Butt, who had once performed to our class an arm waving sequence to help us remember the different movements of tectonic plates. Transformative was a move that a DJ from the 90s would do. It is an unexpected memory to arise - the face of Mr Butt. Though does any memory arise on an expectation?

‘What we have found’ the Physicist continues, ‘is that everything is connected.’ 

 Crown itches and I envision each passenger on board as a singular nucleus, a unique pinprick of light circulating the earth in the Austrian airbus, held above the drama of the world for just a moment, each preparing to crash into new odours and natural  pools, just as the Higgs Boson once jetted around the circumference of the collider and into foreign matter. I love travelling for this reason. It is the petri dish in which specks of flesh explode into the unfamiliar, like how stars grow into the universe. Travelling conceives a soul that is ready for death. 

Like a chid, I spill excitement. ‘It sounds positive, poetic! I mean, it is like a metaphor that two things, though different sizes, reflect each other...’ 

'Exactly.' The physicist then claims that his findings are in fact beauty itself. A beauty he wants to tell the world about, to 'wake it up.' 

Extreme, I think. 

The flight attendant then arrives at our aisle smiling. She asks me if I would like another drink. In responce I smile and ask for another coffee. 

‘Any milk or sugar?’ 

'Just one. Please.' 

I stare at the seat in front of me. Silence. It is occupied by a man wearing a flat cap. Soon he will ask the Physicist for the name of his YouTube channel. Soon I will find out that this flat-capped man is also American and be reminded that the USA remains looming proudly as the cultural superpower of the world. I imagine another world. One where there is no superpower and where every flight company has made philosophical lectures about the workings of the universe mandatory announcements. 

We land in Vienna International Airport. The Physicist and I part ways. I play my guitar as I wait to board the connecting flight to Cairo. I play a repeating riff to which I write a poem to in Arabic. What I write is simple, concerning the stars, the moon and love. I think about my lover and the warmth that his eyes omit. I then recall the conversation with the physicist. I realise that it feels coincidental, de-ja-vu like - why? I wonder and find no answer so I stand up. I zip together my guitar bag and join the queue to board. The penny drops. The conversation with the physicist confirms a hunch. A suspicion that my mind has been somersaulting over for the last year and a half: that is that the small details of the everyday are clues. Clues which, when one is moving slow enough through the day, might reveal themselves as shining pieces of broken mirror on a pavement. Clues which, when squinted at through blurry morning eyes, might reflect life and life writ large. ‘Yes Mr Physicist,’ I say aloud, flicking through the pages of my passport, ‘I know your theory. I’ve heard it before.’  

Craving Clay

Fireworks by Animal Collective. A friend sent me the link to the song yesterday by text. He included a small note. It's that time of year again. He was right, it was Autumn and tomorrow it will be my birthday. A capacious Libra. I am a hopeless astronomist. I quietly relate myself and others to the Zodiac though I am too interested in human dramas to read anything serious about it. This year to celebrate my birthday, I am spending it alone. My days before leaving for Egypt have been filled with love from friends, colleagues and family. I want to soak in these memories in solitude. For the night before my birthday, I have booked myself a cheap hotel room in downtown Cairo ensuring it has a balcony, a chair and a desk. I plan to write. The hotel is named Hotel Berlin and from the photos advertised, it is clear that the walls are teal, every piece of furniture is dark oak and dusty and there is a small aeiral TV in the corner. It is totally my style and cheap. I will be happy, my scales will be in balance. I have already sent a text to my friend who lives in Cairo, whom I had originally planned to stay with. I told her that it will be my birthday the day after I arrive and that I will stay at a hotel for the first night: that my craving for animosity is strong. Thankfully as a well-connected and easy going friend, she understood. 

One of my favourite moments when travelling is smelling the air when first stepping off the plane. I compare it to stepping inside of the house of an old friend, one that you have not seen for so long but just like before, they welcome you with a smile from childhood memory. Cairo smells of fire and clay, a similar and familiar hug, though dry on the skin. You can taste the lack of green. I played my guitar on the long taxi ride from the airport to the hotel. I also practiced my pigeon Arabic which surprisingly, was less rusty than expected. Then on arrival to Hotel Berlin, I was taken directly to my room. I immediately opened the balcony door and noticed the moon. It was coming to fullness, peeping through the jenga scaffolding that was fixed onto the front of the hotel building. I stretched my body on the creaking bare floorboards and smiled looking back into the room at the expected décor: the teal walls, the desk, the ariel TV. The perfect hide away for a quarter century birthday.

