حبّك شوك
هذه المطبوعة التي بين يديك هي قصّة مدينة واحتفال بلحظة: مكان، مساحة للفنون، جبل اللويبدة، عمّان في خريف عام ٢٠١٥. في يوم ملحميّ، شاركتنا مجموعة من البشر حميميّة وشومهم، هي مجموعة قصص وفي بطن كلّ قصّة قصّة. في تلك الفترة كانت الشباب تعود، بحذر وشجاعة، للحصول على الوشم بعد فترة غُربة عنه، تجد وسيلة لتأكيد هويّتها وترفع صوتها ولو كان بالدم والألم. في الوشم قصّة وفي قصّة الوشم تاريخ. الحكاية تدور، نختار لها بدايات ونهايات ولكن هي حلقة، مستمرّة ونصبح نحن، إن حالفنا الحظّ، نقطة. بإمكانكم تصفّح كتاب حبّك شوك في المكتبات العامة التاليةالأردن: دارة الفنون، المتحف الوطني الأردني للفنون الجميلة، فن وشاي، عين للتصميم، داركروم عمّان، مكتبة عمّان الصغرى – مَماغ، حبر، بيت الحرفمصر: مركز الصورة المعاصرةهولندا: دو ابيل – امستردامألمانيا: خان الجنوب – برلين وفي مكتبات الأصدقاء المشتركين
أرجنتينا، ٢٠٠٩
ابتدأت العديد من الأحاديث أثناء هذه الإقامة الفنيّة في بوينوس آيريس، والتي مثّلت مغامرة العائلة الأولى في القارة الجنوب أمريكيّة، بعبارة “أنا جدّتي جاءت من سوريا!” متأثّرا بذلك، تناول هذا العمل الملحمي موضوع الهجرة والهويّة من خلال سلسلة من النشاطات منها درس رقص وعدد من الولائم وكتاب طبخ متعدد اللغات.
سماح حجاوي
التاريخ ٩ حزيران ٢٠٢٥الساعة: ١:٠٠ من بعد الظهرالمكان: استوديو سماح في مدينة بروكسلالجو: غائم مع هواء ومرات بتطل الشمس للحظاتالقعدة كانت أثناء شغل سماح على لوحة مشاركة ببينالي بخارى في اوزباكستان قريباتعود العلاقة مع سماح إلى أكثر من أربعين سنة تخللها العديد من المغامرات داخل عالم الفنون وخارجهصفحات سماح
رائد ابراهيم
تاريخ الزيارة: ٢٨ أيار ٢٠٢٥الساعة: ٦:١٠ مساءالمكان: استوديو رائد في غرب عمانالجو: ربيعي منعش والنسيم طريتوسّطت القعدة طاولة تنوعت عليها الصحون الصغيرة منه فواكة وبندورة متفجّرة ومكسرات وجبنة وغيرها … وشربنا خلطة أعشاب طيبة لونها ع أخضر غامقالعلاقة مع رائد متعددة الطبقات وتعود إلى أكثر من عشرين عاماصفحات رائد
سندس أبو العدس
تاريخ الزيارة: ١٩ شباط ٢٠٢٥الساعة: ٦ مساءالمكان: الأشرفيةالجو: هدوء ما قبل العاصفةشربنا شاي أخضر وأعشاب وشاي خوخصفحات سندس
جمان النمري
تاريخ الزيارة: ٥ شباط ٢٠٢٥الساعة: ٦ مساءالمكان: استوديو جمان في عمّانالجو: برد وعم تشتيشربنا خلطة أعشاب وميرميّة من مصرالعلاقة مع جمان من أيّام مكان الأولى قبل حوالي ٢٠ سنةصفحات جمان
Are You Too Scared To Live?
Welcome to Jinjin Fear with Zizi. A space for confusion and interruption. A space where no one is too scared to change their mind, or seem a fool, or be angry. Think of your ideas as butterflies, light, metamorphosing, ugly, beautiful, moving, and quick to die. She comes from a far away place. A place where fear is used for survival. Free from phobias, they form friendships, they have sex, they eat street food and do not spend their money on insurance. They do not make useless expensive things, say like bombs. In the absence of a bomb industry, they have no use for a war. In the absence of a war, there is no need to make an enemy. They are not afraid of their neighbors or what their waters may deliver to their shores. Even if their hairstyle is different. They welcome hairstyle difference. And privacy. They have no illusions around immortality or being good. They are not afraid to die, and are not afraid to live. Curiosity is stronger than dread. The private and public intertwine. Jealousy has very little place. There is no absolute father. Narcissism cannot rule. They are survivors of the worst nightmares. They have known hunger, they have known cold, they have known loneliness, the have known pain. They accept nature as a force. They accept imagination. They accept sexual drives. They accept love. They accept pleasure. Cosmically wandering. Interspecies-ically communicating. They seek adventure. Deep into the forests, tasting new fruit, being serious, being silly. Fear is a very useful tool to run away from the hungry tiger. Fear herself can be the killer beast feeding on fear growing into epic phobic. Normalizing phobia calling it fear. Making the extreme normal and the irrational rational. The death of joie de vivre. Are you too scared to live. She has always been afraid. She will always have fear. She is terror. she wakes up with a jolt of panic, again. She is sleepy but too afraid to go back to sleep, a slumber of repeating loops of anxiety, halfway into a dream of her mother dying. She must get up, her feet solid steel at the end of the bed, her body refusing to engage in the horrors of the day to come. Promised failures. Parents aging. Estrangement. Pain. Her homeland burning. Her homeland disappearing. Bodies facing death here and there, seeking life, met with hate. Her language muddled, living between worlds, neither here nor there, afraid of being erased. Rootless. Roots gone too deep. Unrecognized, represented, misrepresented. Afraid of not fitting in. what an exotic name. stomach turning. Where do you come from? Boredom. Boredom—now that is really scary. She goes for a calming walk by the beach. Everywhere she looks, there is another sign that promises horror: Stop! Danger! Rip waves! Sudden currents! Images of dogs flying off cliffs, bodies meeting their end! A turning point: She could have said no, she was sick to her stomach with fear, her body rigid, she hated it, she really was too scared to go swim with the turtles. Fucking asshole turtles, who fucking cares? But she was also scared of shame, of being the party killer, she was scared of being recognized as the scared one. She should walk away, go get a beer. Once down there with her eyes wide open, she was safe. It makes Zizi’s blood boil pausing sometimes at the selective powers of the mind in front of fear. What is real, what is fabricated, what is postponed and denied and what is mandated. Statistics used to support an intellectual conclusion that these phobias are legitimate, and indeed ground for action. FDA approved drugs drug monsters thrive on normalised sicknesses, fabricated, packaged, advertised, sold! Numbers speak to the mind bullshit, this is no more rational than it is rational to absolutely trust your mind. Hysterically following the phobia du jour. We have become our own worst enemies. Afraid of our own bodies, suffocating them, taming them, cleansing them, controlling them, imprisoning them, hating them, domesticating the wild in them. A reflection of our relationship to the natural, natural is a style, in today, passé mañana. A projection in how we are approach the natural. The wild. The savage. Destructive. Self destructive. That is real horror. The horror of dropping out of the human race, point A is point Z and repeat, a tightrope, a small slip leads immediately to the abyss. The horror of being left out, weird, off track, a drop out, a loser, among the scummy leftovers of the human race. The place where terrifying creatures roam the lost-land-nesses of anarchy, the