Summer Greens

Here comes the Sun…

And the humidity, and the mosquitoes, and the weird crawlers up my bedroom wall.

So this is summer in Westchester. Sure it’s sunshine and green all around. But it’s also slimy, grimy, and a bit stuffy too.

I see people lounging on their garden chairs in swim shorts, with not a sea or lake or even a small creek in sight. I see children riding their bikes in tick infested parks. But who cares, summer is here!

I see mothers, flaunting their blooming summer dresses as they drop their kids to school each morning, and I ask myself: why am I still in jeans and fall-toned tee shirts? Why has my inner summer not kicked in yet? I guess I don’t like heat, nor humidity, and certainly not the sting that follows a bug bite just at the tip of my toe. But seriously, it’s June already, where is my summer?

I look around me and all I see are shopping bags. 17 gifts for 17 close family members and friends back home. So that’s where it’s been hiding… back home. Funny I still call it home after 11 years of roaming. But every summer I take the kids and go back to spend July and August in and with Egypt. We land in Cairo, do the social rounds and then shed our jeans and shabby tees and head straight to the beach.

My son just came up to me. He says: ‘Mami’, why aren’t you wearing shorts??? It’s really hot outside!

I look at him with empty eyes. I see myself wearing my Gap tan shorts and a flashy yellow Burch flip flop. But I’m not here, sitting in my bedroom, sipping tea and typing this post. I’m miles away across the seas, lounging with my friends and perfecting my tan while having my tea.

I’ll wear my shorts when we go to Egypt, I tell him. He gives me that quizzical look to put some pressure for a more detailed answer; a more convincing reason for a four-year-old. How can I explain it to him?

In his mind, it’s simple. The sun comes out, we put shorts on. So why is ‘Mami’ a couple of seasons behind?

In my mind, life is seldom that simple, especially when a lot of Roamer related complexities are playing out. Westchester with all its serene scenery and bug infested atmosphere is my home three quarters of the year. It should not and will not claim my summer too. The sunny season belongs to another, equally bug infested place. It’s not Egypt!

It’s specifically a small square of white stone built on a 300SqM land in the middle of the Egyptian desert on the Northern Coast of the Mediterranean. It’s my small beach cabin. That’s my summer home and that’s where I wear my sun dresses, enjoy the sunshine and don my OFF spray armor as I prepare for my nightly battle with mosquitoes. I lose my fights daily, but I cherish those moments as they mark the beginning and end of every summer of my roaming life.

It is the one constant, the anchor which brings us all back to our home. Any other notion of home is transient. We live it for what it is, a moment of our lives. But our summer cabin remains, patiently waiting, wrapped in plastics and covered in sand, every summer for us to go back, open its windows wide and let the sun in.

PJ Friends

When we were young, really young, maybe 8 or 10, we used to dress down and go to Pajama themed birthday parties. My kids now like them too. They even have Pajama day at school. They dream of their much anticipated first sleepover. Not gonna happen but they don’t know that yet.

I’m not sure where it all comes from, this excitement about spending good times with our friends while garbed in our favorite PJs. But it sure was fun, in a comfy intimate way.

I don’t get invited to PJ parties anymore. But I still look for my PJ circle of friends everywhere I go.

I was talking to my friend Alex, and after a lot of whining from my side, she finally conceded. Though it is easy for some of us to make friends the minute we set foot in a new place, it’s the intimacy we need with our friends that we miss the most.

This is the kind of friendship that can only mature with age, and a heavy build-up of fun memories. Unfortunately for Roamers like us, those friendships that age to satisfy our taste, are the ones that we constantly have to leave behind.

They are my PJ friends. They’re the friends who are so good in their hearts, so clear in their minds and so accommodating in their gestures that at some point – you can’t really tell when exactly- you open up to them in a way you could have never done with friends back home.

Let me explain….

I moved to Jakarta and became neighbors with “O”, after a short while, and for space and money reasons, we decided to invest together in one washing machine. In three short months, she and I became washing buddies, sharing dirty laundry and slightly cleaner secrets with every spin of our new machine.

In New York, There were “H” and “A” and a larger group of amazing friends. In two years, we were all camped out in the same hotel rooms, or our own living rooms, literally socializing in our PJs and not bothering to change either clothes or silly attitudes in each other’s company. It was that comfortable!

