Tips and Reflections - Week three

So a third week is almost finished, the world is both unusual and familiar at the same time and the personality split is more pronounced!

Tips

Find ways to help. Do it for purely selfish reasons if you don’t feel the altruistic drive because that would give you a feeling of positive action. Something within your control that you can drive in whichever way you want. 

Alternatively, 3 weeks staying home and not knowing when or if you can step out of the house, what world will be waiting for you when you do is enough to drive the strongest of us up the wall (metaphorically and literally) 

The unique nature of this pendemic is that in every corner, in every country, civil society is coming into its own. Whether governments acknowledges that or not, they’re unable to meet the basic needs of a significant section of the community and they’re relying on volunteers and civil societies to fill the gap. 

From dropping shopping, to maintaining spread sheets and answering phones, from sawing masks and medical gowns to cooking meals, there is something for everyone. 

We’re surrounded with negativity and dwelling in feelings of incompleteness will just add to the mental strain we’re all facing. So take action and find how you can help. Facebook and local council sites is a good starting point! 

Reflections 

Shared experiences, for me, this week has been themed around shared experiences bring the best of art, music, dance and performing to the masses. 

Experiences that have previously been the privilege of the few has been shared by millions with free performances streamed live all over the world. 

There is something so powerful when you realise that you’re joining 2 million people watching a repeat of the nutcracker by Bolshoi or 3.9m listening to a live performance by Andrea Bocelli. 

The simple things, often overlooked and underrated till today. Forgotten experiences that filled us with joy when we were young, seem to come back and fill us with joy today. I remember the first time I had the seed to seedling experience we all tried at school. The astonishment when seeing a dried pulse sprouting leaves and growing into a full plant. 

This week, by sheer confidence, I ended up with a repeat with an apple seed. Surprising and fragile as anything, the green shoots grew over a few days at such a speed.

 There was something that touched a deeper feeling seeing the growth, the fragility and the change that small seed played over the past couple of days. Maybe, a hopeful glimpse of a future where I tell others where that apple tree came from. 

Hope or wishful thinking, death and redirection 

Happy Easter, Stay safe 

Tips and Reflections - Week two

So a slightly delayed entry which I can blame on the days merging into each other and working over the weekend which meant I didn't get the chance to actually sit and write on my wall. 

Better late than never, here are week 2 tips and Reflections 

Tips

Space out your shopping and exercise and if possible, combine the two. Over the weekend, I switched into the further grocery store (about 4km/2.3m) from home and took the opportunity to walk there with hubby for the weekly shop. Good workout, about an hour chatting uninterrupted by mobile phones or news - not too bad for the time! 

The coffee breaks are more important now than ever before. I never appreciated how much of my normal day I spent walking between meetings, to the printer and of course to grab my coffee refill. All of which has disappeared now leaving my with 3-4 hours stretches of time where I hardly move. 

So this week, I started having walking coffee break with hubby in our tiny living room. He got dizzy at some point with my constant pacing so possibly find a way to cover a greater distance throughout the house! 

Use the fact that you're at home to break up your working day with cooking and other house work. Sounds silly (or stating the obvious) but in my 17 years living in my own place including 11 years of marriage, my brain is programmed to cooking late in the evening and sorting out the house on the weekend. 

You'll actually be more productive doing so (takes less than my commuting time) and the change in pace helps rejuvenate your brain. I'm getting my best ideas cooking these days! 

Last but not least, do make the effort to schedule that virtual coffee (ideally using video messenger and actually having a coffee at the same time). I actually forgot about the channel 5 minutes into my catch up with a friend last Saturday, his baby was walking all over the place and grabbing on to everything while we were chatting and sipping our drinks. Could have been any cafe and we went on for hours. 

Reflections 

With the change in tone and signalling from UKG around the length by which these restrictions will last,  the mood is getting darker. Walking outside with the sun shining and trees in full bloom, there a real sense of disconnect which is hard to manage. 

