Stop Being Mean to Yourself Page 9

  Essam stopped short.

  “The box?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “How old are they when they have to get in the box?” I pointed to the house.

  He smiled in recognition. “Oh, you mean when do they have to begin staying at home.”

  I nodded.

  “When a girl turns fourteen, she is expected to stay at home. It is the women’s job to cook, clean, and raise the children,” he said.

  “Do they have to stay in the house for the rest of their lives?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Are they ever allowed out?”

  “Sometimes to go to market,” he said.

  “How boring,” I said. “I hope you put music in the box to make it better for them.”

  Essam looked at me as if he didn’t completely understand. How would this gentle man understand? I thought. He’s not been locked in the box.

  He held the door open for me. I entered, then waited to follow his lead. We walked through the room where I had first met the women, the room with all the rugs and pillows on the floor. He led me around the corner to the left, into a more formal living room. This room was small. It contained a sofa, a chair, and an end table.

  Two of the women I had met yesterday stood waiting to greet me. Essam introduced me to the older of the women, his aunt, and the younger woman, his sister. The women looked frail and tired. His aunt looked especially weary. Essam’s nephew, a thin, fair-haired boy about nine years old, sat on the sofa amidst school books and papers. He clutched the nub of a pencil in his hand and sat poring over his homework. With the shyness of a young boy, he barely looked at me when we were introduced. Later I saw him peeking. A vibrant teenage girl with blazing eyes and shiny dark hair walked boldly up to me. She held my hand in a warm hello that didn’t need words. She was stunningly beautiful. Her radiance instantly reminded me of my daughter, Nichole.

  No one in the room spoke English except for Essam, so he translated for us. The teenage girl was his niece. She was seventeen and very glad to meet me. All the women were honored to have me in their home.

  I told them I was pleased and honored to be there.

  The two women sat on the floor. One lit the flame on a small stove that looked like a camping stove, then began boiling water for tea. Essam gestured for me to sit next to his nephew on the small sofa, which I did. His niece immediately squeezed in next to me on the other side.

  Essam opened the box of pastries and began passing them around. His nephew, after much urging, took a lemon bar out of the white box and began munching on it. His niece held my hand in hers, touching my painted nails. The women peered at me, refusing any dessert. And the faint stirring I had felt so many times here in this ancient village now turned into a whirling maelstrom taking me someplace far back in time.

  The year was 1975. I was twenty-eight years old, a newlywed, eager to explore my dreams of being a wife and mother. Slowly over the ensuing months and years, a combination of forces made it harshly clear that my dreams were fantasies—mere illusions. By then, I had two children. I loved them deeply. I loved being their mother. But poverty, my husband’s alcoholism, and my response to his alcoholism—which I would later label codependency—had slowly ground me down to almost nothing. Although there were years when I had no car, no telephone, and little food, money was the least of what I lacked. I had no self, no self-identity, and no life. I had become embittered, drained, and weary. I rarely left the house. I had little contact with people. I had even less contact with myself—my emotions, thoughts, or power. I spun off other people’s expectations of me, or what I believed they expected. I no longer knew what I wanted from life, and I certainly didn’t expect much from myself or from anyone else.

  I was locked in a box.

  I had been in boxes before. As a child, I had felt miserably trapped. At age twelve I began crossing off days on the calendar, counting to the hour how much time I had to put in before I would be set free. My release date was age eighteen. I had few choices then, except to wait for the passage of time. I did just that. But in the process of waiting for my freedom, I turned my rage and bitterness against myself.

  By the time I was let out of that childhood box, I had already put myself in another—I was addicted to alcohol and drugs. Then, after getting out of that trap, I walked smack into another box. I found myself married to an alcoholic and locked into my futile attempts to make him stop drinking. I told myself I had no choices then. There didn’t seem to he any way out.

  Over the years, I gradually began to understand some things about codependency and about my self-nullifying response to other people. I found an old Royal typewriter, one with the “n” key missing. I began communicating with the world around me by telling my stories. I also began communicating with myself. I found a way out of that box, a way out for my children and me. That would not be the last box I’d walk into, but it was the last time I would believe I was trapped.

  Many situations and circumstances in life can box us in with expectations that are not ours, limitations that diminish our freedom and dim the light in our golden ball of power. It’s so easy to allow others to infringe on our lives, wishes, emotions, and choices. The edges protecting free will are thin.

  I had been working for years to break out of all the obvious boxes. But at each new level, the boxes—the traps—became more subtle. Slowly I began to see that many of the boxes I found myself in were of my own making. I tended to construct them, crawl in, then wonder who I could blame for putting me there. Who did this to me? I would wonder and sometimes ask aloud. That’s when I’d hear the answer: You did, Melody. You put yourself in this box. Now it’s up to you to get out.

  There are enough situations in life we can’t change, control, or do anything about. We don’t need to complicate an already intricate and complex life by limiting our choices and putting ourselves in a box.

  Yet, over the years, that’s what I had done.

