The inspiring cage

Isn’t joy the shadow of sorrow? Isn’t sorrow the shadow of joy? In an experiment conducted in a zoo sometime in the late fifties an ape was taught how to draw and was given some markers to do so, the first thing he drew were the bars of his cage. 

We primates are obsessed with our cages, although the bars which confine us may vary; for some the cage may be money, for others success, love, hate, sex, illness, religion, values and believes, depression, racism or sexism, war, politics, even the pursuit of freedom can become a cage. Despite their origin, despite what shape or size our cages take they inspire us to create; the very stifling limit of our existence is what truly makes us sing, paint, write eternal stories and compose unforgettable music.

Beauty and pity

In a recorded lecture I found on Youtube given by the genius writer Vladimir Nabokov I heard him say:

“Where there is beauty, there is pity, because beauty must die, beauty always dies. The manner dies with the matter and the world dies with the individual”

I was struck by this profound statement, our world seizes to exists when we seize to exist, this has made all the difference for me, and yet it felt so obvious, so basic that we humans create our own universe and out own fate and yet so few of us see this.

When Nabokov said that beauty entails pity, I'm not sure why I thought of the spilled bottle of milk I see soiling my neighbor’s front door step every morning, I thought of the blind baby robin I found on the ground, swollen blue eyes bulging, featherless pink, its gaping yellow beak screaming, the tragedy of the long fall and the desperate fragility that required no more than a swift clumsy footstep. I thought of the white swan’s superior grace, gliding dreamlike in endless rippled lakes and her majestic long neck always a question mark.   

Death too

Young tulip stems shoot shyly yet firmly from the cold stubborn earth, little innocent pink flowers plant themselves audaciously on dry bare twigs; life, no matter how delicate or fragile cannot be denied. One crucial moment, we were not paying attention, the seagulls abandoned their seashores and came to tell us something, and all the while something was receding like an ocean wave, like a carpet gently pulled from under our feet. Death too will not be denied.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow there will be hours to fill, errands to run, faces to see, conversations to have and queries to answer. I will need to go to several different places, meet with several different people and the numerous anonymous strangers I will pass in between my destinations. In this spinning top of a life, I am always running towards something, always wanting, always trying and most exhausting of all; always waiting. Waiting for some nameless thing to happen or change and hope and pray. But I always knew - even when no one had ever taught me - in my heart of hearts I always somehow knew, that it took a hand, a decided powerful hand to keep the world spinning, for all the colours to muddle and merge and that on the inside, in the very core of everything there is nothing.

The night

Distant police sirens shrieking and wailing. The haunting howling of a fierce angry wind. Discarded empty cans cartwheeled and scurried and made their pathetic tin clamor on the street. The night is a deep well, the night is the time for shadows to rise, for walls to hear. Every soul a vessel that spills its brimming tip in the dark, night is when aching hearts entangle. I can feel your far away thoughts in my head, my lips part and I almost utter a word that is more yours than mine.

My someone

Two years ago you came to see me very late in the evening, you were tired and distraught, your grandfather had past and you took care of all the arrangements because your father depended on you more than your two older brothers. You hadn’t slept, your hair was disheveled and you were gorgeous. I don’t remember seeing you more beautiful than I had that night, you threw yourself on my sofa in exhaustion and I stretched my body on top of yours my head on your chest listening to your heartbeat, my hair cascading down your arm as you held me tight, I wore a sheer summer dress with a deep neck line, I knew it wasn’t right to make love when you had just buried your grandfather, so we just lay there, holding each other against everything, life, death, fait and consequence, breathing in unison and I remember I was happy, simply happy. I asked you if you were hungry and you said yes,  I got up and went to the kitchen, I broke four eggs into a bowl peppered and salted them and began to whisk while the frying pan heated on the stove, you came up behind me wrapped your strong masculine arms around my waist making me feel small and feminine and buried your face in the nape of my neck, kissing me and mumbling something that sounded like I love you, making me weak, losing control of everything, trying but failing to pour the eggs into the pan, when you let go of me I almost lost balance and fell, still weak in the knees. You helped with the drinks and the plates and we sat and ate together, while we were clearing up I turned around and found you had your back to me, turned on by your perfect gorgeous ass, I quickly let go of the dish I was washing, tiptoed behind you, bent down and bit it hard, you winced and shrieked in pain and shock, then we laughed and laughed, mischievous, careless and enjoying the immense freedom our love offered. I didn’t know it then, but you were my someone. I was lucky, not for long, but I was lucky when I found you.

