Thursday rushing into Friday’s arms

Thursday is a man that is in a rush to marry Friday. Friday is a confident woman who knows that Thursday will come rushing into her arms every week end. Every week, Thursday casts a spell on people so that they don’t do what they need to do to keep them  focused on Thursday’s love story.

On Thursdays, you wake up with less energy and you can tell Thursday is using everything in its power to convince his beloved Friday that he is not busy with anything but her. She, Friday, is the center of Thursday’s universe, that’s why Thursday never feels complete, he is always half a person, a man always on the lookout for his other half.

Friday knows her beauty comes from the passion Thursday has for her and his anticipation to unite with her as mid night approaches. Without Thursday’s full focus on her, Friday won’t be so alluring; without him she won’t shine.

That’s why the midnight that brings Thursday into the arms of Friday is a special midnight, always and forever, it feels like peace.

Finding the perfect recipe for short lived happiness

It’s not the chocolate Witabex bits, nor is it the Gitanes cigarette kick that just happened, it’s detachment that brings about the dizzy sense of happiness.

The little pleasures life can offer are intensified by our ability and readiness to savor the moment, uninterrupted by life. To enjoy a long night of waking up every few hours to gulp down a few chocolate bits, one needs to come from a place of absolute surrender to Fate, an extremely difficult thing to do when one is used to wanting to be in control of one’s life.

Control is a myth. We control nothing. If one realizes that, one becomes high on life. This feeling gets enhanced with chocolate and cigarettes. The sensation of “high” intensifies when one is detached.

Detachment makes you see life from a bird’s eye view. You start seeing people and places with a different sense of enjoyment. Maybe a little bit of flue and coughing can add to the amounts of serotonin that your mind is producing. You actually veer over the verge of craziness when days like this kick in; craziness in the sense you feel like doing and saying crazy things.

I stood outside watching the pigeons fly over Damascus old city center, most of them were white. I never thought it was possible to watch white flocks of pigeons, but it happened. I smoked my cigarette and asked Allah for guidance: What shall I do with this day? And then I realized, there is no such thing as doing. Just float, take a break, be serotonin.

Detachment, stick around buddy!

The Arab man’s schizophrenia

When I was kid, I met many Arab thinkers, writers & intellects, owing to the fact my mother & uncles are writers & poets. It hit me at a very early age that the man behind that great novel, poem or art work is a man of not too many principles… He writes about ethics, love and the wonder of living when in reality he is far removed from anything noble or courageous… or Great.

One of the major poets in the Arab World, who happens to be known all over the world, was in a party organized in his honor some years ago. He wrote some of the Arab World’s best poetry, a man of deep sensitivity to life’s challenges, beauty and mystery. After gulping down the second glass of scotch, he started hitting on every moving female in the room, cats included. What a sad spectacle!

This schizophrenia is mind boggling. What a man writes does not reflect “who” that man is. The question is: Who writes? His soul???

The same goes to one of Egypt’s most known caricaturists, may they both rest in peace. Great art, but a dysfunctional person… I know artists usually pride themselves for being free from conformity, but does that entail adopting sleaziness as a life style?

Musicians too have that aura around them that proves to be false once you dance a little bit closer to the fire. They project an image of sensitivity, love and liberty… the minute you rub shoulders with them you find out that all the theoretical things their music is all about, is indeed theoretical. There is great hollowness behind great expressions of music, articles and art!

In this time and age, creative men are a danger to humanity (LOL). No, really, they are. A man who lives in the realm of thoughts, ideas, dreams, art and music is a man who is not aware that his daily life is void of all of the things he philosophizes about. Instead of spending time building character, he simply imagines it. He deceives himself into thinking that the minute he “expresses” great ideas, he automatically “becomes” them. He preaches Love when he might be the worst sadist you could bump into with a heart of stone. He preaches loyalty when he has no clue that loyalty transcends the cheating part into other landscapes that he never even ventured into. He is satisfied with where he is standing because he has a good picture in his mind about who he is – a two dimensional picture that is shaken and torn at the first test of time.

