You can't speak consciousness to the unconscious. You can't speak empathy to the sociopath. You can't preach a narcissist about the interconnectedness of it all. You can't lecture about the illusion of separation to the sleeping mass. You can't teach a child how not to turn from the spirit essence. You can't grow love in the heart of the amnesic. You may scream, you may roar, you may plead, you may hope, but it just is destined. The oldest game at play on Earth; that delusion, that simulation, that forgetfulness, the core of the distraction.
Don't take it personal, ego is part of the game, quit it already, they come when they come, if at all they remember. Otherwise, keep at it, that remembering, that essence, the light that shines. It will pull all sorts of dark beings, butterflies and flutter-by's, for the light is attractive, and the light is a dream like, but that too is Okay. Let them project, recall, zone out, come again. Let them, just let them... Watch in silence, as it unfolds in front you, one beginning of a certain end, but don't judge, that judging game is behind you now too.
Could you watch in silence? Can you watch, detached, in total discernment?
Don't say much, don't over share. It's been said a thousand times over. I mean, won't you just see all the talking at dawn and in the birds songs, all those mornings. All those mornings, but who cares to listen, and they choose the night, time and again. Selling their bodies to feel anything at all. Vacant bodies, vacant souls, an exchange for an exchange for an exchange, on and on it goes...
This writing isn't for me, it's for those who will come. This journey isn't so personal, this existence is part of the all, we are after all in this together, but we rise alone. The words are to witness these times, to remind those who've made the choice, and also maybe only just to report.
On that note,
Report to source...
I have indeed remembered.
Amen.
Thank you.
I looked at the mirror for brief seconds this morning a little after I got up, I thought I looked something between a child and an old woman. On the inside, I felt exactly that. I don't know why my soul keep holding on to that innocence, I don't know why I still smile wholeheartedly, or why I still get excited and hopeful on mornings, after spending some most excruciating nights, time and again. I don't know why I still get excited about encounters, interactions, humans, and a future, after all I have experienced with them, through them, and because of them...
Another Tinder idiot yesterday was giving me the usual hollow, self reflecting compliments. He said the usual you don't look your age line, but he added that I look like I'm in my 20's. Hell broke lose on him, I was just not having it in that particular moment. I preached him a little, on how insulting that was, and on how honorable it was for me to be in my age, and that it was belittling and disrespectful to tell me I look like a girl in my 20's. I then caught my mind going on a banter, but I stopped myself. I realized half way through that he's just another system victim. He was merely saying all the things he's supposed to say, he has learned all the lessons about women there was to learn from this plastic society. No age revealing, either that or looking forever young. Looking young would be the ultimate flattering thing to say to a woman, most especially if she did indeed look somewhat younger than her actual age. But the thing was that I knew exactly what was going to come after these lines, and I had already lost interest.
At this stage, I consider myself a Tinder expert. I could almost always tell the things they're going to say after our initial interaction and exchange of messages, and sometimes even prior to that. Was I going to waste my time teaching a man a thing or two about real women? It was just not worth it, most especially after his excitement about my lecture to him. They turn submissive and obsessive. I haven't been more fetishized in my life than I have been in the recent years. The more I am stern, real, straightforward, the more they project their fantasies on me. A down to earth, honest woman, with her head over her shoulders and her heart in place is a most rare sight over here nowadays it seems, so much so that the reactions to my mere existence have been so very diverse but similar in lots of ways. I didn't need more than that to know exactly what's happening in our society and behind closed doors, in people's psyches, and to their souls. I had to let the new idiot go his way, thanks heaven for the unmatch button. I sure have used that figuratively quite a lot in the recent years too, it's been a savior.
As I was drifting to sleep two nights ago, I experienced one of those lucid dream / epiphany moments. One of them was about my story writing, I smiled, then giggled myself to sleep. That massive question that I kept repeating to myself, repeating to myself in the presence of others, asking it to others repeatedly, for their insight and what I could be missing, and never getting any real answer for... was finally answered. I have always wondered why humans were behaving in such or such ways. All the people, the husbands, the siblings, the friends, the boyfriends. And now the children, the dates, the sex buddies, the customers, the sales people, the neighbours. The answer is that there is no answer, because the question was irrelevant. They behaved in exactly how they wanted to behave, their words and actions were a representation of who they were. Whatever I have gotten excited about used to be inside my own head. I had learned the hard way that to be human, is to be fallible, and that whatever was perceived or experienced as off or too extreme by myself, was also merely another aspect of the human nature.
