echoes in 3's

Wine and cigarettes and thoughts and thoughts and thoughts.

Sadness and happiness and all those in between.

Rain storms and thunder and lightening and the calm that is before the storm that never really exists, because it's always calm before a storm. There is no such thing. It just is.

* * *

Music and words and words and words.

"You have a lot you want to say don't you?" she asked me without expecting a reply.

And it was cold and the words in my head made me shiver. The dogs were antsy.

And my silence was heavy and I nodded slightly, but it was the weight of the words I had in my head that made it move. They swirled and panicked and crashed into each other and got louder.

Yes, yes, yes I had a lot to say. yes. Yes I wanted to release them because they were so heavy.

My heart was so heavy.

Some one share the burden. Some one help me with this.

But instead I limply waved it away, and walked to the car with no one to hear me but the absent passenger sitting right next to me.

* * *

Dawn is breaking, and there are skips that have been done in the middle of the road among a haze of white wine, but I'm not drunk, not on wine. No, not on wine.

Laughter is drowning the ticking of clocks, and the passing of time.

And the dawn is breaking, breaking, breaking.

and in breaking it made me whole again.

* * *

This is where I am. This place is somewhere, and nowhere, and here.

And in it's novelty it is so familiar like deja vu, or a recurring dream, or your reflection in the mirror.

And you are somewhere, nowhere, and here.

Until you are elsewhere.

And that adds them all up, collapses them all into "where?"

And I wish I knew.

I am Somewhere, Nowhere, and Here.

I once heard... About the compass that didn't point North

I once heard about a worn down compass that never pointed North.

In fact, where it pointed was relative to whoever held it in their palm.

They say it finally made its way to a small shop that sold pretty much anything and everything from old horseshoes made of "good energy" metal, to toy light sabers, to espresso machines, and even iPods.

It wasn't a very distinctive compass when it came to its appearance, made of cheap metal and plastic, nothing made it stand out. Its skinny needle sat in lightly tinted water that had developed a couple of air bubbles over time (something that had caused many a potential buyer to put it back with a grunt) and its dial was very simple, no ornamentation or decorative nature to it at all.

It really was a pretty basic, mundane compass. Except for the fact of course that it never pointed North.

No one really knew where it pointed, since it would change its direction depending on who held it, its needle teetering one way or the other slightly at ever exchange of hands.

Some blamed the air bubbles that floated around in its water, while others said it must have been put together in some far off country with no quality control, and some even blamed global warming (how this was relevant, no one knew, but there is always someone who blames global warming).

Magnets did not hinder it in any way either. All sorts of magnets were introduced to try and tamper with its curious way-finding to no avail. While other compasses went haywire under the pull of magnetism, this one simply kept pointing wherever it was pointing.

They say that on a dreary day in November, a young woman walked into the shop having passed it many times before, finally surrendering to her curiosity and her bizarre urge to rummage among its knick-knacks.

After picking up a few old movie posters and a piggy bank in the shape of an oversized gummy bear, she spotted the compass lying on a shelf collecting dust.

I heard that as she picked it up in her free hand, its needle spun around frantically for a few seconds before pointing somewhere, nowhere, not North.

They say the shop keeper warned her that it didn't work from behind his wiry spectacles, to which someone overheard her reply, "It has to point somewhere, right?" before making the purchase and leaving.

They say she followed the compass' needle many, many days. Some say it was over the course of a year, others say it was only a month. No one really is certain, and at the end of it all, it really didn't matter. It pointed her to different places and new faces, but always shifting slightly as though its destination had not been discovered. Of course, until she bumped into him.

Being taken by the compass' mystery, it's said she had become focused on its face, and one day while maneuvering her way along the streets of the city, head down (as she now had a habit of doing), bumped into a tall stranger. Apologising under her breath, they both carried on their separate ways, only for her to get an odd feeling, and to hastily notice the compass' needle swerve the complete opposite direction. She paused, slightly baffled, before changing her course which led her to a nearby café.

And in the café the compass led her to a table.

And sitting at the table was the tall stranger, a cup of coffee, and a book.

Not really aware of herself, she set the compass in the centre of the table, and sat across from him.

They say that she didn't need the compass to tell her where to go anymore.

No one knew why the compass had led her this way, no one asked, no one had to.

It was not the force of a magnet, or air bubbles, or global warming.

It was something else, and that was all anybody really knew. Nothing more.

I once heard of a compass that didn't point North but pointed somewhere else.

And of the young woman that wears it around her neck to remind her that she is exactly where she should be.

merry k*ristmas

Sometimes wishing is all you can do.

Peace on earth, and good will to all men (and women!)

