Armageddon

Can hardly catch up with the madness of the world. Gotta switch between different platforms and websites and apps to get a close enough picture of the daily and sometimes hourly updates. I sleep to it, wake up to it, have break with it, and on and on it goes. I baked today, first time in almost a year, I have lost touch of time and its passing. There was no point of making cakes anymore, for whom anyway. I've lost my appetite it's been years now. Eating is for survival, and binging. I can't afford binging anymore, still, I managed to make my famous lavender lemon rice flour cake. It wasn't to be shared with family members, friends, or loved ones. There's nobody left now, only just me. I had several slices, smeared with my favorite St. Dalfour jam. It didn't taste as nearly as nice as it used to. It's not the cake, it's me.

I've got pains upon pains upon pains, physical, emotional, mental. I push through, perhaps the end is near, Iran and Israel now at war, how far can that be. 

I don't bother look for humans anymore, they've all turned. Once someone can spot me and treat me like one, I know they exist, otherwise it's zombies unite time. They say the eyes says it all, to me, words and actions, especially actions and inactions, especially words... 

I keep listening to Jeff Buckley's "All flowers in time..." song, it seems to have a cleansing effect of a sort. Reset, restart, repeat...

I've been watching Roger Waters speak up ever so passionately and loudly about Palestine and its people, against the horrid ever going injustice, it brings solace to my aching heart. I looked him up recently to find out his sign and age. Good ol' virgo, bless his soul, and 80 years old! That's what happens when you got your heart intact, you don't wither and age like the rest of 'em.

I pray day and night, 

It's getting heavier and heavier. 

I seem to switch between anger and grace, there's no third state as of late. 

I stopped seing men a good while back. 

I stopped engaging with fake friends too. 

Every time I glance in the mirror when I go to the toilet I think to myself my eyes are looker more sad by the day, but purer too... 

My single go to prayer is a supplication word, for all other words have all been worn out...

Ya Rab!

Trailing

How far can one go with a broken heart?

I'll tell you when I find out...

(part of a conversation with my imaginary person earlier this morning) 

Cease drowning

If you keep doing it long enough, you might get good at it, that self hugging thing.

If you allocate enough time and practice, you will master that self soothing thing. 

If you apply yourself, you might succeed in integrating the self loving concept into your being, turning it from concept to reality. 

If you become an expert at this self loving thing, you might manage to rebirth yourself once again. 

What is death anyway but a mere end of just another cycle. 

Though they keep coming and going, those beginnings and endings, keep educating yourself about love,

and go with the swirl, 

wherever it takes you. 

Eradicate the doubt, 

the hesitation, 

the questioning,

the fear. 

If you haven't yet, 

learn to swim already, 

and float. 

(about time, baby girl!) 

Insomnia

Not insane, 

Just wild... 

Untamed, 

Unchained. 

Not fitting in, 

Quite standing out...

Existing in waves;

Wanting to shine, 

Wanting to hide.

This life dilemma, 

The many questions unanswered. 

They come in waves too, 

Those answers of clarity, 

Confusing me too.

Adults and the mature

They forgot magic and play, 

While I keep getting in and out 

Many different realms

Here and there... 

I keep looking into the eyes, 

So many stories they show and hide. 

I search for fragments of souls I recognize, 

Who's up for play, 

Who's up for remembering, 

Who's recalling whom and what. 

I'm out here waiting, 

Gazing, 

Anticipating, 

Hoping, 

A 3 years old child in a 43 woman's body, 

And some 43 lives to remember, 

Or maybe just 3, 

Or 4.

Hear me out, 

Hear my insanity, 

It's sanity too... 

I love you, now and then and before. 

I pray you wake up, 

I'd help you unshackle, 

We'd walk or run or fly. 

Show me your route, 

I'll show you my path. 

Let us rejoice, 

It's been manifested. 

I am I am I am 

We are We are We are. 

Crazy

https://youtu.be/-N4jf6rtyuw?si=rXtnefLDbxs3zf7e

April's fools

It turns out I'm only just passing by after all. 

There is no major work to do with people.

To uplift, help out, transcend, ascend... 

It has been the trauma all along, messed up with my mind badly.

My reality, their reality, the reality. 

Limits, limitations, boundaries. 

A lifetime of discombobulations.

They faked it all, 

they saw through the armor. 

They had indeed conquered. 