That silly creative mind of mine has been busy adding traits to (my) people and getting off of them since I was a tiny little child. As I was drifting to sleep, I remembered the very first short story I wrote when I was around 8 years old. In that moment, I remembered the feeling, the need, the desire to have an alternative, much more vivid, alive, and exciting reality, with more compassion in the humans' heart, and grit in their soul. I could not for the life of me stop myself from grinning, because in that moment, I realized too that all that pain I have been causing myself with my silly expectations, was in big part still the trauma wound I was unconsciously trying to self heal. That was the bubble too, I was never interacting with people on the same level, or within the same reality. They had their agendas, but I too had mine, to see them under the light of their best possible version, their highest potential, perhaps to heal my pain, but perhaps too for the higher good of humanity - and I had been hopeful - and boy did I see potential!
I still do in fact, and I get oh so excited about it too. I see it in their eyes, in their features, in their very details, physical and otherwise. In the words they speak, in their silences. In their pain and their joy, in their beliefs, their actions, and their work. In their sadness and stagnation, in their posture, in their hands, in the shape of their toes, in the curvature of their backs, in their neck, on their forehead, and the texture of their hair, and their narration of their past, in their talk about their future. But now I know, that the perception of all of that is merely a mixture of empathy, and a lot of creativity.
Now I have finally learned not to get ahead of myself, not to get more excited about other poeple's path than they themselves are. Now I have finally earned it, and learned how to stick my grounds regardless of what people say to me or about me or to me about themselves, or others. Now I am aware that they too are inside their own bubble. Although their lack of creativity could kill me in the past, these days, I just take note, and remain inside my own reality. Now too I was brought back to my story writing space, I have connected with it again, and I recall (know well) why I needed the stories. It was to create a reality that's different than the one I was living in, a much better and colorful version. The stories were also to serve as a reminder or leave a mark about ultimate human existence in its best version, a reflection of God, the master creator. Things got messy since I quit doing that and I started my diary writings instead, as a young adolescent. I had a fascination for journalism, and so that itching creativity turned into merely a reporting machine.
If I was aware of that then, I am sure I would've split and separated both worlds. Because I ought to stop causing myself pain, or allowing others to hurt me, via clear boundaries. But the worlds intertwined and submerged into each other, there was a lot of needless bleeding done, years wasted in endless emotional battles. Do I know better now, am I aware? I'd say I'm only just starting. I wake up fresh in the morning with clear vision, but by nighttime, I'm haunted by all the actions done and undone, all the words said and unsaid, all those many years, all those people, and stories, real and imaginary, and they get to me.
The fears that I had as a child, my worst nightmares, they all turned into a reality. Decades in the making, but here we are now, just look around. The thing about creativity is that it doesn't just stem from one's own psyche alone, it is connected, and perhaps for that reason too I have always itched to create, write, and make. Perhaps I am connected, the question is, will I be able to remain connected while I disconnect from people where it's due? Can I stop this naiivety of we're all in this together!? Will I be able to / shall I write my way back to stories, creating an ideal world like I see it inside my head, feel it in my heart, and the way my soul have either witnessed or is longing to experience, regardless of the outcome!? Can I survive the loneliness that will come from even more seclusion for the path I am thereby laying?!
I had a video sent to me last night about an infant and a todler being abused in a nursery day care in Beirut. I had watched a movie about child trafficking earlier in the day. On the morning of the same day, on Tinder, I stumbled upon the guy who my daughter was seeing, he's big fat liar and a deceit. All I could do was be quiet, about it all. Nobody asked for me to step up, nobody wants to stand up for anything, nobody wants their bubble bursting, nobody wants me to utter the truth, or any truth at all. Life recently has become way too harsh and complex for me to comprehend. I could not use the fat to shield myself anymore, I have areadly quit on that. And perhaps, for that reason too, the idea of a reality within a reality, a bubble inside my bubble, might be the thing to be, and do for now, or until I get more strength in me, if at all, to fight where and if fighting is required again.
Until then, I will keep holding tight, to my heart, squeezing and clenching. And I will keep saying to my soul, steady now...
Be quiet,
but write...
if you must.
