inspirations everywhere

Just like a photographer would carry a frame in her eyes to capture any potential image she encounters, likewise, hunting for her story, a writer sees images around her as a potential introduction to some novel, as a metaphor for a project seed.

professor’s excursion

Walking on the street, the professor had left his office between his morning classes, staging the long awaited appropriate conclusion for his manuscript; the young actor-wannabe killing time nursing a cappuccino while waiting for his orphaned audition; the recent graduate wearing the new suit that he bought on sale and that he was planning to return in case the interview did not go well; the mom grocery shopping before going to school to pick up her toddler at the nursery; the nurse coming back home from her night shift very late; the new employee on his way to lunch for the first day at that new underpaid job. And then: She appeared, the writer, hunting for a plot, looking at all the pedestrians' faces, listening to the leaves hitting the sidewalk, concocting a plot, pleading for sense among this chaos, shedding a justification here and there for their expressionless faces.. No one saw her: but she saw them all.

heterogeneous regulars at a coffee shop

When they left the coffee shop they each took off to different places. But while there, they all looked identical: dressed in comparable trendy outfits, same lame color trench coats, black umbrellas to shield from rain drops emanating from one super cloud. They wore a regular banal look on their faces analogous to the blank music fusion they were listening to. Neutral color, trendy watches, same careful expressions. Immersed in their phones and laptops, they just mumbled similar automatic syllables of gratitude when their coffees arrive to their table. The waiter was aware of their affected preferences.  A group of moms were meeting after their usual morning walks that religiously follows kids’ drop off routine at the local school. They seemed busy while in fact this coffee “break” was the highlight of their day. Their identical sweatsuits with some glittery script on the back, symmetric pony tails... They were comparing their kids' after school activities, showing off each about their little ones’ high achievements. In the background, a secretary had taken time off for her lunch break : the artist wanna-be was trying to be cooler than yesterday,, the older CEO was trying to look cooler and carefree to impress the younger intern... The housewife who was once an MD was reminiscing of her busy meaningful days .. And there was that quiet woman with the darker shades... When they left, they all headed in different directions. Houses, kitchens, dark hotel rooms, hospital, school staff rooms, college library, flower shop, gym, another coffee shop,.... and the woman with the dark shades headed back to the asylum, ,, her 12 hour release was about to expire.

banal requirements

Strange how shallow our happiness requirements can be? As in a neat drawer, where objects are aligned by color and type; a good flowing shiny ink easy grip pen with just enough glitter to put a smile and bling onto your words; a fine coordinated pencil case with assorted paper matching the composition lying on a nice desk inviting for fine compositions.

loud silence

The need to talk to people stems from the need to quiet down your inner turbulent conversation, sometimes circular and tiring and spiral, going to places we try to avoid. Only an actual external conversation can put a halt to that excruciating inner silence.. Some people take medications to stop that loudness.

looking for ideal places

Why do we all get enchanted by windows.. What’s in them that makes our imagination run? We imagine who lives across from them? Those platforms provide us with an empty slate where to let our imagination run, more so than a book or novel or film.

Why do we like to work among strangers, as in a café, in an airport, or an airplane? Is it because they provide us with a chance to start anew and to paint a new image of ourselves?

Why do I feel comfortable working in a routine environment? Simply because I spend less energy deciding on stationeries and fonts and paper.

total immersion

When you are happy excruciatingly loud music would not annoy you; you would be immersed in it like everyone else there, and feeling part of the group, bathing in the same foam, not just watching people; just like Smoke would not annoy you when you are smoking. Similarly in a health club, loud exercise music would only excite you to do more and faster exercise if you were in tune with the instructors’ steps; while all those scenes would aggravate when you are fall behind and out of tune and season.

fading background

Suddenly the people around me in the café started fading away; I watched them getting transformed into characters across from a screen. I saw myself becoming invisible. Just a moment ago I was one of the many place “regulars” and radical fans, and here I am, disappearing following the pace of my engagement in my reading and writing..

invisible spectators

After each class and at the end of each performance I am always surprised that no one follows me behind the curtains to applaud and congratulate me. I always expect someone to express their admiration.. while drying my sweat I contemplate the audience waiting for heavy clapping .. was it all in my head. Were there no spectators.

readiness

Before starting a task on a desk, be it grading or writing I like to set a nice scene. I see myself choosing nice stationary, my notebook, in case I need to remind myself of a task, a long blank to-do-list. It takes scratching the surface for new ideas to emerge and overflow, as if all was on some pausing mode, waiting to be resumed and resurrected. . New ideas emerge related to the writing, but stay at an incubation stage.. The more rare these moments are, the more intense they get.

safety confinement

I love to sit and work in confined spaces, where no one could notice my presence, zones of no distractions where I can find no excuse to leave my seat and where I can remain invisible: places like cafes, trains, planes, waiting areas… This is where I work the best and where I can focus and be productive yet enjoy being undetectable … I look forward to working around 5 am on days when my work has reached that special inviting appealing stage.

