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.

I once heard... About black cats and their reputation

Black cats weren't always bad luck, or so I once heard.
How long ago their reputation changed differs from one person to the next. Some say it was only last century that this superstition manifested. Some say it was much, much earlier than that. And some say it happened with the first ever black cat. But one detail never falters. The cat that started it all had 3 eyes. I cannot say if all cats at the time had 3 eyes, this, I do not know, and never bothered to ask. I was taken aback by the mere fact that a three eyed cat existed that nothing else would have surprised me more.

It is said that this cat was slender, slinky and svelte with long legs that ended in neat dainty paws that could easily be expected to pat around a ball of yarn, as well as scratch out the eye of unwelcome company. Her tail was of an abnormal length, wrapping around her body, and slithering between her legs and rising above her crown, swirling and swishing continuously with a life of its own, and how ≈ much of the latter depiction is metaphorical, I'd rather not ask, know, or think of.

But of course, the most notable feature was its tri-ocular nature.
It wasn't that the third eye was different, or alien or acted any differently. Other than the occasional dis-synchronised blinking, it passed as a simple mutation. But of course, I wouldn't have heard of this feline, or the events that occurred around her if a simple mutation was the case.

I've been told that each of these fabulously clear and piercing eyes, coloured an amber gold with a glint of green when the sun shone on them at certain angles, had a supernatural power.
When this cat stopped in her tracks and looked at someone, the right eye delved into their heart, and saw what they desired, their dreams, their wishes. The left eye delved into the dark crevices of their mind, tracking their fears and nightmares. And the third eye, searched their soul for their nature and intentions.

It was this eye on which everything depended. Once she saw you for what you were, it was then that your fate was sealed. It was then that what the two other eyes saw would matter.
If the person had a wicked soul, an ill-intentioned mind, a cruel heart, the cat would arch its back making the hairs on it stand on end, and its tail would whip around violently. And then it would be only a matter of days, if not hours that one of the fears she had learnt of would materialise. Whether it was the loss of wealth, a horrible accident, or an opportunity that went down the drain, it would happen. If, on the other hand, the person her gaze fell upon had an untainted soul, a clear mind, and a pure heart, the cat would purr quietly before scampering off into the shadows. And that person would deservedly be blessed with one of their heart-felt desires.


This, of course sounds quite even-handed (perhaps even-eyed?) and just. But why was it then that the black cat gained this infamous and ominous name for itself? The answer is in the question itself... Mankind in its majority did not have the qualities that would allow the right eye to make use of its knowledge. Not to say that no human was pure enough to avoid the wrath of the left eye, but that they were few and far between, and the ill-fated are far more spoken of and vocal. After all, it is the unfortunate things that are mostly remembered.

I once heard about the first black cat and her three eyes, and how her unbiased and virtuous nature brought about the bad omens and superstitions that marked her kind in our eyes.

I once heard how we never deserved anything less.

My heart was once a Ruby Red - fuselage6ofthe13thbench post

This blogpost is my latest entry at fuselage6ofthe13thbench thought it would be nice to post it here too. Read through the couple of posts before it to kinda get the jist of our concept

My lover gave me a vial the day he left with the rest to find the colours of the world.
In it lay the fragile frame of a hummingbird that had fallen victim to the Great Monochrome Sleep.

It had been a few years since the GMS. Many had died. Most in fact.
Who knew humans could not cope with no colour?
The few that had survived had already been drained of some colour by life. They were ill, or sad, or just simply pale in complexion.
The few that remained were now the Rainbow Warriors. They had now awoken to the tragedy of a bleached and blackened existence, and seeing their surrounding being consumed by the dark and the white, they decided to reform, reshape, and resist.

He had left me 24 white suns ago, and I had sat by the shore of the grey sea, watching sunset turn the sky gradually from white to black sun after sun after sun, waiting for a shout, for a cheer from far off, a sign that they had come back, that the colours would come back, that they had found the solution.

We had begun to lose hope once again. Our bravest, strongest, smartest had gone, and come back, and gone again, and come back empty handed. Our tomatoes were still grey, our bread still pasty, our appetites bland.
The GMS had claimed the red blush in the cheeks of young girls winked at by doting boys, the blue in the face of the old man who coughed and coughed, the green envy in the eyes of the wife of the two-timing husband.

The days were black, white and every shade and shape and form of grey in between, but after all that time, the grey was just one.

The Rainbow Warriors were our continuous hope. Our only colour.

