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. 

Twenty Four

I am so out of practice that after writing a whole post, I accidentally clicked on something on the keyboard and the whole thing was deleted! I am still adamant I post this today, as 24th April is a very special date to me, so here goes my come back post. I like to believe I am ready to blog again. I haven't stopped writing all those years and months past, except it was all in my journals. There's something so special about being here again, and doing this. Perhaps I'll manage to say more again soon. For now, and at these most harshest times we're going through, I am happy to still have it in me to be able to express myself with words. 

The years

It is somewhat saddening looking back at all those past eventful years without seeing a record of them in the blog. I had to actually look through my previous posts to see whether or not I have indeed written about my artistic endeavours and bluntly shared my insecurities. I am a transparent person, but therein lies my fragility, and that's why I keep wearing a mask, portraying myself as a big and mighty girl who knows what she's doing. There is no doubt that I do most of the time, but most of the time too I lose track of my plans, and my confidence fails me, and depression gets hold of me.

I am 35 years old today, years has passed me by. So many things I wanted to do and I wanted to be, so many things I had no idea I can do, but time and again life shows me that it got other plans for me.  Although I used to resist at the start, these days, I just sit back and watch. It would sound naive to say  that I've learned from life, if anything, I learned that there isn't much to be learned. Life doesn't care about you and what you do or what you aim to be or where. Life goes on and you just have to be smart enough to savour each and every moment, even if those are little moments of sadness, when you realize that the pain you have been numbing yourself from feeling is the very essence of your being. You stop fighting and chasing happiness, and you enjoy that very realization.

I reached the peak of my teaching career in early 2014, it is then that I decided I wanted to quit too. Years of close encounters with all sort of people has drained me, and I knew it was time I sought solace in solitude again. I worked extensively on my online presence for business, I reinvented myself as self acclaimed jewelry artist, and I narrowed down the many lines I used to offer. Today with almost 500 sales record of customized jewelry pieces since, and nearly 100 postive reviews, I am glad to say that I have achieved something, and that the years weren't entirely wasted, alas though, I myself feel wasted, and as if parts of my soul are scattered. Two years of introversion has done me good in a way that no exposure can ever do, but it never did what I hoped it would, and that is healing myself. Today I plan on venturing on teaching again, to have a bit of both worlds in the hope that I can soothe my ever tormented introverted self.   

Numbing

I have been having an itch to write for a while, my laptop adaptor was broken and I only got a chance to replace it recently. Every time I think of my blog, I feel some kind of embarrassment. Every time I am on my blog, I feel like I should delete the previous posts, the ones before the last at least. I don't know what's normal and what's not, I do know that I could get very self conscious, and that it does stop me from expressing myself. I have an itch to write because it's another form of self expression, and as far as I can remember, I have always been perceiving life around me and its events, and wording them in my head. I am not a story teller, but I find great enjoyment in contemplating and capturing feelings, emotions, thoughts, capturing our reaction to the outside world, to our inner world. When I have this flood of emotions and ideas, say for jewelry, I don't dwell on them, I come rushing to my jewellery bench and I start creating and making and sketching. I don't try to dress my sketches up, I don't try to finish the pieces, I start. It is the same for me with writing. My English is mediocre, my style is poor, but it's ok, because I have the itch, and I need to write, and it is good, and it feels right, and even if I am going to be feel exposed, it is needed, because I am tired, tired of numbing.

A glitch

Over the past few years I have created and deleted few different personal blogs. I go through different moods and mental states; confident, outspoken, social, extrovert, active, timid, insecure, depressed, creative, inspired, motivated, lonely, sad, happy. This is usually highly reflected in my social media activity. My Ranawiyet facebook page is updated with posts, news, happy posts, pictures of my new creations, inspiration quotes. pictures of my work in progress and so on. My twitter is active too. I post to my pinterest boards and I add new ones (although my secret boards are ideal for all the non publishable obsessions, especially in timid/depressed or even inspired mood, if you know what I mean). My etsy shop is updated, with all nice pictures, I post in the etsy forums too and try to communicate with other fellow etsians and artists. I even created a new instagram account lately (which I still have no clue how it really works but I'll get there sometime this century). This is how active I have been latley (some of the usual moods that accompany active are: happy, confident, inspired, motivated, etc.) So while I was tweaking and editing and updating my information on all the social media platforms that I am on - especially that I haven't done so properly since I stopped teaching and became again a full time jewelry artisan solely - I thought of googling my name to see how neat and accurate things are now. I did, and the result was somehow impressive. A lot of nice profile pictures (I am yet to be confident enough to take and share more pictures of my whole self and body, and not just my face!). Links to my etsy shop (great, I got things to sell, and they're getting the exposure they deserve). Many links to my twitter account (brilliant, I am out there officially, because, you know you're not really if you don't "tweet" these days). Facebook page, facebook profile, youtoube channel, videos, interviews, jewelry making workshops, past events, students, links to my videos and posts of my videos on websites I never heard of (shock at first, and then comfort in the knowing that I am - was at some point anyway - an inspiration to some other designers), and a contemplating how fat I was / still am and how I still try to hide it by taking and sharing pictures of my face alone (wishing this could be done in interviews too, then I would have kept them coming), and then, the real shock... A blog!
Sure I clicked on the link to delete this old blog in order to keep all the info updated and accurate as I was initially doing. It sure was one of my neglected silly blogs that I created and forgot about in the past, or so I thought! To my surprise, it turned out to be a proper blog! Not too big, not too old, not too silly (maybe a little bit, as all blogs are for insecure blogger), with nice pictures, and small little posts that are actually readable. Wow! I really was impressed, I really surprised myself! First by having achieved anything as close to a proper blog, and second for having absolutely and utterly totally forgotten about it!
And after reading only the last blog post, which was exactly 2 years ago, I felt that I missed blogging (writing anyway), and that an update is long due, for it is September again, this particular time of the year where I feel so energetic, renewed, alive and... inspired. So now that have I updated most of the info, and will be looking to do this again in 2 years time (I can't be bothered before then, blame it on my moods and memory!!) I will be blogging more often, and remind myself ever so often, then I do exist in writing just like I do in creating and that they are both my favourite art mediums, and they will always be. 

