Burst open!

I've done it!

A month of daily blogging. 

Now that I've mastered consistency in posting, time to hone down the content.

February should be special.

I am celebrating me, there has never been a better way to do so but bursting open!

Life is too precious not to do so. 

I've wasted many years already. 

Perception

I've taught myself something new this month, it was part or my self love initiative. I'm ambitious generally speaking, but I tend to go hard on myself, focusing mainly on the goal when driven. These days, I'm learning to compare where I'm standing now with where I was instead of where I'm heading, and the progress I made, the small little steps. The big picture will be full once I commit to these small stepping stones and tapping myself on the back the further away I'm getting from the shore.

Scratching the surface

I'm overcome by an overwhelming sadness. It's something between grieving, nostalgia and melancholia.

I finished third week of detoxing, and I have only come close to realising just how much chronic pains my body is handling. 

I finished watching the film Baraka on YouTube, then Human the movie auto played. My heart is full with joy and sadness for humanity.

I am both inspired, and wishing I could terminate my life. 

Also, blogging all those days has made me realise I'm only just hardly able to scratch the surface. The surface is useless to me. I need to dig deep.

All those pains and the holding back is a sign of how much awaits me, to release. 

...... 

Incoherence

 I'm in the office every single day this week. 

Two weeks of detoxing have helped set me ready to kick start this year. 

I am now ready, spending very long hours on my desk, sorting out files, doing spreadsheets, updating my plans, figuring out problems to all the problems that arose in 2020. I'm connecting with my room and my things, and allowing myself to feel alive again, though there is so much pain. 

I've prepared for so much in 2019, and I started a lot of new things in 2020, only to be forced to drop everything. 

The hardest is proving to be my creativity. 

Ardh 124 a project I started in 2019, launched in January 2020, hardly saw the light. The chaos of the so called virus took us by surprise and we started the survival mode within days after. 

I did what I did best, prioritize! 

It feels like a baby that I have neglected, in order to look after my other sick baby. 

It's painful and sad. I am sad and grieving. 

I can't even get myself to write coherently. 

This is how sad I am. 

Post traumatic brain functions... 

But I will persevere. 

This very thing is life to me, not the earning and providing, and the coming and going, and the surviving, pathetic survival! 

Noise

There never seems to be enough quietness. I need my peace so I can restore my faculties. Can't seem to operate normally. So much noise on the outside, inside me too.

I like for you to be still

"I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not touch you
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
And it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth
As all things are filled with my soul
You emerge from the things
Filled with my soul
You are like my soul
A butterfly of dream
And you are like the word: Melancholy

I like for you to be still
And you seem far away
It sounds as though you are lamenting
A butterfly cooing like a dove
And you hear me from far away
And my voice does not reach you
Let me come to be still in your silence
And let me talk to you with your silence
That is bright as a lamp
Simple, as a ring
You are like the night
With its stillness and constellations
Your silence is that of a star
As remote and candid

I like for you to be still
It is as though you are absent
Distant and full of sorrow
So you would've died
One word then, One smile is enough
And I'm happy;
Happy that it's not true."

Pablo Neruda. 

Sleep it off

I'm very sad today. 

I'm tired and uninspired. 

I slept a lot, I cried a lot, and I think I'm going to do some more of that shortly too, then call it a day hopefully. 

Mind is blank, numbing is key. 

Two weeks in

It's a very long day. I ought to have napped, but I didn't. I am getting so easily overwhelmed these days. I need total silence and peace for my mind to function properly. I need to be productive and creative for my sanity's sake. Almost two weeks in with the detox today. There has been a lot of cooking and meal preperation and food topics around, I'm so tried from that alone. There are no shortcuts though, that's the only proven method to work, from experience.

I must sleep soon, will dream of a day, or two, where I get to do nothing at all, think about nothing, and look after nothing at all! 

In an ideal world

In an ideal world, I'd be living like a hermet. I would interact with one person, or two, once or twice a week, or month.

In an ideal world, I'd be living in a small country side house, with wooden everything, and old everything.

