Monday 19 July 2010

A Wedding..

Today I called an old dear friend. I haven't call her for more than a year . The past few days I felt like I really need to contact her and hear her voice. Tell her how much I miss her and remind her with our days together.

Back when I first went to UAE and for many years that followed, she was my only friend. We met in a country that is not ours and faced being strangers together. She was from Jordan and I am Egyptian and I was changing schools a lot so I never had a real friend at that time..not one.. until I knew her, my dear Neighbor. My life became different after that. I started to like being in UAE and that is when I knew how it is like to have a friend.. a real friend for whom you share everything with.. secrets.. problems.. food.. good moments and bad moments..even trivial moments.. We d adventures and we lived long long moments of begging our parents to leave us together for "Just another hour". She was my childhood friend and a lifetime friend.. but I left..

I went back to Egypt and she went back to Jordan.. the last time I' saw her was when I was in my fathers' car lifting me to the airport. I remember her standing in-front of our building and I'm watching her as the car moves. I kept looking and she and the building that shared all these moments are getting smaller and smaller until they both vanished. This was our last moment. I remember that from the day I knew her, travelling back to Egypt was one of my hardest things ever. Not because I am heading back home but because I was leaving her.. sometimes for months and other times for years.. When I return back, it is like I never left. The last time I left was the hardest.. I knew it was my last time..

I am here in Egypt now.. I had new friends.. great friends.. best friends... but she was always different... she was and still is my childhood friend..

When i felt this need of calling her.. when I felt like it is really urgent.. when I felt like I must call her especially today not knowing why... I finally heard her voice again... and when she told me that next Sunday is her Wedding.. When she told me that she is now trying her wedding dress.. When she told me to come re she is sure that I can't... When all that happened, I remembered all that and cried.. I remembered you my old friend... I remembered you and god only knows how much I need to be there with you..share this very special moment to add it to our moments together..but I can't...and it is killing me....

Saturday 8 May 2010

Away..In my little tent..

When I was a little girl, a tiny 4 years-old little girl. I was having a redicilous dream. We had this toys store next to where we live in UAE. It was huge full of every delightful toy that a kid can ever imagine, but I was always paying attention to this little tent. A tent that you can structure that resembles a small house for kids.

Every time we go to this store, I always go there and keep looking at it, I remember the feeling when I look at it...so warm and so safe.. I remember that I was sometimes sneak to this store with my friends just to go and watch it.. For a reason I cannot explain, I never actually asked my parents to get it for me until 3 years later...and finally I got it...A little yellow and red tent with a door. The day I bought it was a good day in my life.

I kept it until we get back to Egypt where I set it on a corner of the house that nobody usually pass by. Although it was tiny, I added all my favorite things inside it. I put my favorite books, teddy bears, toys, cassette player with my favorite songs (I managed to add electricity to it!), added a blanket inside it.. I even put a small lamp to be able to light it when it gets dark..

As time passes by, this place turned to be my only destination when I need to be away. That's when I go there, close the door, light up the lamp and cry, fall asleep or start reading a book. Everything seems far away. My whole world turns to be inside this lightened tent and everything else is outside..I remember how safe I feel when I find that dark is everywhere except inside my little tent that protects me from whatever is outside. Protects me from other people, bad days and from regretting my silly decisions.

Time passed and we decided to move from our home, I was 17 then. While moving, my little tent was disassembled and never assembled again. I guess everybody assumed that I was too old for this tent so it disappeared somewhere and I never saw it again. Maybe they were right..I was too old for a kids tent but I wasn't that old for having a place to hide in for some time.

I'm writing this because today I thought that I am missing my little tent. I miss this small place that barely fits me and I miss lighting the lamp inside it and feeling like a little shiny spot in the middle of no where. I miss it and couldn't find it, that why I opened this page and started talking about how it felt being away, in my little lost tent..

Thursday 20 November 2008

To the land of dreams

Have you ever felt that desperate need to talk about nothing??..to go from topic to topic and say a thousand different words unrelated to each other without being criticized??? To start talking and stop in the middle of a topic and start another one...to forget all grammar rules and all sentence compositions and just talk...talk with passion and feel that somebody is listening and -what is important- is understanding and is happy to hear your meaningless words???

I'm a talker actually..and by talker I mean that I can start a 100 topics and talk about them until somebody stops me.. this causes headache to people sometimes actually but this is not the type of talking I'm describing tonight... ...It's weird that -lately- I always feel that emptiness in myself while talking....I feel nothing...not sad...not happy..not amused..not bored...I feel empty...so empty and I'm never used to that feeling... maybe because I always used to talk with a strong passion and to always express myself..but I now wonder, how can I express that emptiness in me...