unemployed, underemployed, artists, philosophizers, unnecessary children, obsolete elderly, hippies, unicorns, and those with body hair where they should not have it–Radicalised. In truth they are scary, because those are the insane that are sane and know that the sane are indeed the insane. Hahahahhaaaaaa. The horrors normalised. No time to pause, must work hard, get health insurance and build up for a pension. Millions of lives dominated. And not in the fun way. This is real horror. Stepping over living bodies like there were nothings, sharing pictures of dead bodies like they were pudding, plugging into isolation in metal boxes worming underground, ticking away day after day in windowless rooms without a view, postponing love to the weekend, that is real horror. The real horror is in being the bricks of a wall. The wall is already here. The real horror is in the fear of the other. The real horror is in the surrender. The horror in not knowing how to be angry anymore. Forfeiting other instincts so one instinct can grow and superpower us all into submission. Indeed, what is the fear fad of the day? Som fears seem timeless. Others take different shapes to cope with the times. Some are short-lived, convenient. Give your instinct a chance, it knows when to activate against danger and when you are being made a fool. Sympathetic
Jin Jin Fear with Zizi
Zizi will jinjin your fear tonight. Zizi will awaken Fear, aggravate it, bring it to the light and allow you to befriend it. For those of you who wish to attend our ceremonies, open your hearts. Most of you will survive tonight. Those of you who participate may leave with fear a trusted friend, tamed, cute and useful. The rest, the book does not say what will happen to you. The scariest of our fears are those that remain hidden in the darkness. [something to feel] [wake up] Life brings us pains, lick them. Zizi will send electro tickling shocks to awaken Fear sleeping in the folds and depths moist and pulsing of your body: skin, flesh and bone. It will burn. Surrender to feeling scared, it is the fear awakening. Zizi is not here to hold your hand. If you are ready to receive, close your eyes. Open your palms in front of you. Imagine wanting and humility. start whispering jinjin jinjin jinjin. [Zizi continues to whisper jinjin jinjin jinjin] [throws coarse salt while she sings]: تيك تيك تيك تيك مين تيك تيك مين تين على موز لاء موز على تين تين على موز أو موز على تين كله مغطى بقمر الدين Jinjin jinjin jinjinjinjin [something to taste] [make the monster angry] Life brings us unknowns, chew them. Zizi will now send encrypted signals to make the monster angry. Zizi has prepared a secret bite for you. A tray will arrive to you. Take one offering. ONLY ONE! Pass the tray on. Proceed to place the bite gently on your tongue, count three jinjins: jinjin jinjin jinjin, start to chew. Chew slowly. Taste. Salivate. Chew, taste, salivate. Chew, taste, salivate. For no longer than 90 second and then slowly swallow. Let the offering travel intentionally through your body, it will soon dissolve and fuck with Fear departing from its slumber. After you swallow proceed to whisper jinjin jinjin jinjin بعد ما شالوا حطو وغطوا ناموا وغطوا ومش خايفين قامة قومة في عز النومة لا خلى كاف ولا شين ولا زين jinjin jinjin jinjin [Bring to the surface] Life brings us germs, take them. Sip them. Zizi will now send the special spirits to push Fear out. A tray will come your way, drink the potion Zizi prepared. Place the cup back, start whispering jinjinjinjin. Pour a dash and offer it to the person to your left. Person to the left, drink it in one gulp. Place the cup on the tray, and as you pour some for the person to your left start whispering jinjinj jinjij jinjin. And so on. Fear will come out so be prepared. Continue to whisper jinjin jinjin jinjin. ومين القريب ومين البعيد ومين اللي باقي ومين اللي زايل ومين اللي شايل ومين اللي طايل ومين اللي يثبت في وقت الهوايل ومين فينا ميت ومين فينا حيّ Jinjin jinjin jinjin jinjin [the dance] When it is most challenging, consider offering your body, it is not always about you. Zizi will now offer Fear a chance to be a friend. This is about wonder and magic, curiosity and recklessness. Now! Surrender your bodies to Zizi and dance. Dance! Jinjin jinjin jinjin
I always listen for the cracking
Today i wake up and i push my body out of bed, it is the right thing to do. Also i need to pee and make coffee and if i stay in bed all the bad thoughts will come. I think of my feet first, on the mornings when i am lazy like i was this morning, i only rotate my ankles a couple of times, when i do step on them i can feel my fascia stretch unhappily. I always listen for the cracking. A long time ago, and i can say that now because it has been over 20 years, i listened to the voice in my head that said: you have no ambition. I am relieved, i have relieved my-self, from joining the race. For the most part, it has felt good and right and continued to make sense, but there are times when it is really hard and i cannot escape the question: what am i doing? This question is most pressing when my life is summed up in driving in traffic, worrying about my clothes, and fixing the plumbing. I do not seek to be profound or successful, i do not seek, period. But i do not want to pass through only concerned with the details, scratching but the surface of what this adventure could be. We try our best ola says. I have very little energy. Sometimes i terrify myself with thoughts around my energy level. Perhaps i am really sick? Something dark living in my gut eating at my store of excitement and initiative. It is the heat perhaps. And the worry. I have to eat more protein perhaps. I am taking a moment to reset (razan would like my use of the word reset here, technology concepts to understand life), i am taking a moment to attempt at focusing, i need some time to sharpen or acquire some tools to bring myself out of this rut. I will keep my regular exercise, i think this has become a foundation for me or is it a structure? Whichever, the fact that i give myself to this and have maintained it despite the unfinished business with renting the tla al-ali house, gives me hope in me. I am planning a long hike along the sinai trail in October, in preparation, I will try to go on a day hike every week. Indeed there is pleasure in going with the flow, but what i think i am missing are goggles to see underwater, trust in my muscles to climb a tree if one comes my way, and an openness not to pause too long at the fork, and a sense of dedication that stops me from stopping by the curb to fix the tile or pick up the plastic or hover over a