Going Home!

Can't go home at the moment ....:((( clashes in the area..Mwal3a el denia :(

That's what a friend from Palestine posted today as her facebook status at 2:13 pm. I look at the tiny clock at the corner of my laptop...it's 10:18 pm. I still haven't heard from her... I don't know if she arrived home or not.

Eventually, I know things will calm down. The dust will settle, the tear gas will disappear, the bullets will stop flying, the protesters will leave and the the dead or the wounded will be carried out of the streets...

But my friend will not

"هني" و"نحنا" والكوكا كولا دايت

صارت الساعة ٥:٥٦  صباحاً... سهرت كل الليل...

 كنت قد قررت أن أعمل على أوراقي المبعثرة في ١٢:٢٠ ما بعد منتصف الليل...

قررت ويا ريتني ما قررت...

بدأت ليلتي عند التلفاز وبرفقة صديقة كانت قد وعدت أن تتركني لأوراقي...

لا بل أقسمت أن لا تلهيني عن عملي... وكلنا نعلم ما يعني هذا النوع من القسم بيننانحن جنس حواء... يعني رح نلتهي ونص وخمسي...

على كل حال... مش هيدا موضوعنا... فبينما كنت بين أوراقي والماك (ابن الأبل) بين أضلعي... والكوكا كولا دايت بين أناملي (حلوه هي أناملي)

بدأ حديث بين بين فتاتين عن مشاريع الويكند وإذا بكلمة تنطرب لها أذني ويرقص لها قلبي تقال: "إيه رح روح عل المظاهرة"...

هنا لا شعورياً زحطت من لساني كلمة "وأنا كمان"... لأني فكرت بساذجتي الوطنية المعهودة أن فتاةً إبنة ١٨ ربيعاً و تلميذة جامعية في واحدة من أهم جامعة لبنان والشرق الأوسط أكيد ستود أن تعبر عن رأيها كمواطنة لبنانية...

ومنشان ما الحديث يطول طلع أنا عم احكي عن

D & I: Act 1

I needed something i can pour myself into... I love to walk, observe, listen... to many these are not much of activities really, but then add a 500 D and the stories are endless... D has joined my company recently... it was a gift of love... I share our stories with you.

Behind the Curtains

Shankaboot: A Dream that made a difference

Hamra in Black and White

The Yarn of Knowledge

Waiting...

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عمو شوفير التاكسي...

"الله ينجحك يا رب" يقولها شوفير التاكسي بلكنةٍ تلطشية و أنا في طريقي لغرفتي الصغيرة في الحمرا... ترن كلمات "تاكسي تاكسي" من بعد دعائه...

ليته لم يدعي لي عمو شوفير التاكسي... فأي نجاحٍ هذا الذي يتمناه ونحن كما نحن، ونعاني ما نعاني...

أردت أن التفت وأقول له: "عمو لو بتعيرنا سكوتك شو بكون أحسن. مش ناقصة عيشتي واحد متل حضرتك يلطشني. بلا نجاح بلا بلوط..."ولكني لم أفعل...

عضضت على لساني ومشيت خوفاً على مشاعر عمو، الراعي الأول لحركة سرقة السياح الأجانب في شارع الحمرا.حرام! إن بعض الظن إثم...

ربما عمو لا يدري بما يحدث حولنا، فهو يقضي وقته على تلك الزاوية المقابلة لقهوة يونس وينادي طول النهار و الليل لراكب يستجيب... فكيف له أن يعلم بما يحصل... وأكيد مش عم بدور الراديو محافظةً على بطارية المرسيدس، فكيف من الممكن أن يدرك ما يجري...

هل علم عمو مثلاً قبل أن يدعي لي بالنجاح، بأننا فشلنا بتشكيل حكومة...

وأن أمريكا فشلت  في القضاء على الإرهاب...

وأن البشرية فشلت في حماية الحياة البحرية بعد أن القيت جثة بن لادن في البحر...