In ideal world, I won't use the mobile phone, I won't have use nor need for internet. 

I'd have my books, notebooks, and my mind to keep me entertained. 

In this ideal world, I'd have guests occasionally, whom I'd welcome with so much love, warmth and excitement. 

I'd be open as much as I wanted, and I'd close off too, for as long as my soul needs and desires. 

Up close and personal

It appears, I will only ever got the motive to write if I go deep. It's very hard for me to write otherwise. Going deep, at this phase in my life, is proving to be tricky. There are many routes to take. Everything is subject to perception, cycles changing, and state of being. Everything is constantly moving and shifting. The core however, seems to be stable and constant. How much must I dig? How much depth do I need? Am I processing the old? Or digging a road for the new?

All I know is that this blog will only get more and more personal, and I have to be fine with that, if I truly wish to keep at it.

And I do... 

Julie & Julia

I just finished watching Julie & Julia, I cried my heart out. Maybe I'm emotional /

hormonal, maybe too I'm exhausted and shattered, scattered really, from too much twisting and turning, and getting swept farther away from my true voice and calling.

I remember watching it for the first time ages go, I remember too reading Julia's

books. I remember how often I'd stop in the middle of my reading to tell Chris about it, her, Julia. I was inspired, motivated, excited. We had been through so much already by 2016, but I was ready to kick start things again, like I always do. 

We were bck to my tiny little 3 x 4 sqm room, in our tiny kitchenless studio in Dora, but boy was I happy! 

I miss at times that feeling of loving being with someone so much, and being so in love with that someone too, and loving doing and living in the same space and time as that someone. Him and Yasmina were my only family. 

It is just Yasmina and myself now, and though I'm eagerly anticipating the return of my inspiration, my old excited, passionate, optimistic, expressive self, I can't help the emotions every now and then. 

Meh

I had a good day, it's been a good week. My body is breathing again, I was excited with my detox and all the changes. Yet, today, I'm a little emotional, somewhat concerned, and sad.

I developed vericose veins in my legs during the summer, but they never hurt. 

Today as I was doing some cardio exercises, I felt some discomfort in the area. I stopped half way through, and I decided to stretch gently instead.

What then though... I need to educate myself about them, hoping that I can reverse this!

It's good to be home

The last few days have been slow and peaceful. There's a total lockdown happening outside, and inside, a relaxed pace of simply existing and being.

I'm sleeping a lot, reading a lot, watching movies and series, cooking, eating healthy, exercising gently, and sleeping, sleeping a lot.

It's a beautiful hybernating season this way, I'm glad for the storm which is making the picture perfect.

I am not inspired to write, too tired to journal, and I think I can easily spend this whole month of January recovering from last year, and resting from decades past where I all I seem to be doing is pushing myself, often times in every possible direction.

I am often in my bed too, with curtains drawn, and the sound of silence. 

It's good to be home. 

Satisfying strange days

People are losing it, yet another lockdown to take place, a complete one this time around! 

I am impartial, no, I'm quite satisfied admittedly. 

Not only am I an introverted loner, but an empath too. Spending life indoors, with no place to go, no people to meet, suits me to the very core. 

Dreading

Blogging is supposed to be my writing exercice, but I'm finding myself dreading it. I now exist in a survival mode reality. I haven't been able to tap into what I truly feel very deep down inside, nor access my true thoughts, except for breif accidental moments. The magic of the fresh start of the year is wearing off, I feel am drowning already in the sea of noise, mundane people and routines and limited everything. 

The very old men's shoes, size 42

In January, I usually experience very interesting dreams. Last January I had some nitty and gritty apocalytical ones. Nothing I'm not too familiar with, the consistency and regularity, however, was intense, to say the least.

What the months following brought is something I am unable to put in simple words, yet. But this month, and this year, I am grateful to whatever peace I managed to come out with from the 2020 year. 

On Monday I started to detox, the food usually is the main fast, but everything really follows. The whole system gets to breathe, mind slows down, and the spirits get high. 