Merry Christmas everyone. I'll be seeing you more in this new year. I promise.

Remember to pay it forward...

K*

sometimes you're lucky

A new trend I've adopted... Stating how "sometimes", just sometimes, you're lucky. It started as a Facebook status and has grown into a daily mantra. Just a moment to ponder on them. So I've begun to collect them on here.. Perhaps will post an update every once in a while.

sometimes you're lucky. like when you find a parking spot right next to your work.

sometimes you're lucky. like when you're headed the same way the motorcade is.

sometimes you're lucky. like when the dj plays a song you love that no one really plays.

sometimes you're lucky. like when you can actually remember why there's a red helium balloon floating in your car.

sometimes you're lucky. like when your companion in the car is a silent red balloon, and that's exactly what you need.

sometimes you're lucky. like when you find what you looking for right before you give up.

sometimes you're lucky. like when it's so sunny in december you have to wear your dad's sunglasses.

sometimes you're lucky. like when your friend keeps gummy bears in the fridge for you because she knows you love that.

sometimes you're lucky. like when you just about miss that huge pile of dog crap in your path.

sometimes you're lucky. like when you wake up early and you know you're going to get things done.

sometimes you're lucky. but not when you wake up from a weird dream, and have one thing on your mind.

sometimes you're lucky. like when you're at a pink floyd gig. even if it is a cover band. ♥

sometimes you're lucky. but you're not sure how yet.

sometimes you're lucky. but you're not sure why yet.

sometimes you're lucky. but sometimes others are just luckier.

sometimes you're lucky. well, and sometimes you're just not.

for those with trouble sleeping

I remember sleeping to this only a few years ago when I was in London working.
It helped me when I needed it the most.

I had the Stacey Kent version on repeat running on my laptop till i fell asleep, and awoke with my laptop battery drained and a misty feeling in my eyes.

It isn't far to hushabye mountain.
and your boat awaits by the quay...

Click the video


and this is the Gilmour version


Goodnight...
Sweet dreams

Birthday Letter 2011

I didn't need a reminder this year.

I've been wanting to write you for the past few months. I've been waiting to write you for the past few months.
I even considered writing you a letter and then publishing it on the 6th, so that it coincides with your birthday, but I thought that would be sort of cheating.

This year has been tough so far.
And I'm angry.

I'm angry at you for the first time I think. I'm angry for you leaving.
I miss you differently this year. It's not like you are a romantic idea anymore. It's like I want to tell you, the joke is over, it's time for you to come back now.

And the dreams only confirm this sentiment.

The dreams I've been having baba, the ones of you of course, are always the same. It's almost to a degree where the dream becomes a favoured reality. I always dream that you are away on business, or travelling, and in my dream, you have just returned. And in most dreams, I am upset because you have been away too long.
In the last dream, i'm at the airport picking you up, and I tell you that mum has not been herself, and that she's been on edge and upset and in a lousy mood since you've been away, and that you can't leave us like that anymore.

I always wake up with a sunken heart.
I always need a minute to realise that I haven't been at the the airport, that you aren't on a plane, that you are not coming back.
And so I'm angry. I'm angry at you, goddamit.
And with the anger, destructive thoughts come around. And I wonder if you fought hard enough to stay. If maybe I had battled my way into ICU to see you against your wishes, if that would have been enough to keep you fighting. To keep you here.
I wonder if you just chose to rest.

But then again, that's not the reason I'm angry. I'm just angry that you left. Not how, when, or why.
And yes, I suppose my dream was right when it portrayed me telling you about mama. Because no, she's still not ok.

And I try. I'm impatient, and sometimes I'm rude. And sometimes I'm hurtful. I even can be downright cruel. But I no longer have control of the fuses related to her. Sometime I lose it. I really do. I no longer can see the light once we get into that big black tunnel. Sometimes she strings out the words that come out of her mouth in a way she does not realise destroy me somewhere, even a small part. Sometimes the words, or more correctly the lack of them, comes out so sharp, it cannot but graze me.

Maybe it's not her fault . Maybe I've changed. Probably I've changed.
And i just need peace. I need a bit of margins to breathe in. I feel suffocated by everything in the real world, and sometimes I don't understand how mama doesn't understand that I am off battling these dragons and working hard and living hard. And at the same time, I know her fears. I know her attachment.
And I guess maybe part of my anger at you is that. You leaving caused a misbalance that she specifically either refuses to see, and is suffering the consequences of, or cannot balance out. In either case, it's not something good. I can no longer see misery. In any amount. That too, has made me angry.