The situation is also bearing down on people's faith and believes. Even the most faithful and having their faith tested at an unprecedented level. We are faced with our fragility and mortality to an extent not seen in the past 60 years and at a scale never seen before. The question on life, God, purpose have never been bigger and traditional answers are coming up short.

At the same time, we're still living through the comradery phase with humanity and good deeds, patience and kindness are top of everyone's approach. The worry is always how long will this last, with tolerance wearing thinner as the lockdown stays on for longer and the real economic hardship becomes more pronounced. 

Looking beyond the UK, the scenes from India to Lebanon are heart-breaking. The same policy of isolation is introduced but the support infrastructure is non-existent. The question there is the surety of dying from hunger vs the possibility of getting Covid 19 and maybe dying. I don't believe anyone has a real answer to this question. 

Week 2 has been a more sombre one. We still listen to our music, explore new quirks to working from home and connecting remote however, the longer days haven't felt brighter and the darkness on the horizon feels a bit closer.

Stay safe 

Tips and Reflections -Week One

Whether  this series ends up being 1 post or 12, no one knows. However, the drive that pushed cavemen to draw on walls seem to simmer within all of us. Here's my wall! 

WFT tips:

Having a desk set up is key

Yes, you can start your day early with no commuting but make sure you ease into the day - for me that's reading my kindle for some time before getting into the "office" 

Invest in good lights around your work space. Smart lights that can replicate nature light are a good investment 

Take your usual coffee break, lunch break. Good time to hang with others in the household or to go outside and stretch your legs 

Clock off as if you have your commute ahead of you, don't be tempted to stay on till 9 because that's when you normally arrive home

Background noise might be the BBC news although I would suggest easy listening. We're being bombarded by the news non-stop between colleagues, email updates from work, starting and ending most meetings and even in some cases working on the emergency planning for your company or your client. We can easily get overwhelmed 

Adopt new routines, my husband and I spent one evening listening to cheesy 70 music (having started with staying alive, followed by Rasputin the night fever before closing with take a chance on me) 

Last but not least, embrace how working from home and connecting with colleagues and teams remotely is helping us build a new relationship with those we work with and clients we continue to support. 

Suddenly, you get to see a different side as we interact from our home environment with children, dogs, partners and families now blending into our workplace. The meetings are lighter, the comradery is implicit and awareness of the wellbeing of those on the other side is top of mind at every point. 

Reflections

In the UK, the debate rages on a what social distancing actually means and the prospects of maintaining such an extreme measure for up to a year! 

There isn't an easy answer, here's my 2 cents worth of thoughts:

It all depends on the speed by which a number of items come on line:

1- more capacity at the NHS with beds and ventilators--today's announcement that private hospitals will be servicing the NHS at cost is first step

2- a mass testing process, apparently that's a few weeks away which would allow better evaluation of who actually has had COVID-19. The thinking is that many people have had it and didn't realise they were ill. This will help assessing peak sickness levels and managing them to align with NHS capacity

3- a vaccine which is 12-18 months away

There isn't a right or a wrong way, there is simple math to try and ensure the system isn't overwhelmed and doctors aren't forced to triage patients deciding who gets a ventilator and who doesn't

We as humans will need to learn a new reality that will transform how we operate even if the measures end in 1, 2, 3 or 12 months. If 10 years of civil war in Syria taught us anything it taught us that we are super adaptive and new habits will form delivering this new norm.

The aim now is to maintain the bones of the society and the economy so that we can bounce back from this.

Meanwhile, technology is finally proving its worth as a social tool. I'm talking to my parents through Facebook portal, to my colleagues through Teams and clients with Skype and zoom. I've learnt more about them as humans as we merged our work space into our family homes and people are kinder and more understanding for the totality that is us than ever before.

And in the words of my favourite quote: " “You say we’re on the brink of destruction and you’re right. But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve….”

Shattered lives

Every day, we die a little

Every hours, our hearts run out of love

and tenderness 

and compassion

Then we're left with an empty shell

that used to be our dreams

One day

A generation will come

and see the remanences of a being

that used to be our soul 

with nothing left

but the scattering of our words,

blown in the wind 

across all times.

