A Fan of Kitchens!!

2/3/2008
8:00 PM

Dearest No face,

Have I ever told you that I am a big fan of kitchens?! Guess not;P
But now you know..!

Well, I do have a thing for kitchens! I go weak in the knees whenever I come across a picture of a kitchen design in a magazine- I am exaggerating here a little you know-;) It's funny I know, but I cannot help it! Whenever that happens, you'd find me intently staring at the picture and completely lost in thought!

For a start, I'd picture myself the proud owner of that kitchen, or even a better one, and having it all to myself as my special haven, where I'd have the freedom to come up with all kinds of delicious dishes! I'm a good cook by the way, not bragging here;D

My kitchen, the one I dream of having in my future cozy little married nest would be spacious; what happened to the "little cozy nest"! Never mind that, it would be as I said spacious and bright and colorful! I'd love to have it designed very professionally and the most important thing is that it be open on the living room; in a European like style! The other thing is to have it contain elegant low windows overlooking a beautiful garden! The dining table should be placed where that breath-taking view could be completely visible and available for the eyes to enjoy! A dark dreary kitchen is out of the question!!

Here comes the climax of my dream, I'd step into that fancy kitchen of mine, my paradise, and I'd cook.. and cook... and cook! Well, you'd eat it all no doubt! Without me forcing you to do so, though;))

It's good and refreshing to have such a dream; it fills my soul with an intense sense of a joyous anticipation like that of a kid expecting the gift of his dreams on his birthday! It might be silly and insignificant to some, but to me it is a part of a much bigger dream! What I see here is the big picture, and that is enough I guess! Don't they always urge us to aim for the larger picture! This is what I am doing baby!

Now please pleeeeeeeease wherever you are and whoever you turn out to be, grant me this dream kitchen, promise my dear dear no face!

I shall leave you with this splendid image-dream- to entertain you the rest of the day;P

I love you

Zainab

Fallen masks..!!

Sometimes you come across people, who at the first instant, give you the impression that nothing can ever get to them or shake their balance and that solid and controlled composure they seem to possess, no matter what!

You are almost convinced that they are totally unfeeling and immune to any kind of blow life may direct at them at any moment! Those people, to your further conviction, excel in proving you right by maintaining that callous nature and standing their ground firmly and intently!

Doubt, however, seeps into your soul sometimes and arouses in you that sense of wonder about the true inner self of those people! And you begin to ask yourself: are they truly who they pretend to be? Are they genuinely as thick-skinned as they repeatedly show you in various occasions? The answer to such questions usually end up affirmative!

I have recently come across such people and I have always had that one question about them: are they never scared? Doesn't that infuriating feeling of utter strength and superiority ever waver if only for a slight moment?! I do honestly find it hard to believe that totally fearless person exists in the first place! I mean, who hasn't had his moments of fear, indecision, lack of security, doubt and anxiety?! Which one of us is never fearful at times? The answer to this is no doubt "NO ONE"!!

we are all bound to grow weak and fragile at times! We are all likely to go through moments of utter helplessness and even break down in tears if the situation calls for such a freak act!!

At the end of the day, we are only but human beings; flesh and bones! With that unique blend of strengths and weaknesses. We cannot belie that, and we surely cannot prove it wrong no matter how hard we try!

It is never a shame to admit to weakness and fragility if that is the truth. It is not wrong to ask for help or turn to other people for support, providing they can do that for you.

Today, I am writing this to pass the message to anybody who, for some reason, is afraid to show that like everybody else he gets scared and insecure sometimes. To those who hurt themselves trying to appear powerful all the time even if it means intimidating others in the process, this is an absolute mistake!!

However, to my amazement, the truth behind all those fake pretenses is finally revealed! The masks, behind which fearful souls hide, have all fallen; leaving the true identities totally naked to the eye of us witnesses to that show! Well, I guess truth is always bound to spring to the surface at the end of that creepy tunnel of lies.

