it is time

i have looked for you everywhere and it could well be that instead of looking, i ought to have been listening. you and i go a long long way in that we were born together, and together we will move on to eternity. yes you, i am talking to you. talking, writing, thinking with you: me.

not long ago you wrote to one of your best friends, you wrote to that one with whom you have decided to share all without really needing to share anything. when you thought about it a bit more, then you realised that the need was there after all. the need that was there was that of being just one. what you have been looking for all along has been your own integrity, and you have been looking for it as though it was a foreign abstract idolatry.

not long ago you listened to me. not long ago you finally saw me. the sight of me leaves you uncomfortable, does it not?

you are totally surprised, if for nothing else because you could not imagine that it would be so easy. i have been here all along, and all the discomfort and trials are part of it all.

you have cursed biology and all of science, and above all you have questioned it all. you are pretty sure that apples fall to the ground, and you are pretty sure that Newton claims to have called that the effect of gravity, but after that, what is it that we know?

welcome to my adventure...

vertigo

flirting is to me a wonderful gift, it is respectful, it soothes the ego and it promises absolutely nothing while opening up a world of possibilities and exciting the imagination. for the storyteller whom i am, you were more than a loving and dedicated teacher last week, you are a gift of the universe. the right one at the right time, at the right place. how can i thank the universe? i thank you. flirting is like going to the museum, you admire the art, you imagine what it would be like to have a Rembrandt in your living room, and then you don't touch, you don't take it home, and you do not possess. beings, human beings are art. the philosopher in me would love to expound on being human and being art, and the human being in me has had its curiosity aroused: what is it like to explore experiencing that being who calls himself by an angel's name? and the other wrote: "he, now the third man in this one episode, he is neither swiss nor japanese, he has neither blue eyes nor a long time relationship with me, he is also not the man of my dreams. he entered my radar a few years ago although i can not quite recall the exact time and date. the first time i saw him on the tatami, i knew that i had more than just another technically brilliant human in front of me. he impressed me then, and then i proceeded to forget his existence until last week. he shows up last week, more through my own utter oblivion than any sort of fathomable intentionality or rationality. last week, he shows up with several faces, the one of the master, another the loving teacher, and still another of the flirt. my ego has been ever so enthralled with the flirt, any flirt, and i am left with the answer to all my questions: i don't know. nothing has to happen, anything is possible, be ready for all, do nothing." being myself is doing nothing.

it was good

it was good to sit around a table with you and just relax, listen, and be.

once i asked another very dear to me how it was that he could stand to live with a person whose ego is ostentatious and unbearable. he smiled, shrugged his shoulders and told me that it builds his character. recently i have been facing lots of opportunities to build my character in this manner. when i encounter such an individual, i am tempted on occasions to just bury my head in the sand and ignore them. however having my head in the sand is not much help in either developing character, building reality or being present to existence. burying my head in the sand is denial. burying my head in the sand is being out of relationship.

i had a short talk in the shower room with her. we talked about my relationship with you. i felt her insecurity, and i wanted her to be reassured. afterwards i was left thinking that perhaps people do not really want reassurance while living in virtual insecurity and fighting for possession.

i had been scaling the walls of some fantastic mountain without any ground under my feet when i first met you. it was many years ago, and i did not even know that i had found myself scaling a mountain, much less that the ground under my feet was missing. i was lost, i did not see you. then one day, i found myself on the mountain and you were standing on my side. vertigo!

it was good to sit around a table with you and just relax, listen, and be.

i feel silence. silence.

why is it that instead of saying thank you, i say that i love you?

the sun rises in the east

have not given much sign of life recently...

had a long conversation with my brother today during which we discussed family issues and our own. we came up with the conclusion that somehow, we all have our secrets, even is these secrets are something that we only share with another person. it happens that there are facts to which we are the only living witness of their existence...am now thinking of the time when we met and how very unlikely and improbable our meeting was. sometimes i do wonder if there is something like fate or destiny... then i claimed to be counting the grains of sand in arabia. some time ago i met a man whom i found very interesting when i heard him speak at a conference that i was attending. i read a bit of what he writes and i thought that he had insights that very few people have. i got curious about his work and what he does. then later that year he and i were both speakers at another conference. one evening during that conference we sat across each other and i noticed for the first time that besides a brilliant intellect, there was also an interesting man there, and i thought nothing of it. the universe was bent on not letting things stand that way, and something happened that made me look at that man again. at the end of that year we met without either a group or work, but as two private individuals. meeting him was perhaps just as unlikely as it was meeting you even if in this case he does live in the same country, and his life and mine have strong parallels including the places where we have lived. there are human encounters that have a quality that seems rare. i feel blessed by the fact that i have had several such encounters. you do have a certain experience of me. i know for certain, that you have enriched and continue to enrich my life. recently i commented to him just before boarding a plane that often i am very distant and do keep people, in particular men, at quite a distance. he did not think so. i had to smile and think of you... it reminded me that with you, it had been that way. i dropped my guard, i wanted to know more about you. then i had to think again. there are a few men whom i have let into my life and with whom i have shared this life of mine intensely. you are a part of my life, not just a memory. you are the sunrise.

i am scared

remember that we laughed just a few days ago, and do remember that that is exactly what just a few months past, i had no idea could ever happen.

remember laughing and thinking nothing of it, knowing that it all means nothing, that is ecstasy. remember?

remember how you have been my muse for the past few years?

i think that without you i would have succumbed long ago. without you i would have perished in my loneliness, without you i would have disintegrated within my own forces.

without you, i say. what do i say?

now i am facing a new sheath of fear. what is the dagger's nature so intimately embraced by that sheath?

does the sheath envelope the dagger, or does it protect me from its nature?

what is this that i am feeling now?

i am so very tired of this multitude of foreign feelings! do not let me get lost in their chaos!

in all the years that i have known you, for the first time i imagine the intimacy of our struggle.

i am scared, i need to remember the lightness of our laughter. i need to remember the lightness of my laughter.

could it be that i just need to forget all?

this

this anxiety is fear.

i did not know that it could feel this way.

fear...

fear!

how very foreign you are to me!

but why do i fear my wishes?

why do i fear my dreams?

why do i fear my desires?

am i any less than any other, so much less that i would have no right to my own insanity?

summer

 

the summer is over it rains

where were we the last time that we talked?

