Beirut and other drugs

Bella,

It is a windy Saturday. I took Tommy on his favorite morning walk. I got him apples from the cocktail bar in Sassine Square and some grapefruit juice to mix with my gin. Tommy loves to watch the Christmas lights dangling from the shops and the buildings. There are fewer this year. They only glitter when the government electricity is on, at most three hours a day. The generator only lights the holy tree in the square. It’s decorated with angel wings this year, a mercy call to the Holy Spirit. You would have loved it. I close my eyes and laugh at the thought of your laugh. How I miss you. Beirut misses you. Tommy misses you. Come back.

Last night I threw a house party. I always find it easier to heal around new faces who know little to nothing about me. After a few glasses, I decided with the help of a guest I vaguely knew to remove the famous painting from the wall, to welcome 2022 with an open heart. The wall actually looks lighter now, warmer. You would be proud. You always wanted me to throw this piece of art or burn it on his doorstep. I have to admit that the thought of it always amused me, but I did like the painting. I could always see myself in the woman featured on that canvas. There, naked, trying to catch her breath in a crumbling city, her red lipstick intact. I was the inspiration for that painting after all, or so he said, yet he managed to hide me in the shadows for years. The therapist had two theories: I castrated him with my strong character, or helped him shine while I remained backstage.  Don’t we play both roles in relationships? The supportive and the do-it-all woman? What a vicious doomed cycle! What does your therapist tell you?

It is still eleven in the morning. I fix myself a glass and fall on the sofa to the rhythm of Sabah Fakhri. Since he passed away, I play his track “Khamret el Hobb” on repeat until I fall asleep drunk on love, or should I say: drunk on my longing for love? Sabah’s voice travels inside me. I go to parallel universes, into my past lives. Maybe one in old Damascus, another in Jaffa, and on the hills of Serifos. There, I was betrayed, and there I was worshipped. There I committed suicide. There I was an empress, and there I was a Roman slave. I open my eyes to Tommy’s lick on my eyebrow ring and come back to the warmth of Sabah’s voice.

Do you really think we ought to have one life partner, Bella? I am not really sure I want that anymore. Partners are like seasons. They water the heart in the spring of love then fall off like leaves in the cold, each to heal a sore spot. They give us refuge, they open our sacral chakra. They heal and hurt. On the verge of my thirty-seventh birthday, I came to accept that each relationship damages us; we never fully recover. Melancholia seems like the only constant. Maybe the heart doesn’t have to heal. This is natural physiology: collecting patches of scars, loss, and love. Maybe we ought to create collages of our hearts and sell them as art or artefacts at exuberant prices to European museums. Maybe then, we will heal.
I go to therapy and yet often wonder if healing is an illusion. Aren’t the answers to our pain already known to us?
At night, I stopped adding Perrier to my Tanqueray so the ice cubes melt slowly. Did I tell you I have been dating the same person since you left? It has been five months now. He is a happy boy who makes me smile. Unusual. He talks to plants rather than beings and makes amends with the sun and soil. I go sometimes and see him in his mountain house. I indulge in oneness trips and orgasm to his fingers. He is also a great cook. Last week he made me salmon tacos. I haven’t asked about his past nor about his relationship with his mother. I don’t speak to him about healing nor therapy. I sidelined myself just to see his smile and cuddle with him at night. Tommy is fond of him. He knows he is the cook.
I am embarrassed to go on about my daily rubbish while you try to sleep to the sound of shelling. Are you able to handle the cold nights? Are you eating any warm meals? You seemed pale last time we spoke. I got worried. You moved away from the windows and closed Skype in a hurry. Bella, if you are unhappy, you know you can dump everything and come back home. We are strong women, but acknowledging that we have endured much and need a sense of peace is also strength. We are already successful. We do not need to fight new battles to prove that. Come back. Syria is still a battlezone. I know you were not expecting this when you signed up. I did not think Aden would be that tough also when I went there.  I couldn’t survive in Yemen more than two weeks. I slept two full nights in the corridor next to my grab bag with my passport in hand. I can still see the face of the burnt child lying on the sidewalk by the market, and I can still hear the shouting of the gunmen under my building. It brought back memories of our days in Beirut. Our cities seem doomed, tired of our wrongdoings. They wished to vanish, as Beirut did seven times. The Fairies have left us to fight our demons and despots. Our Middle East has become a haven for broken dreams. 

How are you holding up there? Is there still no diesel for warm showers in your station? You mentioned vaguely that you made some friends. Send me more details! Have you been sober since you left Beirut? Do you manage to go to Erbil for some rest? When is your next retreat? Your organization should be taking care of your well being and sending you home every now and then! Bella, come back.