The hardest feeling a human can have is to feel like he is loosing himself in his path to gain something...he starts to struggle in life and do everything he has to do and suddenly find that he is doing things he had to do and forget in his way all things that he love to do...all his old plans and his dreams that he used to draw and paint in his mind everyday...he finds suddenly that he became the perfect machine in a world of other machines telling him that he is making the right choice by being one of them...

M was that machine I know.. in the old times M had the strangest ideas...Ideas that were never accepted by other machines.. They were always telling him that he is living in the land of dreams and he should be more realistic..he should join their path and be just like them because this is simply the right thing to do... M was never convinced... he thought that if his ideas lived through him..he will be very happy and he will be someone special...

At the beginning he ignored other machines ideas because he refused to be just another machine going on the normal way... he started to build his own land of dreams and have a different life...but it seems that ignoring the surroundings is not that easy... Other machines started to push him...they started to tell him that he is not joining them not because he want to but because he don't know how to be like them.. that was true actually...M always knows that he can't do or be like them because their life was so complicated to him..It was so intersecting and so full of details and complicated relations and he never learned to handle such complicated environment...he was living in the land where good means white and bad means black...he never considered the gray color...never considered that inside each of us this is the ultimate goodness and the ultimate evil and it's our morals that control how we use both...M was always a child living in the land of grown-ups and he never learned to be a grown-up like them..always looked to other machines that they are doing things not in his ability and he can never learn to do what they do...he never trusted his ability and never confessed that he may be like them one day...he was happy with the world he created to himself...

The sad thing is that M couldn't fight for too long.. Other machines couldn't handle him being so different and also felt that maybe what he is doing is wrong.. after all, it is hard to think that all these machines are wrong and he is right...and one day, he decided to join them...he thought of it as an adventure that maybe useful...In any of his steps, he was still believing that he is not like them and he will never be..he stepped into their world as the child who is stepping into his school for the first time...he was afraid -that feeling that never left him- and always looking at other machines as the machines who knows what to do...he never thought that he is the professional machine who knows what he is doing...he never thought that what he is doing is what should be done... he never felt that he is doing a good job...always felt that his work is missing something and always felt that other machines know more than him and can do better than him .. he never felt perfect in that world and never felt fit but he decided to take the adventure up till the end...

Each day he was getting busy more than the previous day and his dreams started to fade as time goes on..Not because he let them go but because he didn't have time even to think that they once existed...day by day he started to look just like them and he started to lose himself in the way...he started to lose everything that was different in him...he started to lose his world that he created..the world that he always felt perfect in forsake of the world of grown-ups...some times -rarely actually- he opens a window that leads him to his old world and look at it..but he don't have much time to think about what he looks and what he have missed...he just opens the window and close it fast before any of the other machines see him...

M started to feel empty. Just like me. So empty and started to lose passion in his words and his life...he started to miss simple things like the sun that he never had time to look to or enjoy...he thought that this is the moment where he will be a grown-up and where he will really fit to the machines world. M stopped for a moment. Although he didn't have time to stop for that moment but he decided that this is enough for him... he decided to pack and go back to his faded dreams trying to catch them before they completely disappear... he thought that the land of grown-ups have enough machines to keep it going without him -after all he wasn't perfect enough in it- but the land of dreams is only living because of him and without him it will disappear and he will never be able to catch it again...

M was so sad to leave the land of machines..after all, he knew some machines that he really loved and respected...he also learned from his trip that other machines are not so bad as he thought before...he found machines with heart and machines with morals.. he met machines that listened to him and respected him...some machines didn't get quite convinced of his ideas, however, they listened and they respected it. He knew that his trip will be unforgettable to him because he learned so much from them.

While leaving M thanked his friend machines hoping the best to them and hoping that their friendship will last forever and he went back to his land to save what is remained..

This was the story of M..luckily he found a happy ending to his life..he was brave to make that ending...I wonder...will any of us be strong to make that decision one day?? will we be able to fill that emptiness in our lives and days???

Tuesday 26 August 2008

The butterfly effect

Have you ever thaught of the butterfly effect in your life??.. Don't worry, I will not assume that you know what does it mean... I will also be generous and save you the effort and time of searching and tell what wikipedia will tell you...



The "Butterfly effect" is an expression that is used to express how really tiny changes at any given time and place can produce a reallyyyy huge and dramatic effect at another time or place... They always give the example of a butterfly flapping wings that can produce a tornado some place else...It is part of the "Chaos Theory" if you ever heard about it... I don't believe in the "Chaos theory" because at some of its points it contradicts my beliefs but I found this "Butterfly effect" very interesting idea to think about....



