Once again I find myself watching life living itself to the fullest while I am cocooned by my jealousy of butterflies; an incessant emotion that consumes my soul. Two chances at life it has; shedding its caterpillar robes as I wish to shed my queenly robes, then soaring where I wish to soar. 

Royalty? I did not seek it. I neither asked for it, nor did I choose it. I was chosen Queen by a simpleton female from the hive - one without rank, without status. Who gave her the right to choose? Where it not for her I would not be me, I would not be Queen. Because of her, I call myself I … but I do not know who I am; my femininity shrivels up in a cave, shrinking like an overused, over-washed robe. 

Once again, on the edge I stand, and with the dancers I am. How I wished to dance on that stage, to impress everyone with my knowledge, my grace, the spontaneity of my quivering body. But, here I am, on the edge, my body protruding as usual as I carry future generations inside me. The present generation before me does not know the value of its counted days. 

She who chose me queen, did me an injustice and died. She was satisfied with her thirty days of life, after choosing me to live seven hundred as queen…seven hundred sunrises to spend between being impregnated and delivering. Everyone carries out their duties and expects that I carry out mine. 

* * *Can I call it a role - that which is expected of me? I am nothing but a reproductive machine. I leave the hive only to be pursued by males. I am their sole target. I am tired of them, of their constant pursuit. When I try to get away they believe me to be flirting with them! I try to steer away from the males by soaring above the flowers only to be stung by the lovingly encoded scent they emit. Their scent wounds me, yet it does not wound me at all, and nobody understands these non-wounds but me. I love it, that scent, I adore it, I desire to devour the essence these flowers possess between their fragile petals…but I cannot. With eager, fervent eyes, I watch them. How I wish to touch them, to lie in their tenderness. I am numbed by the threads of aroma that dance with me, hindering my movement, until I no longer wished to escape. I become intoxicated and escape becomes impossible. I become intoxicated, and as always, my body pays the price of my intoxication…and then I become remorseful. 

I did not realize that my body, also, had been spinning its own threads that enchanted the males…as I become intoxicated, they, too, become intoxicated. Our fates scent-fully intertwined; my fate as queen possesses me, did I ever possess anything else? 

* * *Nobody sleeps here. The bees constantly move their wings to keep the hive cool, making my coldness even colder. In this continuous clamor of noise, I live like a hermit most of my life, a two dimensional creature, I breathe and I eat. No one knocks on the door of my solitude, and I can barely hear my own thoughts. How relaxed a mindless soul is; how hard I tried to be like the rest of the colony, to play out my role mechanically, instinctively, without my soul carving out question marks. 

My thoughts stray far from reality and my feelings are no longer logical, and yet, what does reality and reason have to do with thoughts and feelings? I look at my small, transparent wings which lift my heavy body into flight with a reality that defies logic. 

My life seemed so long as it first began, and so short as it neared its end. But, I will no longer rest on the edge; I will jump now to live or to die…no matter…I have never dared to risk before. Difficulties have always overcome me, now I will overcome them; I took a decision, a decision that removed all difficulties…I have discovered an atomic bomb inside me!   

***When the bees went out to make their morning rounds, I masked my fertility within a robe of honey and planted myself amidst the circular bodies, departing with them. The males did not follow me. I wish I had known it was this easy to escape. 

The bees scurry but I do not. They have but mere hours to live and I have till the end of my life. I am nothing and everything am I. I am not a bee; I am an eagle, rubbing the winds of time with my wings, and dragging clouds of cotton with my tail.  

It seemed as if my senses deceived me during my previous rounds. The meadow was not this wonderful mere days ago. I felt as if spring was sending its soul into the earth, playing with it, gently caressing it with fingertips sparked with life, spreading its seeds without a care. I felt earth surrendering as spring savored its charm, the scent of their love saturating meadows and fields. The soil changes its color, flowers are born. I breathed in deeply the aroma of flowers; suckling on their nectar…I have never tasted anything like it since I was born. 

I lived inside several hundred days, inside several hundred moments; I did not know whether they were mere moments or days that I spent in this hysterical state of mine. I yearned for memories which had not yet become memories. I rushed things…slowly. I played the role of the hard-working bee that had never understood the pleasure of her work. 

