The embrace

I'm sitting on the balcony this morning, it is facing south west, the air is slightly cooler in the morning here, though it's still considerably hot and humid. I've been avoiding all balconies most of summer. It's not just the intensity of the heat, but also the sounds. I have all windows and balcony doors open in the house throughout summer this year, we no longer have air conditionning on non stop like the olden days, saving on bills is key these days. This means we get the wild wind and cool breeze all day long, but also crazy dust, and all sorts of outside noise. The generators, the neighbours, the roads, the cars, the sellers, the factories, the dogs, the cats, the crows, the birds, but the loudest of them all, is the sound of crickets.
There was this specific place in a mountain village called Ghosta that stands out in my memory as a child. We used to go there regularly as families and neighbours at summertime, picnicking and barbecuing between the trees in a pine forest on Sundays. Soon after we would arrive, I used to wander away by myself, getting distant from the crowd, the noise of chatter and loud kids, to get a sense of a connection with nature. The farther away I would get from them, and the lesser their sounds were clear, the louder the crickets singing sounded. I remember the feeling of overwhelm, of being contained and consumed by nature through these very loud sounds. Somehow the song of crickets became the sound of freedom for me, and that of celebration and connection.
After the Beirut port explosion I was looking up apartments to move to, my daughter and myself, I wanted us out of Beirut at any cost. I had an appointment set with a real estate agent who was going to show me few different places that I liked from the photos and their ideal location. We have seen few really beautiful ones by then, but daughter was disapproving on them, without particularly being able to state the reason, just her hunch. I believed in her gut feeling, especially then, so I would agree with her  and we would move on to checking the next available option. Few seconds after stepping foot into this apartment that we now live in, and the moment right after seeing the pine forest that overlooks the bedrooms and kitchen, she was sold. From her confidence in her choice and that feeling of ease she experienced, I knew that this was going to be our home for the next phase of our life, and so I signed the lease contract the very next day, two years ago.
The pine forest is healing and soothing. Although my feet aren't on its ground, merely staring at its trees from our balconies, hearing its sounds, smelling its earth and greenery, can have a very calming effect on my being. I can't remember the exact moment when the sound of crickets started to affect me negatively though, not so long ago, maybe few weeks back. By then I had suffered the continuous loud sounds of my neighbours on the east side, and the extremely disturbing screaming sounds of the neighbours below us. I had to redecorate the whole place recently and switch rooms only just so that I can spend my days as peacefully as possible, battling through the chaos that is living in summer Lebanon at this time and age, without additional outer stressors.
This morning the sounds of crickets isn't too unbearable. I was wondering as to what is bringing this change, my ears are still super sensitive, and the crickets are as loud as their usual, if not more. I pondered upon this for a while, and I could sense this peaceful feeling inside of me, similar to that one I feel at the end of a phase or a cycle, which usually means the beginning of an end, also the start of a new one. The crickets are soon to die with the beginning of autumn, their sounds are going to remain loud only for another short while now, it all suddenly became much easier to bare.