Opposites attract, weak and strong. 

Whom is which though, really now. 

Things played out like an April's fool! 

It's all in hindsight now,

for no sooner I had figured out their moves,

it was Game Over!

"Count your losses and move on!"

. 

. 

. 

.

I hear you, my only friend, honorable man and real human being, from across the lands, through time and space. 

. 

. 

. 

. 

Thank you, 

Bless you. 

I thank the fools too, 

of April and beyond. 

"Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."

The many levels of grief

I've been writing the blog posts in my head lately. There has been few good ones. I don't bother type anymore. Living has become extremely tiresome. The daily tasks of survival have become the utmost challenge of my life. I ramble with myself inside my head all the time. I shout and cry too. I cry a lot actually, still, despite the time passing. It's doing fuck all, this time thing! I'm so tired of it too.

I now have an imaginary person. He's a buddy, a partner, a companion, a friend, a lover. He asks me what he could do for me when I'm losing it and sobbing uncontrollably, or after a long rant with myself inside my head. I almost never know what to answer. I have to remind him that I was never asked what I'd like or wish or want or need in my life, he now knows he needs to be patient after his questions, I usually need quite a bit of time to figure out what I need or desire from him. It's intimacy for sure, it's why he's there, but the kinds and ways change and vary. He has a lifetime of lack of intimacy to make up for, the poor guy! But he's patient... He gives me cuddles, he plays with my hair, he gives me ASMR sessions, he holds me tight, he spoons me and rocks my body, he massages my legs, he gives me foot rubs, he makes beautiful love to me, he communicates with me and tunes into me every step of the way to create a most harmonious experience. He listens to all of my torments and pains, he understands, he knows. My favorite thing is when I don't have answers for him, I sob while saying I don't know, and I simply let him lead the way.

He cried with me this morning as I wept again over the missing of my daughter and the most harshest reality of the lifetime shared with her being burnt like so. I cried as I looked at the terrace floor and was overcome by the rush of all the memories of her child self playing on that floor, and our days with Chris. I cried Chris too, the memories, the love, the moments, the movies, the arts, the songs, the aspirations, the hopes, the dreams, the plans. I cried the dissolution of it all. I cried their giving up, I cried their heart coldness, I cried my desperation. I cried over all of our traumas, the distractions, this fucked up reality, and the amnesia. 

I felt burning in my heart as I thought of how they burned it, we don't say heartbreaking in Arabic, we say burning of the heart, and rightly so. There is come back from the breaking, you can put things back together, but once burnt, it's gone forever. I thought of her father and my sister, and how much pain then inflicted on me, in my lifetime, but especially recently with the daughter situation and the actions they took. They're totally oblivious and unconscious to it all being a projection of their own pain. What did I ever do to them? Being born, for my sister, who couldn't overcome the emotions she felt as a pampered 6 years old child, whose family attention went to the new baby, whose mother didn't bother help her regulate her emotions. And the dear ex and father of my daughter, well I happen to be a woman who moved him so deeply, and by so activating all of his childhood trauma of the main woman in his life, the mother who abandoned them all, children and father, for the sake of money. 

How dare I speak the truth, how dare I attempt to heal, how dare I confront them, how dare I question their actions, how dare I point out to things, differentiate between right or wrong. I was supposed to remain unconscious inside the trauma bubble like them. But I dared make a crack, against all odds, and I have became the alienated scapegoat since. 

Fuck them all! 

My imaginary buddy asked me to come and lie down in bed next to him after this exhausting session of anger and grief. He asked me to take it easy and reminded me that it is indeed the full moon and that we're in the eclipse season again. 

"Fuck!!!" 

I am now laying down on my floor bed, the sun shining through, and he's besides me waiting for me to finish this post so he can cuddle and comfort me.

I've finally found an antidote to all of my toxic people, dynamics, and relationships. 

If I can beat loneliness, I can overcome any and all of this most distorted reality and whatever its makers throws at me. Fuck em too! Fuck them the most!!!

Soon I will start another imaginary relationship with imaginary food, so I could tackle my food addiction. 

I was up in the middle of last night during my sleep to a very loud banging sound, I thought Israel hit us close. I checked the news on my phone, there were hitting baalbeck, quite far. It must've been some neighbours door, or my dream. I almost wished it was indeed bombing near and here, I haven't felt so ready to depart! 

