The Great Pyramids

There is one perfect spot on the highway on the eastern side of the city, running right along the desert, where the elevation creeps up just high enough with the added height of a bridge to see out across the City of a Thousand Minarets all the way to the other side. It is brief. You have to look quickly or you'll miss it. Over thousands of mosques, the Nile River and its famous life-giving Valley, countless ancient artifacts, millions of homes, even more millions of people, all the way to the edge where the western desert begins its seemingly endless stretch over millions of sand dunes and across several international boundaries until it reaches the beautiful Atlas Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. But you can see them on a clear day, perhaps only an outline on a smoggy day, and if you're lucky, during a sunset. There, perched on the very edge of the city surrounded by sand, stand the Great Pyramids, the sight I never seemed to tire of seeing.

Sure, some people don't see the big deal. They're just a bunch of rocks in the sand. How many times do you really need to see that??? But they are very BIG rocks, all aligned quite perfectly, still standing after THOUSANDS of years, in a place that very few people in the world get to visit, let alone LIVE. So I say it's sort of a big deal. I can't count the number of times I viewed this Ancient Wonder and I can't remember the number of times I visited...roaming around the ground level of unbelievably enormous stones sitting there in the suffocating heat for thousands of years...riding horses out into the desert like Indiana Jones...craning my neck backwards to see the tiny tip of the top and wondering how far I would get if I tried to climb it before getting "tsk tsk-ed" by the security guards who were siting in the shade drinking tea...holding on tight to a camel that seemed to always want to do its own thing and never follow the herd (we really were perfect for each other)...those classic and perfectly cheesy photos: Holding the Pyramids in the Palm of Your Hand, Touching the Top with the Tip of Your Index Finger, or my personal favorite Kissing the Sphinx...having conversations with Egyptian children who only wanted to practice their English and with Egyptian young men indubitably named Mohammad who only wanted to know how many camels my father would take to sell me into marriage as if that were an attractive offer for a country boy from small-town Arkansas OR his independent daughter...and even sneaking in on the Egyptian citizen entrance fee because we stubbornly insisted that we weren't tourists, for cryin' out loud, we lived there!!!

These memories come to mind now and then. (Ok, maybe every day.) I don't want to forget what it was like to live there and what privilege I've experienced! And one of those memories that stands out is that highway (also not unlikely due to the numerous near-death experiences I lived through). But every time I traveled that road, I would wait until we approached that small hill to quickly glance out the side window while still death-gripping the taxi seat in front of me where I had accustomed myself to holding on for dear life in order to look quickly across the city I called Home to those three little peaks basking in the desert sun...and remember what a cool life I get to live.