Misery and “The Mummy”
The memories of my childhood are few and far between. Someday a therapist will sort all that out, but I really don’t mind. I’m quite all right with the creature […]
Category Archives: ancient Egypt
LUXOR: The Ghost at Esna
I was lost in reverie when the temple first came into sight. And once my eyes had latched onto the yellow-brown stone, I felt the most inordinate connection. It wasn’t like I had been here before, or anything like what Lady M would have discussed at midnight on a rooftop in Cairo, this was something absolutely new. It was relief. I know that doesn’t make tremendous sense, and I can’t claim to understand the sensations I felt there myself, but I took great comfort in the Temple of Esna.
THINGS I LOVED/HATED THIS WEEK #181
I quickly fell head over heels in love with the author, Barbara Mertz. When I learned that she was a trained Egyptologist with a degree from the highly respected University of Chicago, well that was it for me. I knew that I needed to do the same. So I wrote a lengthy letter telling Barbara that she had profoundly impacted my life. When I went to research the address to send it to, I read that she had died. I felt overwhelming loss. I was devastated for the longest time because I would never get to befriend Barbara. And I was sad because Amelia had been frozen. She would never come back to life in the pages of a book. Imagine my rapture, imagine my thrill, imagine my delight when word spread that there was an unfinished manuscript about Amelia!
LUXOR: The Best of All Birthdays
I don’t mind aging so much. I joke about it frequently, but I feel as if I was “eighty before I was eighteen.” I was a grumpy old man for the majority of my life. I didn’t do anything terribly exciting or socialize or have a dozen boyfriends or wake up on a riverbank with no memory of getting there. Honestly, I can’t say that I regret that, but there are times when I wonder what I missed out on during the course of my tame youth. I feel younger now than I did back then. I still haven’t woken up on a riverbank, but that’s just fine. I have woken up in five star hotels, so that’s better.
LUXOR: The Karnak Conundrum
Coming to the end, a well-uniformed security guard approached me and told me that I was sure to get a wife now. I smiled and chuckled to myself and replied, “Inshallah.” This pleased him inordinately, and so I was led on a long walk with him into more to those off-limit sites for a bit of baksheesh. Everybody’s charmingly corrupt in Egypt. He led me into a chamber with something to do with Alexander and went to find a man who was going to give me great good luck. I shrugged again, any luck was better than no luck, after all.
ASWAN: Abu Simbel At Last
“It will eat you, Bin-ya-meen,” Hassan hissed, pronouncing my name in the most beautiful way.
I didn’t care a bit. What a story! I eagerly accepted the beast from the woman and couldn’t believe how strong it was. Tiny though he was, that little crocodile was nothing but muscle and teeth and scales. It was insane. He writhed in my grip, and I wondered how strong his bite was. Hassan was having none of this as Abdul photographed me and my new best friend.
LUXOR: To The Cataract!
I woke with trepidation. I was heading to Aswan, checking off another major destination in Egypt, and stopping in several of the iconic temples along the way. Even though I […]
LUXOR: My Home
I encountered an absurd number of machine guns on this trip. There were the patrolling guards around the Osireion, then the bodyguards of the Minister of the Interior, and then […]
LUXOR: Queen Nefertari, the Sacrifice, and Me
Reader, so many things happened today. So many strange and unexpected and veritably miraculous occurrences came to pass that I can hardly believe it was real. It was like that […]
THINGS I LOVED/HATED THIS WEEK #169
LOVE: “The Painted Queen” by Elizabeth Peters: Y’all, I’m about to pass out. 2017 might be a great year. I mean, we have Obama for another week, and now A […]