And while at it, sending blessings to my father's soul, the creative, imaginative, abundant, people loving pastry chef. The single being confirming to me, time again, and his life and after his passing, that all I had ever felt and sensed, was indeed, real.
Spent all morning reading through my writings, old things, shared things, and secret scribbles. I am trying to put myself together today for the final release. My mind and heart are going in all sorts of different directions. I am all over the place, so was my attempt at writing that book last year. The writing of the book, the attempts, the desires, needs and wants, are all intertwined with my very existence; as a woman, as a human being, and as a mother. All is relevant here, and so I will share an excerpt at the end of this, instead of all the photos of baby Yasmina I so felt the urge to post.
There is no point of birthday wishes now, there is no point of goodbyes anymore. Nobody ever wanted to be in this situation to begin with. A certain person called the shots, and we all just had to make our moves, feeling stuck and helpless. I speak for my self; my own consciousness has been away, I've been kept inside my bubble of trauma unconsciousness. I couldn't see right, I couldn't tell that I could stand still, or move the other way, or simply burst the bubble. Can I blame him now? Could I blame them still? Does it matter at this stage?!
I always said 18 / 42 is the death of me. Here it is now.
No smooth anything. No soft words. No paid dues. No thank you's.
Not even one thank you...
My weariness is mostly from all the work, time, and effort that's invested to keep the innocence, to preserve purity, all those long years, and boy did they fight me! They fought me because what I was working on was never the priority, they saw it as time wasting. In their book, I was totally missing the point of this living and its ways, because how could purity possibly help in their tainted world (reality) of transactional everything!? And I think to myself now, what could possibly flow from whom indeed, and from what essence anyway!!! Still...
I thanked myself.
I will carry myself to this next phase now, though I am oblivious to what is going to unfold as I live with less weight and commitments. I shall commit to my healing now, no excuses, no distractions, no sit-backs. I will learn how to do that, or remember again...
I'm bleeding heavily continuously still, I shivered and quivered all night long. My ovaries were as though screaming at me: Do Something!!!! What can I do now but to sit with the pain, allow my body to release all there is to release, and my soul to come back fully to me - no escapes anymore, no numbing. That shame and guilt I felt for not being loved, for never being supported, most especially in my solo mothering job against all odds, will have to come to the surface for the release eventually. It feels terrible already, these emotions are so very sickly, and I did not even recognize them in me before. But now I understand, a lot of anger is making perfect sense too.
I shall not share photos,
I will not cry at the memories,
I won't say If only...
I release it all,
it's done.
To my almost sole constant companion of the last almost 19 years I say...
I am sorry.
Forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
And on that note, I'm going to share the before, which was a present moment, like the one that's going to come next, like this very moment. The interconnectedness of it all shan't saddens me anymore (for people's failing at acknowledging it). I shall not need to compartmentalise from this moment on...
"An armchair sits in the left corner of my room, I moved it from the living room only few days ago. I have covered it with my favourite pink cotton sheet, and added my favourite cushion with the rabbit / greenery cover. I bought this cushion cover few weeks before the Beirut port explosion. I was busy then making my newly rented Achrafieh apartment cozy, when it was anything but that. Beirut could never be a warm or safe place to me, but I had adjustments plans to our life, my daughter’s and mine. It was the ideal move after the stagnation of the so called pandemic, endless lockdowns, and the start of our bank system / economic collapse, which on the outside, the October Revolution was a direct cause of. A lot happened since Autumn 2019.
In front of the armchair sits a foldable table, if fits
perfectly in size with the armchair. I put a scarf on it and used as a table
cloth, it is in nice shades of blues and hot pink, with tassle all around the
edges. I have decided that this was going to be my writing space. I couldn’t
tell whether I would be able to stick to the plan this time around, but I’m
always setting the intention, and adjusting the plan as needed.
On the table lays a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s
Way, plenty of pens in my favourite pen holder from 20 years ago, which
travelled to England and back, made from antiqued embossed metal and wood, a
filing tray holding my different blank sheets and different notebooks, my
journal and my food diary. A rattan box holding different small notebooks and
notepads, sticky notes and a small doodling notebook. A bottle of water and a
glass, and my herbal tea mug.