seemingly in need person who has not even asked for help. Replaying this useless role everyday, arriving at the end of the day a failure. Paralysis in the repeated motion. I am suffocating. Ok, so i sit with this feeling, i try, i say it: i am suffocating. Freedom. We are all seeking our freedoms. (oopsss. i thought i shall not seek, maybe i can change the verb to find or to be? We must all find the freedom which one can argue is already within, intrinsic?) I have been thinking lately that i have had it easy. I let them be, those soft shackles of good girl and consideration and everyone has been happy. Except not really. Maintaining the status quo has not hurt too much i suppose. Except it has. I feel detached from my-self, estranged some what, further from my-self than i want to/need to/must be. I have worked with and befriended people who have given up everything, everything they know and own and love, to be closer to who they are. I know what seeking freedom can look like. And what it can cost. And what it can bring. I want to [seek] my freedom. How? To start with: I want to break free from the patterns i have designed for myself. I want to break free from my roles (unsolicited, overwhelming, unappreciated). I want to break free from expectations (unsolicited, overwhelming, unappreciated). Get closer to nature, closer to my nature, the nature within like breath, love, muscle and sex, and the nature outside like heat and cold, seasons, insects, mysterious sounds in the dark. And my hair, i think i have to keep it short. I do not know how to do any of that but what i need to do is try. Diala27 August 2019 I only hope that i will have the strength, patience, love and trust to honor your desires. I can promise that my support to you will be in me continuing to seek my own freedom. You told me yesterday that by seeking our freedoms there comes pain and that is ok. i will trust that. You also said that we inhabit different emotional plateaus, i am still trying to understand what that means, but i think it’s an important difference that i need to embody. I will provide my guidance only when asked for. I will keep an eye from afar and will always think of the insects protecting you from what you fear and reminding you that you are trying. And sometimes i will fail, and that is also ok. I do believe that true love is the love that helps us fly higher and higher and when we need a place to rest or “reset”, it’s there without the unsolicited, overwhelming, and unappreciated expectations. Remember that. And it’s hard but the easy bores us anyway. And yes your hair needs to be short for now. Ola28 August 2019 Dear Reader, This blog will be on a break for a few months, it too needs to take a moment to reset. See you in 2020. Love,the rocca family
45
i confess, i had no idea that i would feel this way. i feel solid, deep, full yet not too full, wise yet i know that i don’t know. there is clarity, there is a sense of relief. relief from the burdens of pretending. i am who i am. i have no fear from my power. my heart, and from now on, i will fly with it with pride. i feel like never before. i have no shame. i confess I am in love with growing older. i have no shame. nothing can and nothing will stop me. i will continue to be whom I want to be. i have the desire to be who I am. i no longer want to disappear. at the age of 3 in the year 1977 in Kuwait, my father and i were driving to visit my aunt, we almost drowned in a water ditch. we were saved. the story i grew up with was that i was taken out from the window. i never understood why the window and not with my father when he left the car. i recently found this newsclip from the Kuwait Times while clearing a carton of childhood clutter, they do not mention me. i was erased. and this is when i thought, i will no longer try to disappear. never. i will remain present. i will feel every single moment with full attention and intention. i will appreciate every pee that I make. Samah, my life witnesser, when i asked her to read my astrological chart today, relayed that it was time for me to step out of the shadows and into the light. i trust Samah, she has known me since i was 10. she knows my bad and good faces. she also saw that Beyoncé and i shared some similar chart placements. Samah, thank you for imagining that. and according to my long time astrology reader, my dear brother Ghalib, in reference to this year he said “ it is intense, challenging and hard, yet it is the biggest learning year of your life, for at least the next 30 years. this year is like you are in a classroom, but the classroom is how you constructed it, you are learning the lessons of structure and power, there is something in your life this year that is about a complete shift.” i feel it in my body. it is true, the shift is happening. my body is moving like never before. sometimes it races ahead of me. it wants me to go beyond what i have known. it is asking me not to be afraid of what is coming, it is loving me more than i have dreamt of. i was in the water yesterday, my eyes filled with tears. the fishe[s] saw me, three of them. i saw myself like i was just born, naked, ready to enter life. i want to keep going deeper, depth is what I care for. anything else or less bores me to death. ola
letter #15: for tomorrow the walk continues
I am in the Fougaro Art space in Aria close to Nafplio, the one I told you about earlier. I came a couple of days ago and found that they have a library, a small quiet space full of books, some in English and open to the public. I came here today to work, hoping to focus and write this letter to you. I miss books. (no, I am not any closer to getting over giving away my books, 40 years of books. I still get fainting spells at the thought). I want to tell you about the hike. Ola, thank you for encouraging me. First came the sleepless nights starting from the night before I left Drepano to Antalya. It did not help that for some mysterious reason, I had acute heartburn every night or whatever that pain was because sometimes I thought what if it were my heart stopping? I took medicine for it every night, I consumed more heartburn medicine that week than I would in a month. Other than the hike, I do not know that my mind was occupied with anything special to cause this sleeplessness. I managed, nonetheless, to hike with bad sleep. I suppose it was all part of getting to know myself, my body. I was nervous not knowing what the hike involved exactly. Was I going to be able to do it or not? I was also nervous about the group, taking time away from my time away from Amman to be with people from Amman. What if