On her 10th birthday

I thought I had willed her into being, I foolishly and arrogantly imagine I had created her from myself, from my dreams, my thoughts, my aspirations, I imagined I can see myself again, only better, myself with more; more opportunities, more space to feel, more room to grow, but most importantly myself loved. I believe I had a glimpse of that, but as she celebrated her tenth birthday with her friends yesterday I saw that I was naive, she wasn’t me, she wasn’t myself living a much better life than I had, she was separate from me, a full, complete and intact person, with her own ideas, with her own intentions and desires. The bond I imagined unbreakable never really existed except in my mind and I felt almost selfish for only seeing her through my own eyes, never seeing her through hers. The baby that came to me wide eyed and adoring “mummy, can I have this?”, “mummy, can I do that?” was now loud, vulgar and almost unkind “No Mom! we don’t need anything, we’re fine” I almost heard “just leave us alone” implied but  not quite said out loud. I saw her exaggerating her excitement, her laughter at every nonsense she and her friends said or did, her carelessness and indifference towards me, the garish music they played and how they closed the door when they danced not wanting me to watch. Even her body language seemed to initiate a distance and a foreignness I could not bridge. This was her world, her private self, the stranger she managed to create far from my imposing and heavy motherly attention and I couldn’t be a part of it, in that world I did not exist, as if no space was capable of holding both me and that cool independent pre-teen version of her at the same time. I retreated to my room and read a book only checking every once in while to see if they needed anything. Once her friends were gone and I managed to clean up some of the mess they made she came to me again, small, timid and loving “thank you mummy, today was great” my eyes teary, understanding now how hard it was for both of us, playing these roles, needing each other to understand without words, how multicoloured love can be, how many endless hues it had warm and cold, how much it can hurt, how much it can take.  

Love is a unicorn

Love is a unicorn, I wish it exists because it’s beautiful and magical but I also know that it doesn’t, and everywhere I turn there are people telling me they have seen unicorns, they tell me they know someone who has a unicorn, they say “look over there, there’s a unicorn”! I look but all I see is a horse, I tell them “that’s not a unicorn, it’s a horse, horses are beautiful animals I love them but they are not unicorns”. They shake their heads with impatience and say “what’s the difference between this unicorn and the unicorn you’ve got in your head?”, “It’s simple this one doesn’t have a spiraling horn on its head”, they shake their heads at me again almost angered by my exaggerated and fussy exactness “and why is that horn so important? What purpose does it serve?”, “it’s what makes a unicorn a unicorn, you may be proud of your horses but they’re not unicorns, that’s all”.

Red Umbrella

It's two in the afternoon I’m standing at the corner of the road, the rain is pouring I am protected by my massive red umbrella, I wait for traffic to stop or at least slow down so I can cross the street, I look up at the bright red dome above my head and think six people can stand under this umbrella and keep completely dry, I feel lucky I’ve got my awesome red umbrella. The busy road shows no sign of stopping, I look to the right, a man drenched through and through walks slowly with careful steps, struggling to hold on to his many full and heavy looking shopping bags and trying his best to scratch a lottery ticket at the same time with what appears to be his house keys, he looks old, tired and haggard, water dripping heavily from the tips of his thin hair onto his bent face and on to his lottery ticket. I’ve got my big red umbrella, I think to myself, and he might have a million pounds winning ticket, this thought makes me smile. Luck! It’s all luck; money is luck, love is luck, fame is luck and success is luck, it’s all luck. The man continues to vigorously scratch and rub at his wet ticket, the movement of his hand becomes faster and more urgent now, almost furious, I keep my eyes on him, I’m just as excited as he is now, he manages to rub off the remaining silver coating off his socked ticket, he stops, looks up, his eyes meet mine for a fraction of a second, his expression is grave, stern with a hint of disappointment in it, the traffic stops, I look away and cross the road, I’ve got my red umbrella and it’s all luck.