at the healer

When the healer announced with his sleepy eyes and romantic voice at the end of the session that my neck was now less stiff, I was sad to know it had been diagnosed by a stranger.. I asked him what was wrong with it. He was surprised for he had assumed I was there because of stress and tension and all the running around.. isn’t it? I was not sure. I thought I was there because of my knee problem, a purely technical matter that the anti-inflammatory could only appease momentarily.. I realized that he figured “her” out before I did.. that he  could see through her better than me.. that it was beyond concealing with over-the-counter quick fixes… I had forgotten the passing of time and days and the putting off of unsolved issues.. He announced that I was ready to leave now if I wanted to… But I asked to stay longer.... As soon as he closed the door, my tears rolled.. I tried to deafen her sobbing, .. I felt so sorry for that woman or was it a little girl lying on that white narrow stretcher in a stranger’s clinic.. I did not recognize her.. But I brought her there, I guess I did.. She looked sad and helpless begging me for a hug.. How could I allow her to reach that stage? To stoop down to the level of seeking help from a stranger heeler in odd places.. The killer was that I felt helpless despite her crying for help.. Instead, I wept with her while she was putting on her shoes that I did not even recognize…  who chose them for her? He realized something was wrong, dimmed the light and she started to unwind that stiff neck of hers…

mirroring behaviors

We are mostly annoyed by behavior of others that remind us of ourselves.. If they are exhibiting what we worked hard to get over and erase .. specially if they still believe it is a virtue and if they are not as advanced as us and remind us of what we want to cleanse ourselves of.. then it is really annoying.. since no one enjoys the process. Just the end result

joy of abundance

Also, you know this sudden feeling that you are floating on a bed of feathers, swimming in “hefty abundance” feeling secure, safe, with nothing to worry about… I used to have this feeling when my dad would come from his long journeys to Europe, with fat oversized chocolate bars of all shades of brown, off-white milky chocolate, and creamy nutty luscious special sweets that you could not purchase locally? This feeling of being special visits me now ever so rarely; it comes and escapes me so fast; I see it fainting away. I try to follow it, but it runs away through the corner of that old humid smelling alleyway behind our building… I try to catch the last spark of it on the left side of our long balcony where as children we used to peek at those mysterious neighbors whose dad, we were told was a pilot… and also would appear in their house every so often..

Recently I felt this kind of special when I got invited to an unusual lunch at some relatives’ house on a weekday, while working people were at work; their house is quite exceptional, a carrier of old wealth everywhere… Classic paintings that you would assume belong to museums mounted those walls.. not white walls, nor off white.. but a wall color that is probably now labeled as discontinued..

I started to enjoy this feeling in secret now, for I had been conditioned to consider this kind of life only to be for the privileged unworthy “lazies”; and as a responsible being, you ought to refrain from enjoying it and instead, feel sorry for those who don’t have access to it, so I was told, as a “priviledged” child; a conflict that my optimistic counselor hopes to resolve. I was conditioned not to enjoy luxurious rudiments of life.. and to think of them as classified blasphemy type of pleasures.

I get glimpses of this kind of happy sweet security sometimes with my kids. I foresee that they will save me from this automatic now unwanted resentment; I want them to feel those feathers, and to feel them abundantly. I silently promise them a feathery future. I will fight for them to enjoy it; I hope when I have to defend them I would be on an up day.. not in my erratic abyss in the underdown. Help me feathers… for I have sinned..

at the lace store

I went to buy some lace at my regular store and was happy to get offered at half price some returned precious piece wrapped around delicate paper from a previous customer... I smiled at the bargain, and more so at the story it might embrace. I went home and stored it safely in the drawer of special fragments … Many years later, I wanted to decorate the back of a pocket, reached for the lace wrapped around the fine paper. I untangled the strand of lace to uncover a string of letters, handwritten with now faded ink.. and watched my imagination go on a trip… who might have written that note? Is she alive? Was it a message? Was she losing her memory and was writing notes to exercise what remained of her brain memory cells? Was she imprisoned? Was she preparing her wedding gown and had to return the lace because the wedding never happened? 

pillow whispers

Les chuchotements des cicatrices

One night, my scars started whispering to each other, counting their birth stories and got joined by long living moles, old vaccine marks,  … etc… I heard them telling each other how they each started, .. what pain they caused me.. how long it took me to get used to them.. how long it took their coloring to and shapes to blend in. Ever since, they decided to have an initiation party any time a newcomer joins their terrain. …Recently, the newcomers look rather tired. It takes them longer to blend in and shape up. Their old friends take care of them with tenderness.

mature silence

Maturity is when you abstain from talking although you know that you can effortlessly, in one sentence state a concise argument that would silence your opponent; you still chose silence over winning.

no crossing legs

Suddenly my handicap is apparent. I cannot cross my legs.. or hike the hike.. as if I have to write a poem with only three letters… of the alphabet. I feel sad and short. I am sad today. I was left out with the ones who had to stay behind. But this is not temporary. No going back. How I wish I had said yes to all those previous invitations…

Sad sad sad

invisible old people

When I looked to the side of the road on the corner, and right before the view disappeared while making the abrupt turn, I saw her, an older lady, not too old, dressed in a big wide round house robe.. she was very round.. sitting on the balcony with her walker facing her. Her grandchildren, (or was it her nieces and nephews) were coming in turn to give her a kiss and they kept going. She was being skipped. They were all headed somewhere, but not her. Made me think how, on that same morning, like her, I was left aside … Lately I stopped getting asked to join the hike, since everyone knows about my knee and ankle pain. It seemed so natural to say goodbye to me and go. I was among the ones who would wait on the side, and who get told the hike is two hours long. Wait on the side. This is the wifi password: You can have coffee, or eat (some more). I sat on the side and there were some elderly waiting with me. But it did not bother them. They were used to it. And there were two moms with newborn babies.

freezing happiness

Why can’t we be happy with a temporary thing? Why do we have this tendancy to want to generalize and make sure what makes us happy now should turn into a pattern, a trend, an accessible pill… and that I can dip my soul in that perpetual eternal lava of joy when lonely or empty? … maybe this is why I rarely  give money to a poor person… I believe I have to find a permanent solution to their state.. I hate Band-Aid solutions; they hurt. Am I doomed? I want for this painting to immediately give birth to the next project once it is done… and my mind to zoom in and analyze the joke totally and completely down to its minute constituents so that it is transferable into a new context in Mars… I am sick of this.. what happened to fun? Who messed up my brain and made fun so unattainable? Among animals, ants gather their winter food… not singing roaches..