We moved to the Middle East when I was eight. First to Muscat. And then to Bahrain. I have never forgotten what it felt like the first time I walked out of the airport in Muscat, and was driven home by my father, through winding roads, lined with date palms. It felt like coming home. I discovered Kinder Eggs, and Rani Float. We drove to Nizwa almost every other weekend with friends, cars caravaning through desert roads, and until we reached souqs and small oases. We visited Salalah to see the springs. And then we moved to a small island nation, lush and welcoming. Took abra rides to various small islands for weekend picnics. Swam at Zalaaq Beach, and then ate picnic meals of curd rice, masala vadas, poori-aloo, and falafels. Shopped at the souq, and stopped for lemonade at Bab Al Bahrain. Ate Dairy Queen burgers and TCBY sundaes. Led a quiet life, not uncomplicated, but filled with community, much joy, and simple pleasures.
I read last year that anxious people love comforting rituals, that they watch the same shows and movies, read the same books, over and over because they find joy in predictability. I know this to be true.
I was an anxious little girl, and then an anxious teenager. I found comfort in making rituals for myself. Eating the same breakfast every weekday morning on the bus to school - a white bun with a slice of cheddar cheese and a generous smear of bitter marmalade. Watching the Jetsons on TV every day while eating lunch. Or The Sound of Music. Spending an hour every evening cycling around our compound and the quiet road outside it, singing, and making up fiction in my head. Swimming 40 laps nearly every day and then lying on my back in the water, staring up at the tall palms that bordered the pool. Checking out books from the British Library once a week. Listening to the radio, and making mixed tapes for myself and my friends.
Now an anxious adult in her 40s, I still seek out comfort in repetition. I like to know what’s waiting around the corner, as much as I can. I stay up at night, rewatching The Talented Mr Ripley, or Sex and the City, or You’ve Got Mail or French Kiss. Two years ago, on vacation in another country, I stayed in the hotel room one afternoon, in my pajamas, eating frozen yogurt, and watched Mona Lisa Smile for the thousandth time on Netflix, as my husband wandered off to sightsee. I had the best time, snuggled into the sheets, feeling completely at home in a brand new city. Earlier this year I went back to Dubai for a vacation. And the first thing I wanted was to walk into a grocery store and find the snacks and beverages of an earlier life. Deli counter hummus. Warm khubz. Chilli-soaked olives. And Diet Coke. At all once, I felt at home again.
The rituals of our lives hold much more meaning than we usually imagine them to. Doesn’t everyone have a meal or song or book or dialogue that sparks a memory? That offers succour? In a world that moves like lightning, and moves on even faster, there is something to be said about holding on to the old. To the power of repetition. And the comfort of the familiar.
