2009 & I

The book of love is long and boring

No one can lift the damn thing

It's full of charts and facts and figures and instructions for dancing

But I

I love it when you read to me

And you

You can read me anything

The book of love has music in it

In fact that's where music comes from

Some of it is just transcendental

Some of it is just really dumb

But I

I love it when you sing to me

And you

You can sing me anything

The book of love is long and boring

And written very long ago

It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes

And things we're all too young to know

But I

I love it when you give me things

And you

You ought to give me wedding rings

And I

I love it when you give me things

And you

You ought to give me wedding rings

And I

I love it when you give me things

And you

You ought to give me wedding rings

You ought to give me wedding rings

100 days

So, like so many before me, I have fallen to the trap of ignoring most things since I've been married! I admit my guilt and apologise to all the friends I've blamed for doing exactly that.

The problem is, how can I happily ignore my new shared existence for the solitary task of writing a blog? I have to be fair and state that my other half, has been nagging me to return to my writings but the temptation of sharing the simplest and most basic things in life with him is far too strong for me to forsake and this has resulted in a worrying back log of daily chores, meetings with friends and bloging about life, universe and everything else I (we)'ve been up to.

So almost a 100 days after my wedding day (which was a nerve raking but enjoyable affair) how is life different?
I still wake up early in the morning, have my coffee and rush to work 5 days a week. I still return home after spending the whole day in endless deliberation with people at the office and dose off in front of the TV by 10. On the face of it, life is very much back to what it was a 101 days ago but appearances could not be more deceiving!
I wake up in the morning to be greeted by a loving joyful smile, I think I must have fallen in love with that smile all over again because of these morning treats, the whole day begins on a high note from such an apparently small thing. It's wonderful to realise that you can make someone so happy just by being there...
My morning coffee is not just a coffee anymore, it's the outcome of many tries and tests to ensure that it's as I like it, now my morning coffee awaits for me and is preceded with a kiss and followed by a farewell hug before I head to work. There hasn't been much of a summer this year in London but my sky has never been so blue when I leave to the office in the morning.

Now, for the first time in a very long time, my work isn't my world. I have finely managed to move away from rotating alone around a thing to navigating on a more defined path with someone. It wasn't, and still not, easy to realise that my choices now impact someone other than me. The responsibility is magnified exponentially but then the reward has grown by far greater measures. I still don't know in which direction the wind will blow but knowing that I wont be pushed alone, some might think this is a bit cowardly, makes the journey much less stressful and much more enjoyable. I am a strong person, but I never realised how heavy the burden was till I had shared it with him. Now the weight is lighter and the carrying is easier.

Finally I have someone I can share all the things I love with, adventure and all. Listening to Barber of Seville under the pouring rain then singing Figaro on the train back home while trying not to wet the seats with our drenched cloth, promenading at the Royal Albert Hall for a whole season, who other than my husband will agree to stand for 3 hours listening to classical music more than once a month? We have been there 3 times already, the BBC Prom season is still at the beginning and I still cannot believe that I'll be attending the Last Night of the Proms in person, with him.

It seems that I can cook! Not to the extent of Abufares or Kano but enough for my husband to put on some weight! In the time honoured tradition of Syrian wives, the aim is get the husband 10% heavier within the first 6 month. Now, not cooking for anyone before and having my diet restricted to takeaways and microwavable dishes for the past 5 years, I didn't have much hopes when hubby came over but either he's still very much in love, or miraculously, I have managed to pick up a couple of hints from mum. She, bless her, now asks me what did I cook when I talk to her on my weekly phonecall home, she's always ready with fast and easy recipes to whisk in 20m or less. The problem is, I'm never one to follow a recipe and I always end up following my own instinct with ingredients and timing. So far I have made Courgette(a.k.a Zurchini) with yogurt and rice, garden peas with tomato sauce and rice which ended up being a cross between the traditional Syrian dish and a meat and vegetable curry and stuffed mushrooms with vegetables and cheese toping. I'm discovering the joys of inventing something totally crazy and having someone cleaning the plate to the last rice grain and then insist on doing the dishes!