The photos I went through this past weekend were mostly from my infamous house wedding at my grandma's with my dying mother. The last months of my mother's life battling last stage stomach cancer were spent with and around her, mostly in Saida, so she could be close to her own mother and family. I had been engaged to be married for a while by then, and at one point, her family got together and decided it was best I get married the soonest possible, so that she could witness it and be "happy for me". Such an absurd and backwards notion, yet I could not say a word about it. Suddenly what was supposed to be an important life passage ritual or my own, became a mere act of kindness for my dying mother. Life after my father died had changed upside down for us. Our autonomy as a family was gone, mother sought strength and guidance from her people, which broke havoc on our bond as one unit, one family. I, for instance, did not matter that much anymore, nor what I thought or felt. Everyone was busy trying to rescue himself or herself from the agony and pain, and finding their feet on the ground, from the disorientation of not having the solid figure that our father was with us anymore. Out of the blue, I found myself having to fill roles given to me, following advise from people I not once in my whole life listened to, nor them knowing anything about who I was beyond my being simply my mother's daughter. I was assigned jobs to do that I took on without much resistance. Everybody agreed to it being a sensible idea, this rushed, low key marriage, including my husband himself, so it became a plan.
I was in the market with my cousin one day, she was helping me do some of my shopping in preparation for the marriage. All of that was being done while I was simultaneously being of assistance to my mother, both at home and in the hospital, studying for my high school official exams, preparing for my first year in university, getting ready for my new life in my new home as a married woman, coming to terms with the discovery of my soon to be husband cheating on me, and the realization that he's probably a cheater and / or doesn't actually love me. There wasn't much free time for me to roam freely in the shops or wallow on any intuitive feeling, thought, or emotion. I became mute, and unlike my usual rebellious self, very accommodating and docile. I could not and did not want to cause trouble or discomfort, this is when I learned to be practical for the first time in my life, and just swallow truths and gulp harsh realities down my throat.
At one point during my shopping for my lingerie wardrobe and bridal bed linens, I stopped off in front of the window of a clothes shop. I looked Rola my cousin straight in the eye, and I told her we had to get in, I needed black clothes, I didn't have any. Rola understood what I meant, she obliged and helped me there too, not a single word uttered. That was us trying to do life the way it was asked of us. Marriage and funeral shopping on the very same day, for convenience, practicality, appearance, and conformity. I was 19 years old, Rola was 18. We were racing time, would my mother's frail body and weakened soul last long enough? It was all up in the air, we just battled through, and acted upon the grown ups' supposedly wise advise and instructions.
That wedding idea and execution was the most horrendous thing anyone could ever suggest on someone. Death should have been honored, my mother's passage, her time, her goodbyes. Death should've been about celebrating her own life, not some ritual celebrating somebody else's milestone. The slowing down, the sitting with the pain, the grieving, the presence, were all needed and necessary.  Her family wanted to swipe it all under the rug because it was all too painful for them to bare, and so I became the gift they were giving my mother on her very last days, and the perfect distraction, all socially, culturally, and religiously approved! 
They did not know, and we could not tell them, because no one would have fathomed it, not even us, but my mother and I never had this kind of a relationship, she did not need to see me getting married to make peace with her dying for instance. My life and my mother's life, and her death, were not exactly linked. When the doctors were figuring out the case of her cancer, they estimated the time it started and its development stages, and we knew how long she had approximately. It had started days after my father passing, this is how little other people, factors, and things affected my mother, not myself. She was ready to leave right after father died. The notion of sticking around to witness her adult children grow further in life, expand, be around for our milestones, and our children, never occurred to her, just like our earlier milestones had less importance in her life than one would assume.
My mother and I had an understanding from a very young age, she does herself, I do myself, I respected and honored this non vocal agreement my whole life, there were boundaries and we were worlds apart. Not once did I ask her to be more present or motherly to me. Not once did I blame her for anything that she did or did not do for me or outside of me. I don't know how, but I understood her, never resisting, never forcing, never projecting. She was on her path, I was on mine, we never intervened with each other's paths, though we were mother and daughter, and I was an extremely affectionate person with a need for closeness that goes beyond anything I've seen in average people. Yet, there we were, suddenly finding ourselves being the puppets for the family and their agendas, and this was, above all, very painful for me to witness in my mother, who used to have a larger than life persona and presence.

My mother did not need this kind of arrangements being back with her family. She simply needed their presence, so that she could say goodbye peacefully, and not alone, like she felt back home with us her kids. She suffered great loneliness since the passing of my father a year earlier. He wasn't just a husband to her, but her lifetime lover, partner, best friend, family, and companion. We would be back from school or work, to find her sitting on the couch, my father's place empty, and she's starting at his photo that she would have placed on the coffee table in front of her, sobbing and crying uncontrollably, for hours on end. If anything at all, my mother needed the attention on herself, not derived somewhere else, so she could gather strength and courage to handle the physical pain she was enduring, and the concept of forced departure. I suppose at that time, we had both become victims of social codes, culture customs, and family enmeshment.
When I held her to say goodbye before leaving with my now husband, we cried very painful tears. It wasn't the traditional cries people see and assume of a mother and daughter upon the daughter's departure on her wedding day. There was melancholia, sadness and depth inside each of us in very similar ways that we have both acknowledged in each other, our entire life, without ever speaking of it. There was no more escaping during that embrace, nor could we carry on with our prolonged pretending. Life has gotten totally out of control for both of us and it was all felt at that very moment. I could not tell her about my new pains, new realizations, new  disappointments and fears. She could not tell me about her self betrayals, her regrets, her old sufferings, and the missing. There was no time for that, nor space, we were strictly and merely just two women, beaten and broken, crying our helplessness and despair, saying goodbye, and parting in two opposite directions, having become so very close, yet still very distant.