My street in Ashrafieh scares me now. The other day while entering the building in a hurry just past midnight, I heard a woman calling me. I didn’t look back. Then the doorbell rang the moment I reached my floor. I froze. My heart raced. I didn’t open. I held on to my phone with my brother’s number on speed dial. I held my breath, locked the doors, and stayed awake for hours. The next day I discovered that it was my neighbour alarming me that I had left my car lights on. I thanked her, and cried. When did the city turn us to anxious, hysterical beings?
Did you see the latest tragic news on the Mediterranean? The death toll has reached a new record high this year. There are countries who have been prosecuting the swimmers who saved refugees at sea. Activists on the flotillas receive death notes on their doorstep. There is a growing rage inside me. Sometimes I see the souls of these Mediterranean travellers wandering at sea while I walk on the corniche. The faces of the street children I couldn’t save and who died on my watch also haunt me. 

It was a failure wasn’t it, this program? Did we really believe we could pave new lives for those souls through art therapy sessions and psychosocial support activities? Do you remember Kaissar? I have recurring dreams about him. That I resigned from work to adopt him and broke all humanitarian work rules. True I never wanted children, but Kaissar broke pieces of me I don’t know I can ever mend. Do you really believe in what we do, the humanitarian aid work? I always lectured you and the team about making a difference, that we save lives. But I also always wondered if any of you believed me, if I believed myself. Response plans funded by the same powers who created these crises. Reflecting on all this now, did we do more good or harm? I don’t need validation, nor do I want sympathy. I just want to wash away the guilt that keeps me up at night.

Back to you now. Tell me about your daily routine. Is it the same Syria we always loved visiting? What languages do they speak where you are stationed? Are people really in conflict between each other or is it again some big country’s conspiracy play? Tell me about the women of Kobani. Are they as the legend portrays them: fighters who’ve liberated their city?

 Your Internet is never connecting. Your whatsapp checks are never blue. Facetime doesn’t recognize your number anymore. I can barely catch a word or two with you on Zoom and I cannot find you on Facebook anymore! Come back.

Last week I tripped over an advertisement selling flats in the Greek Islands. I always dreamt of resigning from corporate life and even humanitarian work and dedicating the rest of my days to writing. I could go to the South of France, or maybe a village in Italy. But I cannot seem to leave Beirut. Am I addicted to drama? My heart still melts into a nostalgic dumb comfort each time I get drunk on the city streets, or eat mfatqa from Barbour or spinach pies dipped in labneh from Makdessi bakery at dawn. I drink and pretend drinking makes me overly emotional.  The truth is, alcohol is a mere excuse. I have been waking up overly emotional for some years now. With each departing friend and each security blow. I can leave the mfatqa and manakish el zaatar about which our fellow expatriates reminisce, but my dilemma is wider. I feel guilty. I assume holding onto what remains might prevent it from collapsing. If I go, will it disappear from the map?
Nayla says that I am a romantic. She was hinting at the Romantic school of the 18th & 19th centuries. Maybe I am. Everything around me is sunsets, the sea, windy winters, Sundays.  Beirut with all its distortions, its rainy sewage, and burning corpses is still romantic. And what if I am romantic? Do I need therapy for that too?

Tommy fell asleep on my feet under the yellow cover. The electricity is back on and I need to order some food. I feel  lucky since they switched our salaries to dollars. Privileged to have the luxury to reflect on my existential dilemmas such as the ones in this letter.

Do you notice, Bella, that the holidays are lonely? I need to trip on magic truffles again, I need to believe again that I am alive and breathe happiness into my lungs. Last time, I saw myself as an avatar traveling from one life to another, becoming a beautiful tree. I heard my soul’s mission: to make people’s lives softer. That is my calling. And here I am in Beirut, trying. Maybe my animal spirit, a baby elephant, would help soothe hearts and heal bullied souls. I can adopt one. It will make magic. We need magic. Maybe then I can convince you to come back. Although coming back now is losing the self, sanity, physical rest. Maybe we ought to consider a few years in the Peloponnese. Restore sanity there or plan a revolution. We tan and sip Mastiha on sandy beaches while we wait for the waves to drown Beirut for the eighth time. Only then maybe we can resurrect to the life we want.

The electricity is out again. Tommy is impatient for his walk. I send you my heart enveloped in kisses. 

Stay warm. Come back. We either pack and leave or succumb to this madness together. What matters is togetherness, right?

Bhebbik,

Sisi

Beirut, December 31, 2021

Published initially with Rusted Radishes- edition Letters and Liminality, 2022

Sunny Sundays, Eucalyptus and Catacombs

It is sunny Sunday in Beirut 1994.

Two little heads in swimsuits, flowery dresses and sandals jumped into the back seat of the white Renault 12 parked glamorously in al Itihad building in Tarik al Jdide. Mother, with her chestnut proud bun, lit a cigarette and settled behind the wheel after pouring water into her cherished vehicle. She was waiting, patiently, unlike her, for the neighbor to move their car blocking the alleyway. I thought it was patience; but I deduct now that she was just waiting for her the Renault to warm up. One minute down the line, she hammered the klaxon until the whole building pumped out of their windows Sunday 9AM.

 A small background note.

