When blood flows more than ink, you know that you are at a time of major crisis, a merciless time where seconds tick askew, accompanied by a rhythmic dance of a Godless chant, animal-like chant on top of ponds of dark burgundy, splattered over spaces of the usual gray; a time that runs frantically to hide hastily from injustice between the folds of an obscure future of a homeland, leaving you with very few options about what to do with what you’ve still got of your heavy gasps, and what you’ve shed of your very soul, so you collapse in your place, helpless and hazy, and you start forming letters with your own gushing blood on the walls of the soon-to-be history; so you wither while fading into a zone between the blackness of the day and the light of your potentially last prayers, and you write.

Syria: that beautiful Levantine lady lying every night to a bed of nails across fertile hills, proud mountains, cozy sea shores, and generous deserts; loaded with heartache that has been building up during the last few decades, to reach its peak at the point of explosion caused by unbearable pressure, excruciating injustice, and agonizing maltreatment.
Syria: that land that witnessed the birth of the very first alphabet and the first documented musical piece, under the eyes of gods and goddesses, that terra-firma that survived during days of plagues and deluges under the noses of saints and prophets, is yearning with a hoarse voice for a miraculous providence.

100 days of domestic turbulence, sleepless nights, restless days, and a sea of gloom eating a city after another before it gulps down the entire homeland.
100 days of shed blood flowing down from hundreds of people who were killed for no crime, human sacrifices slaughtered unrighteously and disrespectfully at the altar of “in the name of the country” instead of bringing to justice every criminal of those who hide behind that shield of patriotism
 100 days of children’s laughter covered by heavy gunfire and the squeals of distressed mothers, 100 days of people gone lost and found, or lost without being found, 100 days of uncivil debates between civilians, motivated by phobias fed to them by dirty hands of fate.
100 days ……… and still counting.

We write because we don’t want an extreme opinion to take over ours, we write because we hate to see our alleys where we were raised playing with other kids stained with blood and shame, we write because we don’t want a symbol or a person to take over the glory of the people, we write because we know that when blood flows more than ink, we know that it is your duty to bring back the balance, so we act, we pray, and “at least” we write.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Syrian_uprising

It’s a daily period of anticipation that both wise and airheaded could learn from each according to their sharpness, and that’s as we stand there in a foosball-like rectangle awaiting for the metro.
Anyone could easily realize how lucky those whose foot touch the ground of that spot along with the arrival of their “chosen” metro, knowing how they will not have to endure neither the discomfort frustration of awaiting with a bunch of strangers two floors underground, nor the happy teasing smug faces of those who are on the other side of the metro platform as their metro arrives to swallow all of them and hit the “rail” once again… bastards!!

As for me (an unlucky airhead with coarse observation skills and a tendency to unremittingly “amuse” myself), I have started to learn from this experience to keep it as enjoyable as possible.
Therefore, whenever I’m there, I silently look people in the face and categorize them as if they were china on my cardboard’s shelves.

Never-endlessly, there is always a difference PDA-ist couple, but they all share the same behavior that screams out “look at us, we can lick and stick, huggle and suckle, moan and groan, because we’re FREE and our organs are not only to PEE”, and what makes the charade always even droller is the presence of more than one couple, making it feel like a sex contest, and kudos to he/she who hath the longest tongue that slides the furthest into partner’s ear.

When the scene becomes boring and you look further around you’ll meet “Sad and Sadder”, who walk down the stairs as if they have the weight of the world on their shoulders or hanging from their diminishing balls or saggy man-boobs, they come down and they scan the foosball hoping to find someone who’s more pathetic, but they end up tilting their head in disappointment like a widowed clown.

White and blue collars (mostly original French which makes them a minority around here) take a seat to fake a newspaper-reading session, trying to isolate from everyone else including a fragile hot “single” MAMA, a cranky grandpa, a wasted drunki drunkenton, and that airhead that is looking people in the faces to categorize them.

Being to any metro station is 50% of the whole experience of living in France, because there… You get to see it all in 5 to 10 minutes.