 

oh... it was spring!

no. spring was magic.

we talked last a few weeks ago, and then i lost track of it all.

you told me that you missed me and i wondered if it was me or the redhead that was missed.

 

i like the summer when the heat is gone i like the spring when the breeze is warm i like the autumn when the sun is smooth i like the winter in the winter

i came to think of you and her, of him and i, and i have gotten to wonder. i see her more often than you do. you do not see him at all. we, we do not exist, we are eternal.

 

i mash your words and his. you asked me what it would be like... and he told me what it would be like.

when it rains, what is the truth?

for the love of an angel

i have forgotten all

who was i then?

i feel the fury i feel the tempest i feel the storm i feel the furnace i feel the intemperance i feel the compulsion i feel the insanity

the morning hours are here and almost gone, the muse visits. now it is the muse and the angel embracing and disavowing all existence.

obsession.

there are moments

moments, that is all that there is

there are moments when i could die there are moments when i die

there are moments when i long for you there are moments when i forget you

there are moments...

moments of joy moments of tears moments of nothing moments of all

there are moments of life there are moments of you there are moments of me

there are moments

suis-je une illusion?

Les jours… oh les jours!

Les nuits, elles sont bien, je dors, je dors bien et tranquille.

Et voilà que le matin vient et m'approche avec ses caresses de folie et les souvenirs de ta tendresse.Je ne veux pas t'oublier, et je ne veux pas m'oublier. Comment est qu'on saura ce qu'on veut vraiment?

Il me vient a l'esprit qu'il faut qu'on se parle, qu'il faudra bien qu'on s'aime et qu'on se parlera sans les mots.

Suis-je une illusion?

it is morning again

i am back remembering february, and november past. i travel wide and far these days, i write, i breathe and walk trough life wondering what the adventure is all about.

most of all, my encounters with those others on this planet do not leave me cold or passive. i am as curious as ever, and the adventure seems to have a new beginning with each sunrise.

just this week i had one of those moments when i was very present to the beauty of it all. felt loved and a part of it all, and questioned all the notions and ideas that one is polluted with in the process of just being on earth with other humans. i was then very present to what it is like to be held in your arms, and what it is like to be a part of this life and share those moments that we do share, and if there is something that i know, it is that i do not know what it is like to be you.

for some odd reason i always thought that the most intimate of all moments are not very personal. at some level those moments are not personal, yet when it comes to you, there is something personal, something that i have rare recollections of ever having experienced. i wonder if it is my memory that fails me, or if it is that what we share is precious beyond the capabilities of what my words can express.

it is pure joy to wake up early on a saturday morning rested and to have my first thought be of you, feel the longing for your presence, and to be happy in my solitude just the same, and to remember how your hand feels when you caress my legs and never knowing when again we will look into each others eyes. i miss your gaze, i miss your eyes, i miss you and i feel complete in this world of solitude and seclusion.

it is morning, and i am remembering. it is morning and i am dreaming. it is morning and i am grateful for this morning.

by my truth

you are nothing at all

i am all, and i am nothing

thus, there we are: equal

who am i?

can i answer the question of who i am before i know where i am?

what am i doing?

who am i?

today it occurred to me that i am without identity. deep inside me there is no identity. i have wondered if it is careless of me to walk around without identity. who am i?

why is it that life appears to me as such a comedy, or as a costume party? and then if not the comedy, or the costume party, other times all that i see is the infinite drama of life and death. what happens in between, i do ask myself.

days like today are different. yesterday i was fully present to all the meaninglessness of life, and then today it all became heavy. there was a light moment when in the office of a friend, for a whole of ten minutes, it was all clear. absolutely clear. then i get immersed in a reality that is foreign to me, and i do wonder what language these people speak, for i really do not understand any of it. it is all so absolutely foreign and strange. i feel displaced, out of time and space, out of it all.

it was like that this evening. i watched a film, but it was my own film that i was watching, and it was foreign to me. i do not like these moments when i can feel it all. i do not like these moments when i feel totally raw and vulnerable. why don't i like these moments?

who am i?

a week ago when i was in your arms, i forgot it all. then, there was just that moment. i am left soothed, inspired and aching for more of those moments. when you go, the questions return. who am i? who are you? who are we?

i know that it is my own wounds now that are surfacing. sometimes it all seems so absolutely ethereal. there is nothing, nothing at all that i can hold on to. i plainly just do not know how to hold on to anything. why must i only exist when i write?

tell me! hold me!

hold me, and let me free.

tell me, and let it be. trust.

disarmed

the thing is that i do not know what love is.

it is a four letter word in english, a five letter word in german and french. other four letter words in the english language do better with me. still, i already have trouble figuring out what work is. with love i am at a total loss.

yet... with every stone, and every rain drop, once more i fall in love with life all over again and again.

i am tired of the romantics and i am especially fastidious about straying from the existentialists.

fear. fear is another four letter word quickly joining love in my mind of meaningless.

what is fear? what is love?

do we fear love, or do we love fear?

you can believe

you can believe anything at all.

you can believe your fears you can believe your ego you can believe your delusion

you can believe anything at all.

you can believe what you feel you can believe yourself you can believe my reality

you can believe anything at all.

you can believe all you can believe nothing you can believe our dream

you can believe anything at all.

