CLICHY

A beautiful early morning.

Since almost 5 am I have been awake as my most usual. Grace a my biological clock that I could not alter by the years. But it is a gift I guess. The ability to wake up early and just stay in bed silently listening. Things happen in a dazzaling order that only changes if a circumstances happen.

Birds sing. Sun rays coming in throught the bamboo curtain. Neighbour alarm clock vibrates and rings too high to wake to pray. Coran recitation ushers the school bus picking the girls up. Verses does change. Old car motor squeak and cranks before it is persuaded to be warmed up for today. Newspaper thrown outside door. A beggar passing in the street declaring, 'ya karam al-Allah.'

The players of all these I never saw. Had images of who they might be and what they look like. But i dont want to seek them or distort my image. I imagined them a certain way, authentic characters from some past time. Details of their personal lives sketched: Their dress style. How they walk. Smell. Attitude. Movement of their lips while starting their day. All taken care of. They are no strangers to me. I am sure. I made them up. Partially.

At times, I wish I havd lived in Alex, Port-Fou'ad or Rasheed, in an old quarter overlooking the sea or the lake, in a local area full of fishermen and guildless people; where I can hear more graceful interaction and enrich my archive of images; to be able to forecast the day's weather from the speed of their footsteps, from their natural mumbling and gasps. To wide open the window and taste what a new day means!

I leaned to the floor and picked the book I have been reading for a while. Turned on my little book-lamp and I read a beautiful piece.

'...a portion of me conceals a child who loves to be amazed, taughed and directed. When I listen, I am a child and Henry becomes paternal. ....the woman becomes a child again. .... And then in anger I want to dominate, to work like a man, support Henry, get his book published. To assert the woman.

He has seen the child!

I run away. I carry my secret away with me. I have the hope that Henry has not grasped it too well.' [Anais Nin. Journal of Love: Henry and June]

Comments

Anonymous said…
beautiful. you've an ability to almost personalize everything around u.
Anonymous said…
Are you for real Haal! You do feel these things with this intensity, or it is just your writing?

are u egyptian?
haal said…
Personalizing is hell! And it makes me so unreal, or rather, everything around and happening is, I suppose!

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