The thought of moving out to my own place has more or less crystalized. I need to move out i think. Not because of anything in particular, but I think for the past couple of years I've become a whole person on my own, in every sense of the word. I want to pay my bills, I want to decorate my own space, I want to be able to wake up in the morning and fall asleep at night the way I feel I want to. And most importantly it would do wonders to my relationship with mama. I think the space would do us well. I'm sure of that in fact. I just hope she sees it that way, and not that I am running away.

it's been a stressful, tiring, thought provoking year on many a level. And still it drags on.
I am always working. I am always worried, and I am always waiting for things to turn the right side up.
I'm working 3 jobs, between the office with Rana, the freelancing and work with Saadi and other people, and the DJing, I have come to realise I can no longer breathe. I don't have weekends, I am always thinking of work even in the back of my head, and I have this weight of over responsibility, that by me stopping to watch TV for a bit, or go have dinner with friends or with Jose, it will suffer. That I'm slacking off.

That weight of induced over responsibility is so heavy...

Once again, I've reached that point that I'm sure, now more than ever, is heridetary.
That point when I feel I am not establishing myself. That i am wasting time doing what I should not be doing by working for someone. And as for what should be done, what I should be achieving, I'm not 100 percent sure I know that yet... But I see the light. I should be doing somethign that fulfills me, and I have not reached that yet. I guess I'm not destined to work in an office. I want my own space, with the etching roller, and a silkscreen area, so I can spend my life making prints of all sorts of graphics and words and worlds.

I want to sit and carve into and paint onto and print over and cut out and stitch up and all of that.
I want to draw and illustrate and design my own projects, my own products, my own ideas.
I want to write, layout, print and publish.

So why am I not doing that... I'm not sure. Fear I suppose, that I won't succeed. That I won't be able to sustain myself. That I'm over confident of what I can do. That I will procrastinate and get lazy.
So what do I do? I want you to tell me...

Anyway.

At least I've started one project hands on... The one I promised myself I'd start ever since I found those photos you had tucked away on the lower shelf in your office. That book will come out. Rain or shine. And soon. Just as soon as i can free myself from the binds of stressful work loads...

I'm sorry if this year, the letter is heavy. I'm sure you understand.
I wish you were here more and more, maybe because I feel I need you. Does that make it selfish?
I realise more and more, everyone is really, truly on their own. Whether to fight that by always being around others, or whether you succumb to it gracefully I am still to discover. But everyone somehow, is alone. And that makes the longing even harder.

Happy birthday baba. I love you very very much.
Till next year.

Please visit my dreams more often, but stay.

Bintak Karma


Birthday letter 2010
Birthday letter 2009

Solitaire sanctuary

Suddenly, there's Solitaire.

I havent played solitaire in a really long time. And then suddenly, it's in my life again.
It's not as tangible as I used to play it. This time it's on my blackberry. Shameful.

But, nonetheless, it's back. The 12 royal disciples watch as I line them up with clicks and cursors, ever teaching me that opposites attract and that things pile up in chaos but end in order.

I remember when my mother used to shuffle her deck of cards, murmuring a wish under her breath over and over, in the tradition that if the cards played out right, they would magically charm fate into fulfilling it. She would sometimes go on for a couple of hours, shuffling and reshuffling in a ritual that on one hand gave her hope, and on the other the patience and perseverance to follow through till she had a promise of a wish fulfilled by the energies that lay in paper with worn rounded edges.

It was calming even to see her lay the cards out in 7 coloumns, in increasing degrees, flipping card after card pausing to see if the one in her hand could land anywhere helpful. She would go on and on, on the same wish till it "opened up" in front of her.

(does this mean our fate and wishes are in our own hands?)

And so, I'm back to solitaire. I don't know where it came from, but now at every chance I get, I open the application on my phone, whether taking a cigarette break at work, or trying to drift off to sleep, or even on the toilet (yes. on the toilet.)

And like my mother, I catch myself making a wish in my mind, a request to the powers within the microchip and bits and bytes to help me move things along, to help clear obstacles, to tell me things will be alright. This ultimately leads me into a cycle of thought, of reasoning, weighing outcomes and their consequences. I am dragged into a bubble where I am reassessing and reevaluating, and retracing. I forget there is a game of chance and luck, but there is a magic about it, a romantic and whimsical thought. And then of course there's the microchip.

Solitaire is made for one. But I slowly realise that that is sometimes more than enough.

I'll dream you closer

"You love me from afar" she says.

A bittersweet sentiment that leaves her lips purely by mistake as her mind puts the logic of it together.

He looks at her confused. Asks for clarification.

"It's a present absence... or maybe more like an absent presence... I don't know really."

His expression does not change. The confusion is a constant.

