A Place In My Heart For Dubai

I am not sure where to start to describe this trip. It wasn’t planned, it was bordering messy even, but aren’t all the best endeavors a result of spontaneity and impulsiveness?

It all began with a silly FB comment I made in February in which I told my friend who is residing in Dubai that it simply isn’t fair for her to get the chance to see Julio Iglesias’s concert without me, and since it was almost my birthday, my good friend decided that my gift would be a ticket to attend the concert with her!

And thus hasty preparations were on the way as I looked for the cheapest ticket possible and put the visa’s acquiring in the hands of the travel agent while I busied myself with extra work to go on the trip with a clear head and a clearer conscience.

I had been longing for a vacation for quite a while, and saw this trip as my opportunity to finally do it, and so I decided I better save my money to indulge in my shopping there, but as usual, whilst the intentions were there, the goal remained unattainable in my case; I mean what did you expect? Lebanon was on sale in February and I simply couldn’t help squandering my earnings here and there. I did a more refined job saving in March though and went to Dubai ready to shop!

Enough introductions already! Long story short, I made it there after a long, and I mean long work shift and a car breakdown. I slept throughout the entire plane trip, except for the little hassle caused by the 50 something year old passenger sitting next to me as she kept hovering over me to look at the nothing beneath us from the window.

Dubai at first glance wowed me. I looked in awe at the skyscrapers towering above me, and saw the modernity of the architecture all around me with wonder. All the buildings on both sides of Cheikh Zayed’s highway made the skyscrapers’ district in Qatar look like a small, far away oasis compared to the majesty of Dubai.

My 6 days and 5 nights spent as my friends’ guest were packed with shopping and culinary experiences by day and clubbing by night. My feet asked for mercy after pacing twice through the classic Ibn Battouta mall and later ached while restlessly wandering inside the luxurious Dubai mall. Souk el Bahar also proved to be an excellent place to shop for souvenirs and trinkets.

Along with the shopping came the sightseeing, the restaurants and the coffee breaks which were all marvelous and worth the while; Burj Khalifa and Burj el Arab, the fountain show, and of course, Jumeirah with its various outlets to name a few.

During the nights, I came to see the other face of that beautiful city. Dubai offered me a wide range of choices when it came to nightlife, and each club I tried had a unique feel and a distinguished ambiance to it. 360, Barasti, the Belgium Beer Café, Trader Vic’s and People all were up to the standards if not above them. The mix of nationalities only increased the glamor of these places, and the obvious over enjoyment painted on everybody’s face made these venues all the more appealing.

Julio’s concert was magical, whimsical and touchy. I felt suspended in time as I listened to his legendary voice serenading me with my childhood’s poetry. It was a concert to remember with a pinch in the heart as my beloved idol poured all of his sentimentality in song, tango and poignant anecdotes. I feel lucky for having been able to witness such greatness in my lifetime.

The beach experience was also fulfilling as I plunged my toes in the white clean sand and tanned under the blazing sun between dips in the clear blue water. It was a very relaxing excursion and one I will yearn for dearly, as such splendor is hard to find.

In between plans, I spent a good part of my time there sitting peacefully on the yard bench with my coffee mug and Davidoff cigarettes. It helped me gather my thoughts and gave me the opportunity to enjoy a lot of quality time with my friend, to whom I wish to repeat my endless thanks.

All in all, it was a trip that I will look back to with longing for a long time. I shall always remember it with fondness, and nostalgia of course, as it is a feeling I find hard to shake regardless the topic.

Dubai, you will be missed…

At The Mercy of My Fingers

I know you are going to say this is just too much! We have better things to do than reading a blogger’s jabbering every other night! But I can’t help it, my fingers just won’t rest, they refuse to stay away from the keyboard. I have tried, I swear I did. I must have clicked on those stupid solitaire cards over twelve thousand times tonight, and yet my fingers don’t seem to have had their satiety. My pink little mouse that looks as if it is a hand-me-down from an 8 year old girly girl has been begging me to stop restlessly clicking on it for over 2 hours, and yet my fingers refuse to keep away from my broken laptop.

Something in me has woken up from its deep, long slumber this week. Something in me has shaken me up, and like a somnambulist, I found myself picking up on my reading where I had left off. The pleasure of those books must have ticked off the ink swelling in the tips of my fingers.

Something in me has realized that fantasies are just what they are, and reality must set in sometime. My feelings about this statement are ambivalent. I am not sure how much I prefer living my reality as opposed to dreaming my fancy.

I am trying to take serious steps towards fulfilling the promise I had made to myself, the one in which I swore to live more, to do more, to be more; but as the saying goes, one hand cannot clap on its own, and without a serious entourage and excellent company round the clock, I am afraid my hands not only won’t clap, they are also tied, tied to a bittersweet reality that keeps me going in vicious circles of fabulous far away friends, and omnipresent insignificant everyday companions who make me feel like a cat lady.