I spent the rest of the evening playing songs to the moon; her English, him Arabic. Meanwhile, the hotel security guard, an older man with a limp leg, sat just outside my room. I was conscious that he may be able to hear me singing and it was already late, so I moved. I stood on the balcony and looked out onto the road beneath. I am here I said aloud, standing in my smallness, peppering the upper structures of downtown Cairo. Nobody knows me. It is exactly what I desire, for now. I wondered whether I would have left London sooner if I had known that I was only a flight away from escaping the pressures of a cold Western city. Probably not, I whisper, releasing soon after that there is something too selfish, too holy, too cowardly about running away from familiarity and the world that knows you, however claustrophobic it may be. 

Before sleeping, I moved the mattress onto the floor and laid listening to the sound of the forever beeping traffic. My eyes softened as my hand, for comfort, thumbed through the wooden beads of the necklace that had travelled with me. 

 Falafel Twenty Five

My birthday was just another day in the dusty city. The bottom of my feet were dusty from the room. I awoke heavy, with puffy eyes. I had hoped to wake up for the sunrise but my alarm had not been loud enough and anyway, I was tired. I rinsed my body, squatting in the small, shared bathtub of Hotel Berlin and then, I meditated. Afterwards, I fell back to sleep on a blanket on the wooden floor. I am not sure for how long. I awoke to a shaking. I assumed it was a lorry passing on the road beneath or a neighbour rearranging their room above. I learnt later on that it was an earthquake: 6.1 magnitude, originating in the Aegean Sea.

Breakfast was served to me on a plastic plate for children. Pink and yellow flowers were printed onto it. I ate the food alone in the designated empty breakfast room: a thin omelette, bread, tin foil cheese and jam. I read Patti Smith's M Train with my small, sweet Turkish coffee. I got jam all over my fingers and her pages. Patti was talking to me about magic portals and how to pass through them. She wrote about seeking too much in life and suggested instead that it was better to think happy thoughts and roller skate through. I liked that, I said aloud and considered making it my motto for my year ahead: to roller skate though. What would the verb be for this, to exhale? Possibly. To surrender, to flow? I stood up. The tiny cup of coffee that I had finished was strong. I walked over the wooden floorboards of the breakfast room and paused before the open window. The sun was pouring through, transforming floating dust into illuminated thoughts. Out of the window, I looked for a place to write. The hotel security guard had informed me that there would be workers on the balcony of my bedroom all morning, hence the scaffolding. They were repainting the front of the building. I had already attempted to write there but their builderman shouting was too close and distracting. Outside the window, I found no suitable writing spot: no cafe nor park, only a parade of beeping cars and working, suited pedestrians weaving in and out of them. (That is how you cross the road in Cairo, you weave, swim like a fish dodging the flowing debris of a river.) I hung my head out further. I noticed a quieter street. Good, I thought, that looks promising. But then my judgement was stolen by what flew into view. Three girls, Egyptian I assumed, wearing hijabs, around my age. They were roller skating. What are the chances? I closed Patti, went back to my room and put on my sandals. I left Hotel Berlin, tempted again by a coincidence.

I followed the path of the three skating girls. They led me to a group of young skaters, all sitting and laughing, flicking through the screens on their phones. I smiled at the sight and also at the fact that I passed unnoticed to them, despite appearing as an obvious foreigner. I seemed invisible to others this morning, unlike my usual strolls in Cairo. I was happily anonymous. It was the wish, my birthday present from the beige city. 

I headed towards a Synagogue. I had noted the building during the taxi ride from the airport. It's grey colour and design stood out from the usual sanded cityscape. I was wondering whether, like the skaters, the magic portal that Patti had mentioned might also be revealed to me there. Although on arrival, the Synagogue was obviously closed. It was gloomy, ministry-like in an ugly way and guarded heavily by Police. Even magic is guarded by police these days, I snuffed to myself. I took a photo anyway, for the interest of a friend who is studying the sociology of Jews in Arab countries but soon afterwards, a Policeman, who I had already noted and was standing across the road, approached me. He asked me to delete the photo and I did, as an obedient tourist. Though afterwards, I explained to him in (this time rusty) Arabic that I had not taken a photo of any Policeguard. I had only taken a photo of the building. He cracked a fractional smile and then waved a gesture with his hand suggesting to me that I could take another photo. I did whilst secretly picturing the Policeman really as somekind of alchemist. And his small permission, as my blessed moment of entrance into another realm. 

