It is 117 degrees in Al Madinah, Saudi Arabia- a holy city engulfed in a hellish heat. It's hard to come away with any meaningful observations that would do the city justice. Surface-wise, it's a difficult place to get to know, looming with an insularity that seems impenetrable to outsiders.
Travel is lonely; despite yourself, you're thrust into the trope of stranger-in-a-strange-land. Saudia is unique in that it requests you submit to the strangeness and change yourself. For someone unaccustomed to the practice, ditching tight jeans and summer skirts for a long black abaya and head scarf is unsettling- by the time you're dressed and ready to go, you don't recognize the person staring back at you from the mirror.
It's then that I realize- we take our clothes for granted. Sartorial trends aside, what we wear is an extension of our identity and our history. It's where we've been and where we want to be. Even the nonchalance of popping on an old t-shirt before heading out the door carries a certain intimacy-the familiar way it fits, the casual ease with which it glides over your body.
A certain strangeness can be good. Disappearing into the desert, I find there's a bit of a socialist strain to the whole affair. This is oil country- yet there really is no outward display of wealth. Stepping into a public bathroom proves there is no shortage of it. As young women congregate around the mirror, lifting their veils to adjust their makeup and attire, they are dripping with gold trinkets; their faces are caked with lipstick and thick gobs of mascara.
So while the adopted uniform forces one to forgo their outward individuality, it forgoes pretense, too. As men and women pass by, each in long robes and headdress, none is particularly distinguishable from the other. You could be passing the heirs to some massive fortune and not know it. There is no posturing or posing- no desperate bids for legitimacy through fabric.
I would think this would also be the dream environment of anyone who just wanted to hide- a brilliant, socially acceptable form of hermit-ism. We've all been there- those groggy, don't-want-to-be-seen days, where you wish you could just get through everything quickly and quietly without anyone acknowledging your existence.
I revel in walking around still wearing my sleeping clothes beneath the black cloak. I'm overcome with a sense of oddly liberating glee- I'm wearing neon colored pajamas under here, and no one's the wiser! In a perfect world I suppose, this would be a great equalizer- no one's staring at your dress or your haircut- there's only you, the actual person left.
It's a bit of a foolish endeavor to dwell on the foreign-ness of it all, to think that you know what it means to be a fish just by diving into the aquarium.The only thing you can really do is accept your position as a guest, as an observer.
So I resign myself to staring out at the desert,sweltering under my black coat, missing the effortless familiarity of old friends and old shirts.