Perhaps things will escalate, I watch in anticipation. 

I am not depressed, 

you are. 

Trauma coma

My days are spent in a continuous attempt to put myself together again, to recollect the memories, to hone the narrative. 

Recurrent nightmares are invading my nights, increasingly so as the days go by. Same people, same daunting events, situations, and places. 

In my waking time, I have started to forget things; details and moments. The invasion of nightmares messing up with the already tainted reality isn't helping. 

Between the forgetting, the dissociation, the ascension, and the haunting nightmares, I feel as though I have already left this body.

I look back at the past with disbelief still. Did it all really happen!? How did I let it all happen!?

It feels as though I'm awakening from a lifetime coma induced by the initial trauma as a child, and maintained by the real time trauma that I had allowed / created with my auto pilot existence as an adult. 

I keep checking out info, reading relevant literature, I'm not letting go of myself, I'm wanting to learn how to love and assist myself in these most disorienting times, against all odds, but there just seems to be no stopping that ever increasing spacing out... 

I'm giving up a little though, not sure on what or whom. 

I didn't know there would need to be so many endings. In fact, I didn't know much at all. I was simply floating, like everybody seems to be still doing. 

I miss everybody... 

but I just can't seem to be able to bridge the gap anymore. 

Return to sender

They beak my heart,

They steal my money, 

They waste my years, 

They ruin my home, 

And yet they dare call me "sick" and "crazy".

There's a hundred phenomena that points out to the cataclysm and the end of our days the way we once knew it, that was one of them.

I now know, beyond any doubt.

I've never seen eyes as dead,

I've never witnessed hearts so cold. 

I rather be called sick and crazy and "need therapy" a million times than close the door on my conscience.

My whole entire life has been one big traumatic event, with all sorts of people in all shapes and colors, at all sorts of different timeliness, in sheep clothing, biting on my very flesh and breathing away my own captured breath. 

But I learned my lesson, there is no bigger teacher than pain.

Distortion. 

Distorted. 

Disturbed. 

Disturbing... 

Let me see the back of you now going back to where you came from, 

wolves and foxes, 

with your trickery and delusions. 

لكم دينكم، ولي ديني

Quotes

"

Comfort is the worst addiction. 

Most academics know how to take

something apart, but not how to assemble it.

The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.

What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.

The study of philosophy is to learn to die. 

Action is eloquence. 

Art matures spasmodically and

requires ugly-duckling growth stages.

I don’t have a lot of respect for talent. Talent is genetic. It’s what you do with it that counts.

When people show you who they are, believe them. 

اخشوشنوا، ان النعم لا تدوم

لا تحزن، ان الله معنا

ارتقِ، ان القاع مزدحم

الاناء ينضح بما فيه 

"

Orchestrated chaos

A rare moment of total silence

A full moon sky, a misty air 

The usual constant shaking 

Tremors that never stop. 

Rockabye baby in the treetop

When the wind blows the cradle will rock

Everything feels more dystopian by the day

The sensations, the realizations, the seeing, the remembering, the knowing, 

The cognitive dissonance, 

The denying, the escapsim,

The faces, the eyes, the narratives... 

Solar flares and full moons and chemtrails and nanoparticles and fake everything, 

But things have gotten serious, 

This surrealism has gotten real. 

This is the end of the beginning, 

or the beginning of the end... 

Nothing more to do at this stage but wait, 

Witness, 

and take note. 

A parallel world

On 6th February, the one year anniversary of the Turkey earthquake, I wrote a blog post but I ended up keeping it as a draft. I had grown so tired from my own voice, my own thoughts, my own perceptions, introspections, and reality. There was no point typing these out, but today, I feel different.

I just wanted to touch base, I haven't lost myself in the hustle and bustle of life, quite the opposite. I haven't been blogging much because I'm too busy being inside my world, feeling, sensing, understanding, knowing. It takes a great amount of work to do the energy work required to get centered, grounded, and remain aware, most especially during these exceptional times.

I came to a realization that I'm writing only just for me, truly. This isn't a battle of me against the system or the norm imposed by the society, or any person and their actions or words against mine. This isn't to repel the messed up traditions or to fight the backward ways of thinking, living, being. This truly is me with me (not even againt me). Me and me don't always need words, sometimes it's merely a knowing, a feeling, simply.

