The Gilded Serpent presents...

News! Mee'Sha falls in Love!

From: Virgnia Brown

To: <undisclosed recipients>
Subject: What happened to Mee'Sha?!!!
Date: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 10:22 PM

Yes folks—the rumors are REAL!!!! The story is still unfolding—

Insha'Allah!!!

Once there was a single mom with a beautiful young daughter. This daughter is accepted into a musical touring Europe for the summer of 2000. The mother, feeling alone and knowing she would dearly miss this daughter, decides to cash in on her free air miles and go to a land far away—land she has always worshiped and longed to see, Egypt. So—she leaves the very hour her daughter does from San Francisco International Airport, planning to return the day after her.

A friend here in the States asks a friend in Cairo to give the mother a short tour of the Citadel as a favor on her first hour in Egypt. ‘Blonde hits Egypt on jet lag,’ one might say. Fifteen minutes after the mother leaves the cab, this nice man is singing "Lady" by Kenny Rodgers to her, asking her about her life and giving her a rose. She thinks "Gee, what nice Egyptian hospitality." He thinks "I have waited forty-seven years for my ‘lady,’ how do I convince her she is my soul mate?"

After three days of constant companionship and courting, he convinces her and they are married. There is, obviously, much more to tell, but the pages would burn up or I would be arrested on porn charges. The saga continues—the mother extends her trip to six weeks, truly falls in love with everything Egyptian and this wonderful man.

Returning home the mother sells her very successful children's shoppe in just four days and begins an import business and a travel business specializing in small, private parties to Egypt. Another six-week trip is planned for October, and then in March of 2001 her beautiful daughter has applied for three months of studies in Cairo to finish off her last trimester in her sophomore year of high school.

This is one heck of a way to end the first year of this new millennium—no?!? Not one I would have ever dreamed of—believe me. I have spent the last twenty-five years teaching Middle Eastern Dance and telling my students never, ever under any circumstances to marry these men—so it is very strange to have been the one to fall so quickly and so hard.

The mother? Mee'Sha (Ginny Brown) of Pacific Grove, California. The man? Mohamed Salah, Minister of Tourism / The Citadel of Cairo, Egypt. The lovely daughter? Uzza! (Elizabeth) of Pacific Grove.

We are very, very at peace with the world and wonderfully happy. To have such a lovely true-love story unfold right at your feet is the stuff of fairy tales. Mohamed says it best, "My eyes may have gone in one direction, but God sent my heart in your direction." Insha'Allah!!

I am so sorry not to have written all of you earlier. It has taken all my strength and energy to accomplish the sale of the store, training the new owner, closing a dance studio that was in the back of the store (including six years of accumulation of dance stuff folks—aghhhhhhh!), getting high-school sophomore Elizabeth back into a regular school routine, teaching in three cities three times a week, and trying to start two new businesses. On top of it all, I am still trying to deal with a severely bipolar former husband who refuses to get help. All while my heart is back in Cairo—"a tree without soil until I return" as Mohamed says. We spend hours each morning (I at 4 AM to reach him at 1 PM) on the Internet, but it is not nearly enough.

My heart is with you, I miss all of you terribly and promise to keep all of you up-to-date as life goes forward. I am very excited, scared, overwhelmed, but trusting in the hand of God. As everyone keeps telling me—the Universe wants this, or it would not be happening so very quickly. I love you. You are a very important part of my soul and who I am. I regret neglecting you for so long and promise to keep in touch much more once we are in Egypt in March.

I will always be available through email—laptop travels.

Insha'Allah—

Mee'Sha

Go to the next article: I am Neferteri by Ann Lucas
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