Departures – Dubai

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.”

Alan Watts

We have crawled to the end of term. Sometimes it felt like Rachelle was dragging my corpse to the end of term.

Dubai remains a sand pit of consumerism, but the weather is nice.

It is hard to like a place where the view out the window is a growing sand mountain that is the garbage dump.

My eye is still an issue. Almost four months for a problem that fixes itself.

Three different eye drops and prednisone have calmed it, yet not fixed it. My opthalmologist is out of ideas, sending me to specialist after specialist. In the end, he admitted defeat.

In positive news, with the help of Leanda, I have weaned myself from 20mg of prednisone to 5mg. I have dropped one of the eye drops entirely.

“Learn to read symptoms not only as problems to be overcome but as messages to be heeded.”

Gabor Maté

We arrive at the airport and find our usual seat. It is Ramadan. Muslims believe fasting brings them closer to God. I order a beer in the hope of moving further away. Haram.

This flight is the worst type. It is only 6-7 hours, but it departs at 10.00 pm and you lose three hours across the time zones. You arrive in Budapest at 1.00 am, which is n’t great, but your body on Dubai time thinks it is 4.00 am.

I have the added bonus of sitting next to Oscar, my first real-life right wing lunatic. We get to talking and I do my best to avoid conflict. There is no point arguing with the insane, but it is an eye opener listening to his stream of beliefs.

Eventually, Shell passes me my headphones and politely check out of the conversation before he makes me wear a MAGA hat.

I finish Absalom, Absalom! and listen to an Alan Watts presentation. I am getting in touch with my inner Zen and it is actually striking a chord with me.

“I was wrong. I admit it. I believed that there were things which still mattered just because they had mattered once. But I was wrong. Nothing matters but breath, breathing, to know and to be alive.”

William Faulkner