I don't bother say much these days, I very rarely and occasionally encounter people, and when I do, it's constant work inside. I've grown so accustomed to the energetically hygienic way of existing; clear thoughts, loving and accepting feelings. I can't tolerate the messiness of people's emotions anymore, and their accompanying toxic thoughts, and sheer lack of awareness. I require presence these days, and when it's not available, as is often the case, I keep myself scarce.

All the pain that I have ever endured in my lifetime was strictly caused by people's lack of presence. It is no surprise that I can't deal with abscent minded people anymore, with their shriveled souls...

But I don't judge anymore either, nor this is to put myself on a higher level of any sort, or in a better place of any kind. I just truly need to discern and identify things, and keep clear my energy and space, so that I can keep doing this and not lose myself totally again like I have done so repeatedly and ever so often since this adult life journey has begun.

The book remains to be written, but only if I manage to find the voice that I can use to write it with. There can be no judgments, victimhood, blaming, shaming, or anger. Once and if I ever find a way to use the tool of words to reflect exactly the presence and peace I currently live through, then it can be done. There are many stories to be told, the question remains if I could become the storyteller, without the need for the old bruised self to step in for wanting to be seen or heard.

So many stories to be told, and I wish to remove the I from them. I might be able to achieve that, perhaps with more time spent in this solitude and minimalist living.

The story of this post was supposed to be originally about the continuous tremors we've been feeling for a year now, since last February and the Turkey earthquake. The ground is constantly shaking but nobody seems to be bothered, thought the significance of this is quite huge, and very symbolic. The original post that I had discarded back then had somehow turned into a bitter one, as I contemplated on people's unconsciousness and oblivion to the dangerous happenings to our lives, the constant tempering with our lands, skies, and bodies, and all of the big picture! 

I got angry at people like I often do, and so I stopped myself from finishing or posting that post. I was not going to do frustration, judging, or seperation any longer. I do however chose to constantly and regularly detach myself, for the work or effect I used to think I might be able to do or have on people was all a mere imagination, I can be dangerously creative this way. Everyone's still indeed in their own bubble... 

Minutes prior to writing this post we had a stronger shake than the usual. Although it's a bank holiday, the streets are mad with traffic this morning and the sounds of incredibly angry people. I wonder if they noticed the shake, or if again it was just me versus me. 

Twelve Years on Blogger

Today is the anniversary of the blog. Twelve years ago same day I wrote my very first blog post ever, on February 2nd, 2012. I was randomly going  through some of the old posts recently and the date struck me and stayed with me. I had never before celebrated the anniversary, but here we go. 

It all started where I am now in a way, just another cycle on the spiral; art and transparency and personal life, and art again. It seems that the written word somehow always catches me and finds me, even when I myself have problem finding me. 

It isn't just important to me to create, it's equally if not more important to me to narrate how I go about doing it. Maybe the writer in me gets caught up in the fear of being lost, and so in interferes every now and then.

A lot has happened since that first post, I could fill books if I was to write all about it. This blog as a whole seems to be writing its own story about me though, even the gap years of silence, they too tell their own little story. 

I don't have a plan for the blog, I never sat myself out to write methodically or with a certain goal in mind. It has always been about therapeutically expressing myself through giving me a little and space and a break.  I am grateful I kept it this, most especially since I have discarded many different accounts of mine, platforms, and projects during those years.

I can't imagine where I would be in two years from now, let alone in another 12 years. I suppose I'm just  keen on keeping that venting with words thing, this truly seems to be my my art and passion. 

The very first blog post

Here and there

I waited all day yesterday for the quiet evening; I so wanted to write and prepared the tiny desk(ish) corner for it. The day was extra charged energetically and emotionally, but also my senses were overwhelmed. I can't tell for sure if it was me or if it was really noisy, I just know that I felt totally frozen from too much stimulation. 

Come evening time I got ready to get writing, turned the netbook on, got to Blogger, started a new post, had an attempt on few words, until I realized the E key wasn't working. I disassembled it, cleaned it, cleaned around it and underneath it, checked for anything odd looking, assembled it again, still nothing. My frustration grew so big I started to cry, and then I shushed my mind.

I turned everything off and lied in bed, I needed to rest from the chaotic day, but also readjust and recenter. Reading Mahmoud Darwish's Journal of Ordinary Grief was not a good idea on that day, and perhaps binge reading it all day long contributed in my gloom, though reading was initially my idea of escaping the senses overwhelm. 