I gave myself few days off work, the usual interactions with people, the house chores, the constant going and doing, I even spaced myself from daughter a limited the time we spend together on a daily basis. 

I'm able to come to my body again, and realise the new damage I have caused it through the continuous survival mode. I am home now, and there is no place else I need to go, be, or nothing else I need to do. 

I'm sitting in the pain of craving all the things my body is craving, mostly now, the food, but I will sit still with it until I let go of these very deeply ingrained, decades old, toxic addictions.

In the wake of a morning blessed with beautiful rain outside, after months of totally dry winter weather, and the peace of a good night sleep, I remember the dream. 

I'm standing in the hallway in my apartment, picking excitedly a pair of very old, used and well rugged pair of men shoes in brown color from a shelf, looking at my sister standing few meters away from me to my left. I'm trying to hide several things from her; the shoes because she'd hate for me to come close to any such old thing, the excitement because she would never understand it, the source of the shoes - I don't myself know it but I'm set to discover it, and the fact that I'm going to put them on, so I don't want her to notice. But I ignore all these things, and I simply turn them on the back to check the size, it says 42, I smile, I put them down and I slid my feet inside them. They're ugly and been used heavily, but somehow I'm glad, like a little child unwrapping a box of their most desired gift or toy! 

 

Moon Jasmine

Today the 13th January, my baby released her baby, and it so happens to be the new moon.

Yasmina has been drawing and coloring / painting since she was a child. Though it's a given that all children do so, and are good at it, Yasmina had always something rather special in that area. There's something so sweet and beautiful about the way she expresses herself on paper.

Out of the devastating events of this summer past, and soon before and after the explosion of the Beirut port, she invested herself excessively in creating cute little artworks with acrylic on cardboard. 

When we moved to the new place in Autumn, she kept going, beautiful things were blossoming from this urgent need of hers to create, and keep her mind and hands busy. 

These are such unprecedented days. I can only imagine how hard it must be for a young woman in her age coming to life, to be thrown inside with no access to the outer world in the way it ought to be normally, nor her own world with her people and friends. 

All is not lost though. Out of this darkness, a little light came to life. Today she officially released this concept / idea / project to the world, though she's still private about it.

She named it Jasmine Moon. 

I'm happy for her. 

Inner scream

I'm so tired these days, but it's not because of things done, it's mostly because of things undone. Everything got in the way, many people, did too, I did it to myself too.

I'm tired from this tiredness itself. 

Can I undo the harm?

Will I create the space needed?

Is it possible to slow down the time?

My inner child is screaming! 

Homo sapiens

If you search the name, you would be overwhelmed by information. What I'm referring to, however, is for me, the best film ever made, ever! The maker is Nikolaus Geyrhalter. 

I watched it in the year 2016, towards the end of it, or maybe it was early 2017, few days before Chris traveled to Sweden. I was overcome by melancholia and nostalgia to begin with, but watching this film, gave me more satisfaction than I ever thought possible. Perhaps because it put highlight on these very sentiments within me. Like words describing what I never thought describable, recognizable...

I have always been drawn to abandoned places, not as an adult, but since ever, as a child. The feeling was always as though I didn't belong to this particular existence, but to older days, different space, different times, and in the longing for the unknown, wondering what was and how it ought to have been, there is consolation, of something that resembles more Home.

Years later, I realise that there is a name, and it's an actual thing; that sensitivity to certain sounds, that sensation it triggers in the mind and the body. It is called ASMR and it stands for autonomous sensory meridian reaction. I started to watch specific content made with this solely in mind. I later learned how to give myself this satisfying sensation through making my own videos... 

But that brings me to another topic too, intimicay. These are all things linked and intertwined for me. But more on that in another post, I feel so overwhelmed already.

Quoting

“As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know. Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.” 

Carl Jung

Mornings

I tried waking up early again, at dawn or around it. It's my favorite time of the day after all, my faculties are usually sharp at this hour, also everything is so alive inside me, and outside, pure bliss of quietness.

