Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding the True Meaning of Self-Love by Melody Beattie

subtle transaction. In a heartbeat, just as the men were about to strike, the driver was back at my side. He put his arm around my waist, pushed the men aside, and whisked me back to the cab.
    Some threshold had been crossed, some form of communication established, between this furtive, darkeyed, chainsmoking man and me. He circled back around the pyramids, into the heart of a settlement I would later come to know as Giza. He drove past blocks of small Arab shops, now closed for the night, then turned onto Sphinx Street. After a few moments, he pulled into a sprawling sandlot and parked the car at the end of it, in front of a small shop.
    The plain sign in the shop's lit window announced its name: Lotus Palace Perfumes. Tiny, ornate bottles of every shape and color—pink, red, gold, green, and purple—lined the windows and shelves. The door was open. Several men sat on a bench in front of the store. On the other side of the lot, in front of a tenement, a camel knelt on the ground, smiling and chewing hay while a woman vigorously groomed him.
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    One of the men sitting on the bench rose, walked to the cab, and opened my door.
    "Welcome to the village of Giza," he said. "My name is Essam."
    I looked at the man holding open the door. He wore a long, dark skirt over his pants. He was of medium height, slightly rotund, with hair that had begun to thin. He had kind eyes, a sweet round face, and a gentle spirit. I stepped out of the taxi and offered him my hand.
    We talked for a minute. I told him where I was from, and that I had just arrived in Cairo an hour ago.
    "Would you like to see the pyramids?" Essam asked.
    I said I would.
    "Would you like to ride a camel over there?" he asked.
    I swallowed hard, then said yes. "But it's so late," I said. "How much will it cost?"
    "Don't worry," Essam said. "This is Ramadan, a time of giving, a time to remember Allah. You go to the pyramids, touch their powers, your first night here. When you return, you pay me what you think it was worth."
    He smiled. "Have fun!"
    I swung my right leg over the humped back of the biggest creature I had come across in my life. I held on to the saddle. The camel jerked upright from its knees, gently throwing me backwards. Then I started grinning and couldn't stop, as the camel clopped along the narrow Page 85
    passage next to the sandlot, down past a block of shops, then up the side of a mountain, and down onto the desert. A boy of about seventeen, Essam's nephew, rode next to me on a horse.
    We rode to within a few hundred feet of the pyramids, then stopped. The Sahara surrounded me. In the distance, the glistening lights of Cairo touched the edge of the night sky. I sat on the camel, gazing out at the pyramids, the Sphinx, and the desert. The frenzy and fear I had felt earlier disappeared. I was safe.
    After about twenty minutes, we clopped back to the perfume shop. Essam was waiting for me with a cup of hot Egyptian tea. He assured me it had been brewed with bottled water. He said he didn't want me to get sick.
    I tipped the boy on the horse, the one who had accompanied me. I put a handful of pounds in Essam's hand and thanked him. He said I had given him too much money, and he returned half of it. We talked for a while. I told him I didn't know how long I would be in Cairo, maybe a few weeks. He said he would help in any way he could. I made plans to return in a day or two, then asked the cab driver to take me back to the hotel.
    From the moment I met him, I knew Essam would be a teacher and a friend.
    Back in the cab, it took about fifteen minutes to reenter the chaotic downtown Cairo district. Before long, I spotted Page 86
    my hotel rising in the distance. We got closer and closer, then I saw the hotel disappear behind us.
    "Where are we going?" I asked.
    "You will come for coffee with me now," the driver said firmly.
    "No thank you," I said. "I'm tired. Take me back to the hotel."
    "You will come with me," he said.
    He drove under a bridge,