Cairo's a place where socializing comes easy, and tends to come recurringly, despite one's best effort to avoid it (if one so chooses to do so, a most herculean endeavor). I won't claim that I made any attempt to avoid human interaction, but I certainly didn't seek it out with any intention either, primarily because in coming here I arrived with a mission: To set up a new space.
The space in question needed (and still needs) quite a lot of work, because it was only ever intended as a painting studio and not a place to live. What that means is it was devoid of all the plumbing and electric work necessary for modern habitation: No kitchen plumbing, no washing machine hookups, no shower, no hot water, etc. Practically four walls + a very basic half bathroom. It's a space I had preliminarily set up over 11 years ago just to work from but never got the chance to and in the meantime it ended up becoming something of a de facto storage (hoarding) space for the entire family. In short, quite a lot of necessary work to get the place in shape and adapt it for human dwellage, something I was delusional enough to think I'd be capable of taking care of in a handful of weeks, and it was exactly that kind of gusto I arrived with. Needless to say, I have had to contend with many disappointments and frustrations since. Gosh, it took me 3 weeks just to get an internet hookup installed (hence the unforseen hiatus of this here newsletter). I must admit though, life without screentime has been delightful. And with the absence of screentime came the realization of how unnecessary much of it is, especially in the context of Cairo, where real human interaction is plentiful. In only one month, I've ended up at multiple dinner parties, breakfast/coffee meets, a bbq/pool party, two [packed] music performances, late night big group meanderings, and many endless street cafe hangs. This is in addition to time spent with family (old man isn't doing particularly well), working on converting the studio, and work on the graphic novel (as well as a couple other side gigs).
I was reading issue
#331 of Dense Discovery the other day, a newsletter I tend to enjoy, but I was taken aback by how strange it felt to read about someone having people over in their kitchen once week being spoken of as some kind of cutting edge radical.
"This weekly ritual embodies precisely what Rosie Spinks explores in her thoughtful essay on cultivating meaningful connections in our hyper-optimised lives – what she calls ‘building a village’", says Dense Discovery's Kai. Had I read the same newsletter in Houston over a month ago, I don't think I would've found it strange at all, for I too was throwing get-togethers at my place, out of a drive to fill a vacuum, not only in my own life but one I sensed in the lives of those around me as well. Granted, it was very short lived, as I only got it going a handful of months before making my big move.
