Of Earth and Memories
Musings on childhood connections to your roots and families
Dear friends,
Christmas, my favorite time of year, has come and is en route to the “finish line” - we’re exactly half-way through the 12 days of it - and, like probably most of you by now, I find myself fluctuating between having a lot of energy and being excited about this holiday season and between not having the mental bandwidth to do much as this year comes to an end. The former is understandable because winter is supposed to be a time of slowness, reflection and introspection - an activity that actually our generation of anxious over-thinkers seems to be doing most of the time, come rain or shine. And yet with all this mental and emotional exhaustion and overthinking, we find ourselves stuck having to keep going and being productive as dictated by different social structures in our lives, e.g., work, which has been a struggle, to say the least.
I can’t help but wish that this was possible during at least the second half of December and January:
I was spending the better half of my morning and early afternoon a week ago, which I was on leave from work and nursing a sprained ankle, doing my very own Christmas movie marathon: Today, I had a double feature of The Grinch that stole Christmas and Little Women (the 2019 version which is unapologetically my favorite).
In one of the scenes, Jo March was reading to her sister Beth a quote from a book while they were sitting by the sea. Little Women is one of my ultimate comfort watches, understandably so, and especially this version goes back and forth in time so beautifully while portraying the unbreakable bond and connection between the March sisters and their family. But this particular scene gives me the absolute warm and fuzzies (for lack of a better description). I get this rush of warmth and calmness when Jo starts reading the quote and I get a million flashback and snippets from my childhood. It’s like watching my very own movie but inside my brain.
This is the quote I’m referencing, which is from George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss:
“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it, if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass, the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows, the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’ because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?”
You can watch it here starting 1:20, in case you need a refresher and to hear it in the soothing and inspired voice of Saoirse Ronan’s Jo March.
“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.” The first sentence of this quote especially hits hard because of how nostalgic it is. How it sounds to me is as if someone took all the nostalgic, warm, happy memories ever lived, put them in a small fancy tea cup on a cloudy yet bright winter day and gave it to you to keep you warm, as you sit surrounded by your family in your softly-lit living room with a million knick-knacks, books and bits and bobs surrounding you. Not only does it capture nostalgia for more fun and carefree days, but it captures a sense of longing to a place in an incomprehensible and otherwise logically inexplicable, which is how I oftentimes explain my strong connection and love of country. The connection to the “earth,” a highly poetic notion that a lot of us seem to have lost along the years.
I have always had a strong love for Egypt and always deemed it beautiful. As I grow older - and possibly more critical- , I often look outside the window as I drive and try to imagine how someone who’s foreign to this country would perceive it and I’ve often had mixed perceptions and views. As is the case with a lot of places, objects and people in life, not everything is black or white; a lot is often found in the grey zone which is to say that there are aspects to my country that are beautiful and others that are not so beautiful.
And one beautiful aspect about Egypt, and I have to say also of the entire Middle East, is its rich cultural heritage. And whereas for a country like mine, we have a lot of tangible assets and monuments that tell of its history, there are many more stories that are stored in the country and region’s intangible heritage, like folk tales, customs, performing arts, etc.
One such intangible asset, in my opinion, is engrained in our tradition to put family at the center of society. Arab and Middle Eastern culture is very family-centric, with people often living close to home to be close to family. Obviously things have changed now with the faster paced life we’re living and the trials and tribulations of this modern life, but family is still at the core of a lot of our being and decisions in life. As part of the Millennial generation, I am guilty of yearning for more independence and often catch myself being hyper-individualistic in the manner that I plan my life and even my day-to-day, yet I find myself also yearning for a community, for family. The duality of this, I believe, is something that most of us Millennials suffer from as we try to prove ourselves in life by attempting a thousand different projects and tasks and trying to break free from certain cycles or habits that have been imposed on us by our families and their traditions or beliefs. At the same time we are also trying to maintain a social life and realizing that we don’t want to feel lonely, often ending up feeling burned out and completely out of energy to the point that doing groceries feels like an attempt to surf in the middle of a storm, let alone having to socialize or be around anyone, especially family. We just have a constant need to retreat and be surrounded by quiet and peace, (or is it just me?) something that apparently is hard to come by these days… especially in our region.
As I grow older, I realize more and more how enriching it is to be close to your family and the importance of this kind of support no matter how old or young you are. For most people, family is who will always be there for you when all is said and done. I realize that for some people their chosen families are their friends and partners, which sometimes are event stronger than the bond with their biological family. The biological family however can add a certain dimension because there’s so much shared history and heritage: for most people, they were there throughout their childhoods and formation years and they have seen a different side of the person and are connected to a different, (hopefully) more carefree side of that person. Much like your connection to your school friends, you might be in different places in life and have gone in very different directions, but when you get together, it’s reminiscent and sweet.
