C the SUPERSTAR!

If you are what you say you are
a Superstar
then have no fear
the crowd is here
and the lights are on and they want a show
oh oh oh oh yeah

Not Just a 4 Letter Word

If there is one word in this world that i can eliminate, it would probably be love, because this way instead of saying it I can show it, instead of depending on it I can recreate it, instead of using it as an excuse, I can use it as my ongoing reason to rediscover its unfathomable depths. Someone once told me that love is the easiest form of communication, but try to communicate it without actually just saying it...

Without the word love, our lives will have less definition, lines would be blurred, boundaries would be crossed and new territories trespassed... But through this new discovery to find meaning to a feeling you will feel alive, because "I love you" does not exist, you can't become complacent and depend on it, it depends on you to be expressed, you can't end your text message with it, or end a conversation saying it, you have to uncover to what extent "love" exists, how it eases your mind, warms your soul and makes you smile, how much it frustrates you, and exhausts you and what it robs you of.

When you eliminate love as a word you start understanding love as an expression; it's not just a five letter word, "I love you" is not three little words, it's a high, a low, it's beautiful, complicated, simple, determined and scary, it is intimate, it is all encompassing, it is fragile, it makes you whole, it makes you incomplete, it mends, it breaks, it ends... Love is transformative, so how can just a 4 letter word really pin down LOVE?

The Lost Generation- Our Generation

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Living in Degrees

My Moms cooking is exquisite, it is healthy yet rich in flavor and succulent. She does it all without measurements, she has no measuring spoons, no scales, or other measuring utensils, she just has her judgment, her experience and her love for making a good hearty meal for the family everyday. I asked her once, “Mom how do you know how much salt to add, or how long to leave the chicken in the oven? How can I learn to cook just like you?” and she replied, “Sweetheart, I can’t teach you these things, one day you will just know, sometimes even the same teaspoon of salt added to the same sized dish, could make the meal distasteful.”

Humans have this habitual persistence on measuring everything, the temperature, their weight, how many miles till your destination, even MS Word counts the number of words we type, and the characters we punch in… What is with this incessant need to live in degrees? You don’t have to know it is a beautiful day outside by listening to the weather forecast, just step outside you will know, don’t keep looking at signs to see how long you still have till you get to your destination, enjoy the journey because sometimes the journey is so much better than the destination, and don’t keep getting on that scale, 2 pounds extra does not mean you have to sign up to be the next contestant of The Biggest Loser.

So I guess living by degrees is really not about measurement, but about experience, both in the past and in the present.

The Perfect Morning Song

Shake off the morning blues with this tune!

The Problem With God- by Joseph Arthur

It’s either all divine
or none of it is
It’s either all consciousness
swooping
into and
out of the
genius of itself or
it’s just time
rotting slowly
against a broken back
(horses in a fading light gallop like the ocean
across our minds turned inside out by a word)
We are
euphoric centers
Of a light
Sometimes
which is overwhelmed
into despair
The problem with god
With belief
versus non belief
Is down
to a word
It’s down
to how we choose
to define
what is here and
apparent to all
We are
swooping
consciousness
We are
blooming
divinity
But there is a word,
which is like
a line in the sand
Divinity
It’s putting a value
on all of this
But everything is
the light
of consciousness
There is obvious
intelligence and beauty
in all that exists
I sometimes feel that the atheists
are the true believers
It takes more faith
to be an atheist
than it does a devout Baptist
To say you are sure
there is nothing
beyond what is seen
When what is seen
is already beyond
what can be understood
is a cry of
faith
A faith that to my mind
is more extreme
than a faith in a man
who can walk on water
or make others believe he did
It’s crazy
how much blood
is spilled
over questions
of religion
When every breath
you take is the universe
breathing into itself
Every breath you take
is god breathing
It’s either all divine
or none of it is
Look at the ocean
lit up by the moon
crashing into sand and dancing on your feet,
as the shadows play
with forms in the sand
greater than any work of art,
which hangs in museums
And watch
as the forms are changed
And watch
how they are always changing
Across all the shorelines
of all the beaches
In all this world
and the doubtless
countless others
Creation.
Manifest
Divinity speaking to the silence
In us all
The impossible witness
Yer consciousness
is mine is his is their’s
It’s one
(she smiles and lifts the glass up to your lips)
Call it what you want
But how can you not believe
in what you are?
Beyond the mind
Or the ego, which identifies with only the tiniest part
We are free
And bigger
than all of life
We are all of life
and reaching into
and through out death
Our beings
flying into darkness
asking ourselves to be forgiven
When life finally ends

My Love Letter.

