#Siwaisamagnet

I’ve started practicing kundalini meditation again. I’m not back on track but I’ve remembered how it feels. I’m remembering how it stills me. How I find a place that feels peaceful. So peaceful that most of me wants to sit still in it. There’s often a flutter round the edges to get up and do the next thing but… I can find that place where I can just sit and sometimes even smile with contentment.

It’s also been happening more in my day. Especially outside the coffee shop on the central souq, when no one else is there. (Picture a square with date palms, 2 concrete gazebos [that seems like an oxymoron], grass in between with the odd man chilling on the edge perhaps chatting with a friend). I’ve found myself just sitting and feeling. Not thinking. Maybe nothing is happening in Siwa. Maybe a donkey cart passes by. Kids on a weird old-fashioned looking tricycle with bicycle wheels and a seat high off the ground. Maybe an empty coach goes past reminding me that dozens, if not hundreds, of people are wizzing around the desert or maybe when the sun gets low and the light becomes orange they’re drinking cups of sweet tea around a fire of olive wood.

The point is I just sit, and that’s not my modus operandi. Well, normally I’m ‘operandi’ing, not just sitting. Normally I’m thinking about what I’m doing next, what I haven’t done, what I need to do, when was the last call to prayer, how many hours are left in the day, what I should be doing but really, am not going to do today. But recently I’ve been able to …no, I’ve found myself just sitting. Sensing maybe. But not thinking. Not necessarily taking it all in with my senses. Not observing, not listening, more letting it wash over me. More just being. Sitting comfortably in this chair, on this square, opposite the 13th Century mud fortress, Shali, in this town of Siwa. I like it. It feels better than thinking of the mark I’m going to leave on the world. What action will I do to make it a better place. What actions have I done to make it a better place? No, maybe not think about that, maybe move onto the next thought. What’s my purpose? The purpose I haven’t achieved yet. How much time is left? Am I in a hurry yet? Oh god I haven’t achieved anything and I don’t even have a clue what I’m supposed to achieve. And then, I’m exhausted, again.

In the last week or so I’ve been asking non-Siwans living in Siwa why they’re here. It’s always some convoluted story that often starts with I came for 4 days and 2 years, 8 years, 18 years later … It’s always involved. But then I say, that’s how you got to be in Siwa but why are you still here and it’s almost always a blank stare. People don’t seem to know. People seem confused. I probe. Then they get it and realize they don’t have an answer. It seems to make no sense. It’s not rational. It does not make sense.

Yesterday, over about a 6 hour period four of us (every so often someone else added an idea, an experience, a realisation) toyed with ideas around Siwa, why we’re here, what we’ve experienced, what we’ve learned, what confuses us, how we’ve manouvred and negotiated being in this place. I did nothing I set out to do – editing, deal with bank, clients. I did collect my laundry… in the end. What I did do was connect meaningfully with people whose energy aligned with mine. I’ve met (and continue to meet) some wonderful people in my time in Siwa. I’ve enjoyed adventures with them, we’ve shared ideas, they’ve enriched my life in some way and hopefully, vice versa. What I’m learning, slowly, very, is that souls cross paths and it’s an honour. The crossings may involve a smile, a coffee, sharing a meal, an adventure in the desert, an emotional adventure, years or even decades of friendships that ebb and flow, so many things. I’m learning to surrender to how the crossing pans out. I’m learning not to attach to specific outcomes I have in my head. Life is always much more nuanced and complex and frankly interesting. Real life is always unimaginable. No matter the circumstance that evolves it’s never what I pictured it to look like. It’s happier, sadder, more beautiful, more…

Yesterday, I took a moment and noticed the feel of the people I was spending time with in that coffee shop. It felt good. It felt familiar like I’d known them a long time. Like they had my back and it felt good. Normal. It was more than the fact that we were speaking in English, which I hadn’t done for a while in this way. Much more.

If I’ve enjoyed times with someone, if we’ve shared the way we feel about something, if we’ve had shared values, if we’ve made memories together, it’s important to me it’s of value. I’m realizing I share values with friends. We’re on the same page value-wise. It doesn’t mean we see eye to eye on everything. It doesn’t mean we don’t have tiffs, roll eyes, rant at each other, get exasperated. It does mean our ethics are pretty similar, the humans we want (not are) to be are similar ideas. This is the cerebral description.

I’m impatient. When I meet a new person I want to know who they are and how the relationship will evolve. In the last few days I’ve realised the journey is the development. That’s the interesting thing. I don’t need to know how it pans out. I can just enjoy the getting to know who someone is in all their colours. We show ourselves over time. We are who we are and that’s it. We can’t help ourselves. It’s like that story about the scorpion who asks the turtle to carry him across the river and the turtle says you’ll sting me and the scorpion says no because we’ll both drown if I do that and the turtle says, that’s a point and takes the scorpion on her back. The scorpion stings the turtle and they both drown. As they’re going down the turtle says, “You said…”. The scorpion replies, “I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t fight my true nature”. It’s more than just cerebral and that’s ok (telling myself). In fact it may just cut out the BS. But, it’s a new way for me and it’s pushing me to trust myself. Regardless of my past mistakes. Trusting a feeling. My feeling is ok. It’s valid.

We can change but it takes awareness, hard work and of course, a commitment to change. Since being in Siwa I’ve met people and had first impressions and those impressions have become more complex with all their subtleties over time. People I met in October I’ve now known four months. We’ve talked not only about our histories but about fresh life circumstances that have come up over the last months. We’ve helped or hindered each other based on our capacities and we’ve got more of a sense whether or how we fit and whether or how often we want to spend time together. So now it’s more than just a feeling of what someone is like. But, the feelings are really what tells me. What let’s me know. And that’s when I have to step out of my own way. Trust the feeling. Trust myself.

What I find difficult is when I don’t align gloriously with someone (and that does not mean I can’t have glorious moments with them). And I’m sure if I feel it so do they. I don’t want to pretend. I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to disappoint them, let them down or make them feel discarded. Maybe because I’ve felt like that and it hurt. Maybe because I’m very sensitive? Maybe because trust is so important to me? And yet I thoroughly enjoyed their company and like many things about them. I find it hard. It’s ok that all the ends don’t wrap up. It’s ok that I have mixed and maybe even confusing feelings.

Yesterday’s, postulating and pondering and probing, getting to know each other and having fun was a beautiful extended moment. Two things that people said that were the cream on the coffee were, “Siwa is an amplifier” and “it will break you into pieces and reshape you”. Let’s hope so. But, already I know it’s true, that’s why I’m here. That’s probably why we’re all here.