Before I Go to Sleep
It’s been raining all day and night today. It’s 6am and I still can’t go to sleep. It’s been months since I’ve had a normal night of sleep. Insomnia, at its best and worst, has become a life style.
Dates pass by without the slightest effort. The most remarkable thing of my last week in Syria is that I am back here in Japan. I finished two lousy books in two days, and translated a lousier document.
She called the day I came back, and we went out for a few drinks at the little bar down the road. She didn’t have that smell on her hair, that smell that I love so much. But I was still content to sit there and look in her eyes as she tried to explain her Japanese with her favorite language, hand gestures. She said I smoke too much, and I said she drinks too much. She said she has ghosts at her apartment and she can’t sleep until she’s too drunk, and I said I smoke my ghosts away with cigarettes. She laughed and told me that that’s nonsense, and I said I agree. The last time I had to deal with ghosts, things didn’t turn out well.
At the bar they call me the Spy, and she calls me the erorist. It always makes me laugh.
I’m so self-centered sometimes that I can’t finish a book if I can’t see myself in it. And I’m such a hypocrite sometimes that I say I’m an atheist when sometimes I feel that a deity lives in my heart. I’m neither. Love, in any sense, brings me closer to reverence and blasphemy till the point where my fingertips start burning before my eyes.
I want to be a pilot. I never feel safer than when I am flying. I never feel more energetic than when I am at an airport. And I never feel more articulate than when I am talking to a stranger. I never feel closer to God than when I am cursing him.
When I was a little kid I learnt how to talk to myself. I learnt how to make interesting conversations with my alter ego. I learnt how to lie about my father, and how to smile in the face of an insult. I learnt how to love from Jubran and my mother and how to hate from my extended family, and my Watan. When I told my father that I wanted to start a company in 1992, he helped me start a journal. When I told my father that Kinda, my cousin, said that liars burn in hell, he said that liars burn with the air they breathe, with the words they hear and by the eyes fixed on them, but not in hell.
I want to survive a tsunami and to wrap my self around a bomb that’s about to explode. I want to stop a speeding train and to fly over the top of Tokyo tower. I want to dance until I lose breath then smoke a cigarette over a cliff in Koh Tao. I want to make love on a little distant beach in Latakia and then swim naked until the morning lights. I want to cut all these threads that connect me to this place called Watan, then run to it because I want to.
My Astarte said, as she put off her cigarette and headed off to bed, that she was going to be my Watan. I kissed her shivering shoulders and lulled her to sleep. I laughed, at her presumptuous offer and my inner content with it, and then cried myself to sleep. That was in October 2007.
No one can give you a Watan, not even 18,000,000 people; no one can give you a Watan if you can’t find it inside. No one can lead you to God, not even 124,000 prophets; no one can lead you to God unless you make your own.
I say, make it out of love, tears and laughter. And then rest on the seventh day, content with the fact that you have a God.
May 5th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Wow… good stuff…!
May 5th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I don’t know if this is the “before going to sleep” effect, or if it is the “right after trip to Syria” … but it was worth it ya zalameh.
By the way, … I never feel closer to God than when I am joking (politely of course) with him :)
May 5th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I had been waiting to read something like that for a while!
Yazan is back to light that inner wick!
Chapeau bas my friend
May 5th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Beautiful.
One of the most beaustiful posts, ever.
Just beautiful.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Damn that was good!
May 5th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
impressive words.. chapeau bas Yaz…
May 5th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Your words are absorbing, Yazan. Your mind intrigues me and I can’t stop reading. Wonderful post.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Strange, I feel the same about flying and about airports.
Your words are as beautiful as ever, but I think you know that.
May 5th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
can a person have more than one Watan ?
May 6th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Before I go to sleep…
I carried burdens of days past and days yet to come. Never considering my today.
I changed.
Amid “tears and laughter”, I found myself.
May 6th, 2009 at 1:32 am
:) Strong words.
I missed your posts.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:01 am
@Laila: Most men can have up to 4 Watans. But when it comes to women it’s not that common. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy#Polyandry]
May 6th, 2009 at 4:51 am
Naji,
How lovely to see you here. And thank you.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:58 am
Alex,
It might be a little bit of both. We each (the 18,000,000 who claim home to that place) have a different Syria to speak of, so it is not Syria – or God, for that matter.
I think if God was an artist, his favorite art would be Sarcasm.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:03 am
Lost Somewhere,
It is not an easy mission to articulate all the fuzzy thoughts into one coherent text, one that is able to communicate at least a small bit of what you’d like to say. That mission becomes all the more difficult when you’re dealing with people who are neither strangers, nor familiar.
It is much easier to sit and absorb the conversation on a dinner table, before participating, than starting such conversation. Is that extra-caution? maybe.
Don’t be a stranger. ;)
May 6th, 2009 at 5:05 am
M.,
Your words flatter me.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:10 am
Rime,
Your visits here always make my day.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Geo,
Thank you my dear friend. You’ve been on my mind!
May 6th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Jillian York,
I know that you do. In many a ways we have that same disease of nomadic dreams. And in many a ways, we are tied down to the ground by similar things.