No one was to mess with Mother. The last time her car was blocked, a police patrol arrived for the second floor neighbor. They arrested him for a couple of hours until his uncle, who happened to be her dentist, interfered. She dropped her rights, they released the guy and she got free dental care for a year for our family.

Our Renault 12 didn’t have to wait much. By the time she finished her cigarette, the passage was cleared.

On the road, my eyes devoured each moving object and landscape. If I closed them, I could still describe the tiniest detail of each stray dog who roamed in the small alleys of postwar Beirut. The mixed smell of blood and sea infiltrated my nostrils and gave me a weird feeling of nostalgic nausea.

I still get it sometimes next to the new water front built on seaside Beirut leading to Beit el Katayeb. Other times, I feel it up my throat, on Madfoun road next to the old railway trail, and occasionally on Sundays when heading back from South on Damour road.  

On the daily sea passage that we took with my mama, I had memorized by heart each pacing scenery, although the same daily, but I was still able to be amazed each time by the unsettling dull layers of abandoned concrete and landmarks that the war had left.  A few eucalyptus trees remained standing tall near the corniche. Savoring their odor until she filled up her lungs, euphorically, mother would lower the windows every day and retell us the same story:

 “When I was 10 years old, I used to ride the tram with my grandmother, Primo seats, and all of this corniche was planted with eucalyptus trees. There were no buildings, just hills of trees.” She would inhale now the last puff of her cigarette, throw the butt out of the window and start singing batwanessbik chorus of a great artist whom I despised her music back then, Warda al jaza2iria. Mother repeated the cassette from side to side, smoking one bafra after another, smiling, yet with tears running from behind her black wayfarer.

I hated Warda and the eucalyptus trees, for a long time. Her voice and the smell of the eucalyptus stung to my memory along with the agonizing sceneries of the corniche and reminded me of the horrendous pains that broke my heart at the age of 10.

It was when we reached Raouche’s intersection that the oxygen was sucked out of my lungs.

During that same year, I developed asthma.

Children my age and younger were scattered on the street, screaming with laughter and fear. I remember them barefoot, gluing their bodies to the cars’ windows, asking for breadcrumbs and niggles, with pink candy floss in their tiny hands. Their hair looked different than mine; I envied them and stood in awe in front of the magic sunbeams coloring their heads. I memorized their faces from one Sunday to another and imagined their lives and stories. I had built with them a one way silent affectionate bond that they never discovered, but that stayed with me in my dreams and books and which paved my career twenty years later. My mother used to speed up when we passed them by and lock the windows, as if she was afraid they would steal her children’s colored sandals or maybe their seats at school. I begged her so many times we invite these children with us even if for a day to spend it at the beach. Most of the time she stood silent, turned off the radio and shut “my nonsense”. The next Sunday she would bring them manaeech or knefe from her favorite Halleb branch.

This memory inked my skin at a very early age with a growing feeling of helplessness that just got hollower with every child I saw on the street. From one decade to another. From one country to another. From one post to another. The bitterness remained. The awkwardness dominated. Helpless I felt on every crossroad.

Children are not made for wars nor made for injustice. Children in shelter. Children on the street. Children during wars. Children on the verge of famine. Children at home abused. Children behind bars. Yet we are unable to stop their pain, the bombs, the stigma or the fear.

Four years ago I had the chance to reconcile with Beirut postwar years and build a two way relationship with the children whom Warda and eucalyptus trees once constructed a wall between us. I came to discover that my unilateral relationship with them and the stigma I fabricated was nothing but a faded fiction. Children on the street are stronger than me and you. The brave labourers, who still roam today Raouche, Corniche al Mazraa, Hamra and other Beirut 2020 streets, are highly resilient heroes fighting the system on our behalf.

We have little to offer them as long as we are not waving a revolution in the justice and social system.

Many children succeeded in escaping the streets and going back to school with supportive communities’ efforts. Some were removed from abusive environments with the aid of social workers. Others were offered safe spaces to just be, play and find moments of peace and pure joy. Others were reunited with their beloved families across seas.

The lives of some children on the street changed for the better, and they have grown their resilience to defend themselves and pave a new future. They were able to create their own safe haven where no abuse nor fear can infiltrate.

As a community, we might fight and single out abusers on an individual level, we can impact lives of hundreds maybe. But how many perpetrators in reality are we able to bring to justice in postwar Beirut and in 2020 Beirut? What about the abuser who is a system and not an individual? Are we able to fight it? Able to fight corruption, cultural stigma and racism? Are we the ones who would stand along street children and fight their struggle side by side?

It is sunny Sunday in Beirut 2020.

