Cairo, the 2nd September, 2010

Panties on my head (for sure!)

Today my yoga class was amazing and,may I say, so unorthodox.
All the asanas and postures (mixed with a spicy touch of Kung Fu warming exercises...GROOVYYYYY...being a martial art´s lover myself, this was heaven...) finished, all my body energized and such. GREAT.

Time for a little cool down and meditation with conscious breathing.
I usually have no problem on letting my internal traffic calm down and just feel my breathing flow. As mentally active as I am, some would be surprised to see how fast and easily I fall into deep meditation but, TODAY, that was impossible to achieve.

Images of the man I love (with some very disturbing details, I may add!) came to my mind with a surprising easiness and
frequency.

I can admit there were nipples involved in my meditation imagery and I doubt that any Yoga master can consider "nipples" as a meditative landscape but then what can I do if I am human?!
Can this kind of meditation be called "meditation of love"?!
Trying to save my...... here!

After a while, I just accepted it and figured something important was happening and I might as well let my body and mind do as they wish. And I did...

Just when I left the class into the street, I grab my bottle of water and started to drink from it as if there was no tomorrow...forgetting we are in Ramadan and in fasting time...oh,oh...

As soon as the water started to fall down my throat, so did the hard looks from people in the street, staring at me and firing gun shots at me with their eyes. Only then I realized we are in Ramadan and, although you´re not obliged to follow fasting time by law, public displays of non- following the rules of Ramadan are never welcome.
I may respect other people´s religions and traditions but that doesn´t mean they respect mine or that I am allowed not to follow what they believe in. This is frustrating for me.
Next Christmas, I will kick the arse of the egyptian who will not sing "Jingle Bells, jingle all the way" and does not carry a Christmas tree under his/her arm.

Decided and DONE. Closed deal.

In a quick reaction, I put the bottle back in my bag and moved faster trying to avoid further inconvenient.
I felt like I was caught in the middle of the street with my panties on my head. That´s how weird and uncomfortable it was to deal with the judgemental looks of disaproval I got from the simple fact of drinking water during fasting time.

Panties on my head. This is the way I walk, sometimes, in the streets, when I forget that FREEDOM is such an illusion in most societies.