Dear New York City,

We met once before, a few months ago, but you might not remember me, however, you left quite the impression on me. I took a trip half way across the world just to embrace you and be surrounded by your infectious vivacious love again. I hope you accept me with arms wide open, a Martini with extra olives, a nice pair of Jimmy Choo’s, an acceptance into NYU School of Law, and may be bumping into John Mayer so I can update my Twitter status to say “Hanging out with @johncmayer in NYC”.

Love,

C.

PS I Love You, make it last forever.

Whiskey Lullaby

Every time I hear this song I get teary eyed, this is the first time I watch the video, and it just made the song that much more heartfelt.

Greenwich, CT- The Start of the Journey.

This is it, Greenwich, Connecticut, where the forest meets the ocean and the distant horizon is interrupted by the sky scrappers from Manhattan. This is where God's canvas does not only give us the most beautiful scenery, but reminds us of how simple colors, simple walk ways and wooden bunks could offer the greatest escape. I did not sit there long, was just taken around this exquisite beach for a quick drive, but these brief moments were so beautiful I had to share them with the rest of you.

Fight Club

I think we all have a Tyler in us; we just keep him or her tamed, caged and locked up most of the time. I loved it when Edward Norton’s character said just as the condo blew up, "there goes a house with all the condiments and no food" and when Tyler (Brad Pitt) says "only when you have lost everything are you really set free" and also when says, “Only after disaster can we be resurrected”. I think I can go on and on about how many “ah ha” moments this movie has. Even as a girl I can relate to the inner tension every human has with his/her own self. I might be over analyzing here but I think the crazy state Edward Norton was in and his pseudo imaginary friend, Tyler, being so sadistic is not as Hollywood as you would like to think. Matter of fact it is real, just not in the blood goring, let’s join an underground Fight Club, kind of way.

We suppress agony, frustration, sexual desires, animalistic rages, we question faith, religion, the existence of God and ultimately the truth about our state of mind (or lack thereof). We inadvertently deny such bottled up tension, and dismiss acts of violence as being cannibalistic. Beating a man to death for the pleasure it gives yourself is vicious, because what separates man from beast is the brain God gave us in order to use reason, have judgment, and believe that bad people end up playing poker with Satan for all eternity (I am sure hell is a lot worse than gambling with a man with red horns, a tail and a pitchfork).

Action has a birthplace: the mind. Every thought that emanates from your mind has the power to transform into an action (even speech is an action), but it’s motivation and consequences that either push you or dissuade you from carrying through. From the most nuclear of all thoughts to the most benign and flagrant of all thoughts, we all have them, but don’t always act upon them. Even impulse is not impulse, it has gone from being something that the mind created to something that the body communicated. Yet the basic inklings of those thoughts permeates through your action. For example, if you are angry at someone you may want to go sleep it off, light up a cigarette, write them an angry letter, avoid them, call them and try to communicate with them, pound a punching bag during boxing practice, but really deep down inside you want to ring their throats, you want to jolt out the nastiest words, but these are just hermits in your mind, instead you act in the manner expected of you (yes psycho paths and people who have wrong wirings in their brain, like sex predators, rapists, kleptomaniacs, etc are exceptions).

If everyone acted on impulse and instinct, and listened to their Tyler’s, the golden rule of Fight Club would be broken: everyone would be talking about Fight Club, because everyone would be in it.

NEW YORK CITY Anthem

This is the perfect NYC Anthem! Can't wait to rock the city!

Little Red Notebook

All my life I have been drawing lines, creating boundaries, and I had a fixation on perfection. I remember I used to tell my Mom that I was bound for greatness in life, and my physiotherapist once told me, when I was at the malleable age of 17, that I was destined for greatness because the mole that decorates the upper right side of my lip apparently categorizes me to be one of the “chosen ones” or ones with a special gift- and not in an X-Men/Heroes/Ghost Whisperer kind of gift, but something else.

I have yet to discover that gift. I began the hunt soon after discovering I got accepted to UCLA, I knew this was the beginning of my journey to greatness…

I lost focus of the search, faded into the background like wallpaper, and devoted most of my time to books, mid terms and finals. The essay would consume me as I consumed more food; I packed on the pounds my freshmen year and packed nothing more on my escapade to find my gift. I remember crying a lot because I missed my family, my home life, yes even Conti, and I missed him, my “First Love” – and let me tell you this, this first love business is not overrated, it drags you down for years until you gain the strength to “not look back in anger” (thanks Oasis for this one), and to really pick up your shattered pieces and walk on.

