مِـــنّـــي و إلٓـــــــيّ

لا أدري كم من السنوات مرت منذ آخر خاطرة لي بالعربية 

قد يكون السبب قوة هذه اللغة المذهلة في التعبير عن بعض المشاعر الانسانية كـ "الألم" و "الغضب" و "الحب" بطريقة غير ممكنة بأي لغة اخرى ، و هي بالتالي لغة فاضحة، تجرد الكاتب من اقنعة التعابير المنمقة...

لا يرغب كثير من الكتّاب باظهار ذواتهم الحقيقة من خلال ما يكتبون ، فذلك يجعلهم عرضة للمحاكمة بإجحاف ... لكنها لغتنا الأم على اية حال، و لا يمكننا تخطيها لنكتب بلغة اخرى قبل ان نمنحها شرف الكلمة الأولى.

عندما بدأت بالكتابة كان لدي مفكرة على غلافيها وجهان احدهما ضاحك و الآخر تعيس 

كتبت على الصفحة الأولى "مِنّي و إلّي"

و رحت اخط على صفحاتها اشجاني الطفولية بتعابير واهية ، الارجح انني سأموت ضحكاَ اذا قرأتها الآن..

اتخذت من مفكرتي أنيساَ للّيالي التي قرر النوم الّا يشرفني بالزيارة فيها، و جعلت ما بين دفتيها ملاذي الآمن : لقد كانت مملكتي التي احكم اطرافها بخيالي و أخط حدودها بقلمي.

كنت اشكو اليها ما يزعجني ، و اقص عليها غرابة هذا العالم و لا منطقية ساكنيه ، و نعم المستمع كانت مفكرتي !

أليس من الغريب ان نجد عزائنا في وريقات تصنع من لحاء الاشجار ، وان تكون تلك الشرائح البيضاء افضل صديق و أنبل رفيق قد نحظى به في زمن ندر فيه المستمعون و كثر فيه اللجوجون ؟

الورق يستمع بلا مقاطعة ، يتلقى بصدر رحب رصاص كلماتنا و خدوش اقلامنا، غير مبال بسُمّيَّتها او سذاجتها ...الورق يتسع للكثير الكثير من الاحاسيس ، لكن الاهم ان الورق لا يحاكمنا. إنه يستمع بصمت و تفهم عجيبين يجعلك تفضل صحبته على صحبة الآدميين.

عندما ظننت انني اكتفيت من الكتابة ، اهديت مفكرتي لصديقتي المقربة عند تخرجنا من الثانوية..كانت مسافرة الى بلد اجنبي وأردت ان اعطيها شيئاً يذكرها بي. ولم أجد افضل من ذكرياتي .
سبب آخر دفعني لذلك هو أنني كرهت ان اودع اسراري في خزنة واحدة ؛ مفكرتي كانت تعلم الكثير عني وكان علي ان ابتعد عنها من دون ان امزقها بنفسي...لم يكن بإمكاني التخلص منها بالتأكيد فقد كانت اقرب اصدقائي في وقت من الاوقات و لست شخصاً دنيئاً الى هذه الدرجة لأخون احد اصدقائي، حتى وان كان كائناً غير حي. لذلك فكرت بمشاركتها مع شخص آخر له القدرة على محاكمتي ..
و ماذا ان تمت محاكمتي ؟
كل منا يخفي جانبآ لا يظهره للآخرين و يرغب في ان يدفنه عميقآ حيث لا يرى النور و حيث يفنى شيئاً فشيئاً ..
و لكن من منا فكر في فصل ذلك الجانب و جعله يسافر بعد عناق طويل الى الطرف الآخر من العالم  ؟
انها لفكرة شاعرية ان تفصلك آلاف الاميال عن جزء من ذاتك، من دون ان ينقطع الخيط الذي يربط الجزء بالكل...عندها لن تضطر الى محو جزء لا يتجزء ممن تكون و لن تضطر الى مواجهته ايضاً. انها الطريقة الامثل لتحقيق التوازن بين التقزز من الذات وتقبل الذات.

في ذلك الوقت بدأت ادرك ان مجرد التنفيس عن الغضب من خلال الكتابة ليست افضل الطرق لمواجهة اي مشكلة، ففي النهاية ، طيات دفاترنا مجرد مهربٍ تخيليّ نأوي اليه عندما نكون محاصرين..

بدأت عندها برؤية العالم بمنظار آخر يرى ابعد من الوجهين المتناقضين: السعيد او التعيس. هناك اوجه اخرى..و كلها حقيقية ، اي كلها جميلة ، و كلها اجزاء مني سأرسلها مع كل حبي و تقديري في رحلات حول العالم لأعود لقرائتها بعد ان اصبح شخصاً افضل.. وربما تترقرق دمعة او اثنتان بينما اقلب صفحاتها.