"I see glimpses of it. You let it go by mistake. And in those slip ups I see it so clear and it's like the light of day, and it all makes sense and it's beautiful. But then it's eclipsed again, and for the life of me I don't know why."

Her head bows down slightly in wishful melancholy.

"it's like the lacking of something you know you have...Or the same thing spoken in a different language that after a while becomes frustrating trying to piece together into the beautiful thing that you know it is... Or like sunshine warming you on a chilly day through soft cracks in passing wisps of clouds"

He's confused.

"I'm confusing you. I'm confused. It's confusing."

She realises he does not follow. Or perhaps would rather not.

She leans in with a soft sad kiss, with a hint of a smile gracing the corners of her lips.

"Goodnight." she says. "I'll dream you closer."

And with that she drives off into a dawning city, leaving him on the sidewalk, hoping he slips up more often.

I once heard... About the joan of arcs among us

I once heard that Joan of Arc didn't burn at the stake and die.

I heard she was beaten by her mother, abused by her father, thrown into rooms and told to shut up. I heard she was victim to drugs and the streets and all the dark creatures that may roam it. I heard she died a thousand times while on her feet and burned a million more while she lay under the temporary cover of her duvet, tears trailing her cheeks in persistent lines that would've left grooves if that was possible.

I heard how her love overflowed onto pavements and into gutters nevertheless.

Books hid her gaze from the world, occupying it with words that twirled and swirled around her into a shell of another time and place and that was all she needed.
I heard how the tops of trees brought her closer to the sky and further from the ground and that made her sing and sing and sing
perhaps birds would adopt her and she could fly away from here
I heard how she built her armour from scraps of disappointment, hinges of steel determination, bolts of fear, and plates of pure survival. Piece by piece she would find them on her path from somewhere to anywhere, not looking back except in quick glances over her shoulder.

Her tongue became a sword she whet with time, using it to keep unwanted confrontations at bay, and beguiling who she pleased to with its gleen and glimmer. And she would go so many times misunderstood by many. But she knew it was just another strength to her armor. So be it.

the tree tops were still her fort

I heard of Joan of arc who never gave up on her heart, and although locked into her armor, it found nooks and crannies to pour out of not asking for anything back.
Sometimes it fell through the cracks, got stepped on, but being the saint was, she did not lash out in revenge or draw her sword in anger at anyone, as deserving as the situation was.

she simply added another layer to her armor, and moved on.


She, like many like her, was a joan of arc. Not for merely suffering. But for taking that stake and making it a ticket to somewhere new, somewhere different, till the flames caught up again. She never complained nearly as much as she should.
And of course, she was never canonised.

She saw the whisky glass (there was no better way to douse the flames, to thicken the shield, to add to the armor) half full, not half empty.

Yet as beautiful from ugly as that was: the dousing drink, the armor, the sword, the tree, and the path, there was always a wound that would sting with every mouthful of whiskey, a moment the armor would crumple into paper, an instance the sword would dull, a flame that would engulf the fort tree, a night with no stars to light the path forward and away.

Her "wisdom" was gained unfortunately, but gained nonetheless, and that demanded a level of respect, even among the cynical, or the doubtful or the apathetic. She would be on top of that tree, yelling "I SHALL NOT SUCCUMB", even when the fires of the hell that was her world were lapping at her toes. A life like hers would make one tough as diamond.

Even if it was in the rough

If you were one of her "folk" she would stand in the faces of dragons for you, many of which she had slain before, or seen their tails in the dark. She would stand firm with her flesh sword and her scrap armor.
All you had to do was genuinely care, and she would reciprocate ten folds without a question. That, she did not fear.

Love, did not spook her.

It was what beckoned her.

I once heard about the living martyrs that were not canonised or written about and who walk among us. The Joan of Arcs of our time.

Always martyrs never saints,
I meet them, everyday

insomelancholia

"you have a tendency towards sadness"
this is what had been said.
and it lingered and echoed in the canals of her mind.
She hated to admit it. She hadn't when it was first said.
(but she didn't deny it either)

Why?
Why the melancholic disposition?
Why the want and desire to be happy, and yet so easily shattered into states of sadness and loneliness and, and , and ...

And why were the most drastic of states nearly always linked to sleepless nights. When all is quiet outside, everyone tucked away in their bed, or in a car, or in a bar, or someone else's bed for that matter.

Could it be that the white noise that accompanies reality and her day-to-day is turned off with the lack of street noise and television and people living, that the echoes of the canals become inevitably louder and clearer and unavoidable?

Ok. So assume that is why. Why always the thoughts that mellow her out in some sense, and the ones that plant the doubts and the insecurities and the questions and the looping loopholes? But then again... that's a rhetorical and, it's safe to say, ridiculous question. That's just what the white noise leaves behind.