i never thought 2

that it would be this way. really i did not.

remember when we talked about tokyo?

i do remember new york. i remember you standing there on the stairway at the portal to that world that was then so very foreign to me, and in a quick half-turn i started walking in another direction. down another direction, up another direction, either way, i did turn my back on you and the world that had made my life possible.

this week in an act of absolute egoism, i rejected my ego's intellectual information about what would be sensible, i said no. i said no to the status quo. i said no to my own lack of acceptance of your fears. i said no to the joys found in your arms. i said no. i thought of tokyo. you do remember tokyo?

i never thought

i never thought that it would be this way. i never thought that i would risk it all, and then in one split second of madness decide it all. decide now, at this point, take a stand, make a commitment, and then not think. think nothing at all.

i have struggled in the past months with the voice of one character. sometimes i have it, it is a loud and clear voice. each time that i hear it, i want to hang on to it, however more often than not, i go back to it, and i do not find its thread again.

i never thought that it would be this way. i never thought that i would embrace it all, and then in one split second of madness decide it all. decide now, at this point, embrace it and close my eyes, and then think nothing at all.

i have struggled in the past months with the very presence of your existence. sometimes i have it, it is a radiant and smooth being. each time that i sense it, i want to hang on to it, however more often than not, i go back to it, and i do not find its thread again.

i never thought that it would be this way. i never thought that i would end it all, and then in one spit second of madness decide it all. decide now, at this point, end it and run away, and then think nothing at all.

being with you

last night, miles apart, together.

i wished you here, i wished myself there, i wished nothing at all.

i have missed this place, really have.

i am miles apart from myself, how could i think that i am close to you?

have missed being here with me, really have.

i have noticed my attention fragment at the slightest whisper and i have noticed myself waiver and vacillate. i forget easily, i forget the struggle much too easily, i am so drunk with it all, i am. drunk and here, that i am.

i forget the hardship, i forget the pain. i forget it all so damn quickly, how can i forget so easily? will you tell me?

but why can i not forget you? each time that i meet you, i think that you will be different this time, and then i meet you again and again through time, through space, through fiction, and there you are, always here and always so far!

i did not want a love affair, i didn't. i told you so, didn't i? perhaps i forgot, i always do forget. i even forget the love affairs. i forget all. i forget all of you. all of you.

last night, right here, miles apart, together.

i really do not know.

there is no other

there is no other day like today

there is no other me like me

there is no other you like you

there is just today

there is just me

there is just you

the animal longs for the warmth of your touch and the fury of your desire

the spirit longs for the warmth of your being and the fury of your existence

it is morning again

i return

thinking of you all of you every single one of you.

it was just a few days ago that somebody shared a little episode of his life with me. his wife had just told him to listen to himself, and he had just said that failure was not a possibility. i looked at him, said nothing, and thought how i had once told myself that i was damned to succeed. we were talking about the need to balance paradoxes and of just being with what is present; the need of not knowing. it was a very intimate and private conversation. it does me good to have such conversations, i need those. intimate and private conversations are not personal, they are natural consequences of just being alive and authentic, they happen spontaneously.

i thought of you, and i thought of the logistics of our lives and the sheer madness of our lack of compromise. i wouldn't want anything else. just yesterday i was thinking about the thousand things that i want to share with you. i do not know if ever we will. failure here is a possibility although my wonderful ego would rather cling to it all, let go of nothing, and sell my soul in the process. we want all of it, there is nothing to sell. nothing to cling to.

just thinking of you.

fear

it was more than a month ago. i took my pen and wrote you the longest letter that i have ever written to you. more than twenty pages in a notebook that was to remain with me. it is a letter to you. that paper with those words will one day turn to ash. they will. so will you and i.

i took a long walk where we have never walked together. it was time to think, it was time to throw my memories of you down the river of times past. it was impossible.

hold me tight, and let me be

i have no doubts

i have no hopes

i have me

 

again and again we fall in love

with our children

with the rain

with the seasons

i have no hesitation

i have no desire

i have no dreams

i have it all

i have me

hold me tight, and let me be

bitch!

damned bitch you are!

now, you remembered. now, i have forgotten!

you took a little girl and you kicked her,

you took a little girl and you abused her,

you took a little girl and lied,

you took a little girl and you took the money

you left the girl...

she never mattered, did she?

what is a girl? what is life?

what does it matter, to be human?

what is the purpose of it all anyhow?

how can you be such a damned blind fool?

i do not care for your answers. your answers are excuses. your excuses are deception.

now... you begin to realize that the time passed will never come back. now you begin to realize... and i just do not care.

once i cared. i used to dream of it. i sought it everywhere.

i found it. your daughter is long dead.

sleeping with demons

my mind is too cluttered for poetry. i have been sleeping with my demons, going to bed with the devil, and copulating with insecurity. thus my prose... riddled in muddle, ambiguity, and utter incredulity.

that is about the shape of things in the place that i find myself right now. i love it. it is like standing on the edge of the grand canyon and loosing all sight of perspective and distance. how far are those ridges, how far are those abysses? near of close?

yesterday i cried of sadness, and i was happy. i can still see in my minds eye how it felt to sit there curled in that designer chair near the university, and just feeling the warmth that sadness embraced brings, i called it happiness. it was awfully delightful, and it made me think of nothing in particular, i just felt surrender.

need

i have considered my needs.i have wondered. i have wandered i have flirted with insanity. i have seduced insanity.

deep into the writing of a novel, i start to draft another story that is not fiction. i can barely draw the distinction between fiction and non-fiction, much less keep them separate. i draw and all my frustration surfaces. i want to draw more. writing has became slow and tedious, a toiled labour. writing is my obsession. this is my predicament. it is my love. my love, my first love?

i could not have prepared better for this time. it could be that comfort is not what life is all about. i am curious.