So, from me to those 'Pretentious' souls, do not be ashamed of being discovered for I am not crowing about having the shrewdness to see through all those layers of phoniness. This is definitely not schadenfreude I am openly displaying! I am merely trying to tell you that pretending to be who you are not is never the key to any kind of victory! It does not take you anywhere! Your only salvation is to simply be who you are and let people choose to accept you with your flaws; we all have flaws!

Believe me, only then will peace engulf your soul and we shall all see a genuine smile lighting your face at the time!

His 'Hazel' Eyes...

His "Hazel" eyes,,
they dance,,
they smile,,
they penetrate my soul..

I look at him,,
then I am lost!
He stares at me,,
and again I feel complete,,
I feel whole!

Oh, how I long to caress his cheek,,
to feel that soft stubble tingle my palm,,
hear my heart just this once
and answer its tempting call!

Who are you beautiful stranger in my dream?
An angel??
Or a sweet curse haunting my sleep??

Have I seen you??
Have I known you before??

His "Hazel" eyes..
they dance,,
they smile,,
they capture my very soul!!

هوى الشرقي

فاصلةٌ بين غيابها والعَوْدْ
وبين صمتها والصوت
حين تعود فاصلةٌ أخرى
وثرثرةٌ منسيةٌ
وطيفُ تنهيدةٍ
هي للسكوتِ أقرب
حتى لتخالَ جلَّ
حديثها ابتسامةٌ يصدفُ
أن تداعبَ الشفتين
-عنوةً-
لا أكثر
***
وأراها غداةَ عَوْدها تُسرع الخُطى
وتكثرُ من إيقاع الاقتراب
-تفصلها عن عاشقها مسافةُ ضحكةٍ عابثةٍ-
ليس إلاّ
ودلالٌ تصنّعته يزيّن خطوتها
كلّما تمايلت بقدّها
ذات اليمين
وذات الشمال
لتستفزَّ بجرأة الدُنُو
وهمسها الغوي
وبعض دندنةٍ جامحةٍ
وقارَ الأشيبْ في العشق ها هناك
ليمسي بفتنة حُسنها كمَنْ
داهمه الجنون على حين غرّة
أو أكثر
***
وبين بسمةٍ من ثغرٍ خمري
وهدبٍ مكتحلٍ حسبُ
الليلِ في حضوره كثيرُ حسرةٍ
تراها في الإطلالة حسناءَ
هيفاءَ
فاتنة
أول حديثها سمرٌ مباحٌ
وآخره تنهيدةٌ
فأغنية
***
وعجبي إذ تصيبُهُ
بالصوت الرخيم جهالةٌُ
ليغدو من فرط انبهارٍ كما الطفل حيناً
وحيناً كالذي ألمّ به لذيذُ وجعٍٍ
فما أطاق من بعده صبراً
ولا عثر له ابتداءً على سببٍ
***
وإذْ تشاكسه بناعم بوحها
ورايتُها في الغَزَل جفنان ناعسان
وأنوثةٌ في الصميم من القتل
يجيئها أكثرَ من الأمس عاشقاً
وأكثرَ من الغد مضطرباً
ليردّد لخيالها بعد الرحيل
-والخَدَرْ له صاحبٌ وخليل-
أيا بهجةَ قلبي
يا ليلي الطويل
يا قمري
أما لنا في فجر
الغد من لقاءٍ قريب؟؟
أو صدفةٍ مقصودة؟؟
أو رسالة شوقٍ عبر البريد؟
***
ولا يبقى في ذاكرة الحكايا
وذاكرته في ثلث الليل الأخير سواها
وفنجان قهوةٍ منسي
وبقايا عطرٍ فرنسيٍ مثير
***
فويلٌ له ذلك الشرقي
وفؤاده بهوى حوريةٍ
سمراء قد اكتوى
وبئس الغرامِ غرامُ
غوانٍ فاتناتٍ
تاريخهن في العشق
فساتينٌ زاهية
ووجوهٌ وألسنةٌُ
بالزيف ملوّنة
وبقايا قلوب كانت
قبل اليوم بيضاء
عذراء
ومن العبث واللهو خالية

A smiley face for the pleasant faces..

