Existential Ruminations ~

A frustrated middle-aged youth
A disgusted new-born adult
A young lady with little disperesed grey hairs
Coming out of her scarf
Shadows of wrinkles upon her forehead
Half smiling to the awkward being before her.
A still figure behind the dusty spots on her mirror
Her eyes staring back at her
Her eyelashes foggy under her heavy monotonous breathing
She clutches her heart with a sweaty palm
She tilts her head mocking that strange reflection
Ever so strange !
Do I know you ?
Yes !
I'm 5 years old
I'm a chubby little girl
Running with my boyish hair
With my tiny sticky thighs
My hands smeared with candy and cheap chocolate
Biting lollipops with my crooked teeth
I was happy
I didn't know Regret.

I'm 8 years old
I'm a left-handed little rebel
Designing dresses for my headless barbies
Drawing shapeless forms in my coloring book
Writing nonsensical animal short stories
Proud of my sweet nothings
I didn't know Reward.

I'm 11 years old
I'm a nasty mischievous pre-adolescent
Petting stray "Arab" bony dogs
Throwing grapes on evil neighbors
Sheltering dirty kittens in a small box
Sharing my Aid meat with my dog

I didn't know Unkindness
I didn't know Indifference
I didn't heed consequences
I didn't care for "accepted" girly behavior
Pretty little girls didn't like me
The rough girl with an attitude
The pet hoarder
The still-chubby kid with a weird sense of fashion
Book-sniffing in a distant corner
I didn't know Conformity

I'm 17 years old
Eyes shining behind twisted glasses
Wearing over-sized T-shirts
Dancing to senseless Bollywood songs
Fascinated by stupid rom-coms
Roses and rainbows and never-ending loves
I didn't know masked affections
and loveless "I love you's"

I'm 20 years old
I'm an odd lady in the making
With angry black curls
Humming classical music tunes
Noone hums them with me
Cause they're old and uncool
Just wordless music and me ..
I did know Art
That Art is free
And so is me.

I'm 25 years old
Sleep-walking through adulthood
Thrust into these repeated patterns of existence
Bumpy journeys into sameness, unpaid bills,
Scattered papers on a rusty desk
Adulthood is marked by papers ..
By reluctant compromises
By scary normality

The little carefree self is entrapped
The wicked rebel is tamed
The adult wins the battle of souls
Walking drowsily down a common path
Drooling over trivialities
Treading on his sweet peculiarities
And his secret dear-diary, unrecognized
Most intimate passions ..

The Influence of Anxiety ~

Writers are continuously seized by a throbbing urge to write; weather abruptly by a sudden touch of inspiration, or deliberately upon an important event in their lives, or .. upon an aching unfathomable feeling that needs to be worded. Perchance it is love or sadness .. or both. Writers can relate to these fits of the heart.

However, this inward tumult does not always result in writing as it is expected.  The past cripples their drives and harness their artistic flow. It is a concept called “The Anxiety of Influence”; the fear that everything we write or experience has been written and experienced before, and this fear takes over a writer’s soul and filter his\her ideas.

In my writing experience, insignificant as it is, I recall many times when I felt stifled in front of my computer at night; was this idea mentioned before ? Is this image illustration trivial or mainstream ? Are these lines ridiculously worn out ?

The Anxiety of Influence feeds on these internal wonderings and the idea that past literary glories are present failures if repeated.

I came to realize, however, that there is no such thing as repetition in literature or any form of Art for that matter.

Writing is the fruit of intimate feelings, of personal ponderings .. And because words can never wholly describe what we experience as human beings, ideas and images can never be reiterated. Texts may hold some resemblance to each other, but the feelings that culminated in their production are so wonderfully and subtly different.

It is what I like to call the Influence of Anxiety. The soul of any writer creates and annihilates, chases an evanescent idea, struggles to depict an eerie landscape, a scent, the touch of a hand, the taste of a kiss, the eyes of a stranger … The head  is a battlefield of words, disordered ideas and piled-up images .. The heart speaks conflicting emotions and inexplicable perplexities. His entire being agonizes to produce “The truest sentence” of it all.