لقد كانت مرحلة من حياتي لا اريد ان اتذكرها و لا اريد ان امحوها ؛ مرحلة يدعونها جهلاَ "أزمة" المراهقة و هي في الحقيقة مجرد موسم عابر من الاعاصير يحدث الكثير من الغبار و الفوضى عند قدومه لدرجة فد تعمينا عن رؤية الحقيقة...

لكن الفوضى ليست سلبية في كليتها ؛ الفوضى تعلمنا ان لا وسيلة للعثور على ذواتنا المدفونة تحتها سوى البدأ بالتنظيف بأنفسنا.

اخبرتني صديقتي بعد ان قرأَت ما اهديته ليها ان العواطف المتجسدة في الكلمات هي اروع هدية يمكن ان تقدمها لأي شخص، لأنها مرآة مصقولة لا تعكس سوى روح كاتبها، مجردة من النفاق.....
كلماتها كانت عميقة جداً لكنني لم ادرك صحتها الا بعد سنوات، بعد ان "عدت الى الحياة"...و بعد انشائي لهذه المدونة ، و التي هي مهداة اليها و الى كل من تعزه نفسي. اهديكم جميعاً اكليل افكاري و زهور كلماتي، كما كتبت في اول تدوينة.

غير انني لم أجرؤ على الكتابة بالعربية منذ أيام المفكرة ، قد يكون السبب انني في عقلي الباطن، خصصت هذه اللغة لفترة احتجت فيها الى كلمات حية ، قادرة على الصراخ بفحوى معانيها، و هي فترة موسم الاعاصير في كياني..

او ربما بسبب احترامي الشديد لهذه اللغة ، مما جعلني اصاب بالرهبة كلما اقدمت على نظم كلمات لا تليق بمستواها، و لكن ها انذا اعود اليها من جديد لأنني لم اعد اخشى ان اظهر روحي من خلال كلماتي.. لقد ولدت من جديد و سأروي قصتي مجردة من كل الاقنعة.

The Old Man And The Sea

On my way from RAK to Sharjah , the bus always passes by the bay. I would abandon all my reading or studying by which I occupy my time during such long trips and fix my eyes at the beach and its dwellers, watching this mesmerizing scenery with great delight : The clear sky, the dark greenesh-blue bay stretching along the road with thousand crystals scattered on its surface in glory, kids running around in thier trunks, little girls gathering shells, mothers unpacking picnic baskets, youngsters playing soft ball with their legs smeared in white.....It's a very warm scene, it reminds me that life is still as amazing and enjoyable as ever , that "الدنيا لسة بخير" despite all the gloom of this world.

But what I enjoy watching the most is this old man seated on a white chair facing the sea. He's always there; I would like to think he has always been there , although I don't know for how many Saturday's he has been pulling his chair to the beach and spending his afternoons in tranquility, just sitting on his chair, not moving, not talking to anyone, not appearing to have any sort of company nor heeding attention to anyone else..It almost looks like he is having a heart-to-heart conversation with the sea and the setting sun, in a language that no one else can understand.

This old man has always intrigued me, the title of Hemingway's novel "The Old Man And The Sea" jumps to my mind whenever i see him (although I've never read the book as I'm not in good terms with Mr. Hemingway's ways), but regardless,

I face a great difficulty in calming this strong urge to stop the driver, leave the bus, abandoning all my plans for that day, and just walk up to this white-haired fellow, and sit next to him on the white sand, not asking him who he was, or why he is always alone, for I don't want to interrupt his important dialogue with the blushed horizon ; I just want to see what he sees.
I need to sketch this scenery and post it here so whoever is reading this can understand the depth and beauty of the sight of this solitary creature finding company and consolation where nobody else can find.

The Lone Tree

Have you ever been to a place and thought "I came here before, I know it. I can almost remember it",
when, in fact , It was the first time you went there ? Or have you looked at a stranger and swore that you knew them, even made conversation and became acquaintances, except that you didn't ?

Deja vu is a mysterious occurance indeed : Why would your subconscious mind pull such a prank on you, making you think, falsely, that you have already experienced a specific incident ?
Human mind has its methods of confusing memories and illusions and feelings and dreams; it all gets mixed up to the point where you can't even tell what's real anymore..But I can't help but think there is something gravely romantic about being attacked by deceptive pangs of nostalgia.

I was passing by this row of houses the other day while taking a stroll, all of them looking neat and new, with similar fronts, crammed together like they were trying to fend off cold, when i stopped...
what stopped me was one old house without a gate, which seemed abandoned and scheduled to be demolished.. I peered inside.. the yard was as empty and lifeless as a cemetery, there was a black wooden hedge covered with rampant, almost grey ivies which looked pretty out of place being the only remnants of life there ....and there was one tree at the corner, or rather, what was a tree.
I considered this tree for a long time..I didn't know why i was so absorbed in this whole scene that looked like it was projected from another dimension, frozen and forgotten by time..something about it attracted me, I just couldn't fathom it, or I couldn't remember what it was.