And then that day came. I opened my eyes, head still resting on the soft pillow that I usually shared with the crown of my heart's prince. And I saw it.
The hummingbird. In it's clear glass vial, colour spreading slowly but unfaltering through the plumes, like blood in vessels. Blue, green, turquoise, teal, red. They flooded its being, and with every colour that appeared, the words that accompany them flowed through my head like a gushing river that broke a tenacious damn. Ruby red, emerald green, Sea blue, grass green... My eyes began to sparkle, and my now pink lips stretched into a smile. The lifeless bird glowed with colour and verve, like a brand new sun rising from the sea.
I straightened up hastily, and quickly my head turned toward my window, where I heard people shouting and laughing and cheering with glee at the orchestra of hues and shades.

The Great Monochrome Sleep was over.

And I waited, day after day, grapefruit sunset, after grapefruit sunset, by the sparkling sapphire sea. But my love was no where in sight.

And while the rest enjoyed the red of a freshly picked ripe apple, the purple of the wild irises, and the indigo of dusk, slowly but unfaltering, my world started to drain of its tints till my heart bled its last red drop, and turned to cold grey stone.

I once heard... About a tree of broken promises

It towers so high, people say it reaches an 8th heaven; a tree, bare and naked and rough with lanes and lanes of grooves etched into its dry bark by old man time. So many in fact that one could believe that they each represent the lifeline of each being on earth, at least, that is what is said. This tree holds no fruit, no leaves. Instead, it stretches out into hands that reach towards the sky, yearning for something to hold. A gypsy once told me he watched as a new branch sprouted out from the side of its trunk, and a hand slowly drew it up, up and up until it stopped, and by that point no one was able to see it for all the clouds that had masked its wooden appendage. But not all of its branches were high up in the heavens. Some branches hung low on the tree, close to the earth, close to us. And they held bones; wishbones that dangled desperately, distressed and desolate.


I poured the gypsy a drink of moonshine on that autumn evening, standing by the back wall of the tavern, and he told me what he had heard of this tree.
"It lies in a no-man's land somewhere and everywhere," he gushed, slurring slightly under the influence of badly fermented cheap gin. "A tree, like no other, striking fear, awe, and melancholy all together. An orchestra of muddled feelings that you cannot begin to comprehend...I have seen it once when I saw that hand-branch shoot up, from afar. And when I blinked, I could not see it anymore." His head bobbed left and right before tipping as he lowered his eyes and stared through my knees into the back of his mind where he conjured his images. "It's the Tree of Broken Promises..." he uttered silently, more serious and less grandiose in his expression. "All those hands, reaching towards the hope of a divine consummation of the promise made between two. The universe has ears, and it whispers your promise to this tree. Don't think no one hears. Do not make that mistake surioară. Do not make that mistake. Mother earth hears, Brother Wind hears, Sister moon hears. And all comes to the Tree of Broken Promises. I have heard that that's when a branch breaks through the bark and goes up. That must be why it does that, it waits for the promise. Waits. Reaching up, up, up...", and as he is saying this he raises his jar with the murky homebrew in steps with every "up" he utters.
"And what have you heard of the lower branches? Why do they hang low like that?" I slowly and quietly ask, curiosity gnawing at my insides, as I hold the bottle of booze towards him as an enticing bribe, and perhaps a shield.


"Ah, va. Yes. those branches. The tired fallen ones. The promises that cannot hold anymore. Where the tree gets its name. You see surioară, they reach and reach and reach..." (once again, pushing his jar up representatively with every "reach",) "till the branches dry up, and they start to shrink and bend and fold onto themselves. This is what I've heard surioară. They fall to the earth, hanging low on the tree, and grow a wishbone. This is the tragic fruit they bear. A dry, brittle fruit that with one hand, very much like a clap, has no outcome. When a promise breaks, the tree makes a wish. It wishes that the promise will be fulfilled someday. So it holds its wishbone close to us, uselessly waiting for someone to end its wait. It waits with its heavy promises. încă mai este în aşteptare..."

I once heard about this tree from a gypsy with a gold serpent earring. We shared a bottle of moonshine under an autumn moon, behind a tavern in the town Segarcea. He told me of the heavy heart this tree unwillingly held, and the weight that mankind wickedly lay on its branches, bending and breaking and drying it up. And of this tree, I do not wish to hear anymore, for fear my heart may unwillingly bend and break and dry up.

A Case of “the Deaf Leading the Blind”

I never was into Hip Hop. I started a “flower child”, so to speak, raised in a household that revered idols like Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, Don McLean, Janis Joplin, James Taylor, and the list goes on. My parents took me to a Pink Floyd concert when I was 3 (well, they had to since they couldn’t afford a babysitter in London at the time, but I’m not complaining). Perhaps it was since those days that music began to seep into my blood, and over the years, into my soul. As any audiophile, I went through my stages, at some point refusing what my parents listened to, at 13 writing Leonard Cohen off as an “oldie”, busy with my Nirvana, and my Greenday, and even Marilyn Manson. Slowly I moved up in the musical atmosphere, passing by the more studied Alternative and acoustic folks of lyrical expression, entering the Realms of Classical masters like Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Mozart, and then swerving left and right to go through neighbourhoods of Jazz and Blues,,appreciating Nina Simone years after I saw her live, being, once again, dragged to a concert in Lebanon, by my parents who unknowingly were creating a musical fiend.
I could go on and on about my travels with the bars and the notes and the crescendos and the melodies, but I’m trying to get to a point. I nearly forgot about that point.

The point is music in Lebanon. Underground music in Lebanon. The bands that are coming up under the surface, untainted by the mainstream stain, working slowly and surely and adequately on their sound. There are many of them. Like weeds, mushrooms, in the dark damp places of the country they strive, slowly building an army of sound armed with calibre.

The point is I never was into rap or hiphop. Ok, so I heard Eminem when I was 15 and happily sang along to “My Name Is..” and sure, I still like his first couple of albums, if only for nostalgia’s sake. Perhaps I’m more into old school sounds like Beastie Boys, and Jurassic 5, and Run DMC. But still, their air time on Karma Radio was very little.

I never was into rap or hip hop. Until I heard some freestylers in Sydney, playing with instruments, not a beat loop. And after pulling off a somewhat successful event at Zico House in July (Kharbish Bilsanak) I was introduced to one of the alleys of Lebanon’s Underground Music city. I heard many rappers, hip-hoppers... They all seemed good, but still, as I said before, I never was into rap or hip hop. So it was me trusting what little knowledge i had.



Until I heard Fareeq il Atrash.
That simple.
The rush of blood to my ears that I had felt watching those amazingly talented freestylers in Sydney was reiterated. The beat, the music, the lyrics (dare I say poetry? Yes. I dare) the performance, the overall choreography... Stunning.

I now knew what my ears wanted to hear. I knew the calibre I was craving for. Actually, calibre is a good word in this situation.

Fareeq il Atrash are different than the other Rappers/Hip Hop artists I’d heard. This is not to say the others are worse, but that at least for me, Fareeq il Atrash hit that high note. They demand a calibre (there’s that word again), a specific maturity of their audience. They too, like the Sydney peeps, played with instruments live. John Imad Nasr on bass, dealing out a bassline that resonates as a solid foundation for Ghassan Khayyat (aka Goo) with his masterful guitar improvs and welcome interruptions, Fayez Zouhairy (aka Fz) with his beat making machine mouth, Nasser Al Shorbaji (aka Chino) with his bi lingual flow and dramatic presence, and of course Edouard Abbas (aka L’Edd) with his deep timbre and words that I’d like to coin as urban poetry.
Together, these famous five are able to pull a performance that the appreciating ear is more than happy to experience over and over and over again. A performance of calibre, that requires a maturity.
A far cry from the type of loud rappers that yell and shout and scream their, albeit, valid messages that yes, are usually written well, the voice used from the Atrash’s body, is smooth, mellow, and shrewd. Their messages are subtle, not literally stated, and range from social, to political situations, to loves and people worth remembering. The “deaf” portray what many are blind to, and they are genuine in doing so. Their street “voice” also makes it obvious that being cultured and worldly doesn’t negate street “cred” or devalue their concerns within the social folds of the country. Their first EP is even strewn with musical “intermissions”, or ”2atshe’t” that feature a beat that sounds like it’s being played on a muted drum set (I think thats the best way of describing it) and even a taxi driver reciting a couple of lines of ‘zajal’, recorded on L’Edd’s phone during his ride.

My point is, i never was into rap and hip hop. My honest point is that Fareeq il Atrash have shot over this definition into a medley of studied musical styles, playful experiments of sound and production, pages of urban poetry that brings a smile to your face when you hear something you haven’t heard that last 20 times you played the track, and of course a down to earth demeanor that make them accessible to so many different types of people, as well as makes me grateful for knowing them.

Perhaps you think I’m easy to give praise, and although I could write more and more details on why I’ve done so, I think they can convince you themselves. Music is worth a thousand reviews.

Follow the “deaf” and hear them for yourself.

Pissing in the wind

"Yea, I got it. I understand your type now. I know exactly why someone like me interests you, but only till I don't.
It's because you're drawn to fuck ups. I'm not a fuck up. I won't make it too difficult. I won't light your kitchen on fire, or break down at the drop of a pin, or step on your charming advances to reach the next in line but pull a ball of yarn along to keep you at my tail.
I won't give you a run for your loving.

You're drawn to a fuck up. Until you aren't. And then you're drawn to another fuck up. Until you aren't. And so on, so forth.

It's that simple. You love the fuck ups. The problem with that, is sooner or later, the title is transfered. You become the fuck up.
And a lonely one at that.

And that's just the saddest thing I could think of happening to you.
It really really is."

The king is dead, long live his cause.

It's with a lump in my throat that I write this blog post.
Adam died a couple of days ago, after fighting his malnutrition, his aches and his pains.
This news hit me harder than I ever expected it to. Maybe this is because I had spent a silent hour staring at this king of beasts, through the bars of his prison as he lay weak. Maybe I had had a silent conversation with him, without the need of words. Just energy, and thoughts and feelings. At the news of his death, I found myself nearly immediately tearing up, and immediately wanting it to be a lie. A mistake. Something dark and dismal that slipped someone's twisted imagination, only to be unravelled by reality.

I like to think that he found the love he had wanted to feel from the many that had become concerned with his well-being in the last month, after living two years in a caged hell desperately hoping it was out there, this love he sought.

I like to think it was with a sigh of relief and tranquility that his last breath left his body, as he lay in the sanctuary of the Lebanese mountains, a cool breeze caressing his young mane.

I like to think that he'll be buried here, that he will be our mountain king. The patron saint of lost causes. And I like to think we'll honour his cause, when we find ourselves faced with another one.

I like to think, somewhere in Africa, a pride of strong healthy lions is looking up towards the Savannah sky at a new star roaring its light down, protecting them from the malice of mankind.

As Tom Waits so rightly sings in 'Misery is the River of the World', "The one thing you can say about Mankind; there's nothing 'Kind' about Man."

Rehashed Post ~ Reflections on Return

A few days ago, friend of mine asked me to submit something I've written about Beirut by today for a reading she wants to do in New York. Being under a lot of pressure work-wise (refer to previous post), I decided to take parts of a post I wrote a while ago, rehash and add and modify. Snip snip stitch glue tada. There is also a whole new Scene added (the first one)

I made the Beirut references more obvious too, since, well.. Not everyone is aware of my situation at the time, or what I am talking about.

anyway. this is it.
~

Reflections on Return: 
4 Scenes in No Particular Order


I.
The Thames River always saw the worse side of me. As I’d cross the bridge going towards the art museums on South Bank, I’d leer at the murky brown waters from above. A frown would form as I brought my shoulders up around my neck to protect it from the sting of the cold, I’d shake my head offended, then pause at one point, before reaching the other side, to face the waters as I cursed it, calling its feeble attempt to pass as a body of water pathetic and shameful, ending with a dramatic spitting motion. It became a ritual of mine, an infamous tradition that I carried out regardless of the weather that day, or the company I was with, or the mood I was in. With every outburst, I felt the spite within me grow, balanced with a longing and a melancholy that just made my existence harder to cope with. When they asked me why I was so angry, why I was bitter, I told them I was hurt. I told them I took the Thames’ aesthetic (or lack thereof) personally. 
After all, I told them, I was a daughter of the Mediterranean, and next to that, the Thames was a muddy, stagnant puddle on the side of a soulless city highway.

II.
The sun stained the Mediterranean pink, Grapefruit pink, as it melted into the water, dissolving and tinting the sea. The warmth from its glow was slowly cooled by the salt whipped wisps of breeze that kept the hair out of my eyes. The waves rippled slowly, creating an illusion of migrating fluid creatures, moving from one horizon to the other, moving in unison and in tempo, with the music in my ears setting the beat. Rachmaninov, and Moonlight sonata.. As I sat still in front of this sea of love, my sea of love, all seems to make sense. In fact, nothing makes sense except for the sight in front of my eyes... Why would I leave it's side? The waves may snarl at me warning me of its depths.. but it suffices to sit on the sand and watch the sun bring a day to its end, with the glorious city of Beirut behind me. It will rise tomorrow.. the Same Sun. The Same sun sets and rises over this city, we live one day. Our whole lives have been one day continuously, and continues to be one day. Same Sun, but never the same sea.

III.
I'm in the shower, and I'm tired, and agitated and I stand there naked, arms crossed and clinging to my shoulders. Through the small bathroom window the Mosque calls to prayer, and I can hear the laugh track from Seinfield playing on the neighbour’s TV. The rooster inconveniently living on the roof of the building next door crows in unison. I look up through my closed eyelids at the ceiling, letting the hot water flow over my face, over my lips, and divide onto each side of my nose. I splutter out water from my nose and mouth every once in a while, panicking fleetingly and unnecessarily as I suppress my phobia of suffocation and drowning. And then water fills my ears, and the sounds are drowned, literally, except for a low rumble. It's all I hear. Its the twin sound of the rumbling you hear on board a plane. And suddenly I'm on the plane back to London. i've left Beirut and my mother, my friends, my beautiful sea, my bar on Sadat St., and I'm on a plane, strapped in economy, trying to shift away from my neighbour whose asleep, tipping slowly towards my shoulder and beginning to drool. And I move my head. And its gone. All I hear is water hitting the tub floor, and spurting through the shower head, my eyes open and I see my feet, wet and naked, standing the in the shower in my bathroom in Beirut.

IV.
I take the long way home after a night out at the Cabin, with music in the passenger seat. He talks, I listen. He tells me of his broken heart, the rain dogs, the barfly, the weight on his shoulders. He recounts stories of catholic girls, the girl at the bottom of his glass, the red house his baby lived in, how we could be heroes just for one day, and sometimes he hums violins and pianos. And I listen. He sings in English, in Arabic, in alto, soprano. He can hit high notes, and low notes. He makes heads turn as I comb the city streets after midnight, a cigarette in my hand, buildings to my left, the Mediterranean to my right. He's my favourite companion. An ironically silent one. And he does not get annoyed if I drift off. After all, I drift off into his arms. It’s with Him, and Here, that I am truly home.

Nowhere is now. See you there.

Dear Blog,

I'm writing to apologise.
I've been neglecting you.
I apologise. I know, I know. I said it already, but the way I feel is that I should say it twice.

I've been very busy you see. And tired (Insomnia is a whole post on it's own). And unable to write without it being provoked, insincere, and well, simply unworthy.

Anyway, I had promised that I'd post at least once a week, groom your lines, clean your spacings, water your drafts. I haven't kept my word. In fact, I recently went a whole month without posting. How could I have let you nearly starve. I'm so grateful you didn't abandon me and leave for Error 404.

So please, accept this post as an apology, and even though I haven't written, I'm posting a photo I took. That counts remember?

We are Nowhere. And it's now.
Such a statement... A simple line, scribbled on a concrete street divider in Sydney with a purple paint pen, has rang more true and proved more thought-provoking than many things people have told me, many things I've been taught, many things I've read.

That's how I feel at the moment Blog, but you understand. I know you do. We're one, you and I.
Maybe Nowhere is not such a bad place to be. At least it's somewhere.
And at least We're Nowhere together.

Till our next rendez vous, I bid you farewell, and wish your HTML code well....

Much love,

K*

The fallen king of the concrete jungle

A few weeks ago, and thanks to the efforts of BETA, an organisation that works hard to protect and shelter animals in Lebanon, a lion was rescued from a harrowing reality and an inevitable death.
A pet shop near the Beirut port, famous for selling tropical and rare animals had been keeping a lion in a a cage the size of a small car. Emaciated, weak, sick and sad, this king of the jungle lay nearly motionless as volunteers fought for his right to life.

A friend of mine had been there at the time of the rescue, and it was she that called me and told me about the king, to my utter disbelief. But I did not realise how bad his situation was till I saw photos the next day, and even that was nothing compared to what I would feel when I journeyed to see his majesty at Animal Encounter, an animal reserve in the mountains where he had been moved to recover.


The two year old lion, young and yet larger than you would expect, had been fed intravenously for god knows how long. A carnivore that was deprived of being a carnivore. The facts around how long his "jailer" had had him for were hazy. He had changed his story many times, but it was long enough for the lion's paws to get infected due to lack of exercise. Long enough for a lion to become a cat.

It was a large cat I saw. It could not be a Lion, the King of the jungle. It could not be an "Aslan", with long thick mane, rippling muscles, glistening fur, and a roar that shook the earth.
It should have been. But it was not.
What this "lion" was, was a frail body, with a belly bloated and full of anything but food, skin that clung to ribs, eyes that could speak stories, in volumes of hurt.

As I stood in front of him, numb and paralyzed with empathy, anger, and disgust at mankind and his unfaltering ability to destroy, my face got hotter and hotter and my eyes felt like coals as I held back unexpected tears.

In this concrete jungle, the King of beasts has been mercilessly dethroned by a monster: Mankind's ever growing capacity to put his selfish, greedy desires above all else.

"I'll move forward, and you'll move backwards, and somewhere we will meet"

I bumped into Jackie years after I had first met her. She had not changed much, despite the time that had spread itself between us, she was still short, slim with slight curves that hinted at a plumper past, eyes that were wide and inviting, and of course a cigarette in between the fingers of her right hand.

I had met Jackie at a bar after I had graduated college, she was with the younger crowd of newly admitted students, and there was no doubt that she imposed a presence.
Whether or not that was always a good thing, is a completely different subject.
Not to get me wrong, I didn't dislike Jackie. Au contraire. When I first met her, I found her bubbly, carefree nature admirable. Her surprising familiarity with subjects brought up by older more cultured acquaintances was intriguing. She seemed so sweet, with a smile that was instantly mirrored. It's safe to say the disillusionment didn't last very long.

The more I got to know her, the more her carefree nature turned into reckless exhibitionism, craving attention, banking on her charming package to push the brash euphemisms of her definition under the carpet. The more I got to know her, the more her knowledge of obscure, mature topics thinned out to become snippets of feigned interest for the sake of shock value. The more I got to know Jackie, the more her smile screamed fears of rejection, the need of affection, and the inability to break away from the gold framed self portrait she had prescribed to herself, for all to see. The more I got to know her, the more her drunken evenings became a manipulative tool in the winning of attentions.
She charmed nearly any guy who met her, after all she had looks on top of all the wild child attitude and subsequently, was on the bad side of many girls. But none of them could really act on their feelings, after all, how would you get around accusing sugar of being salt?

When I bumped into her those many years later, I was stepping out of the corner shop, headphones on my ears, drinking a smoothie out of a bottle. She was on her way in, and stopped suddenly. She smiled that very familiar smile, this time less able to hide a deep misery. She said "hey! Oh my god! I haven't seen you in ages!", and all I could hear was the same undertoned, self-muffled cry of help. Her face was less bright, and her eyes less lively. She asked what I was doing these days, and I told her I had set up a small home studio to do my writing and drawing in, and was about to send my first book to publishers. She chimed her awe, as she always did, thickly layered. I shrugged and told her it was just what had to be. "But what about you?" I asked.

"Oh! Well, you know, I graduated with a English Lit degree. Yea. Travelled around for a few years, you know. Saw some family in Europe, went to the States for a bit too. I'm not working at the moment, not sure what I want to do still, haha, a little late for that huh? Hahaha," her nervous laughter trailed slowly as we looked at each other silently for a second or two. I broke the silence by asking if she was with anyone, she replied that she had met her boyfriend a few months back at a concert. And he was a star in the making of course. He was younger than her, but who cared right? As long as he loved her and was there for her. I nodded and told her I guess that's what was important. I asked her who she was still in contact with from her group of friends, who I had known only briefly, except for a couple that had become close friends of mine.
"Oh that old group? None. Yea, shame I guess, but I think we had different interests and yea, well you know. Stuff. Whose still close to their college gang after graduation anyway? Right?" I smiled and laughed slightly, not wanting to tell her that nearly everyone of my good friends were friends I met at college, and their respective friends were, and so on so forth. I had predicted this of Jackie, whose nickname in the day was Jackie O, credit to her charisma and looks and "fame" amidst her peers.
I remember one night, after a particularly flamboyant evening in which she ended up barefoot, singing out loud, dancing on the street outside the bar at 3 am in the morning, how a friend of mine watched on, shaking her head. "She's crazy. She's just too much! How does this not piss you off?" I sighed and told her I foresee doom in her future in a deep voice, and she giggled at my impersonation. "Seriously though," I added, "this will end sometime. And I wonder what she'll have left... That's why I don't get too irritated. I actually feel sorry for her."
I'd had friends like her. The popular joie de vivre-ettes of my generation. Willing to try anything and do anything and all in a package sprinkled with sugar and spice.
They craved drama, they craved attention, they craved to be anyone but themselves, and yet were unwilling to change for reasons unbeknown to me. Who knows. Maybe it was pure comfort zone. Maybe some of them had actual prerogatives, but whatever the case, it was a long, winding, lonely road that finally lead them far from everyone else and far from their own true happiness.
"She's going to wake up once day, alone." I told my friend as I sipped my wine glass. "People are going to move forward, and she's not going to be able to catch up and grow up. She's like a really pretty flower. Lovely to look at, but you have to go on your way sooner or later, and if you pick it, it will just wilt. The life of the party is only ever needed at a party. And parties have to end sometime."

"So, I'll see you around sometime?" Jackie asked me, snapping me out of my recollection. "My boyfriend's friend has a cool hang out spot and he has all this alcohol. We can totally get tanked and party it up!"
I smiled at her, seeing her face light up. The warmth of escapism is an alluring one.
"I don't know, I have to finish off the illustrations for the book. Maybe.."
I was never good at hiding what I was thinking, and she understood me beautifully.
She took a last drag from her cigarette, smiled once again at me, then put it out with her foot before saying she'll keep an eye out for my book, and to take care.
I nodded in recognition, smiled, and wished her luck in whatever she wanted to do.

We both turned our backs to each other, walked our seperate ways, knowing that if we were to ever meet again, it would be by pure coincidence alone.

I once heard... About the wolves and their keeper

Bloody Lunas don't happen often.
The moon is tinted red, and there's a halo of ominous fog around its full face. But I once heard of a country where they happened often, and it was never a good sign,or at least for one man.

They say howls could be heard far off, like a warning, and within a few days a beautiful woman with a head turning gait would visit the town. No one can recall a unique description, the stories bounce back and forth, and details are changed. But they say her hair was thick and shimmered silver moonshine, and her skin as pale as warm milk. Her eyes were piercing grey and her lips were blood red, although accounts have stated the opposite.
She had no voice in her slender body, or at least no one ever heard her speak, or even breathe.

The morning after every Bloody Luna, a pool of blood would be found in the main square of the town, bathing remnants of what looked like flesh, ripped apart to thin slivers by beasts of size or number that could only ever be imagined.

Not until the townsfolk gathered and checked would they know who had become a raw soup of wretched flesh, lying in the cold sun.
It was always a man. And always one who would never be missed.

They say the wife of one of the victims saw her, this omnipotent vigilante, while she sat on her window sill the evening after, her bruised eye healing slowly, her broken jaw recovering painfully.

They say she saw her, but only her silhouette against the light of the moon, and in her hand she held several golden leashes. The leashes shone with the sparkle of stardust, and some have said that they were made of stars themselves to explain how every month a star would disappear from the night sky. The end of each leash bound a great white wolf that walked tame in her shadow, but only in her shadow.


It is said, it seems, that every time she is seen leaving a town, there is another wolf in her pack, bound to her by gold, forever in her service.

I once heard... About the tower of drawers and it's girl

Under the three moons she slept, on top of a tower of drawers. A year at a time.
And at the end of every year, she would wake up, groggy, rubbing the sandman dust out of her eyes before stepping off and falling great heights into the cool water below. It would wake her but before she could swim to the surface, its depths would claim her.
And in the drawer she went.
Year after year she'd live a life, and shed a body, drowning to connect the two dots.


They say it was so since the day she was born, that if you were to open the first drawer way down at the bottom, you'd see a baby's frail frame. If you were to open the second one, a slightly bigger skeleton lay, and so on and so forth. Sometimes there were other things in there, like a fish skeleton grasped in the hand of the 16th drawer's occupant, or a clear glass pebble in that of the 19th.


Some could say it was a curse, as well as a reality that she was never awake enough to know of. The older she got, the longer her fall to the pond below, the more she could grasp and see of the land she was on, that lonely 3 mooned planet with nothing and no one on it but a bottomless pond, a tower of drawers and her. The longer the fall, the more of her dreams she was able to remember. The longer the fall, the more the endless night's breeze caressed her skin. The longer the fall, the more the light of the 3 moons (that never were in the same phase mind you) fell on her silhouette.
But it would always end with a splash.

And just as before, she'd end up a year older, asleep atop a new drawer, that held a fresh body.

Over and over and over...

You blackened my face...

Another installment in the literal illustrations of Arabic slang.
"Sawadtilli wijji" means, literally, "you blackened my face". In context, it means you've embarrassed someone, or brought them shame (which we all know is a sin in Arab culture... Punishable by death - that actually isn't even an exaggeration)

Personally I couldn't care less if you blackened my face. I'd just throw some back at you.

Fortune telling dreadlocks, farewells, and hallelujah

I walk into the Cabin, a hot Tuesday evening, intending on having a couple of drinks before dropping a friend of mine, Nick, at the airport to take that flight home one last time.

A "KARMA! I need you!" comes from a corner and I turn around to find another friend, a completely different Nick, is calling me.
He leads me to a table in the corner, sits me down, looks into my eyes as though he has seen the light of God and come back to tell about it, and says: "Ok. You are about to be connected to someone."
....
A slight dramatic pause, a silence, accompanied by a look on my face that can only be described as part worried, part smiling, part confused, part pitiful. The whole shebang.

"What?"

Again. He repeats. "You're about to be connected to someone... I don't know if it's bad or good, but you're going to enter some one's life and be something special to them, or vice versa.. "

I have the mentioned look on my face still, this time it's become more of a "are you crazy? I'm going to back away slowly to not startle you" look.

"What are you talking about man??"

Nick, frustrated with my "look" and my obvious disbelief points to his head full of dreads and shouts "LOOK!" firmly.

Wait. I haven't told you about Nick's dreads have I?
Oh.
Well it's a crucial element in this story, and an element worth knowing.

I met Nick G. around Christmas last year. A skinny fellow not to be mistaken for lanky, with a head full of dreadlocks (proper dreadlocks. As in Get up Stand up dreadlocks) that reached his shoulders. We shared many a drink at the Cabin, many a conversation, and eventually became good friends without the time in between. We even started a blog together.
On one of our nights conversing over a drink at the bar, I noticed a bolt in Nick's hair (yes. A bolt as in a nut and bolt). Pointing it out and laughing, Nick explained that "everything" was in his dreads and seeing that I didn't really believe him, he bent his head forward slightly so I was face to face with a mess of dreads, and started rummaging through them.
Lo and Behold. Earrings, pieces of string, bolts, beads, whatever could be put in dreads, was in my man Nick's head.
"They're souvenirs," he explained. "Bits of people that stay with me. You have to give me something for my dreads..."
I cracked up, and then noticed he was serious. I was wearing my keffiyeh round my neck, a 30 year old Keffiyeh that was once my mother's before I claimed it as my own. The years had faded out its rich black to a glorious grey, and had given it a few torn edges. One of those edges was long time tear-worthy. So, I ripped off a greedy slither off the edge, and gave it to Nick.
Five seconds later, it was on a dreadlock, claimed as mine. Beats sticking a flag in his head.

When he got back here in May, the first thing I asked him about was my conquered dreadlock, and he'd shake the left side of his head towards me till, you guessed it, my Keffiyeh strip dangled among the forest of dreads that boy has.

Coming back to my story, he had said "LOOK!"
Still with that amalgam of emotions in one expression, I went through the different dreads, Nick's hands frantically separating them also, till I found my dreadlock. Keffiyeh still there.

"Ok.. What?"

"LOOK! It's connected to another one!"

Following his fingers up the dread, I saw what he was talking about. My dread had linked to another dread all the way to the middle.

"Er. Ok?" I said, being ignorant of dreadlock protocol.

"They NEVER do that Karma. Maybe at the roots, sure. But NEVER all the way down to the lower middle."

Here, I paused. I still had that odd look on my face, and I'd held it so long that my eyebrow had begun to quiver slightly.
I'd heard of coffee cup readings, tea leaves, palm reading... But fortune telling dreads? Now, that was something.

I found myself split between two emotions.
One that told me this was as ridiculous as the fortunes in fortune cookies, the practical, down to earth grounded line of thought, and a second that was more whimsical, wishful, more willing to put faith in the unknown, the part that kept fortune cookie fortunes in my wallet whenever I felt the need.
After all, Nick wasn't just anyone. He was someone I respected, and had a feel for his spirit. I took him very seriously. And now this.

I laughed nervously. "Fortune telling dreads. Seriously dude. Come on..."

"Hey, no matter what we think, it's worth considering."

I scruff up his dreads, shake my head slightly, and get up to the bar. Yeah. Perhaps it is worth considering.

On the way there, I spy a pyramid shaped object on a table near by. My friend's bag.
It's been designed to look like those Bonjus juice pyramids. The ones that we used to drink as children that are now not as popular. Also the only juice boxes my father drank while he was in hospital before he left two years ago. It had been a sign once.
And then I realised what day it was. The 28th of July.
And as it all strung up together during that short 5 second walk to the bar, I leaned my arms against it, and heard familiar chords sound among the noise of the bar crowd. I didn't recognise it at first, and then as more and more chords strummed into place, i knew what it was.
Hallelujah. Originally by Leonard Cohen, covered by Jeff Buckley.
Hallelujah. One of my father's favourite songs. One that always, always reminds me of him, on the day I lost him.

I stood there lost in my thoughts, organising all these things that just flew at me. Before shaking it all off.

Ok. this is what must be. An odd night, high with emotions, in a Bar in Beirut, with the prophecy of companionship, a friend's farewell, and a song in the background of it all.

I turn around to join my friends and spy my dreadlock Nick, shake my head at him with a smile, whispering "fortune telling dreadlocks indeed..." under my breath.