 

are discomfort and ease ever simultaneously possible?

this winter i fell in love with a man, this spring i fell in love with a cherry tree.

i believe in nothing at all. not in the words, not in the images, not even in your existence

i need to breathe.

it is grey, dapple-grey

it is perhaps a day like any other. like any other day, i am not ready for it. if there is anything that i know, i know that most days greet me with surprise.

it is a grey and sobering day. the sunshine is hiding and i am alone in my solitude and my desire to live.

emotion, pure and simple they say, that was it, that is it. that is life, it is emotion.

there is nothing to say, nothing to tell... it is grey, dapple-grey it is.

woke up remembering a dream, once more defending you in my dream like in all those little inconsequential conversations that splatter themselves across my day. why must i want to defend you?

so, how has it been, you will ask next time, like you did last time. i will look at you at a loss, for the only certainty is that i do not know how to tell you how it has been. after i looked in your eyes and looked for what i can not find in your question mark, i will smile and i will say something or other, i will hide, i always do. you will hold me again, we will not talk... i have nothing for you, you have nothing for me. we shall be.

it will be in some time from now, and it will be in a time that i can not imagine. the certainty of my other dream is not grey, it is bright and trepid. trepid is my nature, bright is my essence.

haruki murakami

haruki murakami, originally uploaded by shop boy.

he is good

i still have a few dreams

today was another day in this life,

and if i died now,

you could say that i was happy

 

seven days and seven nights

it is strange that it would be here that i return. it is even stranger that it is to you that i write this note. do you know who you are?

just a few days ago we held each other and you said something about finally. finally all is well. finally, now, here we are. that i had the nerve to hold you tight and lift you off the floor did remind me of how very real this muse of mine whom you have incarnated is. how very real, and how very mortal you are!

i like that space that is imagined between you and i. it allows me to be me. i like your curiosity, and i like your admiration that are aimed at me. i like it that you say that you do not want to know, because you are afraid that you might understand. then i am the curious one, and do wonder what that in itself might mean. i like how ethereal and surreal this is between us. i have described this between us as a privileged relationship. it is to me, and i do not know what and if you call it anything at all. it really does not matter, does it?

it is good to love and to not care, to really not give a damn, not really. it is good to be present to what is. it is good to give up. it is good to not want. it is really good.

we are not always that blissful and privileged, are we?

you need her and i need him. there, you with her and i with him, neither of us has yet that much freedom and abandon. with them we are passionate and confused, not free. will we ever share with them what we now know to be a reality?

would it make a difference?

le rouge sans le noir

sometimes we do not care, those are the good times.

believe

i believe in nothing

i do not believe in your existence

i do not believe in my words

i fell in love once. twice. many times.

i fall in love each morning

once

the desire is for silence

the desire is to disappear

the desire is to not exist

i am tired of words. they do not communicate

character after character

just abstractions vague empty

take a line. take its psychology

where are you? who am i?

what am i doing?

then close your eyes!

but you did not... you read. you keep on reading.

you wonder what is it that is not being said

what is it that i am not saying? what is it that you are not saying?

she hesitated, she did.

turn the page, do!

i am tired of thinking. i am tired of being a fucking genius. i am tired of you.

really, i am. i am.

to a loyal friend

"alone?" was the question.

one word, and the reply:

thanks for the message!

 

if you got the word from reading "fluage" i can understand your concern. fluage is getting more and more abstract and fiction is starting to sneak in. the abstractions also have quite a synthetic approach, and i am using it both to vent out some of my own feelings, but also to experiment with what is more commonly known as poetic license.

i think that it is somewhat ironic that i would consider you a loyal friend, but that is somehow how you have shown up in my life. in that light i want to make sure that you know that your concern is very appreciated and it does mean something to me, and on the other side it is also important to fill in the context of some of the words that i put out into the public space.

all is well, i am just in a bit of an autistic phase, and each time that i do need to go out and be with people, it is like slipping into another skin. nothing has changed, it is just that i need to get myself concentrated on what i am doing, and sometimes it is not too easy, and as a matter of fact, it is damn difficult. i get easily distracted, and the last thing that i want is this other human to be the latest of my distractions. this other human is also as busy as they can get and slowly i have a feeling that here we have two workaholics who have found each other, so in a rather strange way it does work out. i for my side do need to be alone these days so that i can concentrate on my own writing. however nothing is more difficult to me than to attend to my own needs, but i am working on it.

when i wrote that with this other human i opened the door and unhinged the door, that door into my life, it is true. but then i also always leave the door open anyhow, i do not want to hold anybody against their will. how it will turn out is still rather open, good relationships do not get built overnight, and when both have their nose buried in their dreams and both are fond of calling that their work, then you know that we are dealing with rather healthy egoism on both sides. i for my part need my own healthy egoism. this bit of altruism and sacrificing my life for other's is not quite up my alley.

a lot in my life would be a lot easier if i did not have to worry about somehow making a living, but then it would be a different kind of life. the thing about being a writer, or an artist of any kind, is that, at least in my case i feel compelled to write, but there is no guarantee that i will ever be able to make a living out of it. i am also quite clear that i want to do this on my own. i wonder why it is that i seem to have so much difficulty getting my finances straightened out.

thanks to you i did give my own whore a good spin, so much so that i know what there is for me to sell is what i create between my ears. in my understanding of things, it is good to give one's own whore a good go sometime in one's life. but then it could be that what i call "my own whore" needs to be better defined. i tend to have my own language in a rather fascinating world that mine is. needless to say that there is quite a bit of irony in my use of these expressions.

as far as women go i may indeed be a very odd one, but that is no reason for me to want to change. i like who i am, and slowly i am learning to love all this oddness of mine. some of this is indeed the result of a much too high iq and a very high sensitivity. the universe could have been a little less generous with me, but my task in life is to accept what i got, and i did get quite a lot, not to blame the universe for its generosity or my parents for their own contribution to all of this. from good looks, to wit, intelligence and the ability to feel and sense, somehow i got it all. the orgasms are damn good too. the part that you may not have quite figured out is that my own orgasms were never very important to me. if, like me, one can feel the other so intensely... dealing with one's own body can sometimes be overwhelming. anyhow, years of tantra practice do leave a mark, and it is not what the popular press would have you believe.

life is good.

being just one

colouring my world with the sentiments of your existence

i watched you recently. the minute that you began speaking, i started to shudder. how can you dare to touch us all so with just your very own rawness?