Spider

A spider's web spun skillfully between two bars of the high wrought iron gate, drops of fresh rain glisten and sparkle on the delicately woven strings, in the soft glow of the weak winter sun it looks like a shimmering Swarovski diamond necklace. The predator is not home, but dinner awaits; a small fly had flown right into the fragile death trap, caught in the sticky and deadly net, the struggling, the maneuvering always coming to a final release, a gentle end.

Sex, Tubs and Mugs

I like charity shops, I like the idea of owning something pre-loved especially books, it fascinates me to see what other people like to read, and it fascinates me more when I buy a second hand book of poems and find some pages folded at the very top right corner in a little triangle indicating that this poem was a special one, one they’d want to come back to, one they’d like to recite or read to a loved one on some joyful or sad occasion. 

I once donated an erotic book, I bought it on amazon but felt cheated by it, the description of the book said it had 365 sex positions for each day of the year! I was shocked of course that there were so many sex positions when I probably only knew three! But I was also intrigued, so I bought the book and found that many of the positions were repeated with a slight camera trick making the couple seem like they were in a new position! *sigh* is nothing sacred anymore? Anyway I donated the book and always wondered if anyone had bought it or how slutty the charity shop I donated it to thought I was, mind you I wouldn’t need actual photographs of people posing in different sexual positions to show me how it’s done if I was truly slutty.

Back to charity shops! I was passing one today and found a huge clear plastic tub outside the door with what seemed like hundreds of mugs inside, some old and worn out, some seem very new and shiny! I stood for a moment just staring at the tub full of unwanted tea and coffee mugs; I had seen tubs full of books and stuffed toys outside charity shops before but never a tub brimming with mugs. It was different and somehow sad! All those mugs had once been filled with tea, coffee, or warm milk, hot, aromatic and soothing, shared by family and close friends; first meetings, reunions, the hurried morning coffee before work, the relaxing cup of tea before bed, intimate unforgettable conversations while brooding over a warm mug held lovingly with both hands, so much warmth, so much tenderness, so many memories piled up in a clear plastic tub.

Today

The sky was near, hard and the colour of slate,

I felt I could swing a sledge hammer to crack it open

and find a calm ethereal blue sky underneath  

A mighty cypress still fully swathed in deep dark green

stood defying the raw winter cold amongst bare, crooked

and haggard trees

Pink and purple cyclamens bright and flamboyant

blooming and flowering  ferociously in a season of

wilting, dullness and death

Water came pouring down from the slate grey sky,

a bewildering miracle failing to enthrall anyone at all.

Everywhere we tread

We wake every morning not realizing that when we do, we carry everything with us. When we leave the threshold of our home, we are holding up so much more than a torso over two legs, so much more than a head on top of a neck, we are carrying the past, hope for the future, unfulfilled dreams, memories, disappointments, our sadness, our joy and our suffering. We are carrying an ocean, an existence, a meaning, a life. Everywhere we tread, our universe treads along with us.

Undoing the tether

With no more than three days before my first solo art exhibition I feel a storm of contradicting emotions stir within me; fear, excitement, panic, faith, self-doubt, anticipation and dread. It’s hard to look and behave normal under the rush of all these extreme feelings, but I learned a lot about myself during the past three months while I was painting what I think is my best work yet. I discovered I can paint anything if I put my mind to it. In the past I feared the brush, I believed in my limitation, I knew I can do beautiful floral scenes and still life but never dared to venture further than that, today I’ve attempted a raging ocean and I am actually very happy with the results, water is very challenging to master, it’s aliveness, it’s constant movement, its bewildering beauty makes it hard to capture I believe. I grew when I finally undone all tethers, broke all shackles and discovered the genius of my hands.

My art exhibition is on Saturday 12/12/2015, 4.00 – 7.00 pm, at The Herons Café, Coombe Abbey, Coventry, CV3 2AB

Sometimes a promise

Some faces, memories, scents, certain incidents, words or the manner by which words are uttered, have the power to transport us to another lifetime, a lifetime in which we could have only existed through our old selves, an old self we casted off like an old garment. To be taken back, to be forced to wear that ill-fitted hide once more makes us feel wretched and rough, like strangers in our own lives, strangers in our own bodies, under our own skin.