"Smile baby. Why don't you smile?"

She doesn't know. She wants to!
you must believe her
Perhaps somewhere, sometimes not alway, she tunes into a frequency of her own without being aware of it herself.
And it makes her not smile. She has every reason to. But she doesn't. It's stuck like a frog in a throat.

That frequency frequents the quiet nights quite often

"They should find a cure for insomelancholia..."
she mumbles under her breath, as she turns over onto her other side for the nth time.
"..and a disease that makes you smile."

between this line and that line lies your salvation

- "So, I have a problem. Theres this thing."

- "A "thing"?"

- "Yea. A thing. Theres this thing I'm dealing with..."

- "Ooh. A 'thing'. Those are nasty. "

- ".. And it's making me feel like this..."

- "This! holy shit!"

- "And I hate feeling like this, you know? It just gives way to that, and before you know it, that turns into those, and those are never good 'cos those make me fall into these.. And I hate these and those and feeling like that and it's all because a stupid fucking thing that really shouldn't be anything. "

- "Right, right... "

- "And when I tell them about it, they just tell me what I know about it, about this thing. And how it is. I KNOW what it is. For godsake if I didn't know what it is it wouldn't be a thing and I wouldn't feel like this, you know? They don't get that I know what IT IS. i want to know how it ISN'T. Man fuck this. Seriously. What is this thing that won't let me be that! It can't be so complicated so that this is what it is. Can it be all that? I'm giving myself a goddamn headache... and over what? ..."

-"... Over it?"

- "Yea. yea. That. I should be over it. I should just get fucking over it."

I once heard... About the green-eyed monster

I once heard about a green-eyed monster that dwelled on the outskirts of a town somewhere in the plains of a Mediterranean country a long, long time ago.

I heard that it balanced on a the tapering coil of its lower body, that resembled the body of a snake, and when wasn't slithering from one place to another just like one, stood at a height close to that of a large man.

It had a top heavy body that was covered in a thick coat of matted grey-green fur that was anything but inviting to the touch, and had two horns that protruded menacingly out of its spine upwards. A thin scrawny neck held up its lizard like head that was crowned with another bony spike at the forehead. Its mouth was said to house few but fierce teeth that guarded a tongue that was forked not once (as though that wasn't enough), but two fold. And as for its wide nostrils, they fluttered and flittered with every breath emitting a low rasp that rippled and disturbed the space around it.

But these details seldom stuck in those rare sightings. It was the glaring green eye that was paramount.

It's emerald glare was bewitching, so I'd heard, and no one had ever seen such a deep, fascinating colour ever exist, and never would do so ever again.

They say that despite the unsightly appearance of the monster, the eye itself held such a captivating beauty that any fear that would naturally materialise at encountering a beast as repulsive as this dissipated into welcome paralysis.

And it was with this paralysis that the beast cast it's infamous poison. It was not a poison that ran through its fangs. Nor one that it spat out of its gruesome mouth. It didn't run through your veins, or seep into your skin. It was far, far worse.

It plagued your mind. It planted eggs of doubt, envy and madness. It fleshed out detailed visions that shook its victim to the core, riddled with lies and falsity so calculated and devious there was not much hope of turning a blind eye.

It didn't matter what age, race, or sex you were. You could've been a young boy pining over your friend's marbles, or a young girl who envied her sister's happy relationship, or a mother who is jealous of her neighbours fine linens. It didn't matter. You were all prey to the same green-eyed demon and its blight.

They say its first ever victims were a married couple it had shadowed unnoticed, slithering around their modest house on the outskirts of that Mediterranean town. It had cast the fear of infidelity on the wife after catching her eye as she picked apples from the garden, haunting her with concocted images of her husband's betrayal, of his lust for other women that lived in their town. The monster went as far as to feign strange perfumes that wafted by her nose when her husband passed her, driving her into a rage that bubbled under her skin silently. After that, the slime that had infected her simply fed on itself, snowballing and infecting her senses. Her vision was now distorted, catching inexistent glances between her husband and the inn keeper. She confronted her him time over time, the episodes were long winded and loud, their incessant yells heard throughout the neighborhood, to the pleasure of a low shadow that slithered under the winter logs in the backyard.

They say it wasn't long before the thunder and the roar subsided into a shower of red.

And they were found the next day, murdered by their own hands, but guided by the venom of another. It is rumored that one of the townsfolk, a wood cutter, glimpsed something as it was slithering away leaving a trail of blood, and guided by pure reflex brought down his axe. With a screech that quickly disappeared into the nearby bushes, all that remained was the furry tapered tail of something that was never there.