My next stop was a portal full of portals, the Anglo-Egyptian bookshop. I pushed open the swing door and thought instantly of the Library of Babel, of the universe as a hexagonal labyrinth of bookshelves and myself, a passing visitor of an equal chaos. And the dreamer, standing behind the service desk, dressed in a thick white spacesuit, waiting for the next customer and in the meantime, frantically, within his morning working shift, numbering each new book to shelf. I approach him. I ask him for the latest, most recommended publications. He admits to me that he does not know any and that instead of reading, he is only pursuing the search to find a book which is most similar to his life story. He tells me, quite confidently that, although working in a bookshop, he has only ever read the blurb of a book and sometimes, when he is tired or needing to sleep, the first page. He tells me that that is why he had applied for the job in the bookshop in the first place: because of his personal quest. I want to tell him that he will never find it. That he will never find any book that will connect with him so much that he will instantly jump out from behind the service desk, quit the job and travel onwards filled with complete and wise contentment. But I cannot. I look at him and his eyes are too soft, too gentle and besides, I know deep down that I too had once fallen for this cosmic trick. I too was once seeking in the belief that I would find someone who had done the hard work for me, of already living out and writing the story of my dreams. I smile at the dreamer, not noticing that my eyes are watering. I instead, wish him a good day. 

The Anglo-Egyptian bookshop was filled with more British classics than any London Waterstones. I stood there, happy again in my silence, browsing them. The man behind the service desk looked tired. I approached him and bought two books: Rubaiyat, the translated poems of Omar Khayyam and Jieng on the Moon, the stories by Sudanese prisoners and school children. I also picked up Valkyries by Coelho and opened a page at random. It read, if she knew it was this easy to die, she would have taken off her clothes in the desert a long time ago. I loved the line and read it over. I imagined every woman in my bloodline stripping naked in the Sahara. Dawn, my grandmother, waving her left hand in the sky, free and alone and my mother, younger than I was ever able to see her, dipping her toe into a transparent oasis. I then thought that a birthday, if celebrated, should be a time to connect with these things: ancestors. With my bag of new books in one hand, on the other I circled my thumb around the silver ring that I have worn each day on the middle finger since I was sixteen. It belonged to Dawn and it was a silver three pence. It  signified the lineage from her, to my mother, to me. 

I was weaving my way back to Hotel Berlin when suddenly, I found the thing I had been looking for. Not a cafe nor park to write in but a pair of black boots. I had forgotten that this was my birthday mission all along; that I had travelled to Egypt wearing my old, broken boots on purpose, with the aim to replace them. I was drawn to this new shiny pair like the words from Valkyries. They had big, trainer-like souls, a silver buckle and they reached above the ankle. I went into the shop almost forgetting to greet the owner. I requested my size and asked for the price although honestly, I had no care for it. Patti had already told me that for my year ahead, I needed new boots to skate in and my old, tatty pair would be left on the workmans’ balcony of Hotel Berlin. 

On the evening of my birthday, my friend bought us dinner. It was falafel, hummus bread and ful from an Egyptian takeaway place. My colleague at work bought me the same birthday meal the Friday before and my close friend the same dish the day after. I then gifted myself a cheap falafel wrap the night before my birthday. This birthday was therefore the birthday of twenty-five falafels. I thought about this small clue whilst a little stoned and sitting on the balcony of my friend’s apartment. A coincidence? Twenty five falafels. It means both nothing and everything, I concluded. Like how the desert contains the past and future, it is both the jigsaw piece and the completed image. I inhaled. I tried not to overthink.

 

 

 

 I leave broken boots

on balcony of ful

moon she shines

reflecting good 

grateful for you 

for those known

for knew grateful

 for you I sing

 unlacing the string  

of new silverskates 

Any Milk? 

Shakoosh the cat meows. He wakes me up from a morning snooze on the balcony. I feel at home here once again, grounded in the sanctuary of my friend's arty apartment. Forever I could stay, I think, awaking from a light dream. I shower and then eat a simple breakfast of fruit and bread. Her balcony overlooks a public school. I can hear the buses arriving and school girls screaming. My friend begins her laptop work. I make us a coffee and wash up our dishes and mermaid mugs. I then write in my diary. My writing is influenced by the pace of where I am. In London it is fast, rambling. Here sentences become shorter, more direct. Like when needing to ask for something in a shop or jumping a taxi: I want one coffee. I am going to Al-Azhar Mosque. Here there are no may I’s or can I’s. Only the imperative, now, today. 