Everyone of us has his decisions that act as his own butterfly effect in life...decisions that when taken changes everything after it... Maybe at the time we were taking these decisions, we didn't really consider how much will they affect our life after that...how these decisions will direct us to another path and another life...maybe better and maybe not...

* * * * * * * * *
My father was graduated from faculty of science, special physics department. It has been always his dream.. He then started to work beside preparing his master degrees.. he was moving forward to get his masters then his phd. One day when he was going home after work he saw this paper hanging on the wall. They needed people in his specialization in the army. He never thaught of joining it at anyday of his life before that day. When I ask him today, he never finds a real answer why he decided that day to apply.. he just did it... he was always keen to try things. He was accepted and joined the army..His life was changed that day... Our life changed that day... From being a professor in college as he always planned he ended up to be a Brigadier in the Presidency of the republic (Ryaset Elgomhoreyya)...I keep on thinking how a hanging paper on the wall had this butterfly effect on our life...

* * * * * * * * *
This is a story of a woman I know. She used to go to spend week ends and holidays at her uncles' home. He was so conservative in his life and he never allows women in the house to open the door for anyone when he is at home. Oneday, she was visiting him as usual, he was out and his two sons too, the door knocked and it was just her and her uncles' wife in the house. She went to open the door, it was some guy who was asking about her uncle. She told him that he is not here and that she don't know where will he come. But that guy kept on asking her many questions in a way that made her suspicious. So, she closed the door in his face. Somehow that guy liked her attitude and the next day he proposed to her. They are married now but they never thaught at any moment how was that simple action -Opening a door to a stranger and then closing it in his face :D- affected their life. She could've missed opening the door for any reason...don't you think that this is their butterfly flapping wings action??

* * * * * * * * *

Many examples run in to my mind.. actually if you thaught of it, you will find that nearly everything you do in your life acts as you butterfly flapping wings effect...Maybe that's why I get terrified when I have to decide anything in my life.. any tiny little decision scares me to death and I always try to avoid it... because I know that the time I'm making the decision is the time I'm drawing a different path in my life... I always keep on thinking... am I really drawing now my right path??? am I making it right??? am I now making my wishes come true or I'm doing some silly mistake???..

The problem is that you will never know how good or bad your decision was... You will just take it wishing that you are doing the right thing...

Just wishing...

Tuesday 16 October 2007

Hard Times

"Hard Times" is the name of one of the most popular novels written by Charles dickens. I never liked his works actually. He shocks you with the reality in his novels. He always gives me the impression that either I'm living in a dark world or in a world that is turning to be one.

But, to the say the truth. I like the titles of his novels. They always seem inspiring. Despite the content, the titles are always attracting to me. Sometimes I pick one of his writings and start reading just because the title seems too good to be left without knowing what is beside it.

I remember that I used to listen to that song. It was so good that I had that dream that I really need to see the movie for which that song was made. but when I saw it, I couldn't complete it to the end. Seems that I have a really strange taste because that movie was really popular. but I never liked it.

But anyway, I remembered Charles dickens because of the title: "Hard times". Because everyone of us has his own hard times. Scenes in your life that you always remember and you try hard to keep it in your memory. Times that are always kept stronger while other moments in life start to fade as time goes on.

About "Hard times" I'm talking today. Maybe because I think this is a good way of documenting them. Times that I don't like to forget. Although they are hard but they mean something. Without these times and these days I wouldn't be me. Good or bad, I owe these times the existence of me as I am.

*****
30 August, 2000

I am fifteen now and I am on my way to the airport to leave Dubai forever. I first went there when I was just a 4 years old little child. I never liked it in the beginning because I was so alone in a very strange environment. No friends, no common language, nothing that I'm familiar with.

But today is different. Today, and while the car is moving away from the place I used to live. I see these girls standing in front of the building. I see there picture getting smaller and smaller as the car moves. Those were the friends of my life. I knew them from the first month I came to this country and ever since we have been together. We made everything together, we ate, we played, we slept, we dreamed together and we grow up together. But now, now I have to leave all this behind and return.

I remember that once we heard that they are going to reconstruct the building the we are living in -we were neighbours- which means that each one of us will go to some place else. We started to make paintings on the wall describing our life here so that other people would know about us. What happened is that the building stayed and we were the ones who left.

There picture disappeared now.. I can see nothing but the street running as if it is afraid to be caught. Why time goes so fast when you just need it to freeze. but this is useless now. It is not just about them. It's about the place that connected us. The place that I used to have a life in. They always say that "to live is different than to have a life". I had a life in that place that I couldn't ever dream of. I cannot imagine that this place will never belong to me again. My room will never be mine. If I passed by this place one more time, I will never have the right to knock the door and enter because it will be someone Else's'

Now I reached the airport, and I'm stepping my last steps in this country. It's hard what travelling can do to people. You always feel divided. I never imagined my life away from Dubai. But in the same time I had this feeling towards my home land. That feeling that always comes to you in some special days and occasions. These days have another taste in your home land when you really need to be surrounded by your people. If I had the option, I will never be able to choose. I always felt that my home was divided to two equal splits, each part was thrown in some different place on earth.

