Nuptial Notes #4: Nature is Nurture
At around 5pm after a day spent negotiating the wedding venue budget with my former husband and plying the wedding coordinator with logistical questions, my current husband, labradoodle and I headed out for a hike in the Shawnee National Forest (our excursion kind of felt like we were in a car commercial driving through rural areas in our Subaru, dog hanging out the window enjoying the wind in her ears) . Fern Clyff State Park, considered to be a hidden gem in Southern Illinois, was used by the Cherokee Indians for hunting while on the Trail of Tears March. The park is filled with unique geological formations and the remnants of the ferns that had once dominated the area.
Rosie and Ru loved hiking in the forest
I’ve been curious about this region of the world and why there are so many names referencing the country, Egypt. Southern Illinois is known as “Little Egypt”; there is a town called Cairo (pronounced Care-roh); and the mascot of Southern Illinois University (SIU) is the saluki, the lightning-fast dog of the Egyptian Pharaohs. The Lake of Egypt is a reservoir that covers 23,000 acres and at some points is more than 50 feet deep. Thanks to Tracy’s now mother-in-law Karen, we boated on and swam several times in the lake, occasionally bearing witness to beautiful sunsets.
(I grew up swimming and skiing on Florida lakes but due to pollution and brain-eating amoeba, I’ve generally avoided them in my adult years.) Our dog Rosie decided she is a fan of the boating lifestyle especially since she had her own doggie lifejacket.
Boating on Lake of Egypt with my girl, guy, and puppy
Curious about my temporary digs, I started researching and found an article in Belt Magazine, a publication devoted to “the rust belt and Midwest”. Edward Curtis IV writes in a 2023 article about his great, great grandfather who dubed himself, “The Moses of Cairo.”
Around 1899, my great, great-grandfather, a man named Hanna Samaha, left his beautifully green three-thousand-foot-high village located in contemporary Lebanon where, on a clear day, you could see the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean. He landed at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in the town of Cairo, Illinois. He also took a new last name – Moses. The meeting of these two rivers reminded him of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile Rivers in his home country.
I think of the midwest as a homogenous region settled and inhabited largely by white western Europeans. But Curtis said this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Muslim, Arab, Turkish, and other representatives of Eastern Europe have inhabited the Midwest since before the Civil War. Researching my temporary digs and spending time in nature was just the distraction I needed to keep me fresh and able to navigate the nuances of impending nuptials.
Ok, the next post will be the last of my nuptial notes. I had intended to write shorter and more frequent posts in real time, but I seem to be incapable of writing short pithy posts. Until next time….
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