What I want to say is that the journey that any writer goes through to give birth to his text is what makes it eternally unique. The palpitations of his heart, his uncertainties, his frustration, his constant un-creation of words are what renders very original and very specific to its creator.

The text, like Love, is a feeling .. Perhaps the most sincere feeling ever so nakedly and fearlessly exposed .. And like all feelings, we try to capture it albeit we know that it’s uncatchable. We think that we are able to see similarities between texts, but our eyes deceive us so …  a metaphor can recall another, an image can summon its root in other writings, that is true .. 

However the experience of the pre-word, the struggle of the pre-idea, the musings of the pre-image can never be repeated, translated or truly detected.

That is the reason why I believe that each text is enigmatically singular .. Diverse and particular like Human feelings, like Human loves ..

To partially employ F.Scott Fitzgerald’s words:” There are all kinds of “texts” in this world, but never the same “text” twice ..”    

The Other Side of Love ~

She was that girl on the other side of Love

Her radical heart falls for destructiveness

She rushed like a little girl into rosary illusions

With an eager pace, with that thirsty half smile

Enchanted by half-cares, by glossy small talks

By pseudo-promises, and fickle attachments

So unloved, yet she loves so …

Her heart-breaks became redundant rituals

Of self-deceptions and phony intimacies

She was the girl on the other side of Love

 Hopeful in her numbness ..

Dreamy despite her thwarted fantasies  

Her heart-failures …

A Tale through - The Symphony Within ~

                                               Ode To My Violin

(Photo Credit: Hamza Butt)

They say that the violin is the most human of all instruments ...  Wordless it is, but it can reach the deepest realms of the human inner landscape …It can also portray the human being’s journey through a wilderness, through Life itself …

When we first touch a violin, we are stepping into an enigmatic wilderness where anything and everything is expected … Our attempt to locate an eery note on a black fretless fingerboard is similar to our continuous attempts to locate ourselves in a dark and mysterious wilderness …

 It almost appears like our consistant trials to find ourselves in life and discover our special spot on the universe.

The note escapes us at first, just like our vision becomes blurry at some point in life. Approaching a violin is approaching Life …

When we make those scratchy sounds, those painful first mistakes, we are experiencing our first wounds in a wilderness, our first slurs, unfortunate falls and mosquito bites … We lose our way, we stumble and we fall into a pit, perhaps like mistakenly touching a lower string …

All these mishaps seem to be a lot like our failures, disappointments, wrong turns, plot twists and clumsy decisions in our existence on earth …

We humans often make bad decisions because Life presents us with choices, challenges and possibilities that leave our minds in wonder and hesitation; Just like when we are lost amid a hostile forest and we need to choose a direction that might lead us to the safe shore …

Its roads are dim, hidden and ominous. Its bushes are dense and scary, its awe-inspiring trees are impregnated with danger.

 These roads are reminiscent of the multiple paths of Life … And this image calls to our minds the four long strings that constitute a violin.

Each string encapsulates a number of notes and these notes are translated into unique and distinct sounds … We get grave and deep sounds if we choose an upper string and softly lyrical sounds if we choose one of the lower strings.

The melodies we produce are the outcome of our choices in Life, of that particular road in the wildness … They can be beautiful, rich and heart-warming or cold, vacant and mechanical … The musical shades that color our days …

However, this wilderness does not remain forever hostile … A rigid earth needs constant care, it requires daily efforts to blossom, it needs to be sowed with love in order to reap beauty and harmony …

This is how we proceed in Life, it gets more familiar, gentler and clearer as we carry on our existence, we begin to understand it, to undress it and to embrace it. Isn’t this how we build a precious bond with the violin ?