I've heard that the next time the green-eyed monster was sighted, two golden rings circled its scraggy neck, and although exaggerated in dimension, they say they were the wedding rings of that very same destroyed marriage; a sick token, a bloody keepsake.

I once heard of the one and only green-eyed monster, the one who started all the jealousy-driven woes in the world, all with one long stare of its brilliant green eye.

I once heard... About the girl with the gravity-defiant hair

I once heard about a girl whose hair stood up, while everything else followed the laws of physics. It was not a matter of hair styling, or any sort of prank.

The story I heard tells of a girl that had been falling ever since she could remember. She used to fall into ditches as a child, fall out of trees, fall down flights of stairs. Anything she could fall into or off of, she did. And every time she fell, anyone within a fair distance of her heard the tune of a piano scale tinkling from high notes to deep low notes. They sent her to brain doctors, spine doctors, any doctor, hoping they could find a cure for her clumsiness and her affinity to falling. They could not find a cure, and they could not explain the piano notes either.

Slowly with time, it's said she grew accustomed to falling, and found ways herself to combat it. But it didn't solve more than bruises and broken bones. She fell into arguments, and fell into deep sleeps at obscure and odd times of day. She fell into wrong crowds, always getting herself out of it just in time. They say she was fatigued by the fight against falling, weakened by the weight of her kismet.

They say her hair refused to fall to her shoulders anymore, they had been stretched straight up by the falls over the years, and just stood up, they just stayed that way. If it grew too long, someone had to step up on a chair and snip her dark locks at it's edges. But it never changed its orientation.

All the while, she kept falling. Never mind the years that passed, the places she went, the falls continued. The only thing that changed was the depth and echo of the ethereal piano scale that descended on imaginary ivory keys that no one saw or knew the origin of. She was falling into love, and falling hard. Inevitably falling into depression when those her heart desired left. And with that, her tears also fell. As well as the corners of her mouth. But, still, her hair grew upwards.

I once heard about the girl who spent her life falling, and her hair that did not.

And how, with an orchestra of descending scales that echoed far and wide, she finally fell to pieces.

Get away

Get away. Getaway.

strange word(s)

You need to get away. So getaway.

What from exactly? When you get away because you need a getaway, where do you go? What are you leaving? And why? All valid questions. Can you get away by just staying where you are? Traveling in your head to other places, other times?

What if you need to getaway from yourself? Your life? Your mind? How do you separate those exactly?

Where's the Getaway for that?

I sometimes travel to specific memories. I put my present in pause, and watch the reel run in my mind. I smell the scents, hear the timbres of familiar voices, sometimes even feel the comfort or happiness or relief you had then and there. And then you have to get back.

I was contacted by timeout beirut to draw the piece for their "Photo Finish" segment. They send a photo with a theme, The theme, was, of course, Getaway. You can choose to understand it in many ways. It might possibly depend on your current demeanor. It could be sad, happy, or relieving.

I know that somewhere in this illustration, I am longing to be.

Enjoy your getaways this summer. And take this the best way you can, but I sincerely hope one day you get to a point you don't need a getaway. That really would be something now, wouldn't it.

Birthday Letter 2010

Another year, another one of your birthdays.

I nearly forgot that I promised to write you a letter every year on your birthday, and yet, just like the time that crept up on me last year and tapped me on the shoulder, I got a tap that brought it to my attention that it's time again, and that I should sit down and give you the gift I promised I would give every year. A little time to sit and think.

I read last year's letter, and it's surprising how much has changed since then. I almost feel like a fraud, a liar. Then again, I wasn't lying so, I'm neither. Nevertheless, I didn't move to Australia, (but I think you know that already. Silly me) I really wanted to, and for the right reasons (ok, so perhaps one or two reasons weren't very 'right', but they were right as well. You know what I mean) but I didn't end up going. I think part of it was fear. That little frog that creeps up from the bottom of your belly and just sits in the most uncomfortable part of your throat that although still allows you to breathe, makes it increasingly claustrophobic. Maybe I got your claustrophobia after all, somehow. The longer it took me to make those determining steps towards that move, the more that frog got comfortable, and the harder the thought of leaving Mama and Musha (who you haven't met, but I'm sure you would love as much as mama and I do) scared me. The more the thought of once again having to start over paralysed me. But I have no regrets. I still have moved in terms of what I want to do. No, I don't want an office job, I still am freelancing, and yes it's difficult sometimes but it's ok. I'm working on my discipline. It's not there yet, but it's getting there. Somewhere is better than nowhere.