Worst of all, such a detested journey back in time, in the ghastly pages of the most vile chapter of our life, our demons almost convince us that an improvement was never truly made, that we have foolishly been deceiving ourselves, all that nonsense about our miraculous transformation has been but a lie, another lie in the many deep folds of lies life has shamelessly watched us spiral into..  However, morning sometimes comes with renewed perspectives and less hazy views.. and sometimes a promise.     

Ten years

In two week my baby turns ten! Ten!

Ten years my eyes not resting until her eyes are a sleep. Ten years my heart jumping at a cry or a murmur of “Mummy!”. Ten years deciphering her facial expressions, trying to understood what she did not say, wondering if there is something more I can do, some way I can be more her and less me. Ten years of constant unconditional flaming love, and still to this day I look for her face, between the dozens of children running out of the school gate I look for her face and a certain throbbing, the same old throbbing, like that very first day they handed her to me ten years ago, the first time I saw her face.

She doesn’t realise that there are parts of her that are only mine, moments, days, months, years that live in my memory alone, before she decided to be, she was my thoughts, my dreams, my imaginations, she was a prayer. 

Trapped

A bee trapped inside my living room, continued to bash itself against the slightly open glass door leading to the garden. The garden is so near - it seemed to ponder – I can see the green grass, the last blooming roses before the grave winter chills shook all the branches bare, why can’t reach it?!

I remember how that felt, stuck in a rut, seeing the way out but not fully grasping how, I was two people back then, the first had full faith I could overcome my pain,  my sadness and my depression, the other had full faith that there was no way out of my fathomless despair. Now looking at the struggling bee it seemed so far away. I reached for a clean and empty tub of yoghurt from my re-cycling box and scooped the confused insect and helped it fly out in the open air. A part of me understood.

Roy the hypnotist

A few days ago I bumped into my neighbor Roy at the grocery store. I’ve been Roy’s neighbor for quite some time and for all I knew Roy was an average height, average weight, average bald, pensioner. There wasn’t anything interesting or distinctive about Roy. When I saw him - and I seldom did - I said hello or good morning and he replied, we probably exchanged a few remarks on the weather, but that was as far as our conversations ever went. But when I saw him in the shop I told him that I’m exhibiting my paintings and invited him to my event, he was pleased and we talked about art, which somehow led us to the human mind, which somehow led us to discuss consciousness and subconsciousness, and I learned that Roy was a therapy hypnotist and has helped many people including himself overcome addictions, phobia’s and helped them get rid of destructive and undesirable behavior, I was fascinated and as we talked more I also found out that he was a wrestler and had lived a very intriguing life and had amazing stories to tell. We talked for a very long time and I left feeling uplifted and in awe of my very average looking retired neighbor. Looks are deceiving, I always thought that old people only liked to complain about the weather and say how dreadful it was, which Roy did when I first bumped into him, we said hello and because it was a windy rainy day, he made a negative remark about the weather as most people do, to which I chose, let me repeat that “I CHOSE” not to confirm, I smiled and said “No, it’s not terrible, it just makes my day a bit slower”, I saw his face light up and he said that that was a good way of putting it, then our conversation diverged to much more interesting things like art and the human brain. If I had just agreed and said yes, the weather is terrible as most people do, we would have walked away still not knowing anything interesting about each other. Socially we are programmed to say what everybody else is saying, if everyone is complaining about politics, prices and the weather then we feel a social obligation to do so too, we like to keep it safe, mundane and boring.

I thought about all the amazing lives lived, incredible experiences, adventures, and stories locked up tightly into average unassuming faces that we just pass by without noticing or worse; we notice them, exchange miserable comments about the weather with them and walk away.

An open field

Today I walked.

With every step I felt hands of love, hope and kindness surround me

I came upon an open field, the grass luscious green and wet, the

trees bare and wise, swaying to the sacred song of winter winds

the Seagulls cried, the Magpies chattered and bickered loudly, all the while

they watched me, and knew me..