One day,

our children's children will stand

over the ashes of our bodies

and say...

Here once was a dream

where now there is none...

A country called Syria

Today I didn't know how the day went, what work I've done and emails I've answered.  The only thing I remember is that I was two people, one talking to colleagues and working as usual and one hiding away trying to stop the tears that refused to stop. you cant stop tears when your mourning  a person, how can stop the tears when your mourning a country?

Throughout the past 23 months I've kept believing in a Syria that will remain standing, hurt and weak but standing none the less and can be tended back to recovery over 5, 10 years. Today, for the first time, my thoughts were will there be a Syria for me to go back to? Like being told that your beloved is terminally ill and all you can do is say your good byes and wait. 

Today I realised that there will never be a winner in this war, we will not win anything, not freedom, not dignity, not prosperity and civility. We've lost security and independence, standing and our footfall for generations to come.

The Economists cover on stands tomorrow depicts the death of a country, murdered at the hands of its children, all of them. 

I know I will get the revolutionaries screaming how it is all the regime's doing for being too violent and too blooded. Well the regime is all you say but you knew that from day one, didn't care, decided to propagate an uprising from behind you PC screens and then being surprised when the beast reacted as a beast does. You've never had an end game from day one so how did you expect any other outcome. 

Played and manipulated by anyone and everyone, you saw Saudi as a saviour and Qatar as defenders of democracy and didn't think that there was something odd and very wrong with that, or you did and decided to ignore any nagging feeling and push it to the back of you mind with statement about necessity and the cruelty of the other side that justifies dealing with the devil itself to reach your end.

The pro regime people are not much better, you've accepted that it was necessary to use a sludge hammer to swat a fly and now you're wondering why the house is starting to fall apart? Whether it was fear or conviction, you as well have silenced the voices nagging at the back of your head with slogans of "national dignity" and "no voice rise above the voice of battle".

And where are the middle people? They're the ones whose lives are wasted, lost, whose blood shed and hopes killed. The people in the middle always pushed to take one side or the other, unheard and unseen except as a victim numbers used to push an agenda. They're the statistic that has no voice and forced to constant silence by both sides. 

Were we weak? Could we have stopped more firmly to face both sides? 

Is our silence and cowardness the sin we're now paying for? Whether inside Syria or outside, the punishment is equally painful and protracted with the only difference is live vs imagined scenery.

Today, going through the motions of work consumed any energy I had. I really envied the people back home, at least you can show your true face, go out, do something to help others. I envied the volunteers of the syrian red crescent, carrying their lives on their hands and sharing the last specs of humanity left in Syria like tiny little tea lights flickering against the gathering darkness. They are the only beautiful thing left in a country once all beautiful.

Will Syria rise from the ashes or will something else grow in its place? This is a question I don't have an answer for and I don't know anyone that does. 

I just hear words and words are air, they mean nothing! Not 23 months ago and definitely not today.

The curse of the expat

Over the past few days I've come across some of the most beautiful and joyful scenes one can see in a life time. An ancient city dressed up for christmas with lights and street fair, the laughter of children on the rides and the scent of spiced coffee and Christmas sweets. Walking through the Christmas market in Edinburgh I kept thinking that Bab tomah or Kasa'a' in Damascus should be as festive at this time.

The following day I was going through the glens of the Highlands with its snow topped peaks and small streams crossing through the stone all the way to the different lochs and two thoughts came across my mind, this could be Kassab with its majestic mountains and lemon trees; and can all the springs in Scotland wash the blood of the face of my beloved Syria?

Over the past ten months I, like so many Syrians living outside Syria, have, been living in turmoil and peace at the same time. You wake up, go to work, meet friends and live life as normal but at the same time you're wasting away with every drop of blood wasted, you sanity is slowly disappearing with every news round and you're losing friends and family quicker than you can keep up with.