Men with great charisma, who inflict dizziness on the female kind, are dangerous species. They base all their interactions with you on the false aura they create around themselves, on illusion. They make you swoon under the influence of words they like to use frequently: “freedom,” “love,” “liberty.” You fall in the God forsaken trap, then the aura starts to disperse. You are left with the naked truth biting at your fingers for having been so stupid to fall for it all.

Where is the noble man of great heart and faith? Many men think if they are ego centric, charismatic and proud of themselves they are automatically at the footsteps (or peaks) of Greatness. Greatness has nothing to do with words, parades, popularity or achievement. It has nothing to do with status, ego or the way we project ourselves to the world. Very recently a man of super huge ego told me he had gone through many trials in life that made him ego-less. What kind of a mirror do people look into before coming up with conclusions of the sort about themselves?

The ego is a very tricky, slippery place. Sufis take their mureeds down untrodden paths to harness the ego. Once you’re done with earthly ego – that holds dear status, material achievement – you are now ready to taste the fires of freeing yourself from the shackles of spiritual ego. It’s not an easy journey, getting rid of earthly ego (of desires, false senses of security,  paradigms of thinking that have the Self as the center of the universe), one is ironed day in and day out with the coals of self-importance, spiritual & intellectual alike.

Bowing to Allah as a selfless person, clean from any thought, any possession, any attachment, is the very reason why one cries at night on the pillow. Allah, you alone can bring me salvation, you alone can guide my soul, you alone can free me from me. You alone can free me from everything that is not You. Amen.

To Gaza, soul of my father

I hate politics. But this one is for you, father. he called last night, an unemotional man who has always mastered the art of self control. This was the first time his voice revealed pain, I almost cried. Well, I did, after he hung up, of course!

• How are things in your homeland, daddy?
• Many died in the air raid [on Gaza]. Your uncle held a wake for them a few days ago.
• Where were they?
• Some where praying in the mosque. Some where in their houses. May God help them. Do you remember Gaza? You must remember it, I took you there many times as a child.
• Yes, I do. I didn’t like it much when I was a kid. I’m sorry, but I didn’t.
• [mumbles]… Gazans are a great people. What they are enduring is… heart breaking.

So… my dad’s heart is broken. So is mine. We love what our loved ones love. He spent many years fighting for a proper higher educational system in the university he presided over for so many years in Gaza. We barely saw him as kids, as he commuted frequently between our residence and his beloved, Gaza. One time he was away for I don’t know how many years, locked up in Gaza, since Israelis refused to grant him pass back home on the other side of the Bank. I remember running to the door to greet him, he looked so distant, I didn’t know him, he didn’t quite know me.

He was born there, I wasn’t. I spent most of my childhood relating more to my mother’s roots in Damascus, and hated going to Gaza. We used to get VIP treatment at the bridge every time we went owing to dad’s academic position. In old times, academicians were treated with respect… until the day came and we were told no more VIP room for us, we were all potential terrorists. My dad threatened to fax Harvard University, all the academicians he knew in the world, if they dared insult us. An Israeli officer with a beard told him: Dr…. I am a professor too, sir, but those are my orders.

Like everyone else, we took off our clothes and shoes. My father and brother went to the men’s section, I was led away from them. I remember panicking over the fact I was left alone with a female Israeli soldier. She was trying to be nice to me, but I felt so ashamed and exposed standing there half naked and crying: where is my father? where are you taking me?

What kind of a “state” that strips people of clothes to enter territories it has occupied! As a kid I started hating going to Gaza. But we continued going there, until one day my grandmother called my father and told him:

• You are no longer my son if you refuse to bring the kids and sleep over at my house tonight.
• Ya 7ajjeh, what’s wrong with you?
• I had a bad dream and I want you to leave your house (the uni president’s house near the sea in Gaza), and come spend the night over here.
• It’s just a dream, ya 7ajjeh, the children are OK.
• I swear to Allah the Almighty if you don’t come spend the night here, you’re not my son and I don’t know you.