I could not be comfortable in myself with them? Among a group of strangers, I was not as afraid as I sometimes felt stepping on the loose soil at the edge of a cliff or walking down a steep incline of dry dirt and moving stone. Control. I need to feel in control. I am afraid of things that I do not know, I explained to a fellow hiker who responded to my nervousness and was trying to help. He thought the unknown could be exciting. There were moments when I thought if you were there, I would have definitely become frozen like I sometimes did when we hiked together. I would have needed your heroism to help me through (or would have had to turn back). My mind one place and my body another. Or actually my body following a part of my mind which was not in touch with reality. Stuck at an elevation of 40 centimeter above ground did not constitute danger, at some level I knew that, but I could not convince the part of the brain that was somewhere else panicking. But on this hike, I was at my best so to speak, I could not or would not expose my phobia to this group, I would not burden them with having to “save” me, I was trying to impress them. I had a chance at a fresh start as a person who was not afraid of instability under her feet. My new shoes performed well. I had to understand them first, in time I recognized the power of their grip ascending and descending. It also helped that the guide told me my shoes were made for this climb when I hesitated in front of rock. I trust a guide. Authority. Male? Shit. The guide, a sweet beast, positioned me right after him to set the pace, he announced. He walked uphill slow and small, think of one step at a time, he said. And it worked. I could have walked for ever. I breathed and put a hiking-boot-clad foot forward. Breath. Step. breath. Step. going down the steep inclines, step with your heels first, he told me. Sometimes, I managed to trip over my own feet. I slipped back or forward a few times, my foot let go too soon or too slow. I marched on or up or down. I paid extra attention not to send any stones rolling towards he or she who walked behind me. I was mostly careful. Not carefree. Sometimes I would look up or far and my foot would land on the wrong side of a stone. In essence this walk, of about 100 km along a segment of the Lykia Trail, was about staring at the ground just in front of my feet, listening to my breath, feeling my heart beat and following one step with another. Sweat. Ache. Thirst. Also the smell of wild sage and thyme, the buzz and annoying tickle of insects and the relish of a cool breeze. In my mind though, except for quick moments of panic, I was carefree. So much focus on the practical, technical, and simple strategy along with my breath and heartbeat, my mind did let go I suppose. I was with very little anxiety or worry. Oh, I also learned that I do not care to arrive at the summit. I could do it and this one was considered a small summit only at 2366 meters. This may have also been why I felt good generally. Emotionally. I liked the group and I liked myself within the group. Sure, parts of me will remain in the background, but other parts were center stage. I am sure each and everyone kept parts of him or herself away and shared some with us. Essentially, I felt at home in my self and body. I am thinking that it was easy being with the group because by virtue of mostly walking, mostly being in nature, it was a quiet event. I often feel nervous or uncomfortable because of noise. The guide, prompted by a question from the group, sometimes went on too long and too loud, but he had so much to share with us and he did it so generously that I loved him for it. Sometimes I felt my lower back, a pain settling there, it was also (alongside my dull continuous headache) a suggestion that my period was on
letter # 13: احنا والخرطوش وخرا الماعز والبلوط
Dear Chau, What happens when a dream comes true? I sent my dear friend Stijn an email two days ago asking him this question, and he answered “new dreams emerge.” I am scared. I do not want new dreams. You and everyone close and dear to me knows what this dream is, to be close to the water, that I and the water become one. We are now one. I am living, I am very much alive, I can feel every part of me alive. As if my journey is complete, yet it has just started. I want to be proud and loud saying I had a dream and it came true. How can I not be scared or shy about it? Why is it hard to announce happiness? Can you help me please understand. I started writing a love letter last week to my loved ones to thank each one of them الحاضر منهم والغايب. Because at one moment or another they believed me. I am still writing the letter, because I want it to be perfect. Yesterday you wore a dog mask in the middle of the square, you announced your public appearance or presence in front of a new crowd. And in return, this morning two dogs who seemed to be friends, declared their power over us, they made us leave our spot in a very playful manner, with their eyes chasing us until they could no longer see us and with us wondering who was scared of whom. I am not scared. I want you to remember that to feel real joy, you need to just feel whatever is giving you joy and not turn it into a desire or a need. So, just eat the oranges in their season and enjoy them while you eat them, and do not think that their season was almost over. Love,Ola images by anastasia kordari – Dear Ola, First, I want to say thank you. This is beautiful and it feels so good. In response to your letter I send you this drawing. I made it with that view in front of me to the sounds of rumbling thunder, heavy rainfall birds chirping as well as the humming of the fridge and the thudding of doors and windows. When I open the balcony door, the smell of orange blossom will come in very much invited. I want to add to this dictionary Τραχανότο maftoul like irregular pieces made from cracked wheat, semolina or bulgur with wheat flour and milk, buttermilk, or yogurt typically goat. We shared a trachanoto with mushrooms and yum. Sometimes we just have to eat the sweet chocolate. Despite the price. Sometimes life is in the price we pay for living. When a dream comes true, you live it. Think not of what will be beyond. I love those oranges. They quench a persisting thirst. “You and I lead very different lives.” Our lives have not been this different in years. Here, now, we arrive at certain moments in unison and live that moment exactly the same and together. (Reading this again, I feel compelled to take this sentence back, or just acknowledge here that it is after all impossible.) Love,Chau.