We had our “Diner” moments; this occasional “girls only” rendez- vous at the neighborhood diner at 4 AM, sipping at stale coffee while spilling our frustrations and angst out. It’s funny, but every once in a while, one of the girls would send me an FB message saying: I need a Diner moment now. That’s all she has to say. She knows I understand. She knows I can relate.

Back to Jordan, it took longer, but towards the end of my short stay, I had established a solid network of PJ friends. All with kids already, our most intimate exchanges were always late at night, watching a movie with dear F and sharing a large bucket of ridiculously fattening Caramel Pop Corn; having coffee with R, completely at ease despite our half washed faces and sleep puffed eyes after our kids’ drop off in the morning.

Midnight visits to M’s and sipping hot tea on a chilly night on her terrace bring back the soothing taste of Chamomile while my frequent argileh escapades with F at Bianca café are the ones I crave the most.

I’ve been quite fortunate in Westchester, actually blessed is the right term to describe my life and my new entourage. They bring out the crazy, non challente, impulsive girl in me. I’m actually surprised she’s still there. Thought I’d lost her somewhere between moves. It’s truly liberating… and fun. It’s the stuff that makes the best memories. Like Alex says - every time my whining starts getting to her nerves- we’re in a good place here.

But I’m still waiting. Patiently idling away the hours, the days and the weeks for this moment when – one or maybe some of my new found friends will reach that level of comfort around me, and I around them, and become my PJ friends. Only then will Westchester truly feel like a warm welcoming home.

For now, I’m looking forward to more BBqs, karaoke lunches, dancing parties and wild nights out in the city, dressed in Sevens and fancy tops, my social PJ still safely tucked inside my closet waiting for that moment to be donned with pride.

Surviving the DMV driver's test

On a bright Friday morning, I stepped out of my car, went to the driver’s seat, adjusted it, then the mirrors and buckled up. I grabbed the wheel and took off for what I was sure was just a routine driver’s test.
Patiently, I waited at the first STOP sign, then the second, then a third and by the fourth I thought to myself: How many more before my blank-faced tester can actually realize that I DO READ ENGLISH, I KNOW HOW TO BREAK AT A STOP SIGN and I CAN ACTUALLY DRIVE, especially since I’ve been doing it for almost two decades and at least six months (without a single penalty) in this state?
That’s when I made a small jump. It was a big mistake!
That Friday, I went back home in utter disbelief. On the one hand, I didn’t yield (after patiently stopping at that fourth sign for over a minute). But on the other, I drove really well.
That was Friday the 11th. On Thursday the 12th, a snow storm hit the city and everyone vowed to stay home. I took off and headed to the site of my second road test.
Same waiting line, same sober faced with an I_HATE_MY_JOB look testers; but the streets were all covered in snow. Two stop signs later and practically no danger to yield to (everyone else really stuck to their homes), I passed!
Now I am officially approved by the NY DMV as a safe driver. How much exactly did that cost me?
- Study time, though that was the only part I found important
- A trip down to Manhattan to do the practical test and wait for hours for my papers to be processed. Finished a boring novel and missed a nice lunch with my friends in the process, which was an utter waste of time
- A painful four-hour session of decent and responsible driving that is TOTALLY designed for teen drivers. I don’t really drink, let alone drink and drive. I’m worried about children crossing the street, but I’m concerned about the safety of my own three little ones strapped in the backseat of my minivan. For God’s sake, I drive a minivan!!! Ring Ring Ring!
- Two mornings trying to pass a practical driving test
- A nerve-wrecking and quite humiliating experience sitting next to a woman I don’t know, whose sole job is to judge my every move: a turn of the head, a jerk of the knee, and God forbid, an untimely sneeze. Then she sits and starts scoring my abilities right there and then. So instead of focusing on the road, I try to steal a few sideway glances to see if I’ve already failed or not.
I passed.
But it’s far from over…
Still have to do the trip to Manhattan to renew the license I have yet to receive.
Yes, they gave me a learner’s permit which expires two days after my test was scheduled, how clever was that?
So now, I’m bracing myself for yet another boring novel, a lunch missed at one of my favorite hang outs and a morning totally lost to bureaucratic chaos..and NO..this isn’t happening in Cairo. It’s right here in one of the world’s supposedly most humane countries!!