Rest in peace Wislawa

Something really strange happened to me the other day. As I was writing my next blog post, the name of Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska popped up in my head, to find out a day later that she has passed away peacefully in her sleep three weeks ago!

The thought took me back to one of the many inspiring chats I used to have with my good friend and one of the most respected Palestinian poets Mourid Bargouti. I remember him clearly saying “if I were to die right after listening to Wislawa reciting her poetry, I’d die a happy man!” I was pleasantly surprised to hear Mourid talk like that about anything because he’s quite difficult to please.

I was intrigued and ran to the bookstore and bought two of Wislawa’s books, one for him and one for me.

I’m sharing two poems here; Mourid’s favorite poem “Clouds” and “A Few Words on the Soul”.

May her soul rest in peace

Clouds

I'd have to be really quick

to describe clouds -

a split second's enough

for them to start being something else.

Their trademark:

they don't repeat a single

shape, shade, pose, arrangement.

Unburdened by memory of any kind,

they float easily over the facts.

What on earth could they bear witness to?

They scatter whenever something happens.

Compared to clouds,

life rests on solid ground,

practically permanent, almost eternal.

Next to clouds

even a stone seems like a brother,

someone you can trust,

while they're just distant, flighty cousins.

Let people exist if they want,

and then die, one after another:

clouds simply don't care

what they're up to

down there.

And so their haughty fleet

cruises smoothly over your whole life

and mine, still incomplete.

They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone.

They don't have to be seen while sailing on.

A Few Words on the Soul

We have a soul at times.

No one's got it non-stop,

for keeps.

Day after day,

year after year

may pass without it.

Sometimes

it will settle for awhile

only in childhood's fears and raptures.

Sometimes only in astonishment

that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand

in uphill tasks,

like moving furniture,

or lifting luggage,

or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out

whenever meat needs chopping

or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations

it participates in one,

if even that,

since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,

it slips off-duty.

It's picky:

it doesn't like seeing us in crowds,

our hustling for a dubious advantage

and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow

aren't two different feelings for it.

It attends us

only when the two are joined.

We can count on it

when we're sure of nothing

and curious about everything.

Among the material objects

it favors clocks with pendulums

and mirrors, which keep on working

even when no one is looking.

It won't say where it comes from

or when it's taking off again,

though it's clearly expecting such questions.

We need it

but apparently

it needs us

for some reason too.

Showers of happiness

This post was written on a good day!

Something good must be going on in the Universe today.

It looks like it’s a good day for everybody I know, including myself.  The recent miserable rain showers have been replaced with sunshine and showers of happiness. It’s really funny that everyone I saw today was happy. Every phone call was upbeat; I could literally hear the person on the other line smiling back at me!  Some complex issues are suddenly working out…just like magic!

Living in a country where good fortune or bad is a result of some kind of a conspiracy, it is only normal to think, “what’s going on? Why’s everybody so happy?”  But this sudden shift in a state of emotion makes you wonder, what does it really take to be happy?

I was on a high for the rest of the day ready to welcome better news and happier coincidences.  And they materialized just as expected, a coincidence after the other just like a stream of feel good songs that paint a long lasting smile on your face.

Before I went to bed that night I thought to myself life can be beautiful. It just takes little surprises every now and then to inject happy energy into your system to sustain you during rainy days.

Life 101

Last night I couldn’t sleep. I would wake up every two hours to attend to my father who’s been living with brain tumor for at least nine years.

The first thought that came to mind this morning was that I now understand what my friends go through with their newborn babies. I now know what it feels like to force your body out of bed and your brain to function fast enough to respond to your baby’s needs.

When it’s a baby, you have the green light to complain as much as you want and nobody, not even your conscience, would blame you.  But when it is your own father who lived his life making one sacrifice after the other for you to have the best of everything, you live with a struggle. You regret every minute you spent agonizing over his constant nagging.

It’s been a struggle ever since we were faced with the reality that it was now time to switch roles with our father.

When we were children our parents prepared us to face many of life’s possibilities. “As a wife, this is how you should treat your husband. As a mother you should do this with your kids and avoid doing that to them, etc etc.”  But they missed a very important lesson, which is “if you were ever faced with the painful reality of having to switch roles with us, this is how we would like you to do it.”

This important lesson was never part of my “Life 101.”

Life 101 that my parents taught me was all about the best of life possibilities. It didn’t have any “Ifs”. It was all about “WHEN you fall in love, WHEN you get married and WHEN you have kids, we will be there for you”.  All false promises, none of which actually materialized!

I had to learn “Life” all over again, and this time without a tutor.

As much as you feel you’ve perfected the new role bestowed upon you for reasons only known to God, the child in you won’t accept it.

