Life
The drowsiness after your first puff of a cigarette, the tingles after the first sip of white wine, the first smell of a woman’s neck, and the choking tear after Autumn Sonata… these make up the fine line between life and existence.
***
Salma had a beautiful brown hair. It always smelled so delightfully like her. When it was my bedtime, she’d tuck me in her bed, slip under the covers and give me that stern look as I promised I would go to sleep right away tonight. She would put on her glasses, and start reading her medical journal, humming out every english word she found to be difficult. I’d fall asleep to her humming. I was six.
That look in her eyes, when she bought her first clinic, and then when she bought our house, there was that relentless pride of an overachiever and a lot, a lot of love.
I loved to walk over same-colored tiles whenever we’d take a stroll together. Those same tiles that still line the pavement in front of my grandpa’s house, remind me of the first time she told me we were going to see Baba, together this time.
Whenever I was upset, I’d sit next to her, and ask her to stroke my back. “Mama, Hekkeely dahry,” I’d say. She’d laugh and tell me again how much my dad loved to have someone stroke his back too. Then she’d put on that jolly smile and say, “Get your own girl to stroke your back, you’re already 10 years old.”
Years after that, whenever I lie on my bed next to a woman, I still lose myself in her hair, as she gently strokes my back.
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Beautiful, Yazan, you’d make a good writer.
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
To me, you were already a writer when I first discovered your blog more than a year ago…
Write more about all of these memories, if you are able to revisit them…
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I think of you often, and I think of those relentless waves. I didn’t expect to come here and to be thrown into the sea, or to be choking as I read, read and re-read your words. What a beauty ya Yazan … the writing, the feeling, the reminiscing, and the source of it all: beautiful Salma, beautiful Mama.
March 4th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Beautiful writing about a fascinating lady. I trust you’ll find peace somewhere among these memories. Stay cool, bro.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Akh Ya Yazan
Nobody ever takes the place of MOM. Yours, mine, or anyone’s else. You have to write more often. These short bursts of yours bring me happiness even when the subject matter is so overwhelmingly sad. She was looking into the distance. I bet you were there in her thoughts at that particular moment in time.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Simply beautiful, Yazan. Thank you for sharing this most precious memory.
March 5th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Yazan, you made me cry.
March 6th, 2009 at 10:17 am
That’s the beauty of it all.
As life goes on, there are those still moments… those still moments that become part of us and are partly the true meaning of life…
March 7th, 2009 at 5:40 am
through your words, her life is bursting into millions of breathtaking bits of colours, tales and dreams. an explosion of beauty like nothing else. if this is not life, i don’t know what is.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Thank you all for these most beautiful sentiments.
I am sorry if the subject brought some sadness, that was not why I wrote this. These are some of the most beautiful memories I have, and I simply happy to be able to write about them again.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Amira sent me here through FB via GVO. I agree: how beautiful. Off to read more.
~ Maya
(GVO, Israel)
March 14th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Teasing you to get your own woman to scratch your back! Mothers with a sense of humor are wonderful – glad to hear you are able to revisit those memories again.
March 15th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
You will know them by their fruit. Grapes aren’t gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles, are they?
May Allah bless your Parents ,Salams on their Souls, now and forever.
March 15th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
You will know them by their fruit. Grapes aren’t gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles, are they?
May Allah bless your Parents ,Salams on their Souls, now and forever
March 30th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Yazoon,, what a beautiful woman she IS.. you have that heartily richness of hers.. I love her sense of humor too:) Get your own girl to stroke your back, you’re already 10 years old.”
I wish you keep writing your memories,, because they are look your fingerprints–inescapable..
a big hug and a stroke on your back too:)