It has taken me long to return back to my notebook and blog, not because I don't want to, but because life has been so good over the last 100 days and while we share our sorrows with other without much reluctance, we jealously guard our happiness and keep it a well hidden secret. Maybe because you're always worried that the second you say you're happy something bad will happen, maybe because happiness just keeps you wrapped in its warm embrace that you easily forget about anything beyond it. I have stolen myself away from it this afternoon while he was mowing the lawn; enjoying the gentle breath, stealing side glances at him and writing, I check that he's really there and that I'm not going to be woken up from this dream anytime soon. I still reach out to him to make sure his there during the short summer nights and we still call each other as much as possible during the day.
I started this blog to share with him the things I couldn't say over the phone, it has been my dream and my emotional base for so long that now going back to it while he's by my side feels a bit unusual. I don't know what this blog will be from this day onward? Can it remain as “Snapshot from a Syrian girl's daily life in The City ”? I'm not sure it has ever been but I believe that blogs, like any product of the creative process, grow organically. Maybe in a year's time, this will be a place to share cooking jocks/disasters or best cleaning advices. Maybe it will be full of events and activities in London, or maybe, just maybe, it will remain a snapshot of a Syrian girl's life, a small corner when I can share a dream and the pursuit of happyness.

I'm at one of those moment of pure happiness now, dare I dream when/what the next one will be?

down time

"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full" Henry A Kissinger.

I’ve allowed myself to “borrow” this quote from a friend’s status update, it was too good to pass by without due assessment!

There are so many theories suggesting that we all pass through periods of down time, when things seem to be always, not going wrong, but not going right either. Your appointments are cancelled, your papers are lost, when you’re running a marathon and someone trips you at the last 100m, how easy is it to stand up again and cross the finishing line?

I’ve had a low spell for the past couple of weeks, combine that with pre wedding nerves and sorting out my work before leaving for a long break and you will get a nasty headache and a sinking feeling that I’m running out of time and favours.

Today, I reach a surreal point when my friend who was due to accompany me to my final dress fitting (that is my wedding dress) called in sick! Poor girl was really feeling bad for abandoning me at the last minute. Funny enough I was by far calmer than her, in the back of my mind, I knew to expect anything and everything going a bit wrong from now till the wedding but surprisingly enough I think I have reach a point of self soothing with such things not stressing me out any more.

With the last 100m dash before W day, it’s very easy to lose track of the big picture and get lost and frustrated with the little annoyances that come our way. Maybe it’s nature’s way of checking our resilience and the strength of our resolve to be together for the rest of our life. The bigger picture with us taking our first step together in a road that can take us anywhere and everywhere can be overwhelming. That road will not be easy but even with all the silly hiccups that happened and will happen, every step of this road will be worth all the trouble, the big adventure of life will finally start and what doesn’t break us (and hopefully nothing will) will make “us” stronger.

So whatever is behind this down spell or how long it lasts, seeing the finishing line so close will keep me going, and I know that it will do the same to him till we cross that line together.

T minus 5 weeks and counting….

2008

Another year is coming to an end and like every year, we look forward to the year ahead and rethink that year that passed. Going with the latter , 2008 has been a phenomenal year to say the least. Events that we didn’t imagine took place during 2008, things that lifted us up and others that came crashing down on all of us. What is happening now in Gaza is just the last drop in a cup full of sadness we had to drink over the last 12 months.

For me 2008 has been a strange year, I went through unbelievable highs and very dark lows. The year held personal loss that had reaching domino effects on other things in my life and had a fundamental life changing gain that set the stage for a lifetime of change, sharing, partnership and love. Thus is life, gives you in one hand and takes from you in the other.

A year on from my last relevant post and the world had changed shape yet again, I’m not sure if I’m wiser of better on the eve on this new year, the one sure thing is that I’m older, age is the one unstoppable truth of a dying year, everything else is debatable.

A year has passed, a line has been drown and a new tally will start in a few hours…happy counting 2009

thoughts

As the rain drops click on the window my heart races to match their speed, driven only by the thought that this is the last winter that I'll be away from you and by the next time the trees shed their leaves, we will be watching the change of the seasons together.
I won't have to put your perfume on the pillow because finally you will be here & my head will forever rest on your shoulder & my breath will forever be scented with your love

Young @ heart

I know, I know, before you jump down my throat for using this line in describing myself, since I'm only 29, let me remind you the young & old is a relative description of a person's status & as such cannot be restricted to one age group!

This line barged in on my thoughts returning from work today while thinking (& excuse my mental jump here but I did use the word barge) about the merits of living in hilly green Kent! On a day when London is basking under C30 temperature & 90% humidity I only had to step outside the train onto the platform to feel the difference, the cool fresh breeze was a wonderful change from the artificial coolness of recycled air in the office & the mugginess of the air on the streets.

So I was in the middle of mentally congratulating myself on my choice of location when this intruder line jumped in without any obvious logical connection to see.