It is 14th June, 2022, it rained yesterday, and
the weather changed from summer to autumn in no time. This morning, we were
engulfed with clouds. The air was beautifully humid, but the noise from outside
got me to close the windows. Yet the scenery was too beautiful to miss, I sat
myself on the chair, I turned on the fan on the lowest setting, had it turned
facing me, and played my latest favourite song repeatedly on the speaker.
I am looking in the
direction of the mountain facing me, plenty of grey clouds moving around
swiftly. I have chills going down my spine, the view is a beautiful gift on a
midsummer day, but also the thought of me finally in that moment where I am
actually doing the writing. I have had a hundred different openings to the book
in my mind over the last few months. And oh so many chapters, titles,
paragraphs and passages throughout my lifetime.
In my mind, writing the book was only a matter of time. I
always had it in me to write, express my feelings, thoughts, insights, and tell
a little story, or mine. The timing was just never right. Recently a lot
changed, my commitments and responsibilities were not the same anymore. I
realised that if I allocate the time now and put the effort, energy and make
space, I might be able to do it. What remained was figuring out the why. I knew
before the reason for wanting to write an autobiographical book, but now, the
ego has left me, and the pain was transmuted, and I look at life as the sweetest
gift. It occurred to me that the why might come to me as I start writing. The
aim was to capture as many important moments in my life as possible. I was
always in awe of this existence, and to be part of it all, matters so much.
Perhaps my way of reflecting this beauty, with all its extremes, and aspects,
is to write it down.
I often needed to communicate a certain feeling of bliss,
which felt almost undoable, either because I am not able to use the right
tools, or the recipients not having what it takes to feel it / see it. Perhaps
the book will bring me closest to doing that. If the chance is 1 to 100, then
at least I would have achieved that. Why is it so important for me to record
these moments? Why have I always kept a journal my whole life?
It is creation, but also mirroring, of the original
creation. It is a thank you, perhaps it is a thank you."
Another dream, this time it's mother again. She's standing with her childlike face expressions, like when she's half joking about wanting a certain thing, or over dramatizing a situation. She doesn't need doing those usually, she always gets what she wants, she has no problem with demanding, and people just simply oblige. She has that powerful affect on people, they all wanted to satisfy her. Her women friends, neighbours, family members...
She was standing as in plea for my help, she has wet herself again, urine running on the inside of her legs. She was asking to be brought to the pool. I obliged, silently without uttering a word. I bring her to the pool, and the moment I am helping her down the water, she turns into baby Yasmina between my hands, I am not holding a fidgety excited baby, splishing and splashing with her legs and feet at the water.
I had always mothered my mother, she was always a child to me, lacking, needing, and missing, but we kept appearances, and we stuck to the roles and avatars we were playing. Except I couldn't resist but to rebel, because appearances never meant much to me, I always responded to essence. Her essence was crying out insecurity, she was masking it with her domineering persona, deep voice, stern and grit, a very masculine look. I don't know how nobody got it, the mere sight of her weeping over the least sentimental of scenes on the screen exposed her. Nobody saw these signs, her sentimental self needed to be acted out, seen, mirrored... but nobody was ever home, it isn't just a contemporary fad, this disconnection.
I mothered my mother, I loved her, and my love used to flow where it was mostly needed. She took it, I nursed her back to health during her first operation when I was 9. I waited alone outside the operation room for hours, I helped and was around holding space for her and her pain when she suffered the pain episodes from her apendix prior to that. I was the one person outside the operation room when they were removing her cancer, hours on end pacing the hallway like a mad person. I was the only sane one, I was 19, engaged to be married, like a naive idiot, but nobody had time to guide, support, listen to me, or say anything to me, life was happening, and I obliged.
I arrived from Jordan on the evening before her passing away. My auntie rang me there told me to come if I can, I understood the hidden message, I obliged. I arrive at a very crowded room, my grandma's living room full with mother's relatives. On her lap there lies a baby, everyone was taking photos. My mother looks like death itself, carrying life between her hands, and the famous detachment you could almost always spot if you'd pay attention.
