Upon waking, every morning I used to stagger down the stairs, open my front door, check the weather, smell the air, reach out for the morning paper, drag myself into the kitchen, measure out some coffee beans to grind, boil some water, pour the steaming water through the grounds, too impatient to let the water boil, smell the fresh coffee, open the paper, stare blankly at the headlines and try to wake up. Often, about 2 hours later, I’d realize that I had just wasted my morning looking at words, turning pages, and seeing nothing. And then, the phone calls would come. This was my ritual for so many years. Too many hours, mornings, years of wasted time. Since dancing and or teaching dance at night was my “day-job,” I didn’t have to jump out bed, into the shower and onto public transportation, or the over-crowded commute lanes to get to work and the prized morning coffee at the desk. I had the luxury of waking at my own pace just like so many of my fellow dance and musician friends…each of us with our own private rituals. Maybe working in the garden, maybe doing laundry, maybe vacuuming and straightening up the house, maybe going to yoga, the gym or dance class, or maybe, like me - just dumbly staring at words on newsprint waiting for the phone to bring news of a possible gig or to let me network.
I’m not a morning person. They say Feiruz in the morning and Om at night. Well, definitely, give me an Om song any morning, or even any day and for sure, any evening. Heaviness is my muse.
But to get back to my morning ritual. A few years ago I noticed that my morning ritual with the papers was becoming even more meaningless because the papers were getting skinnier and skinnier and lighter and lighter - not only in weight, but in content. And while I noticed that newsprint papers were at the mercy of the discontent of their other subscribers, I, too, cancelled my morning paper subscription. But what to do? Would I just opt to look at nothing but my coffee mug and my kitchen wall? What would I dumbly stare at in the morning while trying to wake myself and my mind with no more morning paper to idly shuffle through? Books were too dense for my mornings and magazines took too much brain work when my mind was still brain dead. But magazines sort of worked. I could just look at the pictures and save the articles for later after the caffeine kicked in. However, monthly periodicals weren’t current enough for me. They weren’t daily. Meanwhile my morning newspaper was actually working hard to make the change from the tangible to the intangible just like I was working hard at making the same change. This would be the change from my real world to the new world of the internet media and online information portals. But how could I feel contented with this change? Well, I started relying on my phone as part of my caffeine ritual. I could dumbly sip my coffee and stare at the emails on my phone. It was perfect. Email was news of sorts and junk emails were the ads that I could blank out on. I could even read my morning paper on the internet. But I soon realized that reading current events in this fashion was like falling into the rabbit hole and never getting out. I didn’t want this, I only wanted to be peripherally involved in the news. Only enough to wake up. My phone heard me. And my phone is smart. In fact it is getting smarter every day and is so much smarter than me. And it really does hear me and tell me things. You think I’m paranoid? Notice that your phone hears you too and also gives you advice.
First my phone decided I could subscribe to lots of current events media. And then it decided I could be beeped and informed when something new, earthshaking or even funny needed to be read. And then I realized that social media such as facebook also had similar newsfeeds. And then my smart phone introduced me to subscriptions on you tube and the like so I could get music and dance clips daily.
So much has happened in the past few years that now I no longer miss my morning newspaper-coffee ritual. But I am still attached to my phone. But not exactly for phone calls. I don’t need to talk to anyone anymore because I have my phone “talking” to me. I swear my phone is a mind reader. It gives me the latest information on diets, new shoes, or where to plan my next dream vacation. And so now my morning ritual is not with my newspaper, it’s with my phone. I really need that morning ritual with my phone to tell me what to do and what I want to read, see and listen to. Why, even last night I was telling a friend that I was sad that Shaaban Abdel Rahim passed last week. And you know what!
This morning my phone sent me this message.
Saturday December 28 Giza Club with devote the afternoon to remembering Shaboula - his songs, the lyrics and even his movies and his dancing.
Want to know more about Shaaban? Here are a couple of links
https://egyptianchronicles.blogspot.com/2019/12/thats-it-for-shaaban-abdel-rahim-aka.html
https://www.arabmediasociety.com/the-fool-sings-a-heros-song-shaaban-abdel-rahim-egyptian-shaabi-and-the-video-clip-phenomenon/