I love getting older. Now don’t get me wrong, there are of course a few disadvantages to maturing, gravity is a reality to name but one. But overall I find as I accumulate years I enjoy life more for the simple fact that I know myself so much better. Compared to the Red Sea, Cairo is a society with an abundance of choices so any simplification is a good thing. New trends permeate our existence in this bustling city seemingly more and more rapidly as time passes. Often their claims of improvement seem silly to me, some things are just fine the way they are.
A while ago I was standing in line to pick up a coffee to go in one of the many American-style coffee shops that have popped up all over Cairo. To me coffee is one of the better things in life, the first thing that greets me in the morning and a loyal companion throughout my day and evening. Besides that I am a purist, my coffee should be strong, dark with nothing added, just the simple, rich brew itself. Of course to each his own, many people prefer to disguise the pure taste with milk or sugar, claiming that it actually enhances the taste.
Things have changed though, ordering a coffee has become a hazardous road through a plethora of choices, with a smiling and professionally happy barista guiding you through every step of the way.
A young girl, obviously having been here and done this before, reaches the counter, answering the cheerful good morning with a quick nod of her head and rattling of an order that sounded like One-double-extra-tall-mocha-frappuchino-with skim-milk-no-whipped-cream-to-go. All these words painted a picture in my head of something gigantic, served up in a glass bowl with umbrella’s and lit sparklers. Within a few minutes something in a clear plastic to go cup was handed over, brownish in color with one single straw sticking out of the domed top. A bit of a let down that, what is the point of making it sound so exciting if the end result seems so drab? At least my order for a big, black coffee covered exactly what I walked away with, the simplicity enhanced the joy of my first sip even if it did make me feel a bit outdated.
I was reminded of this a few days later when I accompanied a friend on a doctors’ visit, she had decided that is was time to give herself a lift in more ways than one and was having some injections strategically inserted in her face to stop her from frowning and fill up some of the wrinkles that time had bestowed upon her. I had heard off, but never been present at such a procedure before and was amazed at the quickness and simplicity of it all. A few syringes was all it took, the filler giving an immediate effect while the other stuff would apparently take a few days to fully work. Modern science at work.
Towards the end of the visit the doctor turned to me and asked when I was planning to come for a visit. I started laughing, answering that I did not have such plans, not because I think that age has not left its marks on my face but because the ones that are there do not bother me. The doctor gave me a pitying look and placed me in front of a mirror surrounded by stark fluorescent lights and proceeded to point out every little crack and crevice that had snuck onto my face in the past few decades. I tell you, no matter how comfortable I am with ageing, this was an eye opening moment, or as far as my eyes would open with the droopy eyebrows that I had just been told I have. The partial-eye-opener was not seeing reality, it was the fact that it was supposed to bother me. The perceptive doctor seeing the shift in my eyes was quick to reassure me, or so he thought. With a patronizing pat on my cheek he told me: ‘nothing that one syringe of Botox and three of filler won’t fix’.
I have been smiling about it ever since, even if it supposedly increases my creases. And I am told caffeine is no help there either. I do not care. For now getting older feels good, it took me many hours of laughter to accumulate the lines around my eyes and I wear them proudly. And I enjoy being able to frown at taxi drivers when it is appropriate.
If it makes me outdated to stick to basics, so be it. The beauty of having choices is that we are all free to make the ones that suit us and make us happy.
