Skeuomorph: a Moment Trapped in Time…

It was another painful day, running between offices with a bandaged arm trying to finish paper work. Despite how sunny and beautiful was the morning that day, I could not stand a second to enjoy or appreciate it. I was on a mission impossible to get through with Italian red tape. Too many things going on, too many variables, too many changes, that I could not take one at a time…

Just when I was going up to the staircase of one of the university’s buildings, someone was playing the piano; I think it was the Pachelbel’s canon for Bach. At that moment, I felt that the time stopped. All the clocks in the world stopped, it was just me and the music in the middle of the extreme madness of life…At that moment outside of the window on the staircase, a feather was going down slowly as if dancing on the music being played. At that moment, it felt the world has stopped just to smile back at me. It felt so peaceful, as an aquarelle drawing of a serene peaceful spring sunset. That moment felt like eternity, like a black and white photograph for Brassaï that hanged on a wall for years or a Christmas crystal snowball where nothing changes inside…It was as if watching myself in a movie being played and not realizing that I was the main protagonist. The feather kept on dancing, the music kept on playing and I standing in the middle and consciously aware of me at the scene being played.

After spending an eternal moment in that scene of an abstract existence, the clock started ticking back. Just like another moment, but I was no longer the same person the moment before. Something in me was changed for good; only then, I saw the reality of my reality…

Just Leafed

You find yourself like a dried Leaf pushed by the Wind, one day high up, and the other crushed under the shoes of the careless. You left your Tree because there was no longer any water reaching your branch, it went faint, dry, and then it got broken. It fell on the ground then after a few days, you that very tiny Leaf was pushed by the Wind to where angels fear to tread…
When the Wind blew hard, you just lamented the days you had those beautiful dreams of becoming a Tree yourself, baring the fruits that were so beautiful to imagine. You can still close your eyes and think of yourself as a beautiful tree with birds singing on every single branch that you have. You never wanted to leave Tree, yet it was the one that sent you away. Sometimes, when you are being pushed so hard by Wind or crushed by the brand new pair of red shoes, you just blame that lazy Tree, which never took care of the beautiful Leaf attached to the most beautiful flower right on top. Sometimes as a Leaf, you just accuse Tree of being jealous of your vibrant green because it was so old and attached to the ground, while you beautiful Leaf had Wind cuddle you and the butterflies kiss you. Even though you badly miss your Tree, yet you know you cannot go back there, the harm was already done since the day Tree sent you away by the beginning of Spring.
Then as a Leaf, you had to learn to survive, you had to just make it. At first, as a Leaf you start enjoying the beautiful level of freedom, you see plenty of places that you would have never been able to see being attached to that old Tree. You start enjoying Wind, and how it lifts you and how every time it takes you to a new place, a new territory with more learning and more experience….You begin to realize that you are no longer that silly crying Leaf. You are enjoying ultimate freedom; you and Wind become intimate friends.
Suddenly you come to realize that it was not Tree that let you go, it was Wind who wanted to take you along. Wind was invisible, but he wanted you poor Leaf to manifest its power, to be seen whenever it blows and pushes you up high so you reach much higher levels that what Tree could have ever grown into. Your life as a Leaf reaches the point of no return.
Sometimes you remember that old grim Tree and reflect to find that Tree was just the illusion and the Wind was the reality…
You fall in eternal love for Wind and trust it with your life, and you no longer worry about your old dreams, because all the promises of Wind seems to be much more fulfilling than your own. You can no longer separate yourself from Wind; you just become one and tomorrow is just in Wind’s mind.

Where is home?

Me: I have finally got the keys to the department!
Paolo: So, are you finally starting to feel at home?

Sigh, home!
Home is miles away! Home is where we have pyramids, temples, and the Nile…Home is the taste of my mother’s beautiful cooking, home is the smell of tea with mint, home is sitting in the main campus writing emails to the world. Home is the choir every Friday, and St. Marc beautiful church. Home is driving three hours just to make it to the office to realize that the early meeting got cancelled. Home is where dear old friends are who no counterparts can be found. Home is where all memories come from, whether good or bad, they still feel like home. Home is where I can laugh for hours with my brothers just over nonsense and it feels like nothing to be compared to. Home is my father reading the newspapers in the morning and drinking his sugarless tea, while grandma is on the phone. Home is breakfast at Makani or Korba with best friends. Home is crossing Tahrir square saying the psalms knowing that I might never make it back, yet it still feels home. Spring at home, is always filled with Khamaseen wind, but still is spring at home. Home is a driveway from the Memphite Necropolis, where all the history comes from… Home is a few hours from Sinai, where one can get lost in a different world, but it feels more like home than anywhere else.

During classes, I always look at maps hung on walls, looking for Egypt, looking for home. Whenever a slide comes of a scene of a tomb in Saqqara or the landscape of the Nile, I take a deep breath, because it partially fills that un-fulfillable longing for home…
It is only now that I understood what the Pope has said, that Egypt is not a home that we live in, but a home that lives in us.