Today, I’ve been here one crazy Cairo month. It’s gone by fast–not surprising as this is a very fast city. Like any big city, Cairo has a lot of edge, in its buildings, in its politics, in its character. And life on the edge can be hard.

Three times a week, however, as I make my monster commute between the areas of Maadi and Zamalek, something softens each time I see the Nile River.

The Nile cuts through all this crazy, maneuvering around obstacles adeptly. It knows its course and moves with ease into the sea.

It reminds me that navigating a place such as Cairo, or for that matter life at large, requires being a bit of river, being light and agile, soft and fluid. But also remembering there is weight in water, that it is a force of nature, that as it moves it generates a great deal of power.

Photo: The River Nile.