It's been a big year for music Baba. I've been eyeball deep in all the wonders and all angles of it. I've built a library I'm proud of, I've become a reference (humbly) of sorts for friends and even acquaintances. I've been DJing for around 8 months, and I love doing it. Yes, long nights, and yes, it can be tiring, but I get paid to do something I love. I get my drinks for free (more or less) and I get to play music I love. If only it was something I could do full time. Come to think of it, it can be, but I don't think that's what I want to do. Not in the long run. I've also met a lot of local talent, and they never cease to impress me. Some of them at least. I work for free sometimes, helping them promote their gigs, and their projects. Yes, I know it's never a good idea to, but part of me feels that the pay off is much greater than the cost of those few hours. I think you know exactly what I mean.

I'm also trying to push the illustration. I think you'd like that. I sometimes try and imagine what you would say when I show you a drawing I finish after 7 hours of not moving and zoning out while I get those lines cleaner, and a specific style pegged. I sometimes really really wish I didn't have to imagine. Sometimes I wish so much the wish goes numb, and I put it in that jar of fireflies on that shelf in my mind that's made just for you. It glows silently at it's own pace among the others, existing but non intrusively. There's nothing much I can do with it really...

Where I am in the scheme of things, I'm not sure. I have a feeling I'm on the right track. Yes, I may get side tracked sometimes. But it's ok. Right? You only live once. I might as well see where that little alley leads as long as I don't lose site of the headlights on the highway.

So I'm still in Beirut. I'm more stable, I'm in a relationship that although can be frustrating sometimes, it's a good exercise in patience and balance. And so far so good. I'm happy on that front. Work is work. I'm fumbling in the dark but it's a warm dark. It's a nice dark. Like closing your eyes when picking a sweet from a bag of pick-and-mix. You may get the jazzie instead of the fizzy cola, but you end up making the best of it. (That made no sense to you. Or complete sense. Either way, I can feel you smiling.)

I visited London recently, and it was great. It was nice to be around those familiar faces, familiar places. But it also reminded me why I left. I felt tired, and felt I wanted to be home. So expensive, and so big. Everything needed to be planned, and the pace was too fast. So I although I enjoyed my time, I looked forward to going back home to those I love, and the streets that are familiar to my gait. And that's a good feeling. I think I know now how one know's where they should be. Or at least where they shouldn't be.

I hope you feel my good thoughts wherever you are. You're sorely missed. And more and more I'm bumping into your friends, sometimes by mistake. Sometimes they don't know you're not here anymore. And I have to see their faces shift, their eyes suddenly react in split seconds of despair. It's never easy but I keep my head up despite the added weight of yet another person feeling your loss burdening my heart.

And I make sure they know that you're alright. We're alright.

Sometimes I feel I'm lying, but it's an ok lie to lie. Because it's a lie that everyone knows the truth it's sugar coating. And then the despair in their gaze that quickly becomes a warmth and comfort at being in the presence of someone who carries your scent makes my heart lighter, and somewhere the apple shining "daddy's girl" part of me scurries around to make you proud, though it is only through someone who is a stranger to me when compared to you.

I have to go now, duty calls. Musical duty yes, but duty nevertheless.

I love you very very much. And I wish you a happy birthday baba.

See you next year. And tomorrow. And every day till then.

Bawsat.

Karma

Birthday Letter 2009

Dream

It's been a long day,

you get home,

the burdens of the days seem to have fused into your skin, with all the grime and the dust of the city you live in.

Your eyes are tired, your black eyeliner is smudged at the corners, and your shoulder hurts from carrying the bag that you carry everyday, all day.

You take off your flip flops, you hear the neighbour's tv blaring some show that you tune out slowly, and slowly in the dark you peel off your clothes, take a look in the mirror, (if you're able, it's the bathroom mirror and you manage to brush your teeth like the dentist told you you should) and sink into your mattress, probably on top of the book you were reading, the top you tried on in the morning before deciding to change it, your deoderant bottle, and some crumbs from the cookie you had last night while watching a movie on your laptop in bed.

Your dog (or cat, or dragon, or whatever pet you may have) curls up by your side, and you feel the heat escalate, but you're too tired to move her or complain, after all signs of affection are scarce these days so who are you to complain?

Your face cools down on the pillow case, and slowly all the weight of the day seems to crumble away and seep through between the mattress springs.

And you dream.

But what language do you dream in? Your native tongue? The language you learnt at school?

I can't remember what I dream in. I think it's English. But I don't know.

I've come to the conclusion that I dream in my own language, a mix of everything. A language that is familiar like English is familiar to me, but not quite.

I dream in dream language.

Sometimes

Sometimes you never leave where you grew up, even if you do.