Could it be a memory ?
But it was the first time in my life that i saw a dead tree, so dead it was rather charred and almost crumbling.

Was it a feeling, then ?

I think it was, because feelings are not necessarily associated with previous experiences, they lay asleep withing us and decide to wake up at the most unexpected times. This is because unconsciously relate some scenes, colors, shades, smells,sounds, vibes with certain feelings.

Solitude .It finally hit me.

I remembered solitude.
I wanted to go up to that tree, hug it with all my might, whisper to it the most sincere words of consolation, and listen, hearken, concentrate all my senses to find the faintest traces of life , the weakest calls from the depth of its trunk, caress its wan branches ,trembling from breeze..I wanted to tell this poor creature that I know how it feels to wither out of loneliness.

Vanity Fair

I'm incapable of falling in love because I'm a sore loser.
That's the conclusion I reached after a very long contemplation.

This might sound very comical, but you will have to understand, dear reader, that It was with a great difficulty that I came to this realization, and more so making peace with the idea of writing about it here. I'm not obliged to make such disclosures about myself of course, but I get the feeling that I owe some people a decent explanation,I think.

Going back to me being a sore loser. Yes, exactly. I can't help but compete with anyone i consider deserving of my rivalry, i.e cocky assholes who think they are the smartest in the room. I get a great satisfaction from crushing them the most. Well, if they are within my zone of rivalry.
I don't like the feeling of being looked down upon and I certainly don't succumb to anyone who doesn't provide proof of them knowing better than I do. That's how I rolled ever since I could remember.
But that's not the real issue here; the problem is what drives me to be so competitive : It's the satisfaction of my vanity.
Vanity is a very sly,two-faced friend. It makes you feel great about yourself, superior to those around you, in fact, but it's also the most gruesome bonds-torpedo.
Which is why many poets and philosophers argued that there is no place for pride and vanity in love. But they just don't get that that is impossible for some people with extreme cases of arrogance. So extreme it penetrates their cores and circulates in their veins.

When it comes to romance, I can never, ever, and no matter how hard I try, bring myself to admit that I actually have a thing for someone.. that would be absurd, if you ask me ; not only because I'm a woman, but because I'm a proud woman, and that, batushka, is a very complicated being.
Proud women look constantly not for the person that completes them, but for the person that makes them yield, a person that challenges them.
But then when we find such a person, we don't simply accept them, we need to torture them first, make them fall miserably in love with us, and then reject them, push them away and see if they keep coming back, to keep proving their love to us over and over, which is , of course, far from easy, as we are very selective of the candidates worthy of our love, they have to be the type that are able to make us, proud women, give in so they are naturally the difficult type.
So here is the most common scenario, we start this cold war with the person we are supposed to have feelings for, a battle to determine who is going to give in first and admit their feelings. We, conceited women, will do everything within our powers to win this pointless war in the name of love...and the name of vanity..
But (wait it gets better) , if our love interest happens to yield first, It's the height of irony that their place in our hearts is no longer ; we lose interest in them.
Why ? because now we've proved to ourselves that we are superior. It's game over for you, my friend, because once you yield , you become the Reacher, and one of us becomes the Settler, which is a type of relationships that satisfies this vanity peculiar to our type, true, but never our hearts and consequently never last.

My problem is that I'm never the Reacher. I have to be the Settler, which doesn't work out for the other party of course, unless they are very understanding (and smart enough to get the clauses of this arrangement without stating its terms verbally)..But if the other person is too smart, I'll feel very self-conscious while dealing with them, and I'll start wondering whether I'm actually the Reacher while being tricked to believe the opposite, and then my pride gets annoyed and whispers to me that I absolutely need to prove that things are still in control. That is, by making a statement that I'm actually not under the spell of this person, and that I can walk away anytime.. Which is of course the beginning of the ruin of any relationship.

See ? our confounded pride intervenes to prevent us from enjoying even the small fragments of romance. We are tortured women : we lose either ways, unless we bury within the deepest depths of our hearts this detestable conceit.

Well, don't think you can grasp anything from this chaotic confession unless you have a similar mentality.. So anyway, my dear future partner,
if you want me to yield and admit that I actually have feelings for you, you will have to prove to me that you are smart enough to receive the great privilege of my feelings..
But you will have to be on a level so advanced it makes me too lazy to interpret your actions and gestures, you will have to have the emotional IQ of Eistein to be able to trick me into believing that I'm the one in control, because otherwise I'll always be competing with you to overthrow you from the throne of romance.

I already feel bad for the person that will make me fall head over heels for him, he will have to work really hard, the poor thing...lol