The farther we go upon those strings, the more comfortable we get in our skin touching that wooden piece of magic … We acquire deeper knowledge and we sink into intimacy with our instrument …

As we gain more wisdom advancing in Life, we become almost one with the violin when getting closer to the bridge, our final stop …

And that good old wilderness is not that wild anymore; it is soothing, therapeutic, loving and abundant. 

This humble piece of writing was inspired by Hamza Butt, a dear fellow Pakistani violinist. 

In-betweenness ~

She is a girl in her early twenties

 The roaring twenties

But they want to tame her

They say “You are a big girl, act like it”

Thing is “She’s not a girl, neither a woman”

Funny how a Britney Spears old song crossed her mind that day

It wasn’t a dying thought; it was Illumination coming her way …

She paused for a moment, trying to frame what suddenly hit her

It wasn’t an afterthought, a vision, a random image or a déjà-vu

It was a new conviction, a strong belief that seized her entire being

Her eyes probed the blank space

Her body muscles loosened

She sat on the edge of her bed

Carelessly playing with the strings of her violin

Repeating to the empty room: “I’m not a girl, neither a woman”

As if she’s trying to compose an ode to celebrate her liminal self

Her “Liminal Self” .. 

They taught her that liminality is a miserable state of being

That inbetweenness is a lost soul, a faceless body,

A heart that wants to belong somewhere …

Thing is, she didn’t want to belong anywhere

She is in-between , she is unlabeled, she is free

She’s not a girl, neither a woman

She’s this and she’s that

She’s both and she’s not ..

She wants to sing with her scratchy voice

And play with her hair

She wants to sleep with her mouth opened

And her hands spread on the pillow like an angel

She once believed in that, she wants to believe again

She wants to wear unmatching socks and giggle with her friends

She wants to dance barefoot to her favorite song

And hide under a tent made of tiny pillows

She wants to make random decisions while she still can

“She’s not a girl, neither a woman”

She’s a light essence, strange yet familiar

Innocent and wise, clumsy and classy

A little girl in high heels 

A rebel with a black hair and bitten nails

A shy girl with granny glasses

A smartypants kid making faces to strangers

She’s this and that

She’s all and she’s nothing ..

She keeps revolutionary books

She wakes at dawn to write poetry

She plans her week on sticky notes

She bites her lips when she gets an idea

She keeps a teddy bear when studies

She’s almost a woman with the heart of a child

She’s this and that

She’s all and she’s nothing

“She not a girl, neither a woman”

She holds fierce thoughts

But she quickly blushes

She gasps when she cries

Her lips quiver when she lies

She lifts her head up into the air when she laughs

She grins when she wins an argument

She’s a so called “young woman”

 But her younger self refuses to leave 

She’s this and that

She’s all and she’s nothing

"She’s not a girl, neither a woman” ..

In limbo, she wallows in carelessness

She rejoices in her inbetweenness

She’s uncategorized…

“To define is to limit”, her Oscar Wilde whispers in her ear

She is limitless, fearless, unbridled, unbounded

She can go on a random road trip with her retarded friends

She can stay up all night re-watching her favorite show

She can have breakfast at lunch, take a nap into the evening

 Go for a run at night, do laundry while dancing to music of her neighbors’ party

She can discover the guide-less corners of her country

She can give free hugs in the street to make a point

She can learn a new language, pick up a new instrument

 Dream a new dream, set new goals ..

She’s undecidable, irreconcilable, uncertain, uncontrollable

 She’s happy because she’s unclassified

She’s strong because she’s undefined

She’s Invincible because she’s self-sufficient

She is not bound to state or a person

She responds to her impulse  

She follows her heart

She acts upon her nature ..

She’s unthinkable, unpredictable, undefiable , unstoppable

She wants to age is no regrets

“Now is good”, now is the only possibility

She cherishes her liminality

Because liminality is not a loss 

 Alienation or estrangement

Liminality is a soul found,

 Innocence celebrated, memories made …

In that old negation, she has found her elation

“She’s not a girl, neither a woman” ...