letter # 12: ear wax
Dear Chau, We got the news yesterday morning that Shams was born. Shams is the son of Basma my second cousin and Philip, and he is the grandson of Hind my cousin and Nabil and the great grandchild of Huda my aunt and Haidar. I love shams, I loved him since I knew he existed, and I promise to love him for ever. I am usually blinded by love, but not this time. This time I know why I love him, you always tell me there are no whys in love, but with Shams I know why. Not to put pressure on you Shams, but you came when I needed you. You are the present, past and future. I have come to see clearly that there is no way I can grow, evolve or transform if the three—past, present and future—are not listening to each other. Listening with humbleness. I love you. I am now forming beautiful friendships and connections with the younger, people who are 20+ years younger than me, I might be very close to surpassing my ageism. A few weeks ago, as we conducted the workshop with the students at Aman, I felt a big transformation in me. The participants were mostly between 19 and 22 years old. I saw us equally learning from one another. They showed me how much they knew, what they went through, how honest and open and curious they were. They gave me a lot of power to be vulnerable and silly in a very sincere way. With them I was not scared to share my teachings. It felt like I was continuing a conversation and not starting from the beginning or repeating myself, and this is what I was hoping for when we closed Makan: to always be in motion engaged with what was happening now and not stuck in the absence of what was no longer there. During the workshop, we walked silently, moved our bodies intensely and like swans, played music and used our voices to listen to the wild in us. We spoke about fear, loss, death, isolation, the body, the family and love and mostly the monster under the bed. Thank you Ala and Fadi for opening Aman and for being you. Thank you Reema, Hiba, Laila, Dalal, Aya, Hussam, Mohammed and Shukri for who you are, and for inspiring me to continue. ola – Dear Ola Earwax Help me. I want to learn to listen. When my mother says: “she disapproved of everything I said.” I look at her and say: “yeah she does that.” Then, I cannot stop thinking how I wish I’d said: “but why do you think she does that?” I assumed I was being asked to offer a judgement and I shied away by ending the conversation. If I had listened I would have heard that she only wanted to talk. I forgot to listen. I forget to listen. I do not know how to listen. I panic sometimes. You say it is a misconception of what is asked of me. I think I am asked for a solution. I think I am asked for an act. A judgement. But often time, most time probably, what I am being asked to do it is to listen. I fail. The doctor showed me the wax in my ear, could not see the eardrum through the stickiness. The doctor cleaned the wax with water and I should be able to hear better now. I have been given a second chance. Please me, listen. The doctor looked at my hearing chart from the test in 2016 and said: “there is nothing wrong with your hearing, you are just anxious and do not focus. But go get them tested again.” Here it is again, or they are: anxiety and lack of focus. Tone deaf I have always thought of myself as tone deaf. It is hard to believe but I did play the violin for a small moment as a teenager. I always gave my violin to Ramzi to tune it. I love music, I listen to a wide spectrum of it. Sometimes I can even sing along to some songs. But generally, I cannot hold a tune or repeat a note. However, during the sound exercise you conducted at the workshop in Aman you mentioned above, I was part of one of two teams, each team had a leader who vocally produced a sound which the team repeated, in turn the other leader and team respond vocally, meanwhile we are all playing an instrument. For whatever reason, for the first time ever perhaps, I heard myself repeating the same sound I heard. At will, my own! I think I did. Accordingly, I went for it and did not as usual make the sound a whisper or just move my lips, I filled my lungs, my stomach large and went for it. Fun! Being swan I do not know when my sister and I came up with our ballet moves. Our signature move being: arms raised high, fingers touching with pinkies erect, standing tall (as ballet dancers do, on toe-tops), and then: Twirl! Rush in this direction and then that, forward and back, light like a feather. Zizi brought that to the مداعبات الفضاء مع زيزي session during the Rocca Family workshop at Aman. Zizi said: Imagine you are a swan and now: Dance! Dance! Dance! Zizi also said: imagine you are butter melting on the surface of the hot pan reaching smoothly across the width of it, before you fry the egg: Get up! chau
letter #11:in india
Dear Chau, I went to India and came back without taking a single photo. Not taking photos while on this trip was a decision that I made while I was flying there. It was an experiment for me to see how my eyes see or if they were capable of actually seeing without the phone camera. If i did not document this moment then would it disappear, will i still be able to tell of what i saw. I am losing interest in accumulating memories, repetition without renewal or growth, pushes me to change. I can see the repetition in my images especially those taken while i am traveling, how many skies or seas or sunsets or idiotic self obsessed images of me climbing a 200 foot hill can i keep taking or showing? I went to India, it was my third time, and only for 8 days and every moment was unique, every vignette had in it layers of newness, and still i did not want to document it. I wanted to keep adding to those moments from my own memory, and re-imagine them from what was left from my memory until those moments were just in my body. In India, I was present—fully. Present with my eyes, my ears, my legs, my tongue, my feet, my heart, my back, my fingers and mostly my voice. I was born with the umbilical cord hugging my neck. In India, it was the first time i felt it coming undone. In India, I heard my voice. In India my intestines were happy. In my dreams there, I saw white clothed humans sitting muted by the power of human sound. In India, the teachings were given by practice and being present and not by dictation. In India, I saw patience, dedication to one’s own truth, and music, music, music. I will keep seeking music, that is the only clear path i believe i can follow, until i can no longer hear. I thank Oraib Toukan, my dear friend, for her piece Cruel Images which i read just before I left to India, it inspired my photo awakening moment. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/96/245037/cruel-images/ – Dear Ola, I was plucking my nose hairs the other day, for the first time ever. Nose tickling and eyes smarting, the whole deal, but only for a few hairs as I catch a couple from this nostril and a couple from the other. And I thought to myself: I am plucking my whiskers. There is context here: You shared your thoughts and findings about long hair in the traditions you got to know on your trip to India and others around the world, recognizing how hairless you are (i am not more by much), and the role hair is expected to play as a sensory tool. Also, I have been missing the possibility of a deer visiting the back yard or the knowledge that we share our apartment building with a family of raccoons or standing by the edge of the world at the border of a city watching whales travel the Pacific. Furthermore, I am trying to figure out extreme human reactions to other creatures sharing our spaces (mice, cockroaches, poor and refugees). And I am taking a workshop with Samah Hijawi where I expressed my desire to process my relationship or build one with the wild/nature through my art practice so Razan from the workshop gave me Snæbjörnsdóttir/Wilson: Uncertainty in the City to read. Back to plucking my whiskers, joining in with yet another act of de-animalizing myself. I want to belong to our-glorious-human-selves, our-esteemed-chosen-homo-sapien-selves! (infantile creatures of the earth who (that) think we grew up). What a joke. We surrender our natural sensory tools (google maps and weather applications will do the better job), losing touch with our own bodies, seeing them only as failing machines that need improvement, we need to be told what and when to eat or drink and when to sleep or walk, boxed (dying?) in consumer towers aspiring to develop the quickest most sure ways to shop, supplementing sunshine with pills. We shall continue to try with all our order, vigilance, diligence, perfumed and coiffed, moisturised and shaved, educated and spiritual, urbanised and technologised, fenced in and observed, we shall continue to try to step away from our animalism, from our wilderness and savagery (including humans of sub-human categories of whatever time). And we shall continue to fail. I want to pay my respects here to the feral cats of Amman streets that maintain and generously share final (and very fragile) links to the wild. I go to a blog post from our road trip, September 16, 2017 and read the notes as a reminder. https://www.roccafamily.org/single-post/2017/09/16/note-27-i-want-to-be-wild love,Chau
letter #10: for an hour i feel shame and power
Dear Chau, i’ve been thinking a lot about the practice of escape. how and why we escape from what is real, what is true, what is important. what is it that we are avoiding, not we as me and you only, but everybody we are in relationship with. how much of our day, life, is in escape from what we are here for, which is to be free. we are escaping from ourselves, mostly. we are lucky to have time now in this moment to face ourselves, to know who we are. how we can be more aware of creating such moments and escape less. i confess my fear these days: to get slowly abducted by the details of things, those monstrous details that allow us to think that we are faring better than others, and that we are using our brains and bodies “well.” Dear Ola, Everything has changed. Very little has changed. Little: subtle. Little: unimportant. Little: does not seem fundamental. Since i last wrote to you. Every sunday, tuesday and thursday at 11:00 i see Omar. For an hour he makes a fool of me. For an hour i sweat and scream. For an hour i feel shame and power. For an hour i feel oh yes this is exactly what i want. For an hour i wish i could refuse it all. At the end of the hour he lets me go. For weeks i obsessed about Omar. The obsession has turned into normal. Sometimes i leave Omar bruised. Always flushed. Sometimes broken. Always alive. Blood and bone. Of blood and bone. My blood and my bone. Will not leave me alone. Urine is yellow and hazy, present mucus and crystals. The red blood cells are normochromic normocytic. The white blood cells are normal in total count and differential. The platelets are adequate with normal size. Bilirubin Direct serum is high. Not enough D. Sugars are higher but below worry. Vaginal discharge: a memory a gesture a gift of an adventure. Twisted satisfaction bordering on pride in the drop of sweat that just hit the floor splashing. Pain. I still want to be seen by crowds that do not look at me as best as possible. Sweat is a problem. Awkwardness is a problem. Inability is a problem. Stiff nipples is a problem. Butch release of breath is a problem. That is a problem. I am relieved to look like a fool and be seen by all (no one is actually looking) and even if i still cannot stare back, i am free. For a moment. Feeling good. Feeling good. Love,chau
letter #9: we made a promise
we made a promise last year that we will always try to be connected to the green, the water, the mountains, the desert, the sun and the moon. And here, i want to remind you that we were true to ourselves, each in her own way and sometimes together. the past year has been good, with all its changes, pains, loss, distractions, mundanity. It’s been good, because we tried and we were able to see and live beyond what exists. you said you wanted to walk, and you walked and walked in a way you never imagined. and you will walk more. i said i wanted to never be separated from the water, and this year i can admit that i have an obsessive love affair with the sea. when i am in it or in front of it, i no longer want or need anything or anyone. and i don’t want that to change but only to deepen. please try to look at these images one by one and see and feel us in there. i know you need more of that, i know you want to be in there permanently. i saw you in your fullest when you were in front of vastness and long stretches of everything. you will be. we enter another year with a lot to be thankful for; the unconditional love from our families and friends (especially our mothers) our health (yes we are older and yes our bodies are heavier, and yes we have new danglings here and there that always seem strange when they first appear) the new connections we’ve made and the old ones that remain or fly away the support we get to be artists and mentors the spaciousness and warmth of our homes our cool crazy siblings the ability to move and the freedom to love olaamman26.11.2018 – Dear ola I just woke up with a start from a dream feeling a strong tightness in my chest and not without some disorientation. In the dream, we are in a car, mostly, did I just pick you up? But you were driving. You were telling me things, incidents, references to places and people but it made no sense to me. I said ola I do not understand what you are talking about? You talked of churches and Jerusalem related issues, you talked of your meetings and security officers. And then it dawns on me that you had been traveling. I say was it December 14th and 15th? And you say yes. And I say oh it was your trip to Kuwait and I completely missed it. I did not realize you were traveling. I realize how unfocused I am. How I am losing my grip on—would this be reality (I do not think I meant I was going crazy just seriously foggy in the head)—the everyday life, yours and what matters. I am so sorry and scared. I was sobbing so hard I think the physical aspect of the emotion woke me up. I immediately think how deep my anxiety is. I have to eat now because my session with the trainer is in one hour and 15 minutes. chau6.12.2018