Since two weeks, a general mobilization order was issued by the government in an attempt to contain Corona virus ravaging the country. It is 12 noon. An unprecedented silent is hovering over the city. It is a first time in my 35 years that I see this popular area deserted. After a few minutes, a first car passed by. It stopped at the red light. Two girls, barely aged 8 years old, covering their face with scarves and still giggling, ran to the car parked at the intersection. The man ignored them at first. After a few knockings on his window, galvanized, he lowered the glass and screamed at the girls from the top of his lungs, as if he was blaming them for all the calamities of the universe. He extended his hand to grab one of them, to terrorize her maybe, or to unload his cumulative frustration, or probably to project on her his anger from his wife, maybe his mistress, perhaps his beloved country or maybe God. He then controlled his internalized oppression at the last minute, remembering, from behind his N95 mask, that the girl might contaminate him. The children mortified by the man’s aggressiveness started crying, and ran each in a direction.

Everyone left and I stayed there watching from my balcony the cruel system. Aside from the daily harassment and struggle children on the street face, now lay a whole new array of risks.

These children would struggle to abide by curfews and lockdowns. For many they found refuge in day centers and shelters, where they had a meal, a space to play, learn and be safe. Now they have closed down. The homes that the children go back to at night might mean sometimes an unsafe environment where higher level of abuse and violence could take place. The streets are heavily policed or empty leaving ways for aggressors to attack.

We have little to offer them as long as we are not waving a revolution in the justice and social system.

It is Dark Friday night in Beirut. It feels cold and lonely. While everyone is sleeping and confined, a shoe shiner spirit frees itself from the bottom of the building shaft in Tallet al khayat. That same abyss where his body laid breathless, silent, unjustly, a few months back. His soul, garnished with his apotropaic amulet around his neck, found peace today and flew high in the sky, away from our Beirut’s suffocating catacombs.

Our exotic poverty

 

There are some things that are just “unpleasant” for our eyes to see; a tasteless painting, a muddy weather, a pile of rubbish, a man taking a shit, maybe a starving child, a woman skinning a man alive or just ugly slams surrounding our cities. Our retinas are sensitive and can only absorb a measured amount of light and images over a certain period of time. They were programmed throughout centuries to become selective. Some invasive footage should be filtered automatically and directed into the spam folder not to damage our very core existence. And when our security system fails, when small cockroaches manage to crawl through our high walls of defense, we are faced with the inevitable decisions of either killing them or beautifying them.

This is not a technical cinema review of the movie Capharnaüm; I am not a professional of art nor a critic. This is simply an observation and a bold personal opinion from a woman working in the humanitarian development field.

The movie obtained the Jury’s prize in Cannes and then the applause of major international and national public figures including humanitarian aid workers in the field of protection.

I was intrigued to watch it ever since the trailer was out; I had mixed feelings of content and excitement. Finally the topic of street connected children was brought up to light. Maybe now came the time where art was a medium to expose the misery of working children and impact new policies.

I watched the movie. It was emotional. It depicted ugly Beirut’s slams. It charmed the public with the wide shots of despair flowing on the big screen. Tears were rolling down the faces of all watchers in the theater. All enraging censored topics fled through the big screen: early marriage, child labor, domestic workers, drug abuse… For a moment I was happily surprised. Yes we were close enough to sensitize the population around core topics and violations we are very frustrated about. But again that was a close call, a missed opportunity I would even say, or a bullet in the heart maybe.

Poverty was described in its rudeness in this movie, true; yet still with a taste of blaming the poor and with a total dismissal of government policies that are in fact the root cause of the misery. The movie ends with the main message that was disseminated bit by bit throughout the film: the abused neglected child in the end sues his parents in court for bringing him to life.

I am sorry Nadine, it is not family planning and birth control that will put an end to the poverty and injustice cycles. No, we do not have the right to tell poor people to stop giving birth and that is the ultimate solution for a worldwide crisis that has been running for centuries. Our own system is perpetrating abuse and violence upon its citizens in so many shameless and sly faces. We have been taught by western societies and ideologies that making less children will make us less poor; the cause of inequality resides in multiplying in numbers. But in reality, we do not have a surplus of population in our lands. Our ex colonized territories are vast and rich in resources that could last us for centuries. Eduardo Galeano exposed this in his book “Open veins of Latin America” in 1970; giving the examples of “Brazil (that) has thirty-eight times fewer inhabitants per square mile than Belgium, Paraguay has forty-nine times fewer than England”. He explained how the west has “nightmares about millions of children advancing like locusts over the horizon from the third world(…); (they tend) to justify the very unequal income distribution between countries and social classes, to convince the poor that poverty is the result of the children they don’t avoid having, and to damn the rebellious advance of the masses”[1].

The family who is portrayed in this movie having so many children, did not chose to be poor nor did the parents chose to be stateless. They have been born in a country that stole their identity, their existence and their free will. We are very busy judging and smudging irritating scenes that hurt our eyes and soft emotions by blaming the weak and sucking every inch of dignity from a powerless society.

The children acting in the movie are not acting; they are in reality working on the streets of Beirut following a crisis that destroyed their country. As only resources for the families after they have lost all their savings, they found themselves obliged to be the breadwinners. By acting in this movie, and reliving the harsh situation of the street, aren’t we exposing these fragile beings to additional trauma they have been already subjected to over years and years? Is it even ethical to use the real pain of a child to create art? This might be debatable. Zain the child, the main actor, was successfully resettled to Norway after the release of the movie. It is a happy outcome for Zain. But what about Cedra? What about the other thousands children who are working in harsh conditions whether on the street or a stone quarry? What about Mohannad, Bashar, Zouhour and the rest? Where are these children? Probably still roving the streets at night or abused by the system in construction sites,   being stereotyped and stripped of their innocence and every bit of life. Around 5 % of Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon were resettled since the start of the crisis. I do not think we need a movie where the child relives his traumas to ensure his safe successful exit strategy from this damned country.  It is good news for Zain maybe, but this only highlights the fragility of a humanitarian system that is majorly moved and mobilized through media pressure.

As for the Hollywood scenes in the movie, they remain a production of Hollywood and do not reflect reality. Domestic workers are piled up in dozens like sardines’ cans and expelled from our country following ill treatment. They are not heroically treated in the airport but rather humiliated under a racist sponsorship system.

Spectators walking out of the movie had red eyes but also anger towards the poor and their ignorance. The blame was channelled right there, whipping underprivileged souls and digging deeper their graves. I want people to be angry, to feel frustrated and remove the selective parental guidance from in front of their eyes and let the ugly cockroaches creep into their minds, and taste the bitterness our societies live in. I want them to be angry at the real monster that is eating us alive from centuries onwards. I need them to raise their voices and push for policies’ change. Even us, humanitarian aid workers are doing it in the wrong way. An awareness session around family planning conducted for the refugees is not the key to stop the poverty cycle. Lobbying and pressuring for policy change is the key to give the masses their innate rights. We need first to be convinced that these are our natural rights; to be born, to use the resources of our lands, to move freely between continents and oceans without being criminalized, to have access to basic rights and development opportunities, to laugh, to couple, to have children without being sanctioned.

The wide screen shots with eye bird view of the Beirut slams are artistic, eccentric and could serve as a beautified painting fighting injustice in the galleries. But is this what we need today?

Do we need a more sophisticated art that serve the intellectual, the elite and Oscars’ venues? Are we still painting poverty so we make it softer for our eyes to see it and accept it? Same goes for the Ouzville project; an art project initiated in 2017 where Lebanese and international artists painted giant murals over the walls of the neglected buildings in Ouzai. What is the goal from behind this cultural initiative? Is the purpose to spread colourful and kitsch designs on the slams surrounding the airport? This family featured in the movie or a similar one would be probably living there in the Ouzai suburbs. They will wake up tomorrow more hopeful in the morning, surrounded by blue green and yellow rainbows.  Mr. Ambassador will be inspired while landing on Rafic Hariri’s airport this evening. Aren’t we making all of this better for our own eyes to dismiss the core painful fate of the families who are living there?

I find this very dangerous if not cruel, covering up our pains charmingly and falling into a comfortably numb status. A staged crime against humanity, against our own salvation. We have been trapped since colonization’s centuries and we are tightening the ropes around our necks stronger each day, stronger each day, stronger each day.

Written by Sara Sannouh

[1] “Open Veins of Latin America”-1970- Eduardo Galeano- page 6

Phot credits:

https://wsimag.com/architecture-and-design/26711-ouzville

Cannes. A “Capharnaüm” della libanese Labaki il Premio della Giuria ecumenica

In memoriam

All names, characters and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious. In case of similarity, no identification with actual persons (living or deceased) should be concluded. No animals were harmed during the creativity process; only humans.

 

He opened a can of Heineken then swiftly changed his mind and opted for a glass of scotch.

No need for aperitivo tonight- he will head directly to his main course. Whiskey with no rocks, no filters. Plain and bitter, as his spirit right now.

His house is a mess. He hasn’t been around for a while except for sleeping.  Lately he is arriving towards the first hours of dawn to snooze. He then wakes up at seven and heads to work. He has been leading a mechanical and lethargic life for the past month. He is the last to leave the office yet with zero productivity. The manager gave him the keys in desperation. “I can get this project rolling perfectly just when the dark night rises”. He convinced her with his gloomy monologue.  He quit the gym. He started going instead to the neighbourhood bar, with his sketchbook that remained empty as the bottles of beer and whiskey accumulated with the passing hours on the bar; same as his soul stuck in a high dosage’s alcohol maze.

Tonight, he left work early for home. He passed by his sister’s house first. He missed his dog. He put him at his sister’s care a month ago when he ruined his routine. But today, he needed to see Hector.

Obedient Hector jumped over him feverishly and showered him with love as soon as he showed up down the stairs. Hector forgot that he was abandoned for the last month and just embraced his master unconditionally with the most guileless saliva.

In return, the master walked Hector around the block, bought him his favourite food, hugged him and smiled, surprising himself. He hadn’t showed his teeth lately except for eating.

