It was a night in Cairo on a rooftop somewhere.
The atmosphere was, well, unworldly
Oh the dresses.
Oh the jewelry.
Oh the fabulous mingling.
Oh the drinks.
oh the men who did their bidding..... (cough)
Thank you Kharm el nada for sponsoring your divine Egyptian wine. And merci to the French Rotary Club of Cairo for the beautiful party. (Your president's medal is very chic.)
Growing up, my father was not like other fathers. Other fathers would go to the office in the morning and come back at 6 pm. Mine would go to the airport and come back in 2 weeks. When my teachers asked me where he was, I would simply look up and say, He's in Africa.
You can imagine, the school thought we were a curious family.
My father would come back from his trips with bags filled with odd things - bowls and bracelets and bison horns - and curios that had no name but had a scent or a sound or a look that couldn't be forgotten. He was a passionate photographer and in darkened rooms, we would watch images of what he had seen on a screen emitted from an old slide show projector.
I can still hear the whirring of that machine.
And so it was that I grew up
to be just like him.
The click, click, click sound, as they slide smooth, or coarse, or slick through the fingertips.
The glass shimmering, the beads glimmering.
The colors. Like candy. That you want to pop them in your mouth and savor them.
But instead you wrap them around your wrist, your neck, your waist.
And you become part of the story.
The story of a hundred hands that had touched them, that had worn them, for a hundred years.
The antique jewels of Africa.
Oh more please, more.
I wasn't prepared, you see. No, I wasn't prepared.
For the beauty.
For the organic right-ness, rising up out of the dust.
Like a thing for which words haven't yet been invented.
The Great Mosque at Djenne, Mali. Centuries old. Forever contemporary.