I did it for three consecutive days, I've set the alarm and all. I found that I was simply unable to deal with the pain inside. Each new day I'm realizing just how much I have to heal inside me, and learning how to do this this called life all over again, as if I have only just landed. 

اسمي ‏جملة ‏فعلية! ‏

رنا: فعل ماضي مبنى على الفتحة المقدرة على الألف للتعذر.

الإبريق: فاعل مرفوع، علامة رفعه الضمة الظاهرة على آخره. 

"The wild will call you back...

The Wild will call you back. 

Through half-remembered dreams 

and sunsets painted 

in burnt sienna 

and vermillion flames

she will call you back home.

The coyotes will wake you 

from your sleep

with their clarion call

to keep your eyes

wide open.

How long have you been sleeping?

How much have you forgotten?

The Wild will call you back.

She will hang you upside down 

and shake the nonsense 

from the pockets 

of your mind.

She will strip your soul naked

leaving you raw and exposed

under the searing glare 

of the gods.

Offer up the holiness

of your confusion 

and questions.

Dress yourself

in fireflies 

and attune your senses

to awe

while you learn the slow seduction

of courting your muse.

Brush the stardust from your wings

and wipe the ocean from your eyes.

Flex your claws

dig your roots deep down

into the fertile earth

and show your fangs.

Gather pollen on your legs

and speak 

in venom

and honey.

Peel back your colonized tongue

and let it hiss

and purr

and growl

and scream.

Do you remember 

how to stalk

as predator 

and how to surrender

as prey?

The Wild will call you back.

The owls know your real name

and will call you

from the darkness of night

to dance under the moon.

Crack your heart open

with your ancestors’ bones

and dance in the ecstasy 

of your love 

and your grief

with flailing limbs

bloody knees 

and mud-stained feet.

Braid mugwort into your hair 

and dream yourself 

awake.

The Wild will call you back.

She will teach you how to die

again and again

and how to die well.

There is no difference 

between your funeral pyre

and your birth canal.

Do not bother 

to try and stop

the bleeding.

Love with the gentleness

and ferocity

of your whole

soft 

tender being.

Feed the spirits

with your beauty 

and sweetness

and ask them to show you

the way home."

Gina Puorro

Three quarter age

I decided I'm in middle age now. It is said to be anything between 45 and 55, or 50 to 65, and so on. But I've been thinking about it, for quite some time. If I'm to live until I'm 80 years old - I'm tired just thinking about living all those years, but yes, considering I leave this planet around then, then 40 is the middle. I'm 40 now, this is a good turning point. I am going changing some things now, well I have always been doing that, but one particular aspect has been stopping me from enjoying many other things and that's being in my low vibrational, abusive, self harming emotional eating. That includes: comfort eating, binge eating, over eating, stress eating, and the list goes on.

This journey in this life has been quite rich, but I'm rather tired from the weight now, and I need to unload. 

If I don't live until I'm 80, than I am well behind middle age, if I leave around my 60, then I'm three quarter in, I better hurry!

Lullaby for the Travelling Child

This post is dedicated to Mila. 

I see you, I know you, I hear your very silence. 

May you receive all the love you need in the world beautiful soul, and may you heal and keep sprouting and blossoming like the most beautiful, special being that you are. 

A lullaby for you 

Forty on the 4th.

I turn forty today. What a journey this has been!

Will I consider it middle age?

Can I kick start my other half of this journey, as opposed to the very rough initial start?

Does any of this matter at all? 

A very interesting discussion comes to mind, when I was 8 years old, of my mother and her friend. It was the Civil War, and we were all crammed in the shelter of the building, about a hundred people underground, with no electricity nor running water. I was trying to fall asleep to the sounds of people murmuring, and the news on the radio in the background. I fell asleep to a heated exchange couple of ideas between mother and her friend, though my mind then wasn't able to fathom their arguments, but the topic did stick nin my head for a while. 

هل الإنسان مخير ام مسير؟ 

There is a follow up to this, but I will leave it for another time. 

