58 witchy tiktok There's this American Egyptian woman in her 50s on Tiktok (Little Cajun House) She was cleaning her giant kitchen in Texas I keep noticing Texas everywhere because of diaryland friends :) She talked about her life in El-Agamy, Alexandria in the 80s I did my TEFL course there Pretty beach place I'm programmed to find Southern accents threatening but hers is comforting and cute Her father was a heightened version of my baba She maneuvered Egypt in the 80s as a teen I couldn't do it Her (American) mama was also abandoned and abusive like mine She was forced to marry an asshole and she lost a baby when he hit her Her parents passed away in her 30s I had to stop watching there There are more babies (and trauma) and she clearly ended up in the States It felt too strange I'm already feeling far away and dissociating So to see someone like that pop up on my phone I feel like Alice in free fall Baba's going back to Cairo today so I get Sahel to myself She looked safe Wiping down her counter and publicly sharing with a sometimes wobbly voice And she has a garden And she makes cookies Ethnic white people must have a really weird time Especially being Arab Ozzy's just self hating, it aged him White beard and wrinkles already I guess it's scary to be found out, their identities feed into xenophobic body snatcher narratives An Arab who looks and sounds like us, nooooo! I can infiltrate the Maori, Hawaiians, Thailand and Vietnam But they're not so worried about it :) Trauma makes you a time traveller You only get to be a baby when you feel safe Late babyhoods and early adulthoods And in your head you get stuck in moments for years and even decades And because of your hyper vigilance you can see into the future And because of your instinct to survive you can escape into different timelines where people made different choices or you did Even though he was a cheeky racist sex spy, Roald Dahl was kind of my baba He didn't write about obedient children Or happy suburban children He made me feel safe in my distrust of adults He gave me an empathetic perspective Even the very terrible adults are just broken and tired and no longer have imagination And he made me understand that wasn't really my burden The kids in his books were fighters, even if the fight meant breaking rules (I refused to shower for weeks after reading The Witches) And they were curious and weren't punished for it And most importantly, a lot of them made their own families Was that lady on Tiktok the ghost of Christmas past or future? I don't know, I keep saying/stimming I don't know Maru says the power/water cuts are really frequent in Cairo Depends on your area Wealthier neighborhoods and the North Coast aren't experiencing them now So I'm staying for September Until it's cooler and the gecko is definitely dead I'm still not feeling well. I'm bleeding (but it's not a period) and hormonal and swollen and achy It happens when I'm stressed I just need to be a potato Tante Z says I'm sick because of the evil eye and I posted too many happy things on social media I bought a kitschy evil eye ring from the Marakia market -- I should wear it and shadow box |