  Recently, I had begun to suspect that some deep part of me reveled, at least for a while, in the safety and comfort of being confined, limited, and controlled. I had also begun to suspect that what Nelson Mandela and others have said is true. It is not our darkness, our capability to create mayhem and madness, that we fear. What frightens us is our greatness and our tremendous inherent potential for brilliance.

  Now, sitting in the living room in Essam’s mansion in the village of Giza, I felt all the emotions that accompany being locked in the box—a deep, burning rage and bitterness, fatigue, weariness, hopelessness, and such a strong aversion to confinement that I could barely sit still. I took a bite of my delicious lemon bar, wondering how deep and ancient these emotional memories were.

  I really didn’t like being locked in a box.

  Essam’s niece handed me a family photo album. I leafed through the pictures. Not speaking the language made visiting difficult. Small talk normally fills many silent voids, but when small talk has to be translated it’s often not worth mentioning. I sipped my tea. Suddenly, I couldn’t restrain myself anymore.

  I turned to Essam’s niece. “Tell her, Essam. Tell her she doesn’t have to stay in the box.”

  His eyes got wide.

  “Tell her,” I said. “She’s beautiful. She radiates life. She could do anything, be anything she wants . . .”

  Essam smiled, then began translating my words into Arabic. His niece listened intently, then her radiant face glowed more brightly. She wanted to hear more.

  “You could be a model,” I said. “A movie star. Work in an office. You don’t have to stay in the box all your life. I have a daughter. She’s your age. She’s beautiful too. She’s on the cutting edge of her life. So are you. Live it!”

  Essam translated. The young girl smiled. I could have talked all night. A fleeting thought crossed my mind, quieting my voice: an Arab nation under Islamic rule is not the place to do a Codependent No More tour.

  I was crossing that invisible yet real line between helping and becoming ex
cessively involved in affairs that weren’t mine. I could feel it. I remembered the words my friend’s daughter had written on her hand as a reminder not to become entangled in a girlfriend’s romantic dilemma: “DON’T HELP.” I didn’t have to control the world. There was a greater plan. This plan could be trusted. I didn’t have to make anything happen. I could let destiny evolve.

  I sat back on the sofa. “Please pass the lemon bars,” I said to Essam.

  We sat in the living room drinking tea, conversing the best that we could. After a while, Essam stood up. “The women have a gift for you,” he said. “Please come with me.”

  I followed him into a room that looked like a dining room, except there was no table in it. Framed photos of men in military uniforms covered one long wall. I stared at the pictures while I waited for the women. Soon they entered the room carrying armfuls of long gowns, each in a solid, vibrant color—red, yellow, purple, green, blue, white.

  “They want you to choose two dresses,” Essam said. “It’s a gift from them.”

  I held each dress up in front of me, one at a time, trying to decide which two looked best on me. They were all so beautiful.

  “They want you to try them on,” Essam translated. “They want to see what you look like in an Egyptian gown.”

  Essam left the room. I modeled each of the exotic, beautiful dresses for the women. We oohed, aahed, and giggled. Finally, after much debate and several repeat performances, we decided that the scarlet dress with the sequined star and the peacock green dress were the right ones for me.

  I thanked the women. Essam’s sister patted my arm. His aunt smiled. It was the first time I had seen her smile all night.

  Essam came back into the room. I showed him the dresses I had chosen. Then his aunt took my arm, guiding me to the wall with the photos. She pointed to a picture of a dashing man dressed in full military garb.

  “She wants you to know that’s her husband,” Essam said. “He was killed in the war.”

  I looked at Essam’s aunt. That’s what I had sensed in her—that deep grief from losing someone we love. I looked at her, wishing I could do something for her. She has lost so much, I thought. Essam then told her I had lost my son. She touched her hand to her chest, the universal sign communicating that a person understands a broken heart.

  Essam translated, and his aunt and I talked for a while about grief and about death. We had something in common. We both felt betrayed by life. Then Essam asked if I was ready to go. I said yes.

  “Tell them thank you very much,” I said. “I had a wonderful evening.”

  Essam and the women talked in Arabic for a while, then Essam turned to me. “They enjoyed your visit very much,” he said. “They are sad you have to go. They want you to come back soon.”

  “Tell them I will,” 1 said. “I promise.”

  That’s when Essam taught me the meaning of Insha’a Allah.

  “Never say ‘I will do this’ or ‘I will do that,’” Essam said. “Instead say, ‘I will do that Insha’a Allah.’”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “If God wills it,” he said.

  “Then tell them I will be back Insha’a Allah.”

  He smiled.

  I walked out the front door of the house. I intended to return soon, but this would be the last time, at least on this trip, that I would see these lovely women of Giza.

  Essam and I walked to a restaurant in the downtown area of the village. He directed me to a small outdoor table at the restaurant, then ordered tea for us. I ran across the street to an open-air market to get some tangerines.

  “Take off your shoes,” Essam said when I returned to the table.

  “What?” I asked, wondering what kind of cultural tradition this was.

  “Take off your shoes,” he said again.

  I noticed how dusty my walking boots were as I unlaced and removed them. Essam knelt down, took my boots in his hand, stood up, smiled, then pointed to a shop across the street.