Being possessed by demons of nostalgia is not the most glorious bless a man could have, especially during those moments when it’s cold enough that you can clearly hear the sound of steel teeth of those diablos sinking into the flesh of your soul, deep to your very heart.
We know profoundly how those cold moments are there to stay, for hours, days, and even centuries. Regardless how they fade temporarily squeezed by our urge to fight insecurity between the sweaty rush of life and the yellowish summer smoke of the city

There I was, nostalgic to and haunted by daydreams of her beautiful flawless wrinkles, getting more wrinkly with ever goddess-like smile, her creamy tones adding taste to my morning coffee, the nourishing energy spells cast by her caring hands that fed me for years, the rays of light shining down on me from the halo around her head, her systematic heart ticks whispering in my ears as I’m wrapped in the heaven of her arms, and mostly… the muse of her voice bathing me with her early morning and late night blessings.

I have missed you mom
I’ve missed how you fight the urge to smile wickedly whenever I’m cheeky
I’ve missed how you fight with me to change my opinions and beliefs in order to keep me with you in afterlife, and yet you rub it in my face when you sometimes prove that you’re right
I’ve missed how you cook the most delicious food in the world no matter how cranky and tired you could be
I’ve missed how differently your glasses change the shine of your eyes and their purity
I’ve missed how angelic you look no matter how dark the colors you choose to wear
I’ve missed how you protect me from being cocky by not giving me any credits, but still can’t hide your cockiness when you speak of my name in public
I’ve even missed those grieves we have had shared, how you gripped my arm as we prayed our final farewell to dad, and how you gripped it once again when we said our not-final goodbye to me in Damascus Airport.
But I’ve missed more the happy dofus pleasures, whether in our humble family house, or in the naked outsides, starting by the giggling at the shadows we made when the power was off, and ending by the late night ice creams long walks and talks.

I feel abrasive, abused, afraid , aloof, angry, annoyed , anxious, ashamed , awful, bad , bewildered , boorish , boring, callous , careless , clumsy , combative , confused , coward , crazy , creepy , cruel , cynical, deceived, defeated , defective , demonic , depressed , deranged , disagreeable , disillusioned , disturbed , draconian , embarrassed , envious , erratic , evasive , evil , faded , fanatical , fierce , filthy, finicky , flashy , flippant , foolish ,forgotten , frantic , fretful , frightened , furtive , greedy , grieving , grouchy , gruesome , grumpy , gullible , helpless , hesitant , homeless , horrible , hungry , hurt , ignorant , ill , jealous , jittery , lazy , lonely , malicious , mean , naïve , nasty , naughty , nervous , outrageous , panicky , pathetic , possessive , repulsive , ruthless, sad , scared , selfish , silly , sore , strange , tensed , terrible , threatened , tired , tiresome , troubled , truculent , undesirable , unsure , unwell , upset , vengeful , venomous , volatile , voracious , vulgar , wasted , weak , worthless , wretched ...

yet , certainly NOT Nostalgic ....

I tried riding in that swing, and let me tell you, it’s not a fun ride, not fun or pretty at all!
I feel like I’m hanging between the highest sky and the lowest ground-zero, lost between Black and White , hence the dream of invading the world starting by Europe which was something that used to make me smile, is nothing now that I’m actually a small dot in the grand Europe.
I feel like I’ve been stripped of all my weapons except for nagging! And that surely would not help me win any wars or invade even a grocery store in this no-man’s land.

Well, as they say here “Laisse Tomber!” or as they say in English “Drop it!”
Yes! Dropping it since I’m not entitled to make any decisions yet, since I’m a newly-born baby to this environment, learning from the world around and absorbing how everyone is acting, or even worse, it’s more like a monkey-see monkey-do for me.

Therefore adaptation must take its toll on me regardless how mean or how nice the Frenchies can be, or how tough life can be (even when it comes to super basic needs like food, shelter, and shoulder), and regardless how wet I’m right now (not sexually but by the massive rain of Marseille), and finally, regardless how big and fat my ass is getting because of expressing my nostalgia by eating whatever Syrian food I can cook

So mote it be, let operation “Adaptation” begin!
(Only for the thing that I can get adapted to, other things like the aquarium in my pants won’t find their way to a solution)

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: You find the present tense and the past perfect