Here he was now, in front of the fridge pouring his first Johnny walker glass of the night. “Keep walking”, he read from the corner of his eyes. He smiled for the second time tonight, this time ironically.

He went straight to the couch, and opened the television, Hector shadowing him.

He has been staring blank at the screen for the last fifteen minutes moving his hand only to throw the ball and catch it again when Hector fetched it back. A prolonged state of inertia. Only the little girl’s voice on the squared metallic box awoke him from his empty gaze. He was entangled by her angelic voice.

And without any introductions, tears started rolling down his face.

He has been trying hard to cry, to feel something, anything, to show any kind of empathy for the tragic incident that occurred at work a month ago. But he was faced with a frozen wall of senseless feelings. He was numb. An automated robot unable to interact with his colleagues, afraid of going to the field visits at work and above all blocked every time he tried to remember the face of the children he helped throughout his daily work.

Meanwhile, Hector was all over his master’s face licking it, crying loudly, and trying to make sense what was making his master so miserable.

Was it the five years old girl’s sweet voice or the cancer survivor adolescent who came up next singing her fight song?

What was happening to him? Becoming the lachrymose man over America’s Got Talent show whilst unable to shed a tear upon a toddler’s death who couldn’t survive his scars due to the caprice of a racist man? A grown up mature creature who unleashed his hatred upon a refugee child, enveloped in a Molotov handmade grenade sent with love.

He wanted to find that man and punish him. He felt revolted yet impotent the day the toddler died; he couldn’t utter a word of empathy nor shed a tear. He became frigid, comfortably numb. He hid his head in the sand, kept on counting daily stalls of death around him as he was counting sheep  before sleeping, then started tailoring strategies for rescue and failing. He was unable to face the crushing melancholia building inside him. He hoped it would disappear with the sips of whiskey. But he was wrong. It hit harder and surged in moments of rest, just like today; when everything went back to normality on a calm pleasant Thursday night. It happened unannounced after he poured a glass of Keep Walking and unloaded his heavy breath upon his loving dog. Tears started streaming down his face unknowingly, waking the numbness of repressed dusty and buried layers.

It crawled to his heart that night, during his sleep, paving strategic cracks that would open widely and unexpectedly the next day. At night when the world was slumbering under the stars, the souls of the dead went free and wandered. Lost souls, with no prospect of going home in the horizon. They glued to his window and called his name. He heard them in his dreams, pulled the cover higher over his face and turned to the other side.

The sun rose. He felt even heavier with the first rays of morning. One more dead spirit on his shoulders, he counted.

He went to work, wrote his resignation letter, closed his metal squared screen, crossed the street and bought a Haagen-Dazs caramel jar under the sun.

 

Dedicated to your soul, Child;

Dedicated to the brave hearts of humanitarian fighters;

 

The wave breaker

She stands on the deck, takes heavy steps towards the wave breaker, her soul crusher. Her grey hair messes the subtleness of the wind. It is winter. The first day on the catholic calendar. The whole world is still sleeping. Even the fishes haven’t come out yet of their inebriety. The fishermen celebrated the birth of Jesus by the seashore. After midnight, bottles of vodka dived into the ocean mixed with laughs and tears of the sailors. The air is still holding their overnight hearty yet heavy conversations. She shivers from the whispers in her ears and shake off the goose bumps that suddenly took over her body. She came much earlier to the appointment. She didn’t sleep the night before. She arrived at dawn and was here waiting for her to come.

The waves are high. Grains of salt accumulate onto her leather boots. She loves this pair. He bought it to her three decades ago from Berlin flea market. She loathed it back and told him that he didn’t know what she loved. It was following a fight they had. The same eternal fight that broke them in the end. She stormed out of the apartment with tears covering her face in agony. She thought that they were losing time, precious time, and unknowingly while arguing, she was the one who lost all the time they had.

She kept the boots in the box and wore them the day he couldn’t see her anymore. It became her all year outfit. In summer she relocated to cold countries moving in between continents. She couldn’t stand summers anymore, running away from the sun, hiding. She had brown goldish skin in the days with red wild hair. Summer suited her; he used to repeat that to her every day of the season and in every possible occasion whenever sun rays came from behind the clouds. She smiled back with her glowing face and kissed him in between margueritas and roses. She never set foot again in the beach house they bought during one of these summer vacations. 15 years has past. She stopped drinking Marguerita since and forgot the color red, she never tainted her hair again. Today she hates the smell of salty water and hide in the coldest corners of the earth. She became a bear, a solitary bear that hibernates throughout the year. The only difference she had with the solitary animal is that she didn’t go out during mating seasons. Barbara remained on her own, in abstention mode.