  “I’m getting your shoes shined,” he said. “They’re covered with the desert.”

  Shortly, Essam returned to the table with my shoes. We sat drinking tea and talking about the tangerines, the village, and my plans for the rest of the week. I was considering moving from the large hotel in Cairo to a smaller hotel on the edge of Giza. I hadn’t yet begun writing. This concerned me, but there were so many things to see and do, so many people to meet. These adventures felt so important.

  “I have some more family members I would like you to meet,” Essam said.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “There are about five thousand of them,” he said.

  I laughed. Then Essam’s mood shifted visibly.

  “I had to divorce my wife, Melody,” he said after a long pause.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because she wouldn’t stay in the box,” he said.

  His voice was tinted with sadness, his face and eyes clouded with confusion. In that moment, in that look in his face, I saw so many things.

  Men need women as much as or more than women need men, I thought, whether that need expresses itself as a need for friendship or a romantic relationship. I looked around at the streets devoid of the presence of women, as many of the streets in the Arab world had been except in the souk. Societies need the balance brought by female energy, I thought. That’s what’s missing here. To be complete and live in a way that brings us into harmony with ourselves and the world, we each need the daily presence and involvement of the feminine side of ourselves—our intuition, nurturing, creativity.

  Essam was strong, yet he was a kind, gentle man. In all my time here, I had seen him wield power over no one. He seemed to accept and enjoy my independence and freedom, even though I’m a woman. I wondered why allowing his wife freedom threatened him so much. Could it be that even though men appeared to have so much more power than women, men perceived women as actually being more powerful than men? Did they look at women with the same illusions about power that women sometimes had when they saw men? Was this whole dance a big power play, where people suffered from the illusion they didn’t have power and then tried to repress the power in others—steal power—to try to bring things into balance?

  The world is changing, I thought. Our world in the United States—even this world here in the Middle East—is changing. One person can no longer have power by denying another his or her freedom or power. The world is bringing itself—and the male and female energies in it—into balance.

  Taking power from another no longer works. Power—whether it is emotional, spiritual, mental, physical, psychic, or financial—is a tremendous responsibility. The Golden Rule—do unto others as you would have them do unto you—is not a suggestion. It’s a law that decodes how the universe works. How we use our powers, how we behave, how we treat others boomerangs back to us. Even the subtle ways we direct our thoughts, emotions, and intentions toward others will inevitably come back to haunt us, particularly when we intermingle these powerful energies with our will.

  Ultimately, how we love our neighbor is how we love and treat ourselves.

  Years ago, I practiced the ritual of praying for people I resented. I hadn’t understood the rationale for doing this. I did it because people I trusted told me to. They told me that it was better than seeking revenge and that praying for people I resented worked—which it did. I had done this on blind faith. Now, I began to see why it worked. When we seek revenge, we are really targeting that spiteful energy at ourselves. When we project mean energy, it can and will be turned back on us. It’s inevitable. It has to go somewhere. And when we pray for another—even if we have to force the words until they feel real—we’re really praying for blessings to be heaped upon ourselves. We’re projecting an energy that is desirable to have redirected and turned back at us.

  Make no mistake, there is a vast difference between a reckoning and revenge.

  In Aikido, I learned that the art’s powerful defense techniques were effec
tive only if someone attacked. If a person did not attack, there was no negative energy—no force—to direct back at that person.

  I pestered my sensei for a book I could read, something that would help me to mentally configure the ideas I was struggling so hard to learn. I wanted to understand in my head how to work with energy that was directed at me, how to intuitively, immediately, and gracefully send all negative energy back to its source in the dojo and in my life. I wanted the recipe for how to protect myself without becoming vengeful, aggressive, or overly hurtful. I wanted to learn everything I could about power, because it was setting me free. And I wanted a list of rules, an instruction booklet to help me do that.

  “That’s not how you learn,” my teacher said. “Struggle through the confusion until your body, mind, and spirit learn how it feels when you get it right. Then you’ll really know. And then you’ll remember.”

  “But there must be something I can read,” I protested.

  Finally, on my own, I found a book that discussed these ideas, a book called The Art of War. When I told my teacher about the book, he said it was a good one. “But when you finish that, there’s a better one,” he said. “It’s called The Art of Peace.”

  Back in Giza, as I sat in the outdoor restaurant drinking my tea, talking to Essam, and thinking about power, women, and revenge, I noticed a young boy riding a donkey bareback down the street. This ancient village mesmerized me. It was a journey back in time.

  “Look!” I said to Essam, pointing at the animal.

  “Do you want to ride it?” Essam asked.

  I hesitated. Essam insisted. He called to the boy. Then we walked over to the donkey. The boy dismounted. I swung my leg over the back of the animal, hoisted myself up, then rode that ass bareback down the street.

  It had taken me a long time, but I was out of the box. And I had no intention of getting back in Insha’a Allah.

  LET ME SEE YOUR NOTES,” the female interrogator with the chestnut-colored hair demanded, reeling me back into the airport in Tel Aviv.

  I recoiled in disbelief. I felt invaded and violated. Didn’t I have any rights? What was this woman looking for? What did she think I had found?