Good for me that I was travelling alone, I wouldn't have had any explanation for the tears that are dropping from me like as if it is raining. Tears are relieving, I always believed in this but I don't like to cry in front of people. But today is different, today is and will be one of my hard times. Let the world feel it...

******

Too long post. If it was me who started reading it, I doubt that I would have finished it. As I said before, people enjoy talking about themselves. That's why blogs are every where. Each one thinks that he suffered too much and decides to write his experience so that everyone in the world would know about his victories not knowing that he is just an ordinary person who suffers like any other one, maybe less than any other one. Why would I be different??

Sunday 22 July 2007

A whole new world

"A whole new world" is the name of the song in "Aladdin" Disney movie. It was sung when Jasmine tried the magical carpet for the first time and flied with it up to the clouds... she was very fascinated with the scenes so much that she started to sing that song... One of my favorite songs actually...

We all like from time to time to have our own special new world... To escape from the cold tough reality... away from this very complex world to another simple but beautiful one...but we are always back...It's just that we need these moments to recharge and be able to stand and face this world again...To continue our journey in peace....

The way of recharging is different from person to person... but it always gives the required results...

My grand father had many brothers and sisters... most of them died before him..Each time, when one of them pass away... after the funeral he used to go to the cinema to watch a movie... a very strange act... But somehow I can understand him... I myself uses the cinema as my gate to this other world...when you go there...and when the lights turn off...your troubles just seem so far away... so tiny to be noticed...you travel through place and time to another world... you live another problems that are solved at the end...that's the magic of it...

It doesn't really help...It doesn't give you a magical solution for your problem... But it definitely makes u stronger and more capable of dealing with these problems... It gives you a backdoor that you can always go to when your life gets harder...

Why I'm writing this... I don't know... When I was a little kid... We had a little brown spot on the ceiling of my grandmothers’ apartment... A tiny one... my old sister used to tell me that this spot is a way to another world...a happy world that has anything you desire...toys...chocolates..gardens with beautiful flowers...everything...when I asked here how can we enter it...she told me that I must have the key.... probably she was telling me so to encourage me to search for my closets key that I had lost... unfortunately, I never found it..

I got older...And she stopped telling me about that other world..But after that...each time I go to this apartment... I look to that spot and I think...could it be really a way to a whole new world???

Sunday 6 May 2007

The happiest days in my life

"My graduation party is next wednesday... My graduation party is next wednesday... My graduation party is next wednesday... My graduation party is next wednesday"

I kept on telling myself this simple fact... A fact that I simply cannot believe.... you know these events that shine in your life.. events that you always remember.. always keep memories of.. you know.. events like you being born... your first steps... your first school.. your first day at college...definitly my graduation party is one of those events.. the sad thing is that it's not a "first" event.. instead.. it's a "last"...

I've always divided my significant moments in to two types....

"First" moments, which is the happy type of my memories.. it always refers to your first steps in whatever what... It's a new begining...always full of hope and great expectations...

"Last" moments are the sad ones... my last day in school.. last day before leaving my second home land.. and so on...

Generally.. I never liked parties... they always refer to a "last" event.. birthday parties shows the last day of a lost year... graduation parties is your last assemble as one group... when you find everyone smiling and telling you "Good bye" at the end.. at that time.. u know u will never see most of them again....

But anyway.. we all try to document our moments in everyway.. pictures.. videos... even the good memory you keep in your mind is a kind of documentation.. to remember this moment always as a happy one..

have you ever opened you albums.. looked in your pictures and thaught that "this was the happiest days of my life"... most probable you will be wrong... because at the time when u were taking these pictures... your feelings were different... we just remember from those pictures the smily faces looking at us... we never remember our real feelings then, which maybe totally different than what u see in the picture... do u remember your smiling face looking at the camera at your first day in school???... do u remember your feelings then???.... do u remember how afraid you was entering such a big world for the first time???... no... you just remember your happy face..

but you don't care so much... all what u care of is to just keep the good memory...

That's what I will try to do next wednesday.. I don't like parties.. yes.. I feel like my graduation party will be more like a goodbye party... this gives me a sad feeling...

But what I'm going to do is to just keep the good memories of that day so that maybe after ten or twenty years.. me too... open my album.. look at my graduation party pictures.. smile and say: " these were the happiest days in my life"... what do u think??