This tradition of honoring your family, taking their opinion, especially in the big decisions in life, is also rooted in how Arab cultures honor the elders because of their wisdom and experience in life, that would be passed on only through asking them for their opinions and listening to their stories, and stories are a huge part of Arab and Middle Eastern culture as well, if not of the entire human culture. As Elif Shafak said in her recent post, “We are Storytelling Animals”. There’s much to be learned from them the trick however is to realize that it’s a compromise and a balancing act. Like everything, being close to family does come with its challenges, depending on whether or not your family is familiar with the notion of boundaries, which I have to admit, a lot of Egyptians, and safe to say Arab and Middle Eastern families, might not be too familiar with.
This hyper-independence that our modern life tries to push for us to achieve might not always be the solution for everything because we need a community to support us (loneliness is a killer, guys!) and being part of a community means that you will have to compromise something because we’re not living in our own bubble. Easier said than done but thus is life. And also I have to say that to each their own; if someone prefers it that way, then so be it, but what I’m trying to say is that bittersweet chocolate is technically healthier for you than milk chocolate even if milk seems like the better and obviously sweeter option.
I think the trick here, and challenge, is for the older generation to realize that they also can learn from and need to respect the younger generation because their experiences are also quite enriching as we are exposed to a lot more and to possibly different aspects of life that, say, the generation of our grandparents were exposed to.
I realize that I’m starting to sound a bit preachy and quasi scholarly in a not-so-scientific manner so I will stop here since I digressed a bit from my point. My point was to note that it’s wonderful to be connected to your roots and to reminisce in them and in your memories in connection to that. I realize also that a lot of us might not have grown up near their roots or in the places where their families are originally from, but it’s always interesting to note how they still have a strong connection to the “earth” they grew up on and near to because at the end of the day, when all is said and done, all we truly possess in life are our memories and experiences. Everything else comes and goes, but these are always engrained in our minds and what will make us smile at the end of the day.
On that note, I started watching Parenthood, a show that aired between 2010 and 2016, that has a bit of a This is Us vibe sans the touch of melancholic undertone. It’s a very heartwarming show that is centered around strong family ties and tackles different family challenges and issues but without making it feel heavy or preachy.
A final weird and not completely related note that I will share here is that I’ve always had a weird and nostalgic connection to New York City, which I can’t really explain, especially because it’s not a favorite of mine. I think that might come from all the movies and shows that romanticize New York, making me love the idea of it. I often imagine living there as if I was Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail (I mean, are you really surprised?), which might be why I was so disappointed the first time I went to NY and why I constantly get a bit disappointed there with reality not always meeting my dreamworld. But then I realize that this is probably very similar to how non-Egyptians might perceive Egypt: this dreamy place full of history and culture yet it also has its dusty, not so beautiful parts.
A similar but very understandable connection for me is to my college town and state, Michigan. I remember I cried the entire time I was waiting for my plane to go back home when I was leaving there, which is ironic given the fact that I was crying the entire plane ride going there and leaving my country and family just four years before that. It’s very interesting to see how people change and form new connections and bonds to people and places, even when you think that there is no way that this would happen. I remember speaking to my best friend about how I was scared to be too attached to the US when I was in college and that I wouldn’t want to go back home after graduation, which was a thought I was set on since I started college. I remember her telling me that if that would’ve happened then that’s fine and that that wouldn’t mean that I don’t love Egypt but just that I wanted to live in a different place now and that I would’ve formed a connection with that new place, which doesn’t negate my connection to my home country. Thinking about this thought, I can’t stop thinking about how absurd it sounds but also how it so sounds like me, holding on to emotions and things until the very last, refusing to let go until there’s absolutely no hope at all in them.
I don’t want to finish the above thought because I feel like it’s going in a heavier direction that I don’t really want to delve into now.
Since we’re only a couple of days away from 2025, I wish you a very happy holiday season and new year filled with peace, growth, ease and everything you wish for.
Before the year ends, try and give yourself mini retreats where you slow down and take stock of your happy and beautiful memories and count your blessings. I found another Substack author’s post on “Writing The Year” to be very inspiring in that regard.
And also, don’t forget to dance..it might change how you enter the new year.
Last but certainly not least, I leave you with this Christmas poem written by Agatha Christie in her book Star over Bethlehem, which in case you didn’t know or realize is a collection of holiday poems and stories. (Yes, it was mind blowing for me, too, that she wrote anything other than mysteries!)
All my love,
Nolly xxx
Love love this🩷🩷🩷