So me being me I took my blackberry & started punching in the line & retracing the mysterious thinking patterns that led me to it. If you're wondering, this is how I write the majority of my blogs & that should answer to why my sentences and thoughts are all over the place sometimes.

So back to young @ Heart! I will ask for your patience here for this will take some extra lines to go through. I remember my family’s reaction when I first told them that I'm planning on buying a house outside London! To my parents who spent their entire time in this country centralised in Fulham road, living on the edge of zone 6 (about 27miles away from central London for those who don’t know the “Zone” lingo) resulted in a reaction similar to telling them I’m buying the house in Scotland! They were very polite about it knowing that I’m the one who will be living in the place after all but they didn’t hide their “concerns” about the distance and the daily commute that I will have to follow.

My siblings were more open about it, “why the hell do you want to live outside the tube network”, “1 hour commute every day by train!!!” and the star reply “you’ll be a total foreigner there sticking out like a sore thumb”! well that day has passed and I’ve been living in my house for more than 3 years now, my parents love staying over with me whenever they come, they swear by the easiness of moving out and about and I’m a usual stop point for those on their way to cross the English channel.

Me buying my house was the first “adult” decision I’ve made! You might think that coming over here to begin with was a big enough call but actually it wasn’t, it was a mix of luck and impulses that led me to England and it was a similar set of reasons that led me to my current job which resulted in my settling here rather than returning to Syria after my degree.

That first decisive conscious choice that I made was followed by other, equally important and fundamental ones which resulted in me being where I am today. But here is the trick, I’m a free independent woman, living on her own and shouldering a job and a mortgage but it hasn’t been that long, relatively speaking, when I was the youngest of lot, spoiled in every imaginable way and without a care in the world! that is my “young at heart” soul that had to make a disappearance in a very short period of time for a verity of reasons. Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you see it, it hasn’t disappeared without a trace, it still peaks it’s head every now and then when I shock people (especially those who only know the new me) with something completely out of character.

At the same time, for those who lived with me before, they remember a cheerful young girl without a worry in the world and they expect to see that girl every time they see me! It is a bit difficult at time when people expect you to even talk in a cheerful way every time you’re on the phone, and if you don’t then something is wrong and they have to fix it! It is a hard call to make, do you let them in on the new grown up version of you and let them see the worries and the concerns and all the life calculations that grown ups do or do you keep the young at heart version alive and well in their eyes so that not to cause them any undue concerns?

This has never been easy, a lot of the times, I wish I can go back to my young version, let someone else worry about the big things, the life decisions and the tough choices. Sometimes, the burden of responsibility can be overwhelming and people tend to forget that because one is always putting on a mask of easiness over everything but what is the alternative? Can I go back to being me 5 years ago? No is a very simple and effortless reply, I have so many priceless things because of the past 5 years none of which I’ll be willing to let go of.

Do I forget about my young self that is lurking in the deep, longing to be set free from all these adult demands? Not too sure.

It maybe the biggest call of my adult me, a call that a lot of people had to make at one point in their life. To chose between a life full of pull and push between old and young and a life which is rapidly progressing forward without any emotional maturity ties to its youth.

I’m not sure, but I think that while the former is much more of a rollercoaster ride, the latter is too smooth for my taste, not being able to be childish when I want to is way too boring and way too “grown up” for me!

So the answer at 29 is for now, I will always be young at heart, I will carry the freedom of my 24 self to prevent me from tying myself too much with life’s road and decisions. Young at heart is a safety from being too rigid and too old to see the freshness of a new day and feel the coolness of an easy summer breeze on a tired face waiting at some platform in green, hilly Kent.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

A love less ordinary

I close my eyes and reach out, I can feel the warmth of his skin against mine and for a second the emptiness disappear folding the distance between us and I feel his face against the palm of my hand. He’s a breath away, I keep my eyes closed and I’m free falling through the gentleness of his smile and the joy I see reflected between the two of us stretches a lifetime of dreams and promises.

Whenever I think of love I think of a love less ordinary, as if there is something such as an ordinary love! I look back and see a passion that defied the distance, a connection that broke the lines of logic and normality and a simple belief in something extraordinary.

For long I wondered how this happened? I questioned with the scared heart of a child why was I blessed with such gift? When all around me are giving up in love, was I to be the one to carry on the faith that pure, unconditional, dizzyingly vast and all consuming love is out there to be won?

Years have passed, what started as a unique friendship has changed overnight to an avalanche of emotion that buried everything with a blanket of sweetness. Years on, and that sweetness remains, magically fragranced, intoxicating the soul with so much happiness.

