I write to you now awake, alert, showered, and acceptably clothed for the first time in 3 days. I've spent the past 72 hours with some kind of flu-ish funk ("flu-ish funk" being as close as my medieval concept of medicine and the body can get to diagnosing whatever minor viral calamity just went blitzing through my system).
During these chicken soup filled hours, I had much time to meditate upon my experience. Some pearls to cast before you, dear readers:
-After spending a good 18+ hours in bed, you begin to develop a very complex love/hate relationship with your sheets.
Indeed, the entire cosmos, all of your entire existential reality, is suddenly encapsulated within two flimsy piece of cotton and a fuzzy blanket smelling of moth balls. One minute you're perfectly cocooned, the next, tangled and overheating. Now your limbs exposed to shivering. Now somehow perfectly situated again. And on and on as fever dreams keep you tossing around. It's exhausting. For now, I don't know whether to thank my bed for all the rest and comfort it's provided, or if I never want to see it again for the rest of my life.
-Sawdust mattresses are not for the faint of heart.
While my back learned long ago to brace up and take it like a man on these hard and lumpy devices, this marathon of sleep-fests is more than the average mortal can sustain. I can't verify this, but I've heard it said that it is actually possible to break your ribs simply by laying on one for too long.
-It's not them, it's you.
Now, when you live with 3 other women, it's easy to start thinking that that mountain of papers on the dining room table, the stack of sticky plates in the sink, and the over-flowing trash can really aren't from you--I mean, maybe a little bit, but everyone's made a contribution to the mess, right? I'm a decently clean neat person, kind of...and hey, I remember cleaning at least two of my own dishes after breakfast this morning.
Not much fun to be around yesterday, my roommates took off to hang out with our host family in Maasara, leaving me with the apartment more or less to myself for the past 24 hours. That's when I realized--it is me. When they left, the garbage had been emptied, and a mere sprinkling of spoons and cups were at the bottom of the sink. Somehow, I now find myself cleaning up no fewer than 18 (counted) burnt matches from next to the stove, washing two towering stacks of plates and cups (how! I haven't eaten anything!), and generally trying to do damage control before any of them return home.
Nope, sorry, Alissa. It's not them. It's you.
-One should not go out into public at the height of one's flu-ish funk, or people will think you're stoned.
True story.
On Friday, a tragedy of timing placed the worst of my pale-faced feverish blech at the exact hour of a dear friend's wedding. My friend kept calling to confirm that I'd be coming. "Yes, yes, I'll be there," I assured him from beneath a pile of blankets.
"Are you sure you'll be ok?" My roommate peered under my dome of covers to ask me.
A half hour before the affair, I dressed myself and sat beneath my covers to keep warm. I found myself inadvertently staring off at random objects in the room. At one point, the floor actually seemed to be moving. "Whoa," I thought. "This is starting to get trippy..." I should note that I was not actually under the influence of any medicine, so this can't be chalked up to too much nyquil.
The wedding was taking place nearby, just the next district over to us. The district of Sayda Zeineb is as delightful and colorful as possible--1,000 year old mosques crumble elegantly like dried flowers, bustling market places light up at night with colored strings of lights, vendors sell homemade mango ice cream drive-up style to cars passing through the hopelessly tangled alleyways, and pens of doe-eyed sheep stir restlessly in preparation for the big feast happening on Monday.
The problem for our cab driver was precisely that tangle of alleyways that is so charming in theory, and so impossible to navigate in practice. Streets have names only informally; cars' passage is only an after-thought function of the roads. Tea shops and shwarma stands encroach onto the dirt path instead, as neighbors walk to visit and do their shopping.
Luckily my roommate was in the cab to help negotiate this Cairene version of Mr. Toad's wild ride, because I mostly sat with my cheek stuck to the glass of the window, staring at the bright lights with my mouth hanging slightly open.
Our friend told us to get in the cab by 6:30. We arrived at his aunt's house by 7. Making a long story short, the bride and groom didn't arrive until after 9pm. We spent most of our time sitting on folding chairs in an empty community center listening to loud Arab pop music, while I stared at the floor, turning progressively paler shades of white. I left it to my roommate to explain to everyone that no, I wasn't comatose or smoking hash, just sick.
1 minute after the couple arrived, we went to find our friend to give our congratulations. As soon as he saw us, he stopped. "Alissa, you are very sick. Come, I am getting you a taxi."
Wait! I just waited 3 hours to see you!
nope. 3 hours to wait, 30 seconds of conversation, and I was en route back to my bed--my sawdust mattress and my sheet-scape reality. And so the vicious cycle continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment