3 weeks since my last confession

Realized that when you google my name (yes, I google myself), I get most of the entries I have been blogging - alongside the patent I filed, the Entrepreneur show, my IDC report on the IT Services market, a summary of my novel, and my linkedin profile on being a Knowledge Manager/Tech Writer.

I realize I am a google mutt- no real specialization, all over the place- (really ?!) with this blog and my poetry- and really just a collection of things that normally do not go together. I like it, it is eclectic.

The google images are even more eclectic - one a suit, and the other wearing my turquoise bellydancing outfit-- ah --

So, here I am. It has been about 3 weeks since my last confession.

Not a lot to talk about. Have a friend staying with me- I am doing my best to be a good hostess (pudding snack) but how I do love time alone - I have become so very anti-social. No, I was always anti-social but now I am just old enough and wise enough to let people know so I don't secretly resent them and create uncomfortable emotional atmospheres. Yes, I can do that.

Have been doing healing. Meditation. Still on the paleo-diet, still not eating sugar but rarely a craving for it anymore. I think my skin looks better as a result. I think I am a little thinner. It is good.

Reading about Syria. Trying not to cry. I did cry the other day. Translated something from Arabic (using Google translator because when I try to read Arabic, it usually doesn't make any sense to me until someone reads it for me with the right accents in the right places, Arabic is so complicated, like reading music) ... anyway, translated a status message written in Arabic from my dear friend whom I have not spoken to for almost 2 months now and it said :

If someone gives you a false reason to leave, give them a hundred thank yous for not staying.

Of course, since this was written in Arabic (and he knows how hopeless I am in Arabic), it was probably not directed at me. However, since I have not spoken to him so long and that was the only thing I have seen or heard of him in months, it made me cry all day. Not cry because I am feeling sorry for myself, because I have done that before, but cry because not to cry was an impossible. Just impossible. Incredible. I even re-directed my thoughts and my body was still sad.

Anyway, changing the subject. Not inspired to poetry lately. A certain someone whom I shall not name is pretty much out of my system. Thank God.

Moving on ...

Letters to Nizar

Am a very big fan of Nizar Qabbani, the Syrian poet- I always knew of his political poetry, but never of his romantic, erotic poetry. I recently even once wrote a love poem to him- it was an accident- an accident of sorts. A long story. Perhaps one day I will tell it -- when the heat from my cheeks has cooled.

How do I describe my attachment to Syria and all things Syrian ? I am nothing but an exiled pseudo Palestinian who has lived in the US for most of her life, grasping at anything that would make me more like those Syrian Arabs or those Palestinian Arabs or those Lebanese Arabs - those magical Arabs from Al Sham, whose language eludes me and whose minds I never entered and whose hearts were always closed to mine. I am in love with Al Sham but that love is unrequited. How sexy the men! How beautiful the women! How lovely the sentiments expressed between the sexes - all of those rules that are meant to bring the society to a complete whole - to ensure the cycle of life - to ensure the perpetuation of the culture. How all of that has eluded me. How it has my whole life.

I wonder if Nizar, if he were alive today, would have it is in heart to love me, as I am, a woman who has lost her language and her heart. I believe he would. Perhaps he would be able to read the grief in my eyes and love that grief - a poet must love grief or he does not love.

I had a dream that a former lover of mine was underwater. I remember the dream very clearly. I remember he had a camera with him and was desperately trying to take photos of the water - he wanted to get out - he was so tired - I helped him out. I had the dream before the I read the poem by Nizar - the one below - it is so beautiful, it takes my breath away.

Letter From Under The Sea

If you are my friend...
Help me...to leave you
Or if you are my lover...
Help me...so I can be healed of you...
If I knew....
that the ocean is very deep...I would not have swam...
If I knew...how I would end,
I would not have began

I desire you...so teach me not to desire
teach me...
how to cut the roots of your love from the depths
teach me...
how tears may die in the eyes
and love may commit suicide

If you are prophet,
Cleanse me from this spell
Deliver me from this atheism...
Your love is like atheism...so purify me from this atheism

If you are strong...
Rescue me from this ocean
For I don't know how to swim
The blue waves...in your eyes
drag me...to the depths
blue...
blue...
nothing but the color blue
and I have no experience
in love...and no boat...

If I am dear to you
then take my hand
For I am filled with desire...from my
head to my feet

I am breathing under water!
I am drowning...
drowning...
drowning... 

Nizar Qabbani

if your eyes were books

If your eyes were books
I would take each one down--
from high stacks or low-
dust each one off
with love,
handle gently the yellowed pages,
decipher smudged words-
with patience and care,
and memorize each word
as my my magic -
my meaning.

But alas -
I have not seen your eyes
for ages- and cannot read
them -
and
I have even forgotten your
face- and
remember only your kiss.