Her hibernation mode started the year Kurt Cobain died in1994; exactly a month after his death, not because she was a huge fan of Nirvana but because of the tragic similar news that occurred on the same year. She was sipping her morning coffee and his photo stroke her on the back of the newspaper. It was not one of his successful book review or critic on the page, it was his obituary. No that wasn’t the way things should have ended. He was supposed to fight for her and win her back. She told him she had moved on but she was still waiting, every night waiting for him to knock on her door. She kept the keys under the cactus outside the main door. He knew the hideout. She would wake up at night mistaking the cat’s rumblings with his footsteps then go back to sleep with a disappointed wet face. She was sure he would settle things and come back to the beach house and whisper in her ears about the beauty of the sun in her eyes. He wasn’t supposed to leave unannounced. To take his own life with a hunting rifle. He should have been here now, the coming month for the opening of her gallery. She was planning to send him an invitation although she was angry with him but she promised that only he would inaugurate her golden 5^th exhibition. He betrayed her. He lied. He just surrendered and died. He aimed the bullet right into his fighting heart. That is how the newspaper described him through his best friend Emily’s condolences words. She couldn’t finish reading the piece. She didn’t go to his funeral neither. She only went back to the beach house to collect some belongings, amongst them her leather boot hid in the box. She abandoned everything on that day. She bought the first ticket to the coldest area on the planet and remained on the move since then.

Today was the first time since 1994 that she set foot in her coastal city. Here she was, gazing at the blue horizon, wearing her army coat and waiting for the boat to sail in. She lit up a cigarette and decided to sip a coffee while waiting for her.  She was scared yet determined to keep her promise. Unlike him she was a woman of her words.

The soil of this port entangles many souls and battles. She walks through them, stumbles upon concealed graves and makes her way to the marina. The air becomes aggressive and throws her on her knees. It damages her coat and reminds her of the buried pains. Welcome to the miracle of Dunkirk, the sign ahead reminds her to stand tall. In this French seaside shore, she gathers her strength and makes her way to the sailors’ only available hut. And there, she waits.

sandy beach of June

She dared to look him in the eye; the eye of the sun. Her wrinkles smiled and her hazel rounded cavities shrugged, adjusting to the flow of light that they suddenly received.

Today she decided to take on the ocean. She took off her sandals and dipped her toes into the burning sand. It hurt. It was tempting. Her face tensed up at the first contact, then surrendered with a smile to the sweet pain. No backing up today. She said she was ready. Wasn’t she?

The waves started tingling her feet, soothing the soreness she was enjoying. With each wave her heart skipped a beat. They were getting higher, her heart raced at a higher speed. She was shivering from cold, but she longed for more; more salt, more water, more cold.

She took additional steps towards the big sea. She knew that she shouldn’t yet she advanced. Her mother told her to stay away from the waters, yet she kicked in with a strong heart. She knew she wasn’t a good swimmer, yet she couldn’t resist.

Each wave left her more breathless than the one before, there on the sandy beach of June.

June became July, then October jumped in. She wore long sleeves now on that same sandy beach of June. The water reached her waist; then in November it covered her neck up to her chin. It was cold, it was blue, just like the sea of June, yet she smiled. Sirens wailed in the background, people ran to the sea; they pulled her out of the ocean, out of breath, yet smiling, and her face painted in blue.

Some say they saw her again, few years later, on a Sicilian shore. A woman with hazel eyes dipping her toes into the freezing salty water of February.

I smiled.  I knew. She became the wave, she became the sea.

a little silent sun

On a Saturday afternoon I stopped hearing their voices.

They fell into silence.

She drowned into stillness as if a haunted spirit came and stole her breath away. That same breath that was echoing wildly inside the city’s walls on a similar random night. The streets were left to their emptiness, as she walked away.

On the other side of the walls, outside the city, he was preparing to sail. Salt drops fell onto his naked shoulders. He looked into the sky and wished for the sun rays to heal his curse.  The sea waves were high as his spirit was low.

She drew a sun and waited.

He wrote a poem and burnt it.

She needed colors for her sun to shine. He needed words for his poem to come out of the ashes.

On the city walls borders, they met again. He brought yellow; she spoke again.

There on a Saturday afternoon I stopped looking for the sun.

 

red wine stain

It was dawn. He has been awake for some time now waiting for the first rays of sun. He indulged his eyes with the warmth caressing his lashes and let the breeze of trees pass through his open lips drawing a smile. On the dawn of the 166^th day, he no longer longed for her.  It happened suddenly. It happened overnight.  He did not want to resist anymore. He was ready to sail away.

It is midnight. She opens the window and waits. Tonight she is ready. She wipes away her lipstick. She smiles. The rush of excitement makes her body tremble and her nipples harden. The blood moon reflects on her face and makes it blush shyly. On the night of the 165^th day, she fell for him. It happened suddenly. It happened just before midnight. She did not want to resist anymore. Tonight she is surrendering her soul.

I struggle with the opening of the wine bottle. I always do. The cap falls at the bottom. I curse at first, then enjoy the taste of the cork melting in my mouth. The wine drops and stains my white paper. Maybe it looks better this way; with her falling and him sailing away. I know that it definitely feels better with a red wine stain.

Falling in India

When I reached the “hate” state, when I thought I couldn’t handle it anymore, when everything around me was irritating to my eyes and spirit, when all the looks seemed invading my personal space, when I was about to give up and run away, there at that moment, I fell in love.

I surrendered, and that was all that was needed.

“India changes you, you don’t change India!” Random words exchanged over a random dinner revealed a non-random truth for me. They paved the way for an internal search of truth within me.

Incredible India, yes it is!

Nothing my eyes have seen before. It is the craziness that makes you sane. It is the chaos, yet serenity is in every corner. It the horns at an unstoppable pace, and yet you could hear an internal silence. It is the pollution in the streets, yet the colors purify your soul.

Incredible India!

You arrive, you are lost, there is no point of reference. But who said that this is bad? Why do we always need to know where we are standing? Who said security is the key to be happy? Maybe getting lost is the key:  surrendering to your craziness instead of running away from it, stepping out of your comfort zone, looking into your fears in the eye instead of just escaping them… Simply letting yourself go, letting yourself fall… and I fell… I fell in India.

First I fell hard. A slap in my face. I hit the land of the unknown with waves of people that seemed seeing no one but me. 1 billion pairs of eyes fixing me whereas I was coming from a land that constitutes 0.3% of these eyes and all of them were wandering, not seeing me. I felt under surveillance. I felt uncomfortable, irritated, angry, judging everyone and everything around me because they weren’t anything like me, because they were different from my “standards”. At first I couldn’t realize that this was ok and that “different” doesn’t necessarily mean “wrong”, it is just another point of view. So what was I afraid of? Letting go of my stereotypes maybe, my beliefs, accepting that there is a greener grass on the other side of the continent that I wasn’t aware of? I was afraid of looking inside of me perhaps…

After all, what I was seeing was nothing but a self-reflection, a reflection of my fears, my faults, my inner me.

Yes India is the mirror, and that was the challenge, to be able to look in that reflection. I call it India my therapy.

“Sometimes you have to believe in the chaos, it pushes you to go further.” I embraced that chaos. And this is when my fall became smoother, detoxifying, crazy, passionate… the fall into the self, into the nothingness.

I stopped resisting; I embraced it all with each uncertainty.

Life here was like the auto rickshaw ride. Bumpy but true.

You are the moment; you are the auto rickshaw driver. Indeed you could only experience the authenticity of a city through the eyes of its taxi drivers.

They don’t use breaks until the very last moment before they hit the car in front of you. I used to close my eyes, panic with the certainty of dying in the very next moment. Then I learnt to open them, to see and to trust. Wasn’t it Osho who said that we could only learn to live by dying first? So there, I decided to die and only then my exhale became lifesaving.  I learnt to look at the drivers, to be them, to imitate them: each moment they die, they have learnt how to drop the worry, carrying with them different icons of different gods on their journey traveling around the city of Gods. Careless they are, curious sometimes, smiling at other times but always with same look of “after all nothing really matters”

Does it really matter India?

I fell in you in the most beautiful chaotic serene magical way. I fell in me. I learnt to die like you many times. I learnt to smile, to just be and to have the courage to say I am alive now.

 

Opium

«Je t’aime, plus du tout, plus beaucoup, pas tellement, pas tant que ça, moins qu’hier, plus que demain.»

Frederic Beigbeider, 99 Franc

Savoir qu’il va se marier et recevoir une carte d’invitation c’est vachement différent.

Un grand mariage, l’union éternelle de deux âmes jusqu’à ce que la mort les sépare…

Maman, tu crois au mariage toi ?

Tu crois en l’union divine ?

Voici 45 ans avec papa…

La fidélité ça dure ?

C’est quoi l’amour maman ? Est-ce la passion ?

La passion déchire.

La passion c’est le trac d’une feuille blanche.

La passion ça dégrade.

La passion c’est ce creux au fond de l’estomac…

La passion c’est les dessins, les couleurs qui dansent, les peintures qui s’envolent pour laisser des traces sur notre tablier blanc.

C’est l’opium dans mes veines… C’est au delà de la joie, c’est de l’euphorie.

C’est l’ivresse…

C’est l’état d’âme errant.

C’est ne jamais fermer les yeux.

C’est la quête de nouvelles intensités à chaque instant.

C’est manger sans arrêter,

C’est être affamé à tout instant.

Vouloir encore plus,

Vouloir voler au delà des nuages,

Et puis …

Chuter, tomber, se tracasser, se dégrader, ressentir le trou dans l’estomac, ne pouvoir dormir…

C’est quand les larmes  baignent notre visage…

C’est un cercle qui tourne et nous fait tourner pour ne prendre plus conscience du temps…

C’est se fondre dans le néant et puis s’effacer.

Maman, la passion est-ce une addiction ?

Pourquoi ne pourrai-je aimer comme les grands ?

Je ne veux pas dessiner. Je veux juste me reposer au coin de tes bras.