We're cursed if we support and cursed if we oppose, we're damned if we're in the middle or if we try to keep room for logic or reasoning.

We're double cursed because we have to live on when our family and friend back home struggle to hold on. How can I keep warm when my flesh and blood slowly waste away? How can i see beauty when so much ugliness surrounds me?

I've been living outside Syria for so many years, I've never felt I'm exiled as much as I do today. The past ten months have created two types of Syrians, those living in Syria and those living abroad, deny it as much as you want but you cannot say that you're as part of Syria as the people who are living these days there. This was not a price I bargained when I chose to temporarily live abroad, I think that most Syrian expats haven't bargained on this price either.

2011 has cost us all so much, blood, lives, friends and our sense of belonging, as it's coming to its end, the heart trembles when thinking what more can be lost.

A friend told me yesterday while walking the streets of the old city surrounded by joy and morning our dead, this is just the beginning, the stupidity accumulated through the past months and the push for "creative chaos" and "you need to destroy in order to build" is starting to show its results. The question on my mind, how much more will it take for some to realise the price they're asking others to pay? Will 2012 carry the salvation or distraction of all that is beautiful in Syria?

Forgive me all, I can't wish you a merry Christmas nor happily wait for the new year, I can only wish that we end 2012 still having a Syria we can call home and with healing wounds not fresh ones.

Please Stop

Lazy morning sun, a slow breath and Fairuz’s voice it drifting in the air. A normal summer morning in Syria? No, this is a small Syrian house in the English country side trying to get home.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot be home these days. I travel there, I talk to the people there and I search every day for a trace of news about my homeland that is not talking about killing and destruction but every day I fail miserably and disappointment and sadness just grow more and more in me.

Where are you my homeland, you’ve been drowned at the hands of your children who forgot that they are ripping a country apart and not leaving anything to their children and their children’s children.

Usually, when I think of Syria at summer time, I think of unforgettable summer laughs, family gatherings, and the freedom of summer break with fairuz’s voice starting the day and Um Kulthom’s flowing through to the early hours of the day. A light, simple life that people returned to no matter what the day carried. Trouble melted away at the warmth of a gentle smile on my mother’s face.

Today, that smile, like the gentleness of the night and the warmth of life has gone, covered by screams of hate and a drive for self-destruction sweeping across my Syria.

I’ve tried to be open minded for both sides but how can anyone remain open-minded when all around him/her have decided to shut their ears, heart and minds to all but their own voice? Everyone is shouting louder and louder to get heard and now we can only hear noise and nothing else. There are no thoughts that can be carried across all the chaos and one wonders if this noise will ever stop or will it continue to work itself into a frenzy that consumes it with all those around it, country and people?

These days, I feel like screaming loud enough to make everyone else just shut up and stop arguing for a moment, listen to the silence and to their own thoughts before they talk to others. Unfortunately, my scream isn’t loud enough and everyone else stopped caring about the screams!

Today, I’m just filled with sadness that cannot be shacked away. Listening to Fairuz is a sweet torture reminding me of a sweater, simpler and happier times.

Today, innocence is lost and the cut runs so deep in every Syrian heart and one wonders how will it heal, if ever.

Ramadan is a week away, a time for getting together and visiting family and friends. Already the people that hijacked Friday want to hijack the whole month and irrelevant of the righteousness of the cause they’re fighting for in the eyes of some or the lack of it in the eyes of others, they need to stop.

It is more important to have this time to heal; we’re hurting so much we need to heal before we tear ourselves and each other apart. It is now more than just a possibility that we may end up doing just that, breaking the notion of Syria into a million piece with no way of putting the pieces together again.

I am the silent masses; I am the Syrian which they call coward or complicit for not taking sides; I’m the one that both sides try to win and both sides have been losing; I am the one being torn apart between the two screaming sides and they need to stop.

Please, just stop, give people a chance to breathe again

Please stop in the name of all that you consider holy, the month, the cause the country.

From all of us, please stop!