Something in me grew enormous, the gratitude for all my blessings

thank you for loving me,

thank you for giving me all I ever wanted

thank you for my talents, my health, my strength, my beauty, my fierce intellect

thank you for seeing me through everything

I spoke to the wind, to the earth and to the sky;

I release the past with love, and I am open,

open to all the goodness, all the opportunities and the abundance that lay ahead.

From the Orchid's point of view

She placed me on the very top shelve of a book case three months ago. I sat there since, quiet and gently bending in beauty and grace, my two soft petals and three tender sepals outstretched like a lion’s mane, the colour of calm light violet threaded with deep purple veins. My white specked throat enhances my blood red female lip, open and receiving.   

High on my stem, I and my several delicate faces peer down on this room which seems to be both her work place and her dining room. There's a white wooden table in the middle, every morning she sits with her laptop and printer, she types, writes notes, makes calls, drinks coffee and talks to herself. When her child is home from school, she removes the computer and printer and places two dinner plates, the little one always has milk, the mother always drinks water. She asks her child how school was, she asks her what she’s been learning in math, and whether she finds any of it challenging. The child is animated, always eager to make her mother laugh, they giggle and tell each other funny things. The child never has the appetite to finish all her food, the mother wishes she would.

On Thursdays the mother asks the child about music class and the child is more lively and animated about music class than about any other school subject, the music teacher is funny and inspiring she explains.

The mother is happy when the child is happy, the child is happy when she can make her mother laugh or get her interested about something she is saying.

They are two separate beings; one very young, one mature. One thinks that by knowing Jupiter has sixty three moons she surely knows everything there is to know, the other used to believe she knew something. One at the beginning of the journey, where the laborious distance and trying bumps can’t yet be seen, the other had seen the incessant journey and felt some of its dreadful bumps. And yet, they feed on each other’s existence; one sees what she could be in the future, the other sees what she could have been.

a gleaming pallet

There is sacredness to the mundane task of cleaning her home.

She slides the rectangle mop smoothly on the laminate floors,  

fitting it in the corners of the rooms, not an inch untouched.

The way she fogs the bathroom mirror with her warm breath to

wipe away dots left by splashed water and damp.

In repeated delicate and feminine motions her hands to and fro sweeping

Half a lemon to scrub the silver kitchen sink, letting it shine and sparkle.

In brushing the tenacious acrylic paints from her pallet she finds a secret pleasure;

soaking the stubborn colours in hot water, watching them rise, melting into one another, a haze of a multi-hued storm… a gleaming pallet, a new painting tomorrow, another chance to live.

The night

The night moved, heavy and drenched in sorrow

morning rain settled on the dark road in puddles of black ink,

shuddering with hazy red, amber and green

a tired woman shoulders someone else’s guilt; she feels their hurt for them

an abused woman sleeps on the very edge of her bed, cold, almost falling

a lonely woman breaks the fragile dry spaghetti sticks into the pot of boiling water

the moon looks into austere loveless rooms spilling its silver pool of light,

while night took its last breath.

single but taken

They still live with someone long gone

They water the memories lest they die

They take on their hobbies and interests as their own

They over use their favourite words, expressions, a gesture of the hand

They glow and come alive at an unprecedented moment passed

They can’t love someone new..

unable to cheat the ghost that lies beside them every night.

Old feelings

Old feeling come back often, as difficult and as unmanageable as they have always been. One day I’m walking down the street, singing to myself, enjoying the beauty of the sky, the trees, the birds, then WHACK! A sad memory jumps out of nowhere and robs me of everything I have; I’m suddenly small, poor, and hopeless. I can never see it coming, it’s almost like recovering from a long vicious cold, I feel fine, I feel strong, immune even! That virus won’t make me suffer again, but then it does, and there doesn’t have to be a rational reason, and there are no easy or express ways out the other side, and there are never any guarantees I won’t catch it again.

I don’t like it when people say hard and difficult experiences make you stronger, they don’t, they make you nervous, fearful, always worried what might be hiding for you behind the corner. 

