Sand And Snow

There is a place, in my heart, or in my mind, or wherever these things are hidden away. In this place the sun is always warm, the breeze is always soft, the waves crash against the shore rhythmically and the sand sticks to my body, as I lay on my stomach my head resting against my arms. My sister is shouting with annoyance at my cousin close by. Cigarette smoke flies in my direction as I listen to the discussions flowing between my aunts and uncles.
This place is mine I can close my eyes and be there. It is not a specific memory, but a collection of memories, of feelings, sensations that together bring me back to the home of my summers.
No matter where I am in my life, this place is always there. This is safety and family and rest. This is a place of sand between your toes, card games to pass the time and hot lunches on the veranda. This is a place where you can be left to yourself without ever being alone.
In the Arabic language there is no word for home, in the sense of a place that is yours. The closest description you get is the saying: the house of the family.
Family in this in this context does not merely mean mother, father, brother, sister. This word applies to the extended family, to the grandparents and the cousins and the second cousins. To close friends that have eventually become family. It applies to all those you hold dear in your life. And this inconspicuous house on the north coast of Egypt is the house of my family.
I have lived in many houses, had many homes, but this place is a constant, a reassurance.
When asked in school to find a place, my place, somewhere I can go once a week to write a journal, I start rifling through my mind for a spot with a sense of detached practicality. A place I can go to easily, close by, a place that is comfortable no matter what the weather.
I chose my parents balcony because it was easy, sheltered from the worst weather, the view is nice, there are fairly comfortable chairs. Easy.
It was a place, not especially mine in any sense, simply a place.
When I sat down to write the first entry, as I described the snow-covered landscape, the sound of Radiohead on my iPod, the coldness in my toes, and the smell of Sunday breakfast downstairs, I was overwhelmed by this sensation reserved for summers, for salty skin, for shared beds, for midnight nutella sandwiches.
The entry was short. I fled back inside quickly, and as I sat gathering warmth, I felt a gnawing in my stomach. A fearful dread as I recognized my own unwelcome feeling of belonging. Alone, on a balcony surrounded by harsh wind and powdery snow. This was a far cry from palm trees and lazy flies.
The next Sunday I stayed off the balcony.
The winter vacation came and I left to visit my family. We did not go to our summer home, but it strengthened me, and I came back reassured. I knew where I belonged.
The notebook stayed untouched though. A Sunday went in Brussels, another in Rome. But soon I could not neglect it any longer, and sat back down on the chair in the balcony.

I wrote about summers spent with my best friend. I wrote about staying up all night at the local café and watching the sun rise, and swimming with the waves during first light only to head off to bed afterwards.
But I also wrote about the snow melting. I wrote about spring air and friends coming over to watch American television shows on my computer.
I wrote about the garden I looked over from the balcony. The garden I lay in with my sister, when we first came to see the house. When it was just another on a long list of places we had been taken along to asses. We had felt comfortable there instantly, picked out our rooms within the first five minutes. Rooms that have later become sanctuaries, places of restless nights, sick days, whispered conversations with old friends.
I have come to know this place. I know which floorboards creak, I have become acquainted with the temperamental garden door that has to be slammed in a certain way, with the bathroom window that can be pried open with the right screwdriver and a good deal of desperation.
It does not hold the same constancy as my other home, it changes before my eyes, but most things stay the same.
It may be little quieter, a little lonelier, but it is home too. It is also a house of my family, just a smaller one.