She Is Made Of Music ~

She slipped from under the warm pile of her bed sheets, for once she was reluctant to  wallow in her daily ritual of lazy and empty mornings. The wooden floor was cold under her feet, but she did not walk on her toes as was her ordinary girly habit. She marched steadily with a shadow of a smile almost touching her cheeks. She had a confident air that day, her eyes wore the color of morning and her skin wore the color of summer. Her brown hair embraced the breezy light as she stepped into her small balcony. It smelled of bitter coffee and old books. She remembered the night before, expectation kept her awake till the aurora light started to beam.

 Her eyes examined the street before her as if watching a surreal painting. The city seems tired and  drowsy, slowly ushered towards its daily demise. It will rise again, but the idea was not exciting. Every morning, it witnesses a battle of souls; the safety to remain in one’s shell,  or the risk of toiling to no avail. Routine, like a subtle monster, gently coaxing the moving bodies to settle in their cubicles to make money and produce a standardized brand of happiness.
  

Her young soul acquired the habit of reflecting upon these old-new miseries. She had an eye For the underlying pains of commonality. However, this time, her whole being was directed towards the promise of a sunny afternoon, of a new love, of holding hands without fear of letting go.

She was made of disappointments, but molded to dream again after every fall. She was familiar with the act of crumbling to the floor; it took stages and phases foreign to medical explanations. The naked eye only beholds weary muscles and bent figures. It is the labor of the spirit. Healing makes the spirit ancient.

 First, she becomes numb; she sits on her bed for hours, her head resting on her bent knees, her eyes staring at nothing .. then she suddenly closes in focus as if listening to a soothing lullaby stemming from earth .. she tries to word her pain into some fragmented lines on a rugged paper, but letters soon desert her .. It is not easy to capture a feeling, depiction is betrayal, her hand loosens the pen .. There is a peculiar symphony of sadness that only the miserable can hear, notes so furtively played at the back of her mind, she can see their harmony with her mind’s eye, she can feel  their relevance with her resigned pulse .. At last, she crawls into herself and listens to the symphony that cries her being .. She survived.

Now is Good ~

« New year .. New me » is a phrase I come across every day on the internet, when the year starts crawling to its end ; People annually indulge in false optimism and publically manifest their will to improve themselves .. just as soon as the new year begins, not now. “Now” is not “good” like the movie suggests, now is messy , now is wicked, now is their minds in too late.

Inactivity is a very active state of mind, a decision that we live with every day, it lives through us, out of us , and thrives at our expense. Do we really want this ? No, we rather exhaust ourselves with loathsome obligations than go ahead and do something that makes our hearts pound, and our souls flourish and sing.

 What about our ambitions and aspirations ? No, we are a preoccupied race, we are busier than bees; we have duties, fully-scheduled weeks, pre-designed lives that suck the life out of us. We rather wake up “bright and early for [our] daily races, going nowhere ..” as go the lyrics of the song “Mad World”.

We are mad not to live now, “live immediately” like Seneca advises. But no, We leave the things that we love till after exams, after graduation, after marriage .. till time becomes untimely and our dreams undone ..

“Now is Good”, do not wait for the next year to create the new you. Now, be brave and say that long-awaited I love you, that reluctant I am sorry .. burst out, without thinking, and I say the things that have long been heaping upon your chest ..

Start that diet already ! .. Finish that wickedly inaccessible book .. Write that beautifully abstract short story that was long spinning melodiously in your head .. Make that damn delicious looking cake you saw on the internet with the secret ingredient .. Think of ways to concretize that dream project of yours for dreams do not exist in notebooks .. Start practicing your passion on a daily basis, you’re never too old to learn a new language or pick up a new instrument or embark on a new dream  ..  

The new You is up to you to make .. Time does not make you, it just pours down quietly like a stream, in one direction , you mould it to your liking .. You choose to live or just exist .. Now is Good ..