My first solo art exhibition

I’m getting ready for my first solo art exhibition and I am both excited and EXHAUSTED! There is so much to do, preparing the venue, advertising, finding suitable payment solutions, and since I’m reading some of my poetry at the exhibition I’m also running around looking for equipment (a small stage, sound system, mic..etc.,)

I’m working really hard on advertising my event, as most artists probably experienced, artists are not good at marketing and publicizing themselves! It’s hard for me to tell people to come and see my work because it’s awesome, mostly because I feel I don’t have the right to evaluate my own work.

Then of course the nerves kick in; what if nobody comes? What if it snows? What if people come and I don’t sell anything? Or in other words, people will hate my art.

I need to remember that all I can do is my best, there are things that are simply out of my control like the weather! And in terms of the actual selling of paintings, art is an acquired taste, there will people who will love it and others who will not.

Please come to my first art exhibition

When? Saturday 12/12/2015     from 4.00 – 7.00 pm

Where? The Herons Café, Coombe Abbey Country Park, Binley, Coventry CV3 2AB

I tell the moon

I repeat it to myself in the night unconscious like a dark secret

I tell it to the walls

I say it to the angry hurried wind every time it rushes through, aggressive and violent, flustering me indifferently

I hear it in the noisy empty chatter of people, in the clamor of my old weary heart

I whisper it to the wise knowing moon when it rises calling me to the window..

I miss him

Are you a beggar begging from a beggar?

When I was in my twenties I told an old wise man that I found life to be complex and hard, his response was: “life is easy, it’s only the first fifty years of life that are hard”. I laughed thinking he was joking but when I looked at him, his face was serious and certain.

I think about what he said a lot, especially now that I’m in my mid-thirties and after so much suffering and so much struggle, I’m only just now learning how to live, only now understanding truths and waking up to life-altering revelations that I needed to know in the beginning of my life not in .. well.. what I imagine is the middle of my life (who knows!) but that’s the thing, nobody hands you a life manual when your ten or when you’re twenty. There is not life manual because everybody else does not know how to live either, that’s why there are philosophers constantly telling us that we need to change the way we think and live and religions controlling the way we think and live and people killing each other all the time.

I don’t claim I have the answers but one radical shift in my way of thinking has done a tremendous amount of positive difference in the way I am living today comparing to my younger years, the shift is loving myself ferociously. It sounds simple and easy to do but it’s not. Most if not all of you are products of inadequate parenting, the rest (like me) have grown up in dysfunctional families, saturated in mental, emotional and physical abuse. Because our parents didn’t like themselves they couldn’t teach us to like ourselves, setting us out in a hostile world searching for someone to love us because we didn't know how to love ourselves. We grow up full of hope in finding this “other” who will love us, who will accept us, who will give us care, attention, value, validation, only to be disappointed over and over again by people who like us did not like themselves and needed us to like them, we were like beggars begging from other beggars.

But those disappointments are very useful, because what they really say is this: “you gave another person the power to give you what you desperately need and now this power is returned to you once more because no one can give you what you need but you”, life will repeat this lesson until we learn it. Life was extremely generous to me because it gave me a dozen of these disappointments. 
Realizing that I am the only person who can love me the way I dream of being loved freed me, it changed my understanding of life and love and I am grateful, very grateful for it

Radical Cleaning!

I emptied the matchbox from all the burnt out matches

I mowed my overgrown lawn, I tidied the shed

shredded my wedding photos

swept behind the fridge

organized my chaotic underwear drawer

arranged all my books in alphabetical order

threw away all the odd socks; I gave up finding their pairs.

A turmoil robbing my heart’s quiet fell into peace, calm and silence

The stars in the universe no longer disarray

The wailing of my soul began to wane.

Some souls

I reason with your shadow

“It’s been so many years.. why do you still linger?”

it sits on the edge of my bed

its back turned to me

while a weak candle flickers

on the bedside table

“The door is open, let go, so I can let go too”

it says nothing, knowing, as I also knew

that some souls have planned

their meeting long before this life time

and just when life had nothing else to offer

just when they had nothing more to lose

tormented by despair

they sought each other out, in a brutal and violent collision they

destroyed one another imagining that love was nothing but pain

spending forever trying but failing to heal.

