Eve-ntually...

Thank you Mirvat for the translation, I couldn't have done it any better!

I leave my house every day running away from my reflection in the mirror. I flee to empty streets and closed shops. My face lurks in the windows of the shops.

I don’t keep track of the hour. The days lost me. I get my first lesson in tranquilizers from the pharmacist and I see my face in his look, his gestures and the pill.

I open my mail. Friends. Strangers. Interviews. Tender voices. I say I am fine. I see my face blink between the silence and the words.

I search for my scream that is yet to reach out. An angry silence, dry, dances to the constant deafening humming in my head. I do everything for the violent banging to stop. I pray to be swiftly swept by menstrual pain so I would forget the pain festering in my thoughts. I pray to vomit it out with all what is stuck inside of me of disgust and hate and burned bodies and indifferent world. I pray for these faces to look away.
These faces that, every time I try to hide my eyes, take my hands away and stare at me.

How our faces resemble the heart and soul of this land. How they carry prints of our sand, our dust our papers and our dates.. How they resemble the vineyards of Bekaa, the apples of the mountain, Saida’s castle and Sour’s marina. How full these faces are of the summer’s sun, of December’s wrath, of rain dripples on the windows and of September’s last days. How our faces scream of springs, of mountain roads, of tree branches that witnessed our childhood, of stolen first kisses… How our faces draw smiles out of disasters and print the tears we dried with laughter… How you, My Lebanon, live in our faces…

On TV, a caller mourns Layal, the journalist killed by Israeli aggression, hoping Layal’s shining soul would live again through her gorgeous face, the voice whispers to her “you too are like my Lebanon, beautiful, smart worldly, your fate is to always die at the end”… All these faces… Lebanon every where I go… And I cannot look…

And you… you come to take my hands off my face, you demand that I look. You raise your voice “look, look!”, while you tie my tired wrists. And you keep demanding till I finally scream, a scream far out, out of the earth. A scream stronger of all the details in history and all the destinies. A scream for Lebanon’s beautiful faces.

I really want to thank Ammar for translating this following piece I originally wrote in Arabic (click to enlarge).

This is a translation of one of my posts in Arabic, done by a dear friend of mine, Arch.memory, whose presence these days made this crisis a little more bearable. thx you Ash, thx you to all friends and strangers who have been sending to check on me as well.


I’m here now. From the other side of the sea, from the second face of the moon. Where everything is sweet, and calm, even if always cold.

I had to leave, you know.
Everyone was taking a bite off this land. And I… couldn’t stand it anymore.
The scene at the border was painful.
They all wanted to stay; they all had to leave.
I wanted to call out to them, I was about to hold their shoulders, shake them like this, and yell at them: “How could you? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?” I forgot that I, too, with the departing am departing.

The worst way for one to travel is by boat, you know? The plane, a few minutes and you’re flying. The car, a step on the fuel and you go. But on the boat, you stay standing, contemplating the marina, against your will… Looking at the land getting further away, at the people getting smaller, at a hand waving, and a hand, choked, that couldn’t wave. At a bag flying in the air, at a girl pinning laundry on a clothesline, at shuttered houses with no girl pinning laundry or clotheslines. Looking at your dream that they lost… At your dream that, maybe, you let get lost.

He didn’t understand me, my friend at the airport, when my head fell onto his shoulder, and I started to sob.

No, I’m not glad to be safe now. I am upset, I am crestfallen, I am choked from the inside…I am here in safety, and you are still over there. I am here a living illusion, no more, but you are at least alive. I am here but not worth more than five minutes of the news. I am a number. We are all numbers. Our identity is corpses and the stone that is shattering… Here were are barbarians, we don’t know how to live together, don’t know how to love. We don’t know that a homeland comes, always, before religion…

Me?
I’m here and not there
Here and not here
Here forgetting myself there
Never here
Always, with you, there

I’m starting to ramble. You take care of yourself. Do sing me that song from time to time… if you still sing.

This is a translation of one of my posts in Arabic, done by a dear friend of mine, Arch.memory, whose presence these days made this crisis a little more bearable. thx you Ash, thx you to all friends and strangers who have been sending to check on me as well.

The raids yesterday exceeded thirty. I toss on my bed. The counting exhausts me. My tossing is almost in synch with the repetitive rhythm of explosions. For a while I imagine that I am no longer shaking with their roar. It’s been four nights now, four nights and I don’t want to sleep, and sleep in turn doesn’t want me. Four nights and the call to prayer at dawn finds me awake… When its sound mingles with the chatter of the nearby Dahyeh suburbs and the noise of my thoughts, sleep sits at the edge of my bed, and we go on chatting for what is left of the morning hours…

Ambulances, the panting of the TV, the voice of the newscaster sobbing at this very instance. It is all in the background. I look at them picking up the corpses. They say they burnt alive. Somehow, I smell burnt flesh.

I walk constantly. I can’t sit for long. I turn around myself. I look through the window. I look above. “God, love us a little. A little more!”

I want my silly life back. I want to get back to my desk that’s drowning under translation papers. I want to wake up in the morning and mull over what dress to wear. I want to match the color of my makeup and the color of my skirt. I want to go back to writing frivolous posts about love… To organizing the trip to Italy again… To tease the fans of Germany for the loss of their soccer team… To execute my postponed project with Maysoun… To go and take pictures of Beirut , Beirut smiling… To enjoy quarreling with my colleague at the office… To dance with Rima… To get angry at Wadih… To make you understand that I am not budging from here, whether we are at peace or at war, in festivities or in silence… And you’ll smile because you know that I won’t budge.

The world is silent. The losses, we have stopped counting them. Some are busy pointing the fingers of blame. And in the midst of all this? The lighthouse, the port, the bridge, the stone, the word, Fairouz, the airport, the child under the rubble, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, el-Jiyyeh, Tripoli, Baalbeck, Chtura, el-Naqoura, and Lebanon! And Lebanon ! And Lebanon …

And the human being.

And the remaining human being whose voice rises, between one hit and another, whose voice rises, “Let Fairouz go back to Baalbeck!”

Lebanon, green beautiful Lebanon… What rape is this… What rape…

Its your choice, you can send this email to the one, more than one, or all of the following below. Also, please feel free to send this to anyone you deem appropriate and to add your personal touch to the letter. But always try to keep it polite and civilized. Thank you.

The White House: comments@whitehouse.gov
U.S. VP: vice_president@whitehouse.gov
Israeli minister of defense: pniot@mod.gov.il
Israeli Minister of foreign affairs: feedback@mfa.gov.il
The French President:Go to this site

You know that feeling by which you discover inno you've been stressing? this horrible pain in the legs, moments after things have cooled down? Well, can I just say inno: my legs are KILLING me right now!!

Let's hope tomorrow's wake-up news are less nauseating.

Lately, the main conversation between me and Rima, who also happens to be performing in the show, is focusing on the following:

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, I needed that!

(said only a few hours before the show)

P.S. I think I even scared a poor lady in the street, yesterday.

*2a3sabek ya benet, 2a3sabek*... oh man, I can't eat! that never happened to me before :p