Sometimes you wake up on the day you're heading back to your neighbourhood, and the first thing that comes to mind is a number.

And you realise that it's the number of the bus that takes you from the station to the street you grew up on. It just appears in your head, and you just know.

Just like you know when to press the button on the bus to get off. You see the park you played in, the library you went to religiously, the corner with the white wrought iron railing, and your finger pushes the button without needing the command from your brain.

Sometimes you don't know why this happens. You've been here before, you've visited many times over even as an adult, but this time you don't scan the street signs and concentrate on figuring out when you should tell the bus to let you off. You don't need to wait to get to the bus stop across your home tube station to remember the number of the bus route that takes you there.

Sometimes you turn your head to the left knowing you'll see the office building your father spent his days in while you were growing up. You see the office in your mind, smell the corporate carpet, see the ivory letter opener with the crocodile handle on his desk. You see the Cuppa Noodle machine in the entrance, and remember how you thought it would be the yummiest snack to have while waiting for your father to finish. And you remember the disappointment when it tasted like card.

You'll stand under your street sign, and you'll look up at it like it was what you were looking for all along. Like it's normal to do that, to cross the street, and instead of walking towards your neighbour's house to see them after so long, you stand under that street sign. And you look up at it. Like it's something everyone does. And you look at it from every angle, like you're looking at the face of a long lost friend, a sibling, a mirror after ages without a mirror.

Sometimes you'll look down the road where your house used to be, and you're not tempted to go see the doorstep you sat at on sunny days, the doorstep you bound over rushing to get to the ice cream man in time for gumballs and a 99 flake.

Sometimes you know these things, you're not tempted, and it's like any other day, because sometimes, just sometimes, you never leave where you grew up.

Even when you do.

Smoking demons

Every time I light my cigarette with a match, I think of the Devil.

It's the smell of sulfur. They say that when a demon or something equally macabre leaves a place, a sulfuric scent lingers in its stead.

So, I think of the devil. In some way I banish him when I light a cigarette with a match, let him dissolve with the first puff of smoke I exhale, and as if my body acknowledges this victory over evil, I feel a rush, albeit a short, small one. But a rush nonetheless.

My cigarette becomes one of celebratory triumph, a well deserved one. Karma the Deadly Devil Banisher. The bane of all demons. A heroine in shining armor, sword dripping with the rancid blood of fiends. Ok, so it's a little bit of an ego trip. Sue me.

A silly thought perhaps for a person with a bad habit. I guess sometimes it's thoughts like these that help us get through the day, sometimes it's excuses like these that make bad habits excusable. Who knows.

So next time you see me fumbling for matches, don't take the pleasure demon banishing away from me. Don't offer me a lighter. If anything, offer me matches.

Bats and Blogs

Dear Blog,

I think you're sick of my excuses when it comes to why I've broken my own promise to myself to post at least one thing a week.

You're right to be.

I'm ashamed.

I really am.

Nothing can really take back the pain and anguish I've caused (myself) at the breaking of this promise.

So I won't say anything, or write anything. I'll show you why I have not been posting as often as I promised. Ironically,

what I'm about to show you, in itself, is another reason.. But only a fleeting one. It is the result of a 5 day workshop I participated in that took up most of my day.

So, without further delay, I present a bat in the city:

Heart Junkyard

I walk to my car at 3 a.m. on February the 14th, and the intoxicated masses of flesh and bones that are supposedly my generational peers walk the streets in zig zag bee-lines of desperation and misguided emotions.

Their slurred street sonnets and serenades spew sordidly onto the cold cement of Beirut city's streets, as some of them find false comfort in the embracing arms made easier to open with every beer top that's popped, every wine glass thats poured, every shot that's downed.

They surround me, the many that are like this.
I walk in a straight line towards my car, imagining the amount of meaning and clarity that could be worth something or anything, imagining the many flushing toilets that will drag the latter into the guts of the city, leaving it to dissipate and thin out in the rivers of waste. Becoming waste.

Those who are alone are finding each other and losing themselves simultaneously, and those who are in pairs are falling over each other and tripping over their dribbling tongues and cackles and those who are in control are slowly hovering away from the madding crowd, the forlorn masses, stumbling into their cars, or their friends' cars to be claimed by the distant vanishing points of the streets.

A guy leans with one arm against the wall, staring at the ground or his converse all star peeping out of his tattered-ended jeans. His head swaying slightly, body following the sway at a variance. I approach him, grab him by his shirt and yell into his inebriated face to go home and stop looking so pathetic, but only in my head.

I walk among these writhing beings. And wonder how such a scene so far from the simplicity of affection and love can unfold on the day chosen to celebrate that very same thing.
But then again, it's Valentine's.