My father is grandmother’s eldest, she used to swear on his life, and so with that kind of threat, he couldn’t ignore her irrational request.

So, we took our pajamas, and went to sleep at grandmother’s house inside the city of Gaza, a bit off the sea (a beautiful blue sea it was).

Next morning, we went back home, to find shrapnel, bullets, hand grenades… the house was a mess, the windows were shattered, everything inside was burnt. Neighbors gathered around dad, they were screaming details of what had happened the night before… they told him a helicopter flew over at night, several masked soldiers went down on hanging ladders and worked their machine guns, leaving holes in the wall… they threw hand grenades inside, creating havoc and panic around the neighborhood.

My dad, being a freedom fighter who feared God only, wanted to send a message that said: I am not afraid (apparently he was used to this kind of stuff).

He brought in new furniture, put up new windows, and once the house was kind of livable, my brother and I were kept inside as a sign of defiance. We were locked up inside the only room that didn’t breathe smoke, guarded by my many male cousins for a month.

For a month we didn’t see sun light; food was brought to us by a cousin I grew up to hate (kids don’t know the difference between being protected, or being locked up, it was jail all the same to us). I remember our lunch was 7alaweh & bread every single day of the month (they were afraid we might get poisoned – I still think it’s lame). We had people from friends, family & the university sleeping in the garden at night to guard the house. They all cringed every time a helicopter whizzed by.

Dad had received a letter saying we were going to be kidnapped if he continued his non sense with the university, the university which triggered the 1st Intifada and lost many martyrs (knew about this in recent years only). I remember we weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom only very occassionally, I didn’t see my dad, only that cousin who heard us scream inside: Get us out!!! MAMAAAAAAAAAAAA.

My mom was on a UN mission around that time around Gaza, so somehow she gained access to us after 2 weeks. She came in and helped me up for my 1st bath in 2 weeks. I don’t know how old I was back then, but since I needed mom for a bath I guess I was pretty small. I kept on weeping as she gave me the best bath in my life, telling me that everything is OK. She told me she was in interrogation somewhere but her UN passport made things easier for her and she managed to come over to stay with us.

Forever scarred. I grew up to hate Israel and that Gazan cousin who slept outside our door and didn’t let us out when we spent days and nights crying out loud: Get us out of hereeeeeee… I want mamaaaaa! The shutters were always down. Once we were crying so loud that our cousin came in & opened the shutters for half an hour so we could see sunshine.

As family, we never spoke about that incident. Did they think I will forget? Anyhow, a few years ago, I sat with my father and told him… “Remember the assassination attempt?” He smiled embarrassingly. “Why didn’t you take us to therapy afterwards? No one spoke about it to us as if it never happened. Have you any idea how many nights I spent in nightmares? I was one of the smallest kids around with insomina!”

• He said: “That’s the nature of the struggle. That wasn’t the first time, but I thought it was better not to burden you with it all. I thought you will forget.”
• Burden me? I was there. I still hate that cousin who only fed us 7alaweh and bread.
• He is a good hearted man, he still asks me about you. He loves you so much. He was so careful because he feared for your life.
• Well, I don’t love him & he over did it. No one explained to us why we were locked up for a month. A month!!!
• 3 weeks.
• All the same. I am glad we finally spoke about this, though. I think you can understand why I’m not such a fan of Gaza. You know my brother remembers nothing of what had happened?
• I know. Don’t remind him. Let’s not talk about this again.

I am sorry Gaza for all your pains. On first day of this year, I spent a whole day at the Sufi Zawya praying for you, my relatives, uncles, aunts, and most of all, my father; the man I would die for. If he loves you Gaza, then I love you too, for you are his soul.

So… when people talk about peace. When people talk about forgiveness, they speak from their… because when a “state” decides to kill a university professor along with his family, it is a state of evil. I shall die with this conviction. May God burn you in hell Israel, and may all the false peace treaties and trickery and darkness you spread around come back to haunt you.

Ila Jahanam wa bi2sa al maseer.

* This is a true story. The narrator of the above is still alive & continues to hate talking about patriotism & politics.