"one day one asks me if i am alone, and i give semblance of ignoring such a message. i do not answer, i do not even spend time interpreting it. it could all mean so much, and perhaps it means nothing at all. on that same day another tells me that no, he does not want to hear all the details, he is afraid that he might understand."

i have also experienced you differently, i have felt you when you totally disappear in reaching out to all, and out there what the others experience is the one that can not be touched or reached. yet that one whom you are becomes so very present within the others that they forget that it is you who is giving them the moment. when i experience you like that, then i really want to cry because you can't see what you are giving, and sometimes i wonder if you even prefer to live in that ignorance.

"i am a foreign emotion, and emotions are alone and unconquerable. think of it as an error in the matrix, or a discontinuity in perception, and i tell you that it is all real, all that i am is very real, all that you feel is real. real and alone we remain. i never wanted anything else, i never dreamed of anything else.

no, even as you remain a precious muse, and i may continue to maintain all my attention and vigilance to what i sense in your presence, i will not explain it to you, you already know and your fear of understanding is not mine, it is yours, and i shall leave you alone with that fear.

are we ever alone when we are alive? isn't loneliness just that fear of understanding? what would it be like if you were to give up that fear of understanding?"

we will fall in love again, we will. we do each time that we look at each other, we do fall in love. each time that that we embrace, we fall in love, we do. each time... again and again...

it is nothing that i need to promise you, it is something that we know.

frustration

yes.

very. truly, very frustrated.

i read that love declaration again... i cried.

i cry each time that i am touched by the immediate i cry each time that i am touched by your strength i cry each time that i think of you

i can not bear to see you there helpless!

why do you withdraw from your own life? why do you hold back your own power? why do you wreck havoc in your own life?

why you disconnect from those who love you?

from whom are you running away? why do you insist on burying your head in the sand?

remember girl, arabia is not here! oh no!

in arabia, there was sand in the sahara, there was sand

at the beach, there was sand

not here.

girl.. woman...

frustrated!

why do you deny yourself?

it hurts

it pains me

it hurts

it really hurts!

there are all these ideas aching to get through and out. i write and the writing is metaphoric delusion, nothing communicates, not the words, not the letters... not the metaphors even!

i love her, truly i do. i read her letters, all her love letters, her love letters never mailed... i have read them, and i have cried. i have loved that woman, oh, i have!

it hurts, it pains me, to see her gone... she is no more. and how i loved her when she gave me her best mask, her best smile, her deep and intense gaze...

oh, i loved her! i did. i do.

i love her. how can we ever be separated?

she loved, she did. all of them. they had all different faces they had all different faults

blue eyes brown eyes green eyes tall dark short blond

compassionate pragmatic optimistic depressed passionate frivolous narcissistic ambitious idealistic brave

married divorced unsolved

they have all been so very different, so very human and she... she loved them all.

she loved the faults, she loved the strengths, she loved the weaknesses...

she just loved them all.

then she would sit there on that corner, she would smile and ask me if i really knew what it was like to not really know...

i never knew what she meant, i just loved her.

her eyes, her smile and what she could see... i could never see what she sensed, i could never dream what she experienced, i could never draw what she could paint, i could never imagine what she could be.

she no longer is. where is her mask? where is her smile?

why her? why not me?

imagine it all on a different plane

imagine that it could have been labeled autistic, and imagine that that autism is barely noticeable except for a slight speech defect and facial expressions that although apparently easy to interpret to an observer, these expressions do not correspond to the emotion, feeling or that which would want to be communicated. often it can not communicate that that it wishes to communicate. imagine that the patterns do not spell out what others would have it spell out. imagine that it is all along the lines of evolution, and imagine that normal is being redefined.

was also born with a fascination for stories. at an early age would read a story, and then could recreate it in minute detail amazing teachers with the precision of recall and the wonder of recreation. the words were not memorized, the story was remembered and recreated live. then, many years later, there are the shredded newspapers covering the floor and the other's inability to gain one single word of response. no response. just shredded newspapers, one page at a time, one strip at a time, one centimeter wide each strip, all shreds... the worth of news spread on the floor lay!

imagine it all down to the stardom of geekiness and forget the conventions and the norms, just forget it all! fractal it was! fracted and insulated within the story, once more it found all the love that it needed.

broken humans, all!

lovely.

imagine reinventing it all.