letter #8: nothing here is subtle
Dear Ola, I still cannot write. But i wanted to share. I am trying to sit with my emotions but that remains a challenge. I know it is an exercise in itself and maybe some contemplation of the regular and the mundane will help. The repeating. September 9th I do not know how long i will sit on this balcony for. A few more months, a year? I do not know. The sun just announced her departure, its light made gentle broken through the clouds, new dark and large clouds that hint at rain that will never fall. And I smiled for her, for the pleasure it was sharing with me, for the warmth and promise. For a moment, I was present. Here. I struggled against getting up and getting busy with whatever and pushed myself to sit here for a moment longer and be. And for a few minutes, maybe as long as ten, I succeeded. My relationship to this balcony describes my departure from my hometown, my immigration. Like many others around me, yesterday now and tomorrow, I have left. It is almost a decade that marks this leaving. What does leaving look like when one is physically in the place one has left? What does it mean? I would love to sit with that and play with it but all I am is unfocused. Passing time. Taking on jobs. Answering the question “are you back?” with anxiety and a silly vagueness. My balcony. Is this my balcony? Let me tell you about the balcony. It is west facing so it receives the afternoon sun and the evening winds. It overlooks a failing restaurant with a terribly annoying water pump and large screen displaying a desperate attempt at bringing in business. It also overlooks the Abdali project an overwhelmingly huge project that remains mostly empty, in the distance are the twin towers of the 6th circle, all these towers tell the story of an arrogance with no pride, a mess of a city more poor and less tolerant. After many months, I decided the plants could not wait any longer, I could not make up my mind about imagining the future and maybe I do not even want to but, plants must come. I count 7 pots: a couple of succulents, a bougainvillea, a blue jasmine, lemon verbena, and a foreign oleander. I am growing to love them, and to love my balcony for them. I answered my own “what do i do with them when i travel, go away?” with “I will give the plants a new home, my mom’s perhaps.” The plants are growing, and I see new flowers blue jasmines and cute pink oleander buds and fresh bougainvillea and I am made happy. I am not sure where I will but now I am here. A different day all together, a new week Morning It is now a quarter to seven in the morning. During the months of the summer, I am often woken up somewhere between 6:45 and 7 with the strong sun through the window. I can feel it in my eyes so I move to the edge of the bed hiding but it still finds my legs. I am early this morning because I have a flight to catch and I want my time with my coffee and book. I am reading and the sun is almost out, all light and a breeze ventures into the room and brings with it a soft pleasure climbs up my legs and arrives at my nose with a whiff of cigarette smoke and I think this is what Amman smells like. And I am immediately transported to remembering what San Francisco smelled like and I think of the rotting wood and musty smells of the old house. They talk of creeping mold there, with the humidity and wet, something I never bothered with growing up in a dry environment. I called the gas company one late night in San Francisco after my sleep was ruptured with an overwhelming smell of a gas leak. That was when I learned what skunk smells like. Amman is also jasmine and colonia. And hysterical doses of perfume. And falafel. Nothing here is subtle. chau
letter #7: abu nakhleh
Almost every time I am with baba at the farm, which is quiet often, he talks fondly about his palm tree, he would say: “look baba and see how tall and thin [he’s into the thin] and elegant and beautiful that palm tree is.” When there is a bit of wind, he asks me to look at the leaves of the palm tree and see how they move and he uses it as an indication of whether it was time to sit outside or not. Yesterday, for the first time he asked me to take photos of that tree. The tree has been there for almost 15 years; once a year it gets a trim. Last week it got it’s trim and baba sat watching it. He is also fond of the palm tree trimmer, he loves watching him climb the tree, he calls him Abu Nakhleh. I just checked on line, and baba’s tree is very similar to what is called the Queen Palm Tree. I think baba is still teaching me to see, to keep looking and observing. I promise, the queen is in my heart now. Sometimes we hang out on his bed watching tv or more like gazing at it and commenting. Yesterday, we were hanging out in front of the tv and eating lots of grapes, I asked him if I could choose the channel and move away from the news for a bit. He agreed, he was not very happy with my choices but he kept quiet about it. He chose instead to have a conversation about breeding. He wants me to have babies. At least one. He wants to be a grandfather, and that if I granted him that it would be the ultimate happiness. He said I was perfect except for not bringing him children. So I suggested adoption, and he said I need one at least that has our family genes. I promised to think about it and changed the channel back to the news. ola
letter #6: i have nothing to say
Dear Ola, i have nothing to say. I will write down words to say that i do not know what to write I tried last time when i was in thessaloniki, 2 months ago? Sometimes words do not work Sometimes my head does not work I am out of focus I am out of focus I look out my window just now and i see the citadel The ruins of times past Several layers of time And dry grass And running cars And laundry hanging on lines And a pigeon And flooding sunlight And palm trees and cypress and pine and bouganvilla and mulberry and olive and a couple more And satellites. Water tanks. Antenas. A horizon invaded with buildings. And a dirty sky. I am thirsty. My back hurts a little. I am warm. I maybe bored. I am worried. Unsure of myself. I had a cheese sandwich with a basil mix i made. The basil from my mother’s garden. It is night now and the horizon has turned into sparkles of lights across and patches of dark. A general shallow blackness. i can hear the terribly loud pump of the bar next door working every few minutes. We invited the owner to have coffee at the balcony to hear how loud it was. We gave the plumber money to buy a new pump. It is impossible to sit at the balcony and sometimes i even close the windows. Alongside the sound of the pump is now a party. Popular arabic songs. Now it is all a la jordanian nationalist style. I am not going to smoke tonight. I do not want to smoke. What is one cigarette? Come on, what difference does it make? I should probably go to bed. Chau – Dear Chau, Maybe we are trying to push for words to come out, did this letter exchange (blog) turn into an obligation rather than a commitment? We decided to continue with this blog as a space for us to