My trip to Egypt is ending and although I have tried not to overthink, since my chat with Mr Physics, I have been piecing together a self-designed puzzle. The sand of the Sahara, the stars sifted from a clump of dust, a sentence, a poem, a book shop, the moon, a closed synagogue, my guitar, my old to new boots, three roller skaters... What connects them and what do these small details unravel? I smell them, I taste their urgency though cannot picture their origin nor the place to where they flow. 

My days, also flowing, have rolled on in Cairo. They have floated along the ancient river as the full moon had turned to a smile. I either skipped the touristy things or failed at every attempt to visit. I was too late to enter the museum of Islamic Art, the public library, in a teenage strop, closed its doors upon my arrival and time forced me to depart from standing outside the locked doors of the Saint’s house just when the keys to open it were paraded over the heads of Cairo’s wealthiest lunching workers. All this time, the beige city fooled me. It means nothing. 

But for a few days, I escaped Cairo and travelled with my friend to Siwa, an Oasis on the Western border. Here our days were drenched in juice, laughter and sticky date palms and our nights were spent swimming in hot springs, staring upward toward looming desert dunes and uncountable stars. And here, during one of those nights, after letting go of all of these ponderings over everything and nothing, the cosmic and mundane, I gazed towards a pale setting sun which had bled into a haze. It was shrinking into a pinprick on the horizon. It was beautiful. And here, on that night, during those few hours in the evening desert, I laid down upon the sand and listened. My mind quiet, I heard a thousand stories being told, each whispering one truth – that there really are more stars than grains of sand. That despite how confident one Physicist may be, or how many boxes of books one seeking dreamer has dug through, this universe will forever rest beyond human understanding. I closed my eyes then reopened them. The evening glow was quickly fading. The cresent moon was rising. She was shedding. Thoughts arised, like stallions racing over the dunes. They said that a singular nucleus has the same potential as a star and that as long as I am alive, I will never truely know what nothing is. And then, watching the stallions pass into that vast empty escape, I think I heard the universe speak. Yes, to my surprise she was not silent. Yes, she was humming, no, almost whistling a tune. Something like this, do da do do. It felt like she was breathing, on the edge of every feeling. Yes, she was moving. Somehow dancing four steps, like two hearts falling into love, like a mother swaying her children into sleep. 

I stood up, the driver had shouted that it was time to leave. I dusted off the sand and noticed I was crying. No, leaking tears, without force. I must have gotten overwhelmed by what the driver had told me before I laid down, I thought. He told me that the whole desert we walked upon was at one time, undersea. I wiped away my tears and began walking towards the car. Dusk had carried with it a deep purple glow. I picked up a shell from the sand and wiggled my toes. It is true, I said to myself, looking at the fossilised crustation. I looked up for the last time to see the stars exploding. I will never understand this life, I realised – the real reason for my tears. I will never piece together these clues nor salvage any grand mystery. I must only keep sharp. Keep sharp and roller skate through. Keep sharp and keep leaning in to hear the words of the voices which whisper – there is a mystery to unravel. There are stories being sung to a melody that has always been playing and you must listen, though you may never be able to hear it. I dropped the sea shell and it dissolved, forming ripples upon the sand. Can we at least hear an echo of that song, I asked? I was granted no reply, only the sound of my heartbeat and another cup of coffee from the smiling air hostess. 

'Any milk or sugar?' She asks. 

'No, thanks.' I replied. 

I stare at the passenger seat in front of me. It is empty, no flatcap man, no American. The physicist and I are the only passengers on board. He is quietly humming a tune whilst I imagine a world on which everyone can travel to foreign lands as easily as us, speaking as leisurely of stars and metaphors and mysteries. I look out of the plane window to see the sun reflecting along the curve of a river. It is beautiful, etching golden venations onto the earth, shining through the morning clouds.

'You know, sometimes searching for cosmic patterns can lead a person to madness.'

‘I know.’ The Physicist replies, sipping his third coffee. ‘But other times, it leads to great poetry.’ 

Photographs:

1. Old boots exit 

2. Old boots entrance

3. Pinprick