 

fluage

the woman and the cavalry

why fluage?

fluage is a french word, and it means the slow deformation that a material exhibits upon being exposed to continued or permanent stress and strain. it is the kind of word that you will not find in a pocket dictionary, and i can not quite come up with the english translation beyond matrix deformation. it is a term used in geology, seismology, and material science. in short, it is a very technical term from the general discipline of mechanics. mechanics deals with materials, and material the thing is!

however fluage: the woman and the cavalry is about the ego. it is about my ego, and it is about its interaction with the ego of others. interactions of body, spirit and mind are indeed very human and can be very beautiful, however bringing the ego into the equation is to submit to a process that may bring in irreversible changes. interactions of the ego tend to be very confronting, bring about all sorts of emotion, and they can kill you or make you. the ego is that anvil on which our human being gets pounded, it does shape us. i am not about to damn the ego, i like my ego, and it has on more than one occasion saved my life, and certainly maintained my sanity. still the ego is an unruly abstraction of that which makes us human, yet a healthy relationship to one's ego will demand its disciplining. the ego is a very powerful ally once it has been well trained and you can ride it like one rides a horse. ego horsemanship could be an alternate tagline to these posts.

i get inspired along the way by many of the people whom i meet, and there are a few who have touched me deeply. then there are others whose paths only briefly cross mine, we interact and then drift apart into the entropic universe.

there are no main characters here, no major sources of inspiration. there are muses, angels, gems and the all of you giving form and shape to me by your touch. some of you are very real, flesh and blood humans, others are very abstract constructs of our culture from language to money, and the ego itself. there are places that inspire, and there are places which have inspired or touched me... and i remain an architect, a builder, a dreamer and here.

it is morning

i want to tell you that i miss the sound of your voice

i want you to know...

i want

i want you to know

that happy i am

and that i do not know much at all

i woke up thinking of you

thinking of the warmth

wishing that i knew

knowing that i do not know

trembling...

dreaming...

wishing.

it is morning again...

you are here.

more discomfort

there is new discomfort in this one life of mine...

i am your child, you gave me life, you have been generous with me

you have returned to me each time when i need you

i have despised you, i have wasted and discarded you

i have ignored you, i have done nothing to earn you

yet, i remain your child!

the heresy of it all!

i dare you!

why have you not abandoned me? why do you insist on your presence?

why are you so generous?

you do not even exist you are abstract

yet...

blind to your abstractness, men will kill each other

just to possess you just to take you away from others

yet...

you do not even exist you have no substance

yet...

if it was not for you, my life would not be

it was you and another's greed it was you and another's weakness

and perhaps it was love

yet... i do exist and you are good to me

given that you have made me your child who am i?

knowing

i read your words, i drank your words...

are you inside my mind? are you inside my spirit? are you inside my body?

have you read my story before i wrote it?

who are you? who am i?

if you and i can think so, who are we?

are we one?

how could you have possibly have known what i am thinking...

but you do know it is possible

we both know

discomfort

... and then again, it could be that a bit more of prose is entering these pages.

i am feeling a certain discomfort these days. it is all so new, that is not almost overwhelming, it is overwhelming. i really do not know quite how to dance with it just yet. i look everywhere and then i get distracted by the tinniest little detail.

what is new is that i do not feel like screaming out loud and shouting... i feel like listening. i am starting to listen right here, and to me. sometimes i am not at all comfortable with what i hear, and i hear myself loud and clear. there is clarity, but i am not yet sure as to what i will do with this clarity.

i get irritated by the distractions that i allow into my life. i find myself listening to those around me in a totally different way, and like a child who has just learned to walk, i stumble and fall on occasions... but something has changed, and there is no going back.

i listened today to a friend of mine for a couple of hours, i could absorb every word of his and i had the distinct impression of knowing exactly what he was sharing with me. we talked about it, and i listened to myself. i paced around the room while i was talking with him, and i felt every word that i uttered. i listened to all of it, and i spoke while in the back of my mind there was this story that i am writing, and i kept on asking myself what does all of this, his life, my life, have to do with this bit that i am writing. it is a good question. the writing has not yet began to flow... and i have been writing, and it does not yet flow. i also do not know what will make it flow. i like the new thread, but i was not born with an ease or facility for story telling. we talked about this... my friend and i talked about his today. he has an incredible ability for story telling, he never looses the thread... and i am always fascinated by this, as this is something that i work on day in and day out. still, today i began to realize that the way that i tell a story, may just not be the way another tells a story, and what i am working on is exactly what this way of mine is.

in the past weeks i have surprised myself again and again as to what i have formulated right there and then on the spot, without prepared speeches, without effort. i listen to it, and it makes sense, i say... yes! that is it. i have no clue as to where it is coming from, but it is here. it could be that i have my own way of telling a story, and that is perhaps that that is truly mine, and it is something that i have laboured at.

i feel discomfort, oh i do.

there are times when some people simply manifest themselves in my world as a bore. when i find myself thinking of otherwise kind people as boring, i do wonder where my compassion has gone. perhaps i can just learn to live with it, and respect the fact that some people are to me not very interesting, and that i am plain human and on occasions, have no compassion.

remember, i wish that you were here, or that i was there, and i wonder how very distracting we could be for each other. i think of that tag-line from Pan Nalin's film samsara: what is more important satisfying one thousand desires or conquering just one...

to conquer, what does that really mean? why must one goal be more important than another? what are desires? what is satisfaction? where is this discomfort of mine coming from? is this discomfort of mine like other pain that i have felt, and all there is to do is to take a deep breath, breathe out, and let it be? can pain be satisfaction?

i am writing, i am reading, i am talking, i am negotiating... and i am wondering about the lessons learned, and what does not get out of my mind is the martial spirit. i know it is an art. art is both disciplined and effortless... and that may just be the nature of it, and it is totally irrelevant how much my humbled ego likes or does not like it.

yesterday i chilled, today i struggled.

oh my!

grateful

this is still the place of abstractions. you are the reader and you are the inspiration. this is for me, this is for you. you are a muse across the border, you are a loyal friend, you are dear to me, you are my family and you are my life. your face changes, our lives go on. some go and leave memories, other linger and share precious moments of just being here.