Some faces in life fill you with joy..

Hope..

And optimism..

At seeing those faces, you cannot help but smile even if you are not on close terms with them!!

You bump into them unexpectedly,,

They say hello,,

You say hello,,

You both go your own ways,,

and then you realize that you are smiling broadly without even knowing why!!

After coming across those 'pleasant faces',,

Your day brightens up,,

And you become very cheerful and happy,,

Again, without knowing why!!

It is amazing,,

It is spontaneous,,

It is human nature,,

It is chemistry!!

So..

To all those faces,,

To their beautiful hearts,,

Thank you..

For the 'SMILE' you put on my face thank you!!

For making my day just when I need that,,

Thank you...

No Face.. Happy Birthday!

Well, it is "No Face"..

Again..

After a long absence and plenty of waiting from so many people!!

Here goes, another letter, the second actually..

However, just a small note, the letters I will publish here will be of my choice,,

that is: I might skip some and choose particular ones, but all of them would start from the oldest to the newest-most recent- in terms of time (dates)!

Today's letter is dated 12, April, 2008

And just so you know, it is right the second one I wrote after that first one;)

Enjoy!!

12, April, 2008

00:00

Dear No face,,

It's my birthday today!! I've turned 26, and it feels so unlikely overwhelming!!
I cannot say why it does, but to me it feels different from my previous birthdays!!

At the moment, I'm lying on my bed writing this letter to you and wondering how this birthday would turn out if you were a real person, with a face! How you would react to it or what you could come up with to celebrate my day and turn it into a very special occasion!

If you were real, you'd definitely be a romantic person, a very romantic person so to speak! Don't ask me why I'm even assuming this, it is just a gut feeling I have about you my sweet;P

Well, birthdays are supposed to be happy and exuberant occasions, but as you grow up they start to take a totally different turn. I'm not saying that because I'm obsessed with age or getting older; not at all! I'm not the least reluctant to declare to you that I have turned 26! Actually, I'm happy to announce that; 26 for me is the peak of femininity and maturity.

For me, every additional year is an enhancement to my wisdom and my sense of knowledge and awareness of my surroundings and people and all. Yet, those distant birthdays of my childhood years were different; they tasted different!

Back then, birthdays merely implied a big party, friends and family gathering and lots of presents. I guess back then we were completely oblivious to the underlying spiritual and psychological concept of 'Birthdays'. Nothing truly mattered to us except having fun and opening the gifts zealously at once!

Of course there's nothing wrong with that, it's normal, accepted and expected! It is just that today I feel different, the 'birthday' thing feels different. Besides my spontaneous thrill at my birthday, there's the feeling of anxiety and wonder. I cannot deny that I look and feel pensive today, but it's beyond me really. I know you must be feeling puzzled by my reaction, you might even be asking yourself questions now, right?

The thing is, as you enter your twenties it's like you begin to wake up from your stance and shake off that cocoon of past ignorance and nonchalance! You unconsciously start to want more of life and you become more demanding when it comes to your expectations regarding the future! At a certain point in time, you sort of become restless, kinda undecided and needy! The future all of a sudden turns into something scary; in the sense that it troubles you to try and digest the thought of not knowing who you'd become in this vast universe! I'm talking big here, aren't I??

I don't know whether you understand what I'm talking about or not, but I'm full of questions today, full of fears and expectations! Today, I have moved a step closer to my unknown destiny, towards tomorrow, which I cannot but pursue with huge and endless dreams and ambitions tucked safely deep within!

Now that I'm literally a day older than yesterday, I'm planning to simply dream big! Isn't that what wise people in life advice us to do; to dream big? Well, I'll do even better than that; I'll dream bigger!!

So, for now: Happy Birthday to me;)


Love,
Zainab

Lost...

I close a door,,

driving away a tentative stray of light!

I ponder a thought,,

or two..

A tear falls down my cheek,,

ever so slow!!

The night is long,,

the room is cold!!

"He" is dead,,

you know..

Or so I've been told!!

I close "The door",,

a shiver comes by!!