Thank you for the lovely words, and your card is in the mail ;)
May 6th, 2009 at 5:19 am
Laila Joud,
My friend Johnny Cash says:
You’d say that home is where my love is at,
I say that home is where I lay my hat.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:21 am
Abu fares,
Can we ever escape this haunting desire to live our lives in between the past and the future, but never in the present? I hope so.
“tears and laughter,” may well be the strongest signs of the present.
May 6th, 2009 at 5:22 am
Roba,
And you’ve been missed here as well. ;)
May 6th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Shady Zayat,
Ah! The old game of survival, all over again!
Welcome back, I hope you’re also blogging again…
May 6th, 2009 at 5:26 am
Mariyah,
I am terribly sorry, your comment slipped out. Your words mean the world to me. I, like many others, are still waiting part 23 though. Don’t be too hard on us, silent readers.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:15 am
One of the most beautiful posts, ever. So expressive. Leaves me wanting more :)
May 6th, 2009 at 7:32 am
Yazan, I propose you read Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge”.
You’ll see so much of yourself in it, that you literally won’t put it down until you’ve turned the last page.
May 6th, 2009 at 8:48 am
So.. Is this your philosophical, complicated way to say that you had a bad trip and you were busy finding your metaphysical gods and watans that you forgot to bring back Za3taar ? If that is the case, it is a crap of an excuse! You see, that one hot Za3taar toast that I usually have before being sheep-like squeezed into the crowded morning train to work, is worth all the 800 gods and the 180 watans of the world. Where is my Za3taar?
May 6th, 2009 at 9:04 am
The best thing of findng God is to loose him again.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Thank you, Yazan and I haven’t forgotten…I hope to have something soon for you. :)
May 6th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I came, I read, I was silent..
May 6th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Wow! This post left me speechless Yazan and reminds me exactly what I love about blogging…bloggers
May 6th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
7aki Fadi,
Welcome to this humble blog. I am glad you like the post, and I’m ever more thrilled to see you here again!
May 6th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
[ j i m m y ],
Always a pleasure having you here my friend. I just ordered the book.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Abu Mankousha,
Za3taratak bi el-7efez w el-Sown, Walaw. As I told you before, I have a special place in my heart for Za3tar lovers. And I would never, ever, be the reason why someone doesn’t get his Za3tar toast in the morning. Believe me, ra7 takol al-Mankousha, w ba3dein asabee3ak waraha.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Dania,
Exactly. It’s a self-regenerating process, that’s the beauty and the genius of it. Always great to see you here Dania.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Anas Qtiesh,
Thanks for dropping by Anas. Now, I can imagine that thoughtful silence a little better. It was great meeting up in Damascus.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Arima,
Thank you for your wonderful words. And yes, I more than agree, the simplest part of blogging, is the most beautiful one, the bloggers themselves. All the best.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Mariyah,
I will be waiting, patiently. You’ve left a lot of threads hanging in the air, and that’s not fair, neither to them, nor to us, your loyal readership.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Oh!! I’ve been told!! ;) Well, there’s something waiting for you at my place…come on by for a read.
May 6th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
lousy readings….yet leading to this brilliant writing!
what can i say??!!……..
i’ll just dedicate fairouz’s “سهار” to u : )
May 7th, 2009 at 2:33 am
Whoa!!
Great post!!
it might be feasible for you to just drop out of school and start to write for living. I mean it.
And btw, I smoke my demons away too. Except that I do it with an argileh. Bastards they love the apple flavor. :)
May 7th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Bravo… Bravo Cher Homme …. Complex, intelligent and full of tangents that are not …tangents. I will revisit. As for feeling close to God, well assuming there is one, perhaps we try to hard. Is it in the trying that we loose the connection?
Paralysis by analysis.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:14 am
I’ve been gone and too busy. I guess I may be a bit late to comment but I have the same reaction as all the above… Great writing. I related to almost all of it. I’ve been contemplating many of these things, the watan, the god… How I on most times claim to be an atheist when deep down I sometimes feel that there is some deity within.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
“So we dream on. Thus we invent our lives. We give ourselves a sainted mother, we make our father a hero; and someone’s older brother and someone’s older sister – they become our heroes too. We invent what we love and what we fear. There is always a brave lost brother – and a little lost sister, too. We dream on and on: the best hotel, the perfect family, the resort life. And our dreams escape us almost as vividly as we can imagine them…” – John Irving – Hotel New Hampshire
so we build this watan, we create this virtual attachment, and one day we look back and find out that those vivid images are losing color, so we work extra hard to keep them there, an then you understand why he had to rest on the 7th day..
I haven’t been here (or anywhere for that matter) for a while.. but I must tell you that I am really moved with how mature, deep, and complex your thoughts are..
damn it… you made me miss blogging even more….. grrrrr
May 21st, 2009 at 3:42 am
I think you’ve made your Watan from you words, you’ve built it like a child mounts a puzzle.
I do believe there are many other Watans inside of you, in that part of us hidden by a body and an acquired something called language.
I don’t know how those packets carrying your words got to my machine but finding myself reading such ideas all thrown on some nicely puzzled words, I just cannot pass by without leaving a – congratulations for owning the wisdom of the words and for having the courage to puzzle the arranged puzzle.
Good luck…