Should we remember or forget?

In the United Kingdom Remembrance Sunday is national ritual which commemorates the contribution of British military during the two World Wars.  Remembrance Sunday is held on the second Sunday in November but due to the popularity of this event in Britain; different activities such as wearing the red poppy, gatherings, talks, television programs and documentaries start late October and last almost to the end of November every year. In Kuwait, a similar thing happens (minus the red poppy) all through the month of August to commemorate the Iraqi invasion that took place in August 1990, the sacrifices made by national and ally troops and to keep the memory of war alive in people’s hearts minds. Each country has a similar national day where celebrations and festivals take place and a feeling of patriotism prevails.

There are different reasons and theories as to why the memory of war, pain, bloodshed, violence and brutality should remain and be constantly refreshed in the minds of generation after generation, the most common one is that we (the living) must honor those who have sacrificed their lives in order for us to survive, we are humbled by those who died for our land and freedom, we must feel a sense of gratitude for those who fought so bravely as without their courage we would not be here today enjoying our most fundamental human right, freedom.

The importance of remembering (as explained above) seems to apply only on the national level of things, on the personal level, however, we are encouraged to forget negative experiences, things such as childhood trauma, pain, suffering, abuse, violence and even grief. Such memories that provoke such strong feelings we are told, can cripple us further in our lives, lead us to depression, illness and sometimes death, therefore we are constantly told to forget them, forget they ever happened; “let go of the past” we hear therapists, spiritual and enlightened people say, or “the past is a dream, it does not exist” is another common expression in the spiritual world.

But should we remember or should we forget? I don’t have the answer for this question as I am struggling with it myself, but what I do know is this; when we are bombarded on certain months of each year with national songs, TV programs, photos, films, and logos to remember a very distant, historic war, the pain, the loss and violence that war had inflicted on society as a whole, and at the exact same time we are told over and over again to forget our own personal pain, suffering and struggle it creates inside us a feeling of smallness, the sense that our personal pain is not important enough or deep enough to remember or acknowledge, unlike a war that we may have not even witnessed. We as mourners for personal loss feel pushed back to the margins of a society that continues to care for the whole but not the individual.

Rejection is good for you.

I don’t claim to know the life of all the geniuses’ but reading in the personal life of my favourite philosophers: Baruch Spinoza, Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, I know that they were rejected by women they were deeply fond of, and in his youth Schopenhauer had been rejected by his own mother whom he loved dearly, as a result he condemned all women and questioned their competence as human beings in his writings during his adult life. Beethoven too was repeatedly rejected by women he was attracted to and for whom he had composed the most majestic sonatas, music that was endlessly beautiful and endlessly sad. The great poet W B Yeats was so obsessively infatuated with Maud Gonne, he proposed to her four times over a period of ten years, all his attempts were rejected by Gonne who continued to be his muse and the subject of his most passionate poems even after his marriage to another woman. In Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia stands a statue of Slovene’s national poet France Prešeren

staring directly at window of a house where once his adored Julija Primic lived, Prešeren was rejected by his beloved’s family due to the fact that he belonged to an inferior class. Sylvia Plath’s most powerful poetry was written after her marriage to Hughes whom she loved deeply fell apart due to him leaving Plath for his mistress Assia.

There are so many examples where unrequited love had provoked strong emotions, beautiful poetry, haunting music and strokes of genius, thought and ideas. Rejection seems to have the power to make us hurt and suffer but also to focus our negative emotions in the productive activity of writing, painting, composing or inventing. When we are rejected by those we love we suddenly turn our attention to ourselves and to our own interests and passions; all those intense feelings, all that time, all that emotional effort and mental tax we were squandering over our love interest is given back to us and we realize that we can take this immense energy and use it, really use it to create. We are inspired by our pain and inspire others by it too.

Easy

I know what is easy

Solitude it easy

Anger is easy

Bitterness is easy

Losing faith is easy

Letting go is easy

Hate is easy

Hurt is easy

Despise is easy

Despair is easy

Loathing is easy

Resentment is easy

Vanity is easy

I know what is hard..

Fulfillment.