Years on and I’m a changed person, but how can I not change when I know that after so long, I will never be alone again? A person can live his or her life alone, friends, family and colleagues are shadows that pass along the way but there is a personal space around that is never breach or violated. I walked through life with that space untouched, and with every broken heart, with every sad farewell the wall is tougher to break and harder to breach, I walked that lonely road till he walked to me and that wall vanished to thin air… He showed me what love is, held my hand and promised me with a believer’s faith, a child’s joy and a warrior’s strength that I will never have to walk alone ever again. He didn’t have to promise with words for the look in his eyes made a thousand and one promises for all to see and for me to cherish.

Now I know that I will never be alone again, oblivious to the distance separating us, I just close my eyes and lose myself in that promise. I know that while miles and miles of empty spaces between us he’s only a heartbeat way.

He is my faith and our love is my constitution, I can take anything that life throws at me for I shall never be alone.

For now I have known love and for that I will never be just a thought passing in time.

Now I’m truly loved and for that, I will forever leave a trace of something more than just a life lived.

You whisper your love for me to wake up to

and my heart blossoms a rose under your fingertips

I carry your heart with me

I carry your heart with me
I carry it in my heart
I am never without it

Anywhere I go you go, my dear;

and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling

I fear no fate
for you are my fate, my sweet

I want no world
for beautiful you are my world, my true

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and

whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

here is the root of the root and

the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky

of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope

or mind can hide and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart I carry it in my heart

E.E. Cummings

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

Another day, Another year...

So, another day and another year has gone by, like most (if not all) people on the planet we square our positions, do our yearly inventory, tally up all the books and pass a judgment on whether the year that passed was a good year or a bad one!

And like most, it’s always somewhere in between, the year had its highs and lows and on average we end the year roughly where we started or, if lucky enough, a bit happier, more satisfied or well off.

So what was 2007 for me? Another step towards the big 30 which seems so much closer nowadays; not sure what the judgment of the first 30 years will be, I leave that to the wiser/older crowd to suggest and to me at 31 to decide!

2007 witnessed a gigantic step in my personal life, a lucky, or unlucky depending on how you see it, man has decided that I’m a suitable partner to spend his life with believe it or not. He has popped the question 2 years ago now but the whole family/formality side of things came into existence at super speed earlier this year. Over our 2 and ½ years relationship, we’ve driven each other mad, up the wall, into success and towards better, brighter places in life. We’ve shared so much and learned so much about each other and more importantly about ourselves. Words like love, passion, friendship, care and happiness were redefined in 2007 and I can only hope that this trend will carry through in 2008 and beyond.

Career wise, I’ve now spent more than a year at my current position after finishing my rotation, I’ve crossed swords with a few, argued with a few and stepped on a lot of toes over this period but no matter how horrible the day goes, I wake up most of the times looking forward to arriving at the office. I enjoy what I do immensely and although when I started this road in 2004 I was heading in a completely different direction, God/fate/destiny had a different idea and I ended up at a much more exciting, and unexpected, place. It can be mad at the office sometimes but it can never be boring!

I can’t believe that I’ve lived in this country since 2003! It feels so long and so short at the same time! The days when I was living and working in Damascus are ancient history in a way but I can fully remember the “me” that was then! It seems a life time away but I can see it so clearly as if locked in a glass box that is the old me. Have I become a wiser, better person since I came to this country? I have no idea to tell you the truth, living in London is now such a part of me it’s hard to imagine living in any other place. I remember telling a fellow Londoner/blogger before that I love the city with all its contradictions and sides. For me Damascus carries my past, family, roots but London is the sky I’m expanding my branches into. I appreciate the freedom it offer and the challenges it carries and I think I still have a few more “London years” in me yet.

What do I have in store for 2008? I was reading Abufares’ blog today about New Year’s Eve over the year, and if not anything else, it simply shows you that a new year can carry you anywhere and while you try to plan a year ahead you never know where the wind will throw you in the year to come. Where will I be on New Year’s Eve 2008? I don’t have a clue, I just hope that I’ll be spending it with the people I love and share the tallying with them then.

I hope 2008 will add to me as much as 2007 has and for it to be a happier one for the people I know that all of you dear readers.

Happy 2008!

Mothers & Daughters

I'm not talking about mothers & daughters actually but rather about mothers in law & daughters in law!
There are enough comic references about the relationship between the two to fill volumes & enough drama for 30 Ramadan series but neither comedy nor drama is what I'm writing about, it is a simple fact that a lot over look, they both share the same, deeply routed, love to the same man...