Tonight I can’t help but imagining myself some 30 years from now still sitting in this chair, sipping from this same hideous cup of coffee, only by then I would be ordering decaf instead; I foresee uncontrollably shaky hands in my future and a pile of heart medicine. I see glasses so thick they seriously could pass as the bottoms of coca cola bottles. I see a big house filled to its brim with books read once and only once, with rusty yellowish notebooks scattered all over the place, and with little, almost invisible insects crawling and making tiny nests inside the walls of an imagination that never knew where its door knob was.

I see neighborhood kids practicing their prank skills on me. I see myself tutoring students I wish I could spank to make a living.

I see nephews and nieces coming to check on me every once in a while. I hear them complaining about the stench of the house. I see myself cracking the windows once they have left. I see myself trying to look presentable and driving my 2005 Polo – 30 years from now – to Sassine Square. I see young waitresses puffing and rolling their eyes at my sight.

I sit here seriously wishing I knew how to change this inevitable prospect, and whilst my imagination aids me, my reality refuses to cope. Somehow I wish the world would rearrange itself to suit my lazy ass. And to end this with a somewhat less pessimistic thought, just wait and watch it do it!

Alternative Curriculum

I am sitting here, unaware of how I got here, of why I chose to be here in the first place. As I try to make my recollection, I realize that I decided to come here, I even inquired on how to get here, and drove in a daze with only one purpose in mind: being here.

I have only been here once before, and considering my poor driving skills, it is far. I believe the memory of the vibe this place had given me the first time around brought me back. It gave me the sense that this is the kind of place in which I need to be in order to clear my head, to refresh my crowded thoughts, and to try and simply, relax.

None of the above has been achieved though, and for a very simple reason: I realized thoughts cannot be organized, feelings cannot be disciplined, and the myth of the brain and the heart getting along has been deemed as such for the right reasons. As for the relaxation part, I feel even tenser than when I arrived.  

All the students surrounding me with heads buried in their books made me think back to my school days, and more precisely, to my school books. I sit here wondering what most have spent a good part of their time wondering. When will we ever use these useless equations throughout our miserable life? Why would it help to know the name of that body part and that one’s function? How is memorizing stupid outdated poems going to help with life’s entangled problems?

Tonight, here, I would like to take a shot at creating an alternative curriculum; one that I believe would help much more with life’s path, at least in the way life seems to me, here, tonight.

I propose a class that would make math look so last century, and I would like to call it “how to lower your expectations”. Take that algebra.

And how about replacing science with “the metaphysics of luck”, “the alchemy of hormones and how to control your stupid impulses” and “beauty and the beast”?

Instead of literature, I would go for “the art of winning an argument”.

Philosophy shall become “the reality of evasiveness”, and civism will go by “the one on one book for etiquette and mutual respect dummies”.

As for geography’s substitute, a special course on “how and where to cultivate the fruit of your decisions” will be conducted by the master of your being, Mr. Ego in all its splendor.

History is so easy to replace, it will become, with the blessing of – for once – both your head and your heart, “guidelines and techniques on erasing the past”.

Regarding activities, a twice a week constructive lesson will be given on “ways to tell a lie from a truth and other practical advice”.

Have I forgotten anything? Maybe. You wish to tell me to shove my curriculum and get over it? Most probably. Do I even care? Of course note. Has this helped me move on with my night? A definite no. Why have I written all of the above? Not so sure.

The lesson: None.

The teacher: An idiot who will never learn by himself.

The one to blame: A system that has probably taught me everything but from which I have learned nothing, and yet, it is still the one to take the blame.

The objective: Filling the blanks in life with elusive meager literature.

The result: Time killed, the acquisition of an illusively mended heart and of course, continuum boredom and loneliness. 

Wanderings

I opened my eyes and for the very first time, I truly understood the essence of magic. For the very first time, I felt bewildered, swept off to a land far, far away. I felt submerged in rivers of honey. My hair soaked with heavy drops of sweet cocoa and my nostrils widened to the smell of exotic flowers, of raw nature and of weightless air.

Golden shades flickered all around and bright glittering sparkles surrounded me. I swam effortlessly in the thin air and flew between tall flamboyant trees in search of nothing.

I encountered many faces I never knew and few that have forever been encrusted in my memory, since the beginning of time, since the shaping of nothing, since the molding of emptiness, of frugality, of thoughtlessness.

In the light of shimmering, void stars, I instinctively drew my way. I used imaginary silky brushes and satiny wonderful palettes of colors never discovered.

Unripe, beautiful fruits fell off barren trees and gathered around me, pinning me down to rest with their ever so soft stems. Beds of feathery flowers welcomed me in the comfort of their illusion and the sweet breeze whispered lies of no language into my ears.