In awe I wait..

For a breath,,

a smile,,

or a sigh of pure delight!!

No one comes..

No one hears..

Only I remain,,

Only I,,

and some thick white frost!!

It is the fog!!

It is my face,,

And all is lost!!

No Face: The first letter..

Remember NO Face?
My imaginary knight on paper?
Today, as promised, you will read my first letter to 'HIM'..
The very first letter..
Which I wrote in April, 1, 2008
Every now and then I will post one of those letters..
 
SO..
With my knight,,
With my love,,
I leave you...

1 April 2008

12:30 am

Dearest No face,

Here I am writing my first letter to you, and it feels damn awkward to do so! I have to admit that I am in a loss for the proper words to use here, but I am not supposed to feel so because our little game here makes it imperatively necessary that you understand me! You are supposed to be ‘THE ONE’, which explains it all! It is true that neither of us knows the other in reality, but let us forget about reality and go for the sweet fantasy. Let’s pretend that we know each other very well; more like soul mates, in which case understanding each

other will be a natural thing for both of us.

I know if you were real, things might turn out differently! But let me ask you this: do not people write diaries as though they were addressing a human, not some inanimate object that cannot do them any good except comfort them of course! Still, this remains a very healthy method of release! Therefore, I thought I would create my own from of diaries, with you as my refuge and my sanctuary!

So, how do we start? I believe people usually start their letters to each other by a greeting! Therefore, here is a big hello to you my sweet; it is great knowing you are here by my side, if only in a sheer fantasy! The funny thing is I feel like I do know you, and by that I mean truly know you! You know, sometimes when I close my eyes at night, I see you in my mind’s eye, and believe me though without a tangible identity do I see you, it gives me pleasure & peace just to live the feeling of having the idea of you in my little world, in my dreams, and my day to day activities!

Sometimes when I sleep, I dream of you! I always see you standing tall, smiling for me and guarding my every step! I know it sounds crazy, but it does happen and I never want to wake up! Now hear this out, never did you have a face in any of those dreams; it is always a bright spot of light covering your facial features making it impossible for me to complete the image I have for you in my mind! Thus, I have named you “No face”! And don’t worry, not knowing how you’d look like won’t stop me from writing to you, because my heart will lead me to the true you one day, that much I know and that much I believe! You should believe in that too my love, in your heart of hearts you just have to know me, you have to find me! And when you do, I would expect you to read this letter to me aloud;)

I am filling you with surprise, aren’t I?! Well don’t be! Even if the whole idea of me writing to you feels incomprehensible to you, just let it be, and let me be.

I guess I am running out of words here, and it is probably too much for you to take in all at once. So, until my next letter, just remember this: 

To the dream I write,

To a heart wide awake,

To a vision that keeps

Haunting me..

To my blindness

When I lose the way!

Love you,
Zainab

No face!!

For a start, what I am going to present to you here might sound strange and even crazy for those who do not know me, and who would probably question my sanity and wonder whether the whole story is what it is and what I say it is or whether it is a totally different issue that I am not willing to share with you and thus have intentionally manipulated either to delude you or stir your interest and imagination all the same!!

Well, rest in peace because I am doing none of that!! But first let me tell you something that will make it a whole lot easier for you to understand my way of thinking and the reason I have written the letters, some of which you’ll read in my next post!

You know that people have their own different ways of expressing themselves, whether mentally or emotionally. Some opt for talking and letting into the open whatever it is they want to express, some choose to remain silent and analyze their thoughts & feelings on their own and others do that in writing! By now I am sure you know that I belong to the last category! When I do that, I do not do it because I lack the ability to verbally express myself, but because writing is a totally different story for me! Every time I choose to do that, I experience a sense of freedom and peace unlike any I have ever felt! By writing, I find myself and I succeed in capturing a whole new victory regardless of what I write; that is whether it be a pleasant or an unhappy experience.

Of course that does not have to be in the form of a personal journal (diaries), it could always be spontaneous heartfelt scraps of writing that are not necessarily done on a daily basis; just whenever there is a special incident or a certain thought that needs to be passed on to paper, as a memento or a means of achieving spiritual release or comfort!