Getting back from the ‘love’ digression:

My second and third year, only pushed me further away from uncovering my gift, and dug me deeper and deeper into Adam Smith, Interest Rates, Enlightenment, Red Dwarf Stars, Avant Garde Russian Literature, Cobb Douglas Production Function, Trade Theory, Gellaterias and other Italian words, Derivatives, Integrals and Limit Theories, Thomas Friedman and Why the World is Flat… All fantastic stuff, but my shovel was stashed away collecting dust. I was nominated Secretary of the Lebanese Club on campus and Vice President of the Arab Club- both were meaningless positions to me, because there was no pizzazz in either title. The members were superficial sons of bitches, who had complexities; I don’t wish to waste my precious time talking about, but let’s just say it was a total waste of my time. Yes I am fucking spoilt, and my parents send me money from Saudi Arabia, I am sorry you had a shitty life but don’t take out all the frustration on me. But I couldn’t escape the fact that I was their scapegoat. Some were bearable, though they were few and far between. Actually I will name them: Sarah El-Ennan, Jad Andari, Mike Azar. Sarah was my twin, we shared the same hair style (back when mine was still curly), the same dress sense, the same attitude in life, and the same pet peeves, like a certain Mona, and the same likes, like going to Ralphs grocery store at 3am and making fun of the shapes of vegetables and stealing candy from the candy section. Jad was a “mal3oon” I can’t think of the right word in English, may be a hustler would be suitable, but that doesn’t even give him justice. He drove like a maniac in a run down Honda Civic, whose doors never opened so I had to jump in through the window. Actually at one point he grafittied his entire car. Every time I rode in it I felt like I was in some rap video, I would assume The Game would bust out at any minute, and his freestyle rapping definitely added to the experience. He was one Lebanese “maniac” but I loved him for being crazy like that, he really took great care of me. Mike was cool too, we had a lot in common, except for his obscene obsession with Asian Woman, I def don’t have an Asian fetish. Mike, Jad and I would travel in one unit, everywhere they went I followed for the entire first quarter of my sophomore year. They took me to my first (and my last) frat party. Writing about this now actually makes me miss those days….

But still no gift, no treasure, not even a clue to guide me.

Life caught up with me, and I jumped on the “Going Nowhere” wagon. I enjoyed the ride sometimes; other times it was a bumpy road (perhaps I will save some details for another post).

Actually this “Going Nowhere” wagon eventually brought me back to Jeddah… Ironically it was really a wagon that took me nowhere. So I guess all puns intended with that pseudonym.

Returning to the nest you would think brings back some warmth and nostalgia, but it did none of the above, it actually sunk me deeper and deeper into a reality I didn’t want to wake up to every morning. The sun shines every day in this city, but my mood cascaded like seasons, ever changing; my winters were bitter and draped in black, my falls were melancholy, my springs were fruitful and my summers were clamorous. My indelible smile would give way to a “salty discharge” (thanks Seinfeld for this one) and my self confidence dropped like a fat lady who lost balance and tumbled down an endless stairway.., Ouch, even that imagery through simile hurt to write. But then like Bruce Wayne said from Batman Begins, “we fall to pick ourselves back up again”. Such sage words, for such a rich man. And I did, I learnt to always pick myself back up again, say a silent prayer, and ask God to grant me strength to repel the vortex that was grabbing me by the ankle guzzling me into a black hole. My mind became my demon, my heart a beacon of love over matter, and my body shed the weight. (well one good thing came out of it). I was hovering somewhere between two worlds, torn in so many directions. And I forgot that I was even ever looking for a gift. I forgot what that physiotherapist told me over 5 years ago.

But yesterday I received a beautiful red notebook, it was a gift from a friend of mine who gave it to me in hopes that I would keep writing no matter where I was. He saw something in me, I thought I lost, not because I am a Shakespearean writer, or a Tolstoy storyteller, or a TS Elliot novelist, but because I was writing with hopes that the end of my writing experience would be the beginning of the reader’s experience of my writing. And now I think I know the “gift”, I think I found it; it’s my triumph of hope over experience, of my small ray of light over a sea of darkness, and how I can change someone’s world, without even knowing it. My gift can’t be found, because it lives in me and is a part of me all along, so I should just stop my scavenger hunt, and start living… crossing lines, instead of creating them.