My eyes thrived to open up, to succumb to the magic, to see the wonders all around, to swallow the sweetness of dreams and the end of what was never there, what was never here, what will never be.

Tremendous was the word that kept occurring to the safety of what was left of my shaky, shady consciousness. Ts and Rs and S's kept rolling on my heavy tongue until the vowels left me and joined the shiny birds chirping over me.

I heard a sound so peculiar, so sincere. I strove to retain it, but the birdlike creatures kept hovering over it, collecting the vowels and stealing the truth.

I closed my eyes again and concentrated on the only glimpse of the already thrifty image I had of you. I concentrated, I focused so hard, but that ferociously friendly wolf that brought me here kept draining you away. It kept digging into my soul, into the roots of my evil, into the very branches of my existence. He dug sweetly, yet fully. He enchanted me with more glitter, with more tall trees, with more honey, until I felt one with the flowing stream, until I took the rising trunks as my shelter and collected sparkles in the hems of my imaginary dress.

My hands surrendered and stopped chasing volatile vowels as Bs and Rs and Ls voluntarily left me while my heavy breath tried to say bring me back, leave me alone.

My unconscious now belongs to a beautiful wolf, living against all odds in the driest of deserts, only drinking honey from the rivers of my imagination. This is how it tastes to succumb to the sweetest yielding, to the magic of the best charlatans and to the will of the way, leading to nothing.

The All Smiles Chapter

As usual, I have nothing in particular to talk about. This is mainly because I have so much energy right now and I am terribly unsure of what to do with it; I figured maybe the urge would leave me once I typed, and typed, and typed. I shall update you at the end of this post.

Till then, let us yap a bit.

What a fabulous month it has been! The only month I could link this one to would probably be February 2009. A lot, and I mean a lot has changed since then; but the vibe this December is generating reminds me of 09, of that particular month. I think what I am feeling is called happiness. I don’t believe I have ever been able to fully grasp that feeling, but February 09 and December 2012 may be the closest I have come to experience it on any scale.

I can’t even begin to describe what tremendous warmth it gives me to be surrounded by my friends. Life tends to separate us often, to send us each to a different corner of the world in pursuit of a future so hazy that it makes us sometimes wonder, what are we really after? But then comes the rare reunion, the ever so far apart get-togethers, and something suddenly makes sense, even if it is just for a fleeting moment. Maybe what we so harshly deem as unfair is deep down the only thing that will ever make sense.

Maybe I am being too optimistic - I know I am being a lot more optimistic than usual at any rate – but maybe I am simply being realistic – which I rarely am. Too philosophical? perhaps. In any case, I am having a rare moment of clarity, the kind of moment one wishes would never go away, would be forever encrusted in one’s psyche. It has something to do with understanding why one shouldn’t party every night or else it wouldn’t make one merrier every time. It has something to do with swallowing the fact that we only get paid once every month. It perfectly explains why I can’t listen to music every day, why I can’t watch a movie every night, why I am ever so rarely happy – or close to experiencing the feeling. It is about the wait, about the anticipation, and about the downsizing of expectations before becoming completely apt and totally ready to savor a moment.

I have come to realize that I cannot enjoy anything unless I had previously been deprived of it one way or another. One way or another… that is a song, one of many that need to be enjoyed every now and then.  Enough with parentheses though. One of the many things pacing my little brain tonight is how to apply my oh-so-deep theories to my actual life. Abstract relationships aside, I suck at applying any of the above. I am the champion of failure when it comes to depriving myself of dinner once every 12 months, let alone depriving myself of a cigarette or a drink even.

When does one reach some level of perfection, or equilibrium to be more down to earth? The word I am looking for here might be harmony. It feels as if I will never get anywhere unless I achieve harmony, one way or another. That is a song by the way, or did I mention that already?

I could be wrong though, I keep contradicting myself tonight. Because if I were to be correct with all of the above yapping, it can only mean one thing and one thing only: I have been preaching nothing but crap for the past 26 years.

And what if I was? And who really cares? And who cares about the new theory? Not me that is for sure. I am just writing for the sake of typing, of releasing mixed energies.

Will I ever look back at this article and wonder? Will you? Perhaps yes. Probably not.

Part of me feels like wrapping this up, getting dressed, joining the party, getting filthy drunk and losing my job tomorrow. The other part feels like…Well let us just say I still have a rational part left in my silly little brain. I am not sure which part I hate the most and which I hold the dearest to my heart. And since we are at it, what I despise above all is the fact that one part always wins and the balance is never achieved.

Is it obvious how happy I was when I started this and how miserable I became afterwards? It wasn’t intentional. It was influential. Call me nuts but I think I just managed to absorb some of a pretty boy’s melancholic vibes. Maybe I am hoping he will reciprocate one day, some day, under the stars of a silky raining sky, overlooking the lights of an ever so luring city, when the wait is over, when the anticipation has reached its peak, and when the expectations have simply ceased to exist.