fluage remains the only active blog with the voice of cairo otaibi. i still need this one here while i am busy in the background furiously writing that story that has had me in its grips for a couple of years, and that has me now waking up at four in the morning just wanting to write. i still do not know if i can or if i will succeed, i just want to. i have no choice but to write it. prose is rare here on fluage, and when it is prose, it is very abstract, but then... that is the noise that i like producing, abstract noise. when i began writing fluage i knew that i had embraced a journey and that i would tunnel through to another side unknown to me; you all have been the midwives of this tunneling journey of mine. within the past four months my being got accelerated through the tunnel and all my resources were absorbed in the process. it started while i was in another european city, a city that in the past had spoiled and pampered me with both creature comforts and successes that i had yet to understand. when i returned there four months ago, i returned as "the poor artist" who slept on her cousin's home office floor and used public transportation for the first time in that grand place of glory and tradition. yet, the unexpected manifested itself. it was a good space to be, i was with family and i felt at home. there were a few questions on my mind, and i wanted clarity as to what the answers were. i started asking, and i started making some of you uncomfortable.

home, being at home has been a rare feeling with this creature inhabiting my body. i have rarely felt at home, and i have felt at home everywhere in the world when i am in touch with my own being. yet, before i could ever become conscient of it, that feeling has much too often drifted apart and i was left all over the place and no where, homeless and orphaned. this journey now has taken me to that place of being conscient of home and who i am. you all knew already who i am, i did not. i had hopes and i had dreams, and i have worked adamantly at getting here, and i was clueless and blind, deaf even.

one of you had a gentle boldness, and you were not about to drop the ball. you told me how you saw me, you repeated it, and you did not know that i did not know, but you were sure, and your words were those that i could barely discern from what i thought was noise. i have heard noise before, and i have learned to be weary of noise. while i could barely hear your words, it was the rest of your being that finally transmitted the message. the words just barely got through, but your being, that i fully got and i found myself at a place that i barely knew, it was home, it was me.

one of you! how can i dare write such generalities when you are so very precious? how can i dare? just last night i wrote to you and i told you a whole lot about me, all that you already knew. where was my concern for you? don't i know that you are there busy in the joy of your own dreams? i know, it does not even occur to me to question it. you are sharing your dreams, that i know.

freedom. my first poem ever published was about freedom, it was also my first publication and i was barely fourteen. i have long lost a copy of that poem and i do not remember the name of the publication, the byline read my original name and i was just another girl full of energy and life. i climbed trees and run for miles, swam in the ocean, and made a whole lot of people uneasy for girls are just not supposed to be that way. i built soap box cars with the boys at the seminary and i was not interested in kisses or boys for that matter. i had a dream, it was freedom.

somewhere between then and now something happened. they call it traumatic experience. i have suspected for years that one traumatic experience happened when i was fifteen, but its core and its pain have eluded me and most of therapy until just now. in a way it is as though it was only now that i was ready to deal with this part of my life, first there were earlier experiences that needed to be reprocessed and accepted. i have wondered very far from my self and my home, i have travelled far and wide outside the confines of my being to return now to that being and to find myself very humbled by the magnitude of my own existence. oh, what a ride indeed!

i am here. there is no distance between you and i, there never was. grateful i am.

distance

you are so very close to me, you are in my heart, you are free.

i need the distance, now i do, i am here, close to you.

i looked at your daughter, i saw my son.

the comedy of my life

"i have a front row seat in the comedy of my life. sometimes i am the director, other times i have a small part and forget my lines, then again i feel like i got into the movies by mistake and Dracula is on the screen for no good reason. somedays i am the star, other days i am just an extra."

trust

i have never been here before

uncertainty is all mine

and this time i have no doubts

i reckoned...

i reckoned that this day would come!

i hoped it would not.

what fault of mine is it that you did not live your life to its fullest?

what fault of mine was it that i was born?

what fault of mine is it?

i wanted you to die ignorant

i wanted you to not feel the pain

i wanted you to not know reality

i wanted you to believe your own illusion

and now i just want you to leave me alone.

let me be!

you gave me life, i am grateful for my life

you did not mean to give me life, did you?

i know that you did not.

but what am i to do?

i am here

i like being here

i love life

i love you

and

i do not like you.

these things that i do not like

i have this nagging feeling that my father is dying. i am at a loss. my parents have been on my mind a lot lately. i spoke with my mother yesterday and i could feel all her fear. i did not like one bit of it.

i also do not like it that i have this sense that my father is dying, if he did, it would however not surprise me the least bit. i think he has realized something about his life and the pain that this causes him may be more than he can bear. he was never a very strong man. as a matter of my own experience, he is one of the weakest men that i have ever come across, the total opposite of his father whom he has always been so fond of criticizing and moralizing over. i always identified with my grandfather and our biographies do run a few parallels, for that reason any criticism from his son, my father, towards him is something that i always took personally.

i do not like this at all!

once, not too long ago

you asked out loud what would it be like if you had what you wished for...

you asked... i listened. i asked myself, what if...

then, just a few days ago it was my own ego that lay shattered on the floor and i was much too busy consoling its disgrace to notice that i had been acknowledged. i am who i am and that that is just grand. it is ecstasy, and somehow it met me unprepared, somehow like the rest of my life.

damn you! how did you know?

the flutter of a butterfly's wing

i know that i was not the inspiration

she left, she parted

you remained, you love

you will always love, you do.

i read your words and look for solace in their very existence

trouble me, do!

your words, my words

words. trust.

yes, solace...

i needed that today when i caught my mind racing so fast and totally loosing the plot because i realize that there are so very few hours to do all that i want to do. just yesterday, all turned so differently. i was immersed, i was searching, i was creating. was i thinking?

then i saw something or other, a trace of your existence, and i went through all the colours of the alphabet, and all the motions of existence. could you possibly be telling me something that i am not able to understand?

then i felt the anxiety. it is my anxiety. it is my fear. i have been fighting this fear. i am tired of this fear and this fear is tired of me, it is time that this fear and i embrace each other, and trust. trust life, trust us, trust you, trust me.

waking up

it is the morning hours and i wake up before my alarm. on good days this is how it starts. i have this deep love and affection for the tender morning hours regardless from which side of sleep i do approach them.