I miss being parented. I miss the times when I used to look forward to going back home to pour out the events of my day to my parents who’d be waiting eagerly with open ears.  I miss being the one nagging and the one asking for help.

Life is tough to say the least. But our parents are not to blame for not exactly explaining it that way. They may have really believed that we were immune to all kinds of pain and suffering. Instead they spent the time they had with us building castles in the air.

I really don’t know what is right and what is wrong. 

I look at my father every day and wish I could pour my heart out. I look him in the eye sometimes and hope to catch a moment of clarity. Occasionally I’d get a teardrop confused with a smile loaded with a thousand words of love and longing. And I carry those seconds in my heart until I’m again reminded of the new role.

C'est la vie as they say.  But I still love life and everything it has to offer despite all the unpleasant surprises along the way. I guess the trick is to always try to find happiness in the toughest of situations.

This is the lesson I would’ve added to my Life 101:

Always be prepared for pain but be quick to accept by finding peace in your heart to move on.

Your children are not your children

I just had a painful conversation with a friend whose parents are opposed to the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with. Just like that a simple “No” combined with emotional blackmail has put an end to a possibly beautiful story which hasn’t yet started.   

Our conversation reminded me of what Gibran Khalil Gibran said about Children in his book The Profit.

”Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday."

I have never met anybody who didn’t love The Profit by Gibran. In fact, people treat it like a bible. You’re likely to find it occupying a visible space in the library of every home you visit. People admire him and his work.  But do they really get it? Do they really understand what he says?

I feel hurt for my friend, for myself and for every single person I know and I don’t know who’s a victim of our selfish society.

When will our families come to terms with the fact that they do not own our future? Do they even think of the possibility that they may not be part of it?

Having said that, I sometimes tend to understand when parents have an opinion about matters of love and marriage. But in some cases their objection is a result of selfish love.

What I do not empathize with is when parents fantasize about their children’s future in the arts or music.  If they didn’t get to learn a certain instrument in their childhood, they want their kids to make it up to them! They want to realize their long lost dream through their children’s eyes who by the way are totally different people!

If your son wants to go to a dance school instead of studying to be a doctor, let him be. If your daughter wants to do drumming instead of ballet, well it’s not the end of the world.

I know I’m sounding overly passionate about this but I have seen my own friends repeat the same mistakes. I don’t have children myself but I have a younger sister and I must admit at one point I myself fell into that trap.

It is so easy to just let go and let things be. If we practice putting our ego on the shelf every time we intend to make a decision on behalf of any of our loved ones, life would be really beautiful and simple, devoid of anger, frustration, hatred, guilt and every negative emotion there is.

“Shhhhhhhh”

I started writing this note on the plane on my way back home from Muscat.  I was feeling very relaxed. I think relaxed is an understatement. I was more like drugged! I don't know what it is but this city has an amazing energy that forces you to switch off. You're literally unable to use your mind or operate with the same speed you're used to.

Before getting out of the airport into the city you feel like the immigration officer has asked you to keep quiet ¨shhhhhhh.¨And I obeyed! I kept quiet. My mind was quiet all week! You can´t help it even if you´ve tried. 

With a coastline of 1700km, you can walk on the beach for hours!

The Omanis are happy people! Everything is slow and happens in slow motion. It reminded me of life in Amman in the 80's when the city was empty and life was simple.

Employees take three-hour lunch breaks. Deadline related panic is non-existent.


You walk by the Sultan's guest house and you see no security but one guard who greets you with a smile and asks you to take as many pictures as you want.

You feel as if people have meditated before leaving their homes in the morning!

Even Birds meditate on the beach there! They're not afraid. You can go near them to take a photo, they're not bothered. They probably don't know you're there because they're busy meditating!

When you've gotten a taste of life in Oman and compare it with your own life back home, you think to yourself is anything really worth it? Is it that easy to choose to switch back to slow motion and switch our mind off?

The first few days after I came back home I was still under the effect of the “Muscat drug.” My mind was still asleep and I wondered if I’d be able to maintain that wonderful feeling.


I remembered a book I read a couple of years ago called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle and decided to pick it up and read it one more time in the hope of preserving in my heart what was left of the amazing energy I brought back home.

In the book Tolle talks about the energy field of different countries. He says that the overwhelmingly light energy of certain countries is related to their history devoid of violence.

“Certain countries in which many acts of collective violence were suffered or perpetrated have a heavier collective pain body than others. This is why older nations tend to have stronger pain-bodies. It is also why younger countries, such as Canada and Australia, and those that have remained more sheltered from the surrounding madness, such as Switzerland, tend to have lighter collective pain-bodies…If you’re sensitive enough, you can feel a heaviness in the energy field of certain countries as soon as you step off the plane.“

How’s that for a thought?

I felt the exact opposite the minute I set foot in Muscat. It was as if the whole population joined together to give me a week-long healing session!