keep writing and to take moments of reflection. I remember our walk by the small marina in one of the San Juan islands, I forgot which one, at the end of our road trip, when I felt the fear of losing the urge to write if we stopped the road notes blog. Maybe it was the fear from losing our reflective space if we traveled away from each other, or the fear of not documenting our moments in a certain time, or the fear of ending the road trip at that time, and heading into the new – old chapter of our lives. You are unable to focus, and you are worried and maybe bored, and I want to tell you to live this out of focus, live the confusion, live it all. You have moved from one world to another, it would be rather alarming if you are able to focus now. Why the hurry? Focus for what? We are too hard on our brains and bodies. We want to take them with us and move them from one place to another, with extremely different conditions and environments and still ask them to adapt and be wondrous and active in a second. Maybe what you are hungry for now is a space to reflect. It is necessary, allow yourself to reflect. Here are some reminders that might help you (if you wish) to reflect: 1- things are out of your control 2- you are wonderful, be gentle towards yourself 3- we learn when we are in relationship with ourselves, with nature, with our mothers, with our friends, with our bodies, with life. you are learning. you are living. 4- you are free from ambition and from becoming something and that is a necessity to be free. 5- you are love. Ola
رسالة رقم # ٥: بومة مع عصفور
تشاو هالايام عندي رغبة قوية اني احط جهد اني اسمع، عنجد اسمع. لما بسأل سؤال، عنجد اسمع الجواب. التواصل مع الآخرين عم بيصير تحدي كبير عندي (مع الناس بالذات) لانو صرت مش متاكدة اذا في حد بسمع ( ماما دايما بتقلي يا ماما فش حد بسمع، وكنت دايما افكر انو امي بتعاني من هدا الموضوع لانو حكيها قليل). والاستماع من جهة وحدة بعد فترة بيصير ممل و ما لوش معنى. يمكن عم بالجأ للصمت اكتر واكتر. بالمدرسة كانوا دايما يحكو لاهلي “علا شاطرة كتير بس ما بتحكي” أو “لو بتحكي بتصير ممتازة” أو “عندها الجواب بس مخبيتوا” ولكن بالبيت كنت برامة كبيرة ومازلت، حتى يقال اني بدات احكي على عمر سنة ونصف .عم بدرك بس اليوم اني بحكي لما اكون متاكدة أو شبه متاكدة انو الشخص اللي امامي عم بيسمعني، وبسكت لما بدي احس بمحيطي وافهم معظم حكينا تعباية فراغ أو قلق من السكوت، خوف، تمضاية وقت، ازعاج، هروب من واقع معين، تكرار لأفكارأو آراء، أو ملغوم بالحكم على الآخرين و مبتعد عن معرفة الذات او تفريغ طاقات بايتة. انا هلق مهتمة بهادا الفراغ أو مساحة السكوت. بحتاج لحظات سكوت اكتر واستماع اكتر. امبارح تممدت على الكنابية على السطح عندي ولفيت حالي بالغطاء وصفنت بالقمر وبكيت. بكيت لاني تعبانة واكتر اشي محتاجيتو هو الصمت : نبذة عن اللحظات اللي قررت اسكت واسمع، المزرعة يوم الجمعة 10:30 p.mمرقت سيارةصرصور: واحد لحالههواءبنت صغيرةأكتر من صرصوركلب بنادي وزلمة برد عليه 10:35 p.mسيارة مرقت كلب صوته عالي كمان سيارةولاد بنادو بعض طقطقة أصابعي على الكمبيوتر 10:37 p.mغراب صوت زنةصوت زنة مع صوت الصراصي 10:40 p.mبيبي بيبكي الصراصير هاجت صوت زنة مع الصراصير الهايجة مع مرور سيارة مع صوت اقدام 10:45 p.mصرصور صولو 10:55 p.mغرابين زغرودة طالعة من سيارةغناء بدوي بصوت نسائي غناء بدوي بصوت رجل تخلله صوت الكلب واطفال بتصرخ و الصرصور 6:30 a.mصوت المضخةالمضخة فاقت 6:48 a.mماء سائل من السطح ديك بحكي مع ديك 7:17 a.mجاجات كأنهم بمظاهرةالنخلة مع هواءبومة مع عصفور 11:10 amشاكوش بطرطق شجر بلعب 2:22 p.mهواء قوي جرس عصافيرمرقت شاحنة
letter #4: despite the storm
Dear Chau, Forgive me for not paying more attention to your excitement about the heavy raindrops while we were on skype a few hours ago. I suggested that you go and enjoy the storm and then we can continue with our call, but you said if you went you will need three hours. Why didn’t we pause for the raindrops, how did I waste such a moment? Why did i steal that moment from us? We were sharing some thoughts on surveillance at that point, how we are the consumers of our own fears. Later, I asked you if i suffer from political apathy, and you said that i am politically alienated, and it all started when people were cheering for Saddam and i wasn’t immediately after we had to leave Kuwait. Chau, i am challenged when it comes to words, i am challenged in saying what i need to say, there is so much in my head. When it’s in my head, it’s clear. I see it, i feel it, i smell it. I can see the big circles that i always tell you about, the circles that are floating and moving and sometimes they meet and interact, and they breed and good things come out of them. They feed off of each other, they are strong separately but they grow much more beautifully and strangely when they spend time together. When i was in Thessaloniki last time visiting you, and we were walking by the corniche, a storm was happening in front of us, we could see the lightning, and again you were so taken by the thunder and lighting happening in front of our eyes, in the distance across the sea, the water just a few steps away. And again, i stole that moment from us, i got distracted by some noise happening in my head. You are so patient. Dear Ola, I think about noise a lot. I feel more acutely affected by it and aware of it than ever, as a matter of fact i feel attacked by noise constantly. Cars, tv, sharp heels against the ground, electricity generators, non-stop-music, an uninterrupted confirmation of the invasion of earth. And i think it is no coincidence. This noise distracts us from what may be profound. Whether the noise is the sounds in our head worrying about the mundanities (as you would refer to them) of life, or they are outside of us confirming our bleak and fragile existence, they distract us from a possible moment of quiet when we actually may hear something. I am worried that with so much to hear and see, and even with all our audiovisual tools, we remain blind and deaf. Drugged. I am sure the noise dulls the senses. A couple of evening’s ago, i felt the need for a brisk walk and some fresh air so I went for a walk along the corniche you mention above and i felt i was navigating my way through the crowds as much as i was through noise. Keeping to the edge furthest from the cars, keeping as much distance as i could from electricity generators and music blaring from shops and restaurants, i felt like i was hardly keeping afloat. I pushed through but with a lot of effort and not without a degree of panic. I find myself thinking what might it be like buried under the noise of war? How does one think? How can one hear their own voice? I need to get closer to the storm. Take a distance from all this that seems to be our achievement: cities and motors and non-stop-online-chatter. I want to sit at the feet of a sky and surrender to her. I want to stand under the fat drops of rain and be cleansed. I want to hear the thunder and the shower. I want to hear the thunder and the shower and nothing else and try to find if there is any honesty there. I want you to know that i felt we were together in front of the thunderstorm. A theater of lightning which we were welcome to enjoy. Despite the fact that the lightning and thunder made you nervous, despite the fact the noise that was unwelcome, you sat with me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xx7fm_NKbU