Now back to my point, or fairytale if you wish to call it that, I have found myself a somewhat unusual way to communicate with myself and speak out my mind! You are dying to know how, aren’t you?

Well, I do this by writing letters, every now and then, addressed to a guy who has no name, no form and no identity! In other words, a person who does not exist in the first place, at least not yet! Yeah yeah I know it is strange, but it is funny and at the same time so very relaxing! But do not worry I do not send them to a magical land or something, I just keep them safe amongst my many other treasures!

You know, I have always believed that speaking your heart to the person you love; your soul mate, is different and feels different no doubt! And although I haven’t found that person yet and I do not know what it feels like to be swept off your feet and have your heart beat crazily for the one & only person who is destined to be eternally yours, I still know by instinct that it is a unique and invaluable experience, which nothing can ever compete with. Thus, it is not wrong at all to refer to it as the very essence & meaning of life!

When reading one of these letters, however, you’d feel as though they were written to a real person, a guy who does exist! I do this on purpose and I do want them to sound genuine and true, or else they wouldn’t be as unusual as they are now!

Every single letter of these is addressed to my imaginary knight, whom I have named “No face”. So, our next stop will be with the very first letter I have written to (No face).

Until then, please wait for me and for “Him” with the same anticipation and enthusiasm!!

A smile for the memories..

It is amazing; the way we manage to summon up a certain memory out of a hundred others welled up deep inside the recesses of our minds!!

The other day, as I was listening to Mariah Carey's "One sweet Day", I found myself smiling uncontrollably and feeling a warm rush of content sweeping through my whole body, leaving me swamped in a strange sense of nostalgia to those old days of childhood!

That song triggered a specific incident and actually took me back to the age of 10 or 11, to that time when I heard this song and got acquainted with the great Mariah Carey for the very first time! To tell you the truth, back then English songs were not really that favoured by me and I almost knew none of the so-called cool singers of that particular generation! Frankly, it didn't really bother me that I was oblivious to all that hubbub!
However, that day I was visiting at my aunt's house and having fun with my cousin Khulood as usual! I am only one year older than her and so we do get along very well. So, that day I heard Mariah's track "One sweet day" and I got hooked instantly!

Let me tell you this, I have this habit of getting attached to things by using my sense of hearing! Believe me, I know from the first moment I listen to any song or music whether it appeals to me or not! And Mariah appealed to me alright! She still does, and still is my favourite female singer ever! Though for me that album remains the best I have heard for her, I do spontaneously buy every single album she releases and I don't question whether it'd be as good as expected or not! Of course, you can guess that I bought that album myself right the next day!

Now, at the age of 26, this very song never ever fails to bring back the same sense of excitement and wonder I had back then! Isn't that exhilarating?! I mean 15 years of my life have passed ever so quickly, transforming everything on its way including me, and yet deep down I know for sure that the child I used to be at that distant moment in time still resides somewhere inside of me; making life more bearable, adding beauty to my days and reminding me that at moments of distress I can always close my eyes, mentally turn back the hands of time to that same day and relive the joy and peace one gets out of being a child; blessed with that total blindness to all the traumas & hardships of life, which of course we cannot, now, but strive to tolerate and deal with even if it hits us right between the eyes!!

God, how many times I have heard people around me mumble to themselves 'If I could only go back in time and be a child once again, if only for a split second'! Cannot say I haven't silently wished for that to happen at certain points in my life, and I know that it is perfectly normal to do so. Yet, we all realize that this does not ever happen in reality, and so there is always the memories left for us to cherish and preserve as priceless gifts bestowed upon us by god to draw on our lips a beautiful smile that time can never erase!

Today, I can tell you that I am happy to have fully lived those moments, and to have smiled and laughed a lot back then. Though grown up and mature I happen to be at this stage of my life, it makes me extremely alive and exuberant to have this somewhat "Silly" yet beautiful smile of remembrance dominating my face and adding a spectacular glow like no other!