In her gummy smile

Yasmina, age 7, on her 1st. day at school (Gr2) 18-09-2012 

I love autumn, I always have. Becoming a mother of a school girl, I started to appreciate it even better. Besides loving the cooler weather, I love seeing people rushing to get ready for school. I even enjoy the busy traffic and the noise it creates; the shorter days, the sleepy faces of parents dropping their children to school, or bringing them to the buses. And then there are the mothers, nagging about their children not going to bed early, or about them not finishing their homework - unwilling to admit that they have anything to do with it. I don't mind any of that, in fact, I love it. This is the thing about Autumn, it brings order, routine and discipline.

I am probably one of the most chaotic people ever, but even in my own chaos, there has always been order, because of which, I was able to get things done in my life. So when Autumn comes to wash away any laziness and wandering that I found myself stuck in during summer, I welcome it with a smile.
I love the mornings when daughter goes to school, and I get to be more than just a mother, even just for few hours. I usually start my day with some time for myself, reading or writing, or simply contemplating. I then head to the office. I teach if I have classes, otherwise I design and make jewelry. In the afternoon I return home for house chores and I cook and get things ready before daughter comes back. It doesn't take more than that amount of time for any woman to feel fulfilled and useful, instead of just simply being a mother. I couldn't have been any more appreciative of the life I have created for myself.

The season of Autumn inevitably rolls into Winter, bundled with the Spring and Summer past, where all I really want to be, is a mother, and to bond with my child.  You can really miss those endless days at home, when your only fulfillment comes from watching her discover the world by herself for the first time; turn a page, crawl, laugh, stand up, walk… and when she has had her first taste of a juicy plum, and smiles at you (as if she owns the world – having already owned you), any meaning of order or sense in the world dissolves in her heart melting, gummy smile.

Yasmina, 8 mths old, eating her very first plum.

JMR and the new logo

So I was gladly back to work after the summer holidays were over, and just a while before schools started. My plan was to try and make some good changes to Jewelry Making with Rana. While I was mainly satisfied with the way I was running my facebook page - through which mostly people found out about me - but I just knew that there had to be an update, and I knew that the start had to be simply with a logo. 

I assigned that job to one of my students who is a talented graphic designer and a nice guy from the South. He actually lives there so he used to come all the way from Nabatieh to attend his classes, tiring but you could bet it was worth it. At some point he even took both beginners and advanced classes on the same day. So Ali and I met one afternoon to check the drafts together. He showed me 4 different beautiful logos. Glancing at them, it took me exactly two seconds to let him know of my choice. A logo that, had I been a graphic designer myself, would have done that very same logo with every little detail. That's a little exaggerated, but I you get the drift; that logo really spoke to me. A silhouette of a tribal lady's face with her jewelry and a shining star, beautifully portrayed with asymmetrical details above the newly chosen acronym for short; JMR. And to add to the fun, that girl's face looks like mine to some extent. Not a bad idea when you think that Jewelry Making with Rana was founded by myself, is managed, run and taught by myself too.  Here's the new logo, you may wonder why is it not a high resolution one, and I would simply answer that I have been too lazy to ask Ali to send me the final logo (since I had to choose the colours and get back to him about that). So this logo you see above was cropped from the facebook cover photo we uploaded together when we were still trying it (picture below).

Now that the logo is done, time to get on with the next thing on plan; re-decorating the office. 

Work addiction

Summer is nearly over and it has been a long time sine I blogged. I haven't been making as much jewellery as I would have loved to, or writing about making them, or writing at all for that matter, and I miss doing all these. I have been busy at the workshop, however, teaching almost 6 days a week, until I took a leave 2 weeks ago, right after celebrating a year of teaching at the Jewelry Making with Rana's 1st. anniversary dinner. The classes are resuming in 2 weeks time, and I am hoping to make some changes to the office by then, make it look more colorful and welcoming, adding and taking away few things. One thing I have to decide on too, whether or not I should move back my own work studio home, because although I'm spending long hours at the workshop, I'm still only really getting inspired at home, at night.
My laptop is broken too and I have to decide on getting a new one or an iPad instead. Decisions decisions decisions :)
Anyway, until I do, and hopefully blog more often, about the jewelry that I am going to be hopefully making, here's a picture of the jewelry set I made and wore to the JMR's 1st. anniversary. If there's anything I'm fascinated about, it has to be metal disc charms and coin jewelry.

Hey spring! I love you

So delighted April was finally here. I could certainly do with less emotional and non-inspired days (I have decided, looking back to the last few years anyway, March is certainly NOT my month!). And to celebrate spring my own way, I went out and got some beautiful gems to get me going and beading again. Although I can't wait to start working away on some designs I have in mind (still not doing good at catching all ideas on my sketch book), I just have to wait a while, until I make some more changes in my workshop, especially with the new classes that are given by another teacher (intermediate level), and yet another teacher in the near future (advanced level). I am still happily and joyfully giving the beginners level in jewelry making, and boy do I love it! 

So anyway, I'm so excited I just wanted to share a peek of my semi precious stones that I bought 2 weeks ago. Besides April and the beautiful sunny days, those stones are making me happy. 

Aquamarine, Citrine, Amethyst, Aguate, and volcanic stone beads.