last night i finished writing and mailed a long long love letter. writing love letters is nothing new to me, all that i write are love letters. i have fallen in love with life, and that is all that i ever write about. i write about life and sharing life. even my most complex stories are about life, life and death, and that illusory four letter word that we call love, and that has us spellbound and helpless, for all it ever wanted to represent is life itself.

i love you. i am cairo. i am life.

who am i? who sits here?

i am nobody. no-body.

freedom.

life, what is it really?

i thought that my life was borrowed. it is not, it is mine.

greed

yes, let me own up to my very brand of greed. i think that i met it this weekend!

really, i want it all. all. the riches, the fame, the knowledge, the wisdom, the friends, the family, all. i want it all. i want it all and then i want to set my tent up at the beach. this is me, your concerns may or may not touch me.

i simply want it all! and i want it now. i am impatient. an impatient, greedy, ungrateful bitch i am. that is me. open up your arms and embrace her, for i want you too!

i want so much of it all, it paralyses me.

just as success is starting to show me its face, and i find myself poorly equipped to welcome it in my chaos, just then you enter my life. you enter my life, you ask permission, and you tell me about your very own brand of egoism, and you tell me about not wanting compromises. at that point i knew, i want you.

i want it all, and i want no compromises. greed.

you could not!

you could not help it, you had to tease me yesterday!

that is you: you tease.

this time it was about photoshop, and how refreshing it was!

i wanted to hug you yesterday, and then in the commotion of it all, i simply forgot. i did not have to. i forget.

i forget so very much!

i often wondered as to what would happen to the wonderful muse whom you have been, if ever you would be any closer.

fact is, you have been damn close all along, the distance was mine, the distance was mine alone. you have been there all the time, yet... not i. i was not there, was i?

sometimes it feels as though you were the memory of me, and that is odd indeed.

my life is odd, no doubt.

what a wonderful odd life this is!

me, just me

me and nobody else, that is who is here. just me.

these days i feel so completely raw. i feel vulnerable like i never have felt before. i do not know if it is that i have forgotten how i felt on other days, on other occasions, or if it is as i sense it these days. i have tunnelled through to that other side that i said that i would tunnel through. i do not know this side.

i had no idea of what i was talking about then, i just felt that there was something to tunnel through, and that there was another world on the other side. all my muses and friends have been my tunnelling midwives, who are you all? i am filled with gratitude and tears are never far. who am i? where am i?

it was something about discovering one day that there is nothing easier than to be me, and if life has been hard on occasions, it was because i thought that i had no right to just be me. it was something about a couple of months ago just wanting a bit of clarity about that muse's canvas. what was it that i wrote then? what was it that i wrote a few months ago? why is it that when i am confronted with my own prejudices, i want to die?

then, that was three years ago, it was something about a name. i, i do not even have a name to my identity, i am just here. but then it was a gift of the universe, and all i could do was to bow and say thank you.

being myself is doing nothing, or so i thought then. today, i do not even know. i just feel, raw and fragile. i feel tired of all the memories. yet, those memories just need a bit of compassion. they are mine, all mine!

whatever those memories in need of compassion are they come with aggression stored up somewhere in this body of mine. i have run and hit the tatami, and i have felt the love for the enemy in practice. there in front of me is the aggressor and all i can do to defend myself is to be totally aware and meet that aggression - mine - with all the universe's love. just me.

 

 

the day has been fury

it was perfect when it started, this day of today. really, perfect.

then there was forgetfulness and the day was even better. there is no rhyme or reason here, it is just the way it is. i allow others to forget, to forget is human i say. but i, i give myself no permission to forget. yet, i forget.

i forget that i am human. how could i ever forget that?

trouble me, do

we fall in love, we do

we fall in love. we love.

we want to love

we want to give

we want to share

we want it to be the last time

or

we fall in love again and again

you and i just you and i

again and again

we will fall in love

with our children

with the rain

and with the seasons

again and again

we will fall in love

trouble me, do.

your ghost

this morning the ghost of your blue eyes knocked on my door.

i do not like your ghost showing up unannounced.

what was it then? it is not that i regret your departure or your lack of elegance or manners. we have gone down this road before, i have told you all that i wanted to tell you. it left you cold, or it left you hot and bothered. do i care? not really. did i ever care? i doubt it.

you opened pandora's box, yes you did, you did not mean to, did you? but you did.

today i was by the river, by the levee, by that place where we met for the first time one morning early. i took the ghost of your blue eyes and left it there. i am still grateful to you for all that you gave me in spite of the fact that there was nothing that you wanted to give me. you wanted something from me, and i was not the one who had it. i do not know if you found it or if you will ever find it. i know it begins with you, not with me, it is in you. perhaps you have discovered that by now.

but it did hurt like hell on this side, and yes it did even if i do not know how much hell can hurt. it hurt. my pain was very real, it was inside of me. i know i cause that, i know that i am the generator, owner, and healer of my pain. release, forgiveness, surrender... oh yes. remember, i was there already, i allowed you to distract me. i was careless and reckless. how very reckless of me to have dared to love. i gave you permission, i opened the door. i did.

i was there already, and you thought that i would give it to you. i did not, i couldn't, nobody can. your happiness is within.

hold me

hold me, and let me free

no doubts no constraints no compromises

hold me tight, and let me be

trouble me

oh, do!

 

internal

i do not like your doubts when i am sure i do not like your hesitation,

i do not like your doubts when when i am determined.

i do not like your deception

i do not like your lies, they feed my fears,

i do not like your ways.

but who are you?

you are part of me. you are mine, all mine.

who else would caress your roughness? who else takes you in when you have been beaten?

but why do you feel hurt at my tears of joy?

have we not been good friends?

remember when you saved me once or twice?

am i the great ungrateful?

why do you not just accept my joy?