The fact that escapes a lot of people is that this is not a love which can be subject to jealousy, the differences, the reasoning and the motives are so profoundly different between the two that you can never compete, not to mention compare, for that love.

A friend of mine once told me, "How can I not adore, to say the least, the woman that shaped the person I love to the man that he is today?" That was a food for thoughts, how many of us today think of the person that we're with as the product of some seriously hard work by his parents; at least a big portion of him/her to say the least? Temporary blindness of where this person came from is unbelievable common among people stepping into a new relationship! It is more obvious with the women because they are more obsessed (forgive me ladies for the use of the word but I’m including myself here) with claiming credit for their sons’ and husbands’ achievements in life and that is where the Mother in Law and the Daughter in Law come face to face, seeking the position of the great woman behind the great man!

My friend talked about that as well, she simple stated an obvious which we can miss so easily "she has his past, I have his future, she made him the man he is today and I will shape the man he will be tomorrow, we complete each other's work as we complete each other's happiness"

I'm not that confidant, I hope that I can add to the happiness of a beloved one and his family. It is a bit of a challenge, trying to complete a puzzle that you only play a small role in but still, it is so rewarding being received with open arms and open hearts by people who are not tied to you in any way other than the shared love to one man. Because of that I think that my mother in law is a great person! She somehow misses my obvious flaws and my strange moods and always greats me with the brightest of hellos and sweetest of compliments. I haven’t spent a lot of time with her, but I know that we sometimes share a look of happiness, love and pride of the one we love; now that he’s away, I take comfort in talking to her as she does talking to me.

I wonder if all mothers in law are like that, and if so why the comedy and drama? Maybe I’m lucky, or maybe it’s not as interesting without the theatrical additions! What do you think?

Lots of talk about nothing...

I try to write as a way to occupy my mind but every time I try I’m just drawn back to the same subject, I’m always drawn back to a centre point in this space called my life, I’m pulled back to him!

Every word I’ve written was for his eyes more than anyone else’s, I know that this may sound ungrateful to all the friends who read this blog but I cannot lie nor do I want to, he untied my hands to start writing again after so many years of staying away from writing and I know that his eyes were always there to read, appreciate, correct and comment with the honesty that has been the corner stone of our relationship..

Now, he’s been away for days so long, and will stay away for weeks that carry in its days the cold icy grip of loneliness and sadness of the soul before the aching of the heart.

I’m writing away my heartache for the million little things that I miss telling him of, of the few big things that I’m used to sharing with him for so long. I write and for the first time my words are carried through a virtual space to a prolonged empty void that stretches before me before his return.

He joked before he left telling me to enjoy my time of freedom away from him, that this will be the last “holiday” that I will have of him before a lifetime of being together but how this holiday feels like a long, never ending night.

It’s cold, brutal and harsh to ask someone to live without a heart for so long, the pain is overpowering and the imbalance is dizzying.

I know that I sound to your, dear friends still reading these words, like a silly teenager whining for no good reason! Trust me, until last week I was, like what everyone around me thought, a strong independent person; alas, my balance was shaken by the lack of a voice over the phone that wished me good morning and good night for the past few years, my solidity has been weakened by the awareness that I can’t just turn to him if I needed to. It’s not living my life through him, it’s gaining strength from the knowledge that he’s there.

The silly child that turned a strong woman in the past 4 years has uncovered the truth of how much one person means to her. Strange, I knew how important he is to me but I never imagined the extent to be that far reaching…

Forgive my outpour dear reader, I needed a place to scream and this void seemed the best of places, an echo will reach him one day and I’ll be pulled back from the cold to the worm life again, till then I rest my head on a cold empty pillow that still holds his scent and wait for a tomorrow that seems a lifetime away…

Home Sweet Home

Just a quick note to all of you to wish you a happy Eid. I'm spending these days back home so I can't access the blog properly and approving comments and posting new blogs isn't easy so forgive any delays and will be back once I'm in London again.

Salaam to all

SiL

In The Arms of The Angel

Spend all your time waiting for that second chance
For the break that will make it ok
There's always some reason to feel “not good enough�
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction, oh beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
They may be empty and weightless, and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of an Angel, fly away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here

So tired of the straight line, and everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
The storm keeps on twisting, you keep on building the lies
That you make up for all that you lack
It don't make no difference, escaping one last time
It's easier to believe
In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees

In the arms of an Angel, far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
In the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here