وأن العرب فشلوا في إستعادة صورتهم كناس اوادم، أو إستعادة حرياتهم، أو حق العودة، أو حتى غصن زيتون سرق منا...

وأن مهند فشل في إنقاذ سمر من شر نفسها، وأن بشير فشل في إنقاذ نهال من حزنٍ مؤكد...(لا تؤاخذوني فأصداء "العشق الممنوع" ما زالت تحاصرني...)

هل يعلم عمو عن

“OH MY GOD, I AM 29 AND I HAVE BEEN ROBBED!”

I wrote the following few paragraphs (in Italics) a while back. I never published them and I am glad I did not. I realize now I was a bit ahead of myself and that what I wrote reflects less of me now than it ever did.  Let’s just say my perceptions have swayed towards a different path. That said, I leave you with a flavor of these paths, as many of you have bared witness of both. I share them with you on the day my parents and the Lebanese authorities claim I was born. Let’s face it, who can really tell when he or she were born, we were all told a date and it stuck!

“In a few months I will be 29!

Now, to the un-keen eye, 29 is not a specially impressive number. It is no “sweet” 16 or “driver’s license” 18, or “all you can drink” 21. And it’s not one of the big O numbers either…

You never really think about it, but surly you know that one day you will turn 29, just like you turned 19, 10 years ago. And yet lately, I feel like I have been caught off guard, knocked out by a huge bat swung at the back of my skull, and mugged! Yes that’s right I feel mugged. My 20’s were stolen. I am not scared of being 30; it is not fear that I am feeling, seriously, it is not! It is more like a “OH MY GOD, I HAVE BEEN ROBBED!” kind of feeling. And just like a real victim, I am still swinging between denial and reality. Claiming that this can’t be happening to me, I wait for the candid camera guy to pop his head from around the corner to tell me “smile you are on candid camera and you are not 29 you are really 22. We are sorry we drugged you and made you think that you just missed the last 7 years of your life”

Off course you and I both know that the candid camera man will NOT pop his head or any other part of his body for that matter!

Now here is the catch, my life has not been half bad. I actually had a good job. I have a car, which needs a minor paint job, but a car nonetheless. I am healthy, in the sense that I should exercise and eat better, but don’t drop into the ER every 5 minutes. I also have a family that loves me. I own a mac, and one day will get an Iphone (yes these are measures of happiness nowadays don’t pretend to be shocked) and most nice things are within my financial reach. Then why does this morbid feeling of loss continue to clutch at my soul?” I go on to say that while I am thankful… “I just do not feel 29”, and that: “I want a DO OVER!”

Today I am 29! It’s official. I will also remain 29 henceforth, I strongly urge you to remember that! 

Today, I start consuming the last year in my 20s and in doing so I mark the end of a decade. 10 years is a lot of time people!  8 months ago, I felt robbed out of my 20s, simply because I could not gather how they have passed. And, when I wanted to assess how they were spent, I benchmarked against the 20s of others (P.S. not a good idea, simply because you are who you are, and you are not them). But now it doesn’t seem that I did so bad. In fact I think I did well. A do over is still nice, but since they do not exist, let’s focus on what we have, shall we?

I, like many others, will continue to question how I have spent my years and sometimes will not like the answer, but at least I question, and every once in a while a few satisfactory answers surface. Today, I decide to write these answers down, save them for a rainy day if you like, and share 29 of them with you. In no particular order, they are as follows:

Steam Puffing Machine

Been places I have never been
my heart, I threw at a passing cloud
my hands reached out,
 

tick tock... tick tock brain cells go
and a soul like a steam puffing machine

Demons whisper in my ears

Angels touch my forehead
I see faces I have never seen

black boxes make up a trap
and in red boxes u breathe
 

the voices play again and again
the stories all sound different
they all sound the same

Che' sits in one corner
and an apple sits in hand

the paradox is hysterical

the revolution is bland

tick tock... tick tock my brain cells go
and a soul like a steam puffing machine

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.