#Siwahealedorspatout

Sometimes things just hurt. They hurt if you walk into them, … around them, … push them down to where they just become a lump in the pit of your stomach, … maybe they dangle at the back of your head, the nape of your neck or at your throat. Sometimes hurt changes size. It moves. It feels as though it has a life of its own.

Sometimes, it just sits in my chest. No matter how much thinking I do, it’s still there. In fact, it might go away if I stopped thinking. But, I don’t think it would. Maybe, I’d notice it less. Sometimes I forget. Then, I remember and it’s back.

I lie on the top of a sand dune in the afternoon sun. I feel, like a Zandolie lizard looks. There is no hurt.

My eyes are closed. I’m listening. I hear the sound of 2 black crow-sounding birds craw crawing. Finally, I open my eyes and come out of myself into the desert. I can hear the wind through their wings as they fly over me. I think, I’d better turn my eyes to earth to see the magnificent dunes of the Great Sand Sea - as I’ve come all this way. I’m at peace. Lying here is like a warm giant exhale.

“Siwa will break you into pieces and will reshape you again”.

On one side of the plaza is the pavement café, coffee shop. It’s where many of the safari drivers hang out. It’s one of the 2 places I feel comfortable enough to practice Arabic with the baristas and some of the drivers, out loud! A wall of date palm fronds separates the shop from one neighbour. On the other side a shop sells shoes, school uniforms, books, pens, pencil cases covered with footballers - you get the gist. This is our morning haunt. We sit on the red-brick terrazzo in beige plastic armchairs. The men drink strong Turkish coffee that leaves an inch of grounds in small paper cups. My poison is cappuccino in a ceramic mug, which sits on a saucer designed so that the cup sits off-centre. That detail catches my attention every time.

One morning of sweet ole-talk, amongst four of us non-Siwis, stretched to sunset, when animals had to be fed. We exchanged experiences and thoughts around our time here. Some had been living here for years. I was running around typing or getting people to say some of the gems they came up with into my phone as I recorded.

“I lived here for 2 years and I hated it. 8 years later I returned. After the first day I wanted to leave. Now, I’ve been here 2 years”.

“Siwa is an amplifier”.

“I’m discovering things about myself I never knew before”.

Caterpillar: “Who are you?” Alice: “I hardly know, sir, just at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then”. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.

It was also made categorically clear that, “Siwa spits some people out.”

I started wondering further afield, how Amazigh people, born and bred here, experience their town.

“I can’t stay out long. Two, three, days.”

“Two weeks max.”

“When I’m in Cairo, Siwa calls me. It feels like I need to go back, a part of me needs me there. I have my soul there. I have to go back there to find what’s calling me.”

…

Two Saturdays ago, I walked into my fave restaurant. An Egyptian woman I’d bumped into a few days earlier and chatted with briefly, was sitting on cushions on the floor near where I usually sit. I sat down. “I have a message for you”, she said. She had my full attention although this had happened before (and again later in the week). “You need to listen to your soul, she needs time”. A conversation lasting several hours in which both of us cried, ensued. “The world will tell you you’re limitless but, you’re not”. “Give yourself the attention you need”.

She asked me if I had grieved for my father. I explained that I had cared for my father in his last 3 years and I grieved as his body transformed with old age so that by the time he died I was ready. Eager, even. She looked skeptical.

In the marathon conversation at the Coffee Shop (see post #siwaisamagnet) someone said, you know Siwa attracts a specific type of woman. “Oh yeah, I said, older, with silver curls”. “No, witches.” he said.

A flash of a previous life came back. My life in Peru where I went to find Q’ero shamen. The shamen who, when the Spanish came, retreated up high into the Andes with their knowledge and healing power and now that the world is in the state it’s in are re-entering with their transformative skills. “I‘m a witch”. I said. “How do you define witch?” someone asked. I replied, “Someone who breaks the rules. Often, a woman because we live in a patriarchy”.

So, why am I here in Siwa? To do ‘the work’? To be? I’m told change is simply about deciding and I’ve seen how it works. I’ve always simultaneously feared and yearned for change (I’ve always been a scardy cat- I think I inherited that from dad). The thing is not to let fear stop you. Me. Yesterday, an Amazigh friend popped by and I told him about our marathon conversation in the Coffee Shop. I started talking about truth, my truth. He was kinda confused but realised I needed to say something out loud. He’s one of those annoying friends who knows what you need better than you do. But, I couldn’t say it. I didn’t even quite know what it was. I wanted to say it but I didn’t know what the words were, are.

Today, I cried through my morning 11-minute kundalini yoga meditation… your guess is as good as mine. A meditation for heart chakra, ‘Humee hum brahm hum’. I came out wondering whether I’m here in Siwa to grieve loss. Loss from previous lives, of dad, other loved ones even losses yet to come (‘Be prepared’, is my motto… oh dear… this could take longer than I thought). Perhaps, I’ll take a slow sunset walk through olive and date trees and see what happens.