After the guests left, and the pretending ended, and the fake, empty, overly sentimental words shared between all, she retired to her special bed in the big reception area where she was sleeping for the last 6 months since her operation and journey batterling cancer started. I lied down on the couch facing her bed, by the window, like it used to be the way, and sister on the other couch by the other wall, like used to be the case always. The big clock was ticking like usual, and for a moment I breathed a fresh air of relief, that at least I don't have to be here and do that every single day anymore, that marriage removed my repsonsiblities towards them, the so called loving family. I had grew so tired from the religiousness, the hallow words, the gosspip, the shaming and blaming, the high pitched voices, the imposing actions and sayings. But then my heart sunk, it hit me hard that this could be it, the very end. She calls to us both my sister and I before she sleeps, in an unfashiponable manner. In an unfashionable manner too she held us both close to her, and uttered the word "habibeteh ento".
I had a shock, my gut feeling was on point, she's leaving.
That was her goodbye. Finally, towards the very end, after a very long painful life of pretending, assuming, playing roles and games, manipulating, using, avoiding, rejecting, dissociating... there comes a moment of truth. We were her beloved daughters after all?! She did love us after all, we did matter after all. We needed a moment to grasp the mere fact that she acknowledged us to begin with, let alone address a single sentence dedicated to us alone, and just that.
I couldn't stop my tears, I whimpered, there was so much more mothering to do, even towards the very last moment, I pretended to be her daughter still. I loved her unconditionally still. My own needs and pains were kept for myself to deal with like it always was the way.
At the very early hours of dawn, she calls us from the bathroom, she has wet herself, a first time. She knew she was leaving, she asks us to wake my auntie up, it was time. Everybody was up, she give clear instructions to my sister not to allow any machines to be used on her. She goes back to bed, and wets herself again, and we all knew for sure this was it. They shouldn't have called the ambulance, I went down the stairs with them while looking at her face, she was gone half way through the stairs. At the hospital they ignore every instruction she gave, they put her on machines, and her heart was active. For few days my sister kept the show of crying and making a big fuss and drama at the hospital, she has always been the theatrical type. I kept my pain for myself, there was pain over pain over pain, and the so called people and family, just won't listen... I was too young for my voice to be heard, I did not matter, and so whatever the so called grown ups decide, goes. It doesn't matter what that dying woman wanted, it's always about what the people wanted, in life, and in death.
After few days of torment, they put an end to it, they officially released her from the claws of this most messed up religious and backwardly traditional society and living.
I kept seeing my mother in the dreams for years after her passing. She was always like her sickness state, silent, sad, lifeless. She was depressed and very sad always. As the years went by, things changed slightly, but I learned to look out for cues of whatever is happening in my own psyche through those dreams.
When I got pregnant at the age of 23, a total accident, while I was finally committed to attending university and starting to shift and fix my life, I knew it in me this was a calling to heal and amend more of my mother wound. There were moments very early on of baby and toddler Yasmina when she'd look the spitting image of my mother. The similarity grew with time and especially in the recent years. The droopiness of her eyes, the melancholia, the freckles, the mind, the ways about her...
And then comes the pain she inflicted on me, simply by her being herself, and I mine.
Mother has indeed turned into Yasmina, both born in July, only a week away.
The water symbol is very strong for them too, being cancerians, to say the least...
Cleaning, cleansing, washing, submerging... the pool in the dream is big in symbology too.
And there we were, all three of us, maiden, mother, crone, shifting and turning. Who's what...
Was I destined to be always the giver, the doer, or was all of that only just the curse.
I got my mother's freckles, and my father's varicose.
Will I succeed to overcome the genes, to overcome the generational traumas, to overcome the heavy weights of bounding emotions and sit-backs?
I got up from bed feeling heavy and tired, I was back to strong bleeding through the night, my ovaries haven't stopped shaking since yesterday. I went to the window where the birds come, to find a most unique sight. It wasn't a single pigeon or a couple, but a mother pigeon and her baby. For almost three years of being in this apartment this was never something we ever see. We don't see the babies! She sat there with her young one with the backs to us, looking ahead on the mountains. When they sensed my presence they moved a little, but did not fly away. I had tears running down my cheek, I thought to myself how excited I would've been if Yasmina was around to tell her about and show her our new guests. But alas those are moments like in the dream too, it was only I and whatever it left in me to write these words away, if anything, for fear of losing myself totally to sadness...
The mother and baby pigeon sight has triggered me a lot, but I sat with the emotions and went through the notions, just like after processing the dream. They keep coming and hitting hard, like waves, sometimes big and loud, other times soft and gentle. I'll rejoice in the foam to take a breather if there ever was a way out of this deep deep sea and into my grounding roots again, uncut, re-rooted, re-birthed.