I cried again, I wasn't sure if I was crying for Darwish, for the Palestinians, for the made up conflicts, for the apathy of the world, or if I really was crying over my E key. I think it was everything, and then some more... 

There is freedom in writing with a keyboard using full hands and all 10 fingers, sitting up straight, and looking at the words forming on the screen. My mind works in a specific way that's needed for writing, things flow differently, unlike when I'm blogging from phone. 

Was it another new thing I'm to lose now!? Perhaps it was, though I have been preparing myself for a long time. This netbook after all is ancient, it's a miracle it still works and I'm very grateful evey time I use it. I'm a minimalist through and through, and I resist technology quite a bit, I like sticking to whatever works, never was crazy about getting the latest gadget, the latest update, the newest or trendiest anything. The phone still works, I thought to myself, and I murmured a little gratitude prayer, then got down to starting a new book as I drifted to sleep and called it a day.

The phone is quite old too and is cracking up. It was a cheap make that I got at the start of lockdown back in spring 2020 when I lost mine out of the blue. I had to grab whatever cheap phone I could afford at the time and while the shop allowed me in, as they were pretending they were closed down, only sneaking one or two customers at the time. It's been almost 4 years already, and I'm still playing catch up. 

I'm still inside my own head, battling between thriving and surviving, confused about the time and whether to consider this a beginning or an ending, and whether all the losses were beginnings in disguise, and if indeed I have been blessed, or just plainly stuck in a rot. I'm still trying to make sense of things, not just what happened since spring 2020, but since, well, the beginning... 

The photos for work I'm taking lately with the phone are emarassingly low quality, the camera in my phone has gone really bad, the screen doesn't allow me to see perfectly either to when I'm attempting editing, and I seem to be still in this forever catch up to be out there. Everybody's so very natural at it, that showing themselves thing, photos, videos, voice, their face, ideas, style, the trend, the it!... They have the fanciest phones, the latest apps, the best resolution everything, and it's on 24/7, as though they're broadcasting their life, let alone their work. And here I am all l truly wish to do is to hide. Perhaps that outdated technology of mine is helping me achieve that, one way or another... 

Still, I gotta sell, people and customers are only to be found on their phones these days, mustn't I play the game?! I'm still trying to find that balance between a world that's so very physical and materialistic - in which I feel total alienation and experience complete detachment from - and an existence that's merely passing by, hovering over it all, simply witnessing.

Perhaps I overwhelm my own senses myself too from being too much in both worlds, and simultaneously thinking about them. I dream of peacefully existing in the middle, having established a newly found harmony and a wise enlightened way of being, forging this into that when and if needed, minus the narration... 

Just maybe. 

Perspective

I live inside a a matchbox, and a useless one at that, as it's been dampened. All that fiery potential of old is now totally wasted. 

This used to be solace, home, safe, cozy, and warm. Now it's simply small, suffocating, cold, and moist.

When Jade called me on the day before new year's eve and asked me what are my wishes for the new year, I answered without much thinking: acceptance.

To accept that the very same walls that once housed me and kept me warm and content are now limiting me, pressing down on me, threatening my health, both physical and mental.

To accept that I had spent all of my life in the futile pursuit of Home, and that I had been delusioned every time I thought I had found it in a person, on a land, or in a place. 

To accept the very fast pace of things of late, the very changeable quality of people, my very slowed down or sped up ebbing and flowing.

To accept defeat, and not try to embellish it, nor sugar coat it for the sake of avoiding the shame monster, or that silly bruised ego.

To unravel the rotten scars, to face the damages and their repercussions, to look directly at the withering away of my deepest hopes, and to watch my expectations of old disappear into thin air... without flinching.

I am no longer charmed by tiny anything. I've expanded so much to be contained within narrow walls, and under a cracking, rotting away ceiling. To accept that I had indeed grown too much to be contained at all...

Another vision came to fruition, a lot of info has been passed down. I have to accept the density of that too, and transform it into gear for my next travel. 

To accept that indeed the only thing ever constant, is change itself, and that I may or may not have created the concept of Home around trauma, for nothing has ever been a better home to me than my own self. 

Double earth fire creature needs air and water too, and so another territory is calling. 

I have to do a lot of work to bring myself to accept that very fact too, and prepare myself to the next phase, and a new horizon.