For now, I will dwell on how I'm both wise and mature at this stage, but still can be naive and shortsighted in lots of ways, especially concerning people. Yasmina made a little observation a while ago, followed by an interesting statement "Pople lie... People's nature..." I sure hope she grows up to be much smarter than I when it comes to relationships and people. They were never my forte! 

I guess I will be introverting my way through my 5th decade on this planet, in this life. 

Enough musing. 

Happy birthday moi! 

تولدت مبارك

The missing

I miss my mornings, the early hours before sunrise, at dawn, and the minutes before dawn. 

I miss my longing, I miss the very missing. 

I miss my people, my world.

I miss my contemplating. 

I miss the hope. 

I miss dreaming, my illusions, the delusions too.

I miss the palms of my father. 

I miss his smile, his tears too. 

I miss my mother's most saddest singing voice.

I miss their faces, and I often imagine how they would be, looking at my Yasmina. 

I miss what it all ought to be. 

I miss me too....

Sail away!

I often have this discussion with people, about endings, and beginnings. I love the topic. I have always had a rather significant attraction to death. The endings, of relationships, cycles, movies, books, journeys and gatherings. They're so intense and powerful, just equally as beginnings, all beginnings, and births and babies, particularly those. 

I had this conversation recently with Yasmina, it came up as she was casually expressing how she likes the middle. It is of course very symbolic, she loves the flow, to be in it, whereas I have always loved to mend and shape things, in charge of where I'm going, how I'm staying, and when to leave, literally and figuratively. 

We had so many clashes in the past, these days we have reached a stage where we learn how to co-live through our differences. She was born in the middle of summer, and I in the middle of winter. She is at her highest in summer, when I'm at my lowest usually, and vice versa. Our summers and winters are something, but we feel good in the knowing that this time of the year, though it feels like a new start, we are both flowing in the journey that puts us together as mother and daughter. We are sailing away, it is the middle, but also the start and the finishing too, in lots of ways.

Happy new year to us! 

2021

Years of living in survival mode has done some serious damage to the functioning of my mind. Every now and then I get excited about blogging. I still keep a journal, but sometimes my journaling too is of survival type. When does it end? Have I started it myself? Are things really hard? Am I creating the hardship myself? All these are irrelevant questions too, when there are no means for me to actually make one clear statement in my head, about any one specific topic. Everything is changeable, and changing.

The excitement about blogging came to me on new year's eve last night, I was awake until 6:00 in the morning. Only when the morning light was here, I was able to rest my weary head. Thinking and looking back, and looking ahead too. The thought that brought joy and warmth to my heart each time, was writing. I shared the blogging plan news with daughter when I got up, I said I'll start a new blog and commit to writing one blog post every single day in the new year, starting from today (January first).

As usual, the day unfolded nicely, but got crazy busy and overwhelmingly distracting. We had guests over, and we had to prepare, accommodate, and entertain, when the only thing we both needed truly was rest. Not the normal type of rest on a new year's day, but the one you'd need after a year of a hundred of twists and turns, a global pandemic, a national economical, political and societal crisis, an apocalyptic explosion, several houses moving, and all that such events can entail.

Here I am, however, two hours after midnight, I'm refusing to let this day slip from me, I'm going to blog like I said I would, one post each day. 

Maybe my writing will improve again, or improve at all. Maybe it won't. But maybe too I might be able to get back my ability of thinking, the non problem solving practical strategic thinking, but rather the stimulating, fulfilling, thinking for the sake of thinking kind. 

Of course I came to start a new blog, only to realize, like several times in the past, that I have a live blog already and been going for years, though almost inactive. So at least there was that, I felt some relief for not having to come up with new anything. Admittedly too I, felt somewhat concerned at how often this is bizarrely being erased from my memory time and again. 

Anyhow, here I am, my commitment to myself, 365 days of writing, putting words together again, digging in the well of my soul, threading together thoughts, ideas, emotions, visions, hopes, feelings and dreams.