I have a house. The neighbors southward are bedouins -- the uncinematic kind, the unromantic kind. The women do not peer out from beneath headdresses dripping spangles or through burnished, bird-like masks like elders of Oman; the children do not appear with photo-ready aged and wistful eyes. They are our landlords, of sorts. They sold the land, years ago, are selling it still, profiting prettily from the urban congestion spreading out from Alexandria like progress, to some, or disease, to others ... but still they consider it theirs. Land lords. Were Zeus to sell Olympus for a pocketful of coins would he too have ceded his throne upon it?

The neighbors northward are moderns. I know not what else to call them. Or maybe throwbacks, Egyptians circa 70s, Egyptians who got on nicely before something from the Iranian Revolution took to the air and spread, too, like the city. Before young women traveled together in flocks, costumed tip to toe as tropical birds. Before "insha'allah" popularly dotted sentences like as though it was its own grammatical advancement: a punctuation of piety. Insha'allah.

I have a house which evenly splits the distance between highway and sea, set back within the twisting logic of unpaved packed sand roads. Vacant vacation houses, urban ex-pats, forcibly settled nomads, elders who couldn't afford better from before the land values rose, and small-time dreamers slowly aging out of "young" together fill the landscape of sand, courtyards, and concrete. We're an odd lot. Cars of French import fame part seas of children herding goats in the streets. Satellite dishes overlook orange trees and trash heaps.

The house itself is two floors stacked upon a foundation meant to support as many as eight: a decision resulting from the dreams of a matriarch, her visions of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren coming together in one vertical unit having manifested itself in a foundation costing more than the neighboring houses combined. Two floors marked by jutting balconies and arched windows, interlocking clay tile crescents lining sloping roofs, stucco and bricks, wrought iron geometry. Here I dreamed of gardens, once. Grapevines over the side patio, nevermind the bother of dropping fruits fermenting under foot. Low lavender hedges lining walkways and lending order to a mix of tomatoes and tomatillos, espalier citrus, basils and beanpoles. Obligatory but still beautiful bougainvillea spilling out over the entrance gate. I drew plant maps on paper, traced outlines in the sand with sticks: raised beds here, walking paths there. The matriarch dreamed bigger; I was still young for that.

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