And when, finally, I overflowed with aroma, nectar and color, spilling some in the wake of my return journey, it was finally time for my dance.I arrived at my beehive. “I know where the pollen is…” I yelled to no-one there. Emptiness carried the echo my voice to the damaged roofs, “I know where the most delicious nectar is…”I was stung by the morbid silence. I could barely recognize my beehive without the racket. I looked around me to find bee corpses like a tragic carpet stretching in all directions around me. My hive had become a mass grave, the ruins and remains of everything that everybody had worked tirelessly to build…nothing, nothing but the stage was left.I will dance. I will let them know. I will dazzle them with my knowledge, with my discoveries, the quivering of my dance will awaken them; bring them back to life…for I am the queen. I danced. By the scent of the lemon flower, by the deprivation of my years, I danced. By the destruction of all my hopes, I danced. In the name of the bee that chose me, I danced. I danced, until all dance wilted. I danced until I, too, wilted on the stage whose authority had evaporated. 

The silence did not last. The noise came back.The activity returned. But … it was somewhat different. I raised my head to see the corpses of the bees being moved by an army of ants.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

~Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963, Washington, DC

Dear Friends,

I hope you are well.  We appreciate your help.  I am in Dubai now and we are hosting a PCRF event next week.  We have four injured kids from Gaza coming to Dubai for treatment and we hope that you will work with us to respond to the humanitarian crisis facing children in Palestine. 

We hope that you can come and that you will inform your friends about our relief work in Palestine.  Can you please RSVP so we can know if you are attending an open and frank presentation about our work, meeting the kids and finding
ways we can help save lives of sick and injured children in Palestine?

The meeting is:
January 29
Dubai - Shakespeare Village Mall from 7pm

Please let us know if you can come and please spread the word.

Steve Sosebee

steve@pcrf.net
www.pcrf.net

Strolling in the Bastikia this Saturday morning, we found Atiq, in a small, vibrant corner, sitting on his chair, surrounded by his work which covered all the walls, and a collection of pots of color on his table where he writes Arabic names with bamboo “pens” in beautiful calligraphy work.

You have to write your name in Arabic for him to recreate in his on artistic calligraphy, for Atiq is from India. I chose green and blue, the lovely colors of the sea in Moraira (

I asked him to write my name in my 2008 notebook, which I carry with me everywhere. It took him seconds to curve his hands around the letters of my name, to fill the page with rich texture and color with his 70-year old artist’s hands… then, he signed his name under the calligraphy using a green uni-ball pen!

What does your laundry say about you?Is it the laundry, or how you hang it? Or do you display it?

Emirates Hills, Dec 07.

Everyone has laundry - even at Emirates Hills.

I just remembered this lovely visitor during our holiday in Spain last summer.

Another bird friend keeping me company on a ‘cold’ Saturyday morning in Dubai.

And then .. there were two

Which of them is me? Neither!

“In the airports we were born. We know the story,
but … we will not die in the harbors”
Samih Al Qasem*

My dear diary, what if my father were to read this? And what if my mother were to read this as I disrobe letter by letter before their very eyes? Would they discover my secret or would they believe this to be fiction not related to reality in any way? I’m afraid it may sadden them to discover how lost I am, how afraid I am of my present, of my future, of a heritage I inherited not by choice, within an existence where I ask myself everyday: when will my life begin?
I was named after Fadwa Toukan, but on the inside I am nothing but tumult and turmoil. My inner turmoil started long ago, somewhere between the consciousness of a child and the uncertainty of a consciousness. I wrote my hesitant words in my mind before jotting them in this notebook, in English, in Arabic, using new colours I invented to draw my own shades. I scribble my words here, putting no date to a life that exists outside the boundaries of time. I walk through non-history; existence senses not my existence nor does absence sense my absence.   
I spent my whole life scattered between Arab cities where one felt no Arabness, and in foreign cities where one had the right to feel whatever one wanted. I belonged neither to city, nor neighborhood, neither to walls of a house, nor to soil. Nothing but a gypsy carrying my memories in a bundle, upon my soul accumulating more dust with every new trip. I leave behind the echo of my voice to melt into nowhere, and my footsteps on the sands of the beach to be swallowed by the waves of timelessness. When I stop to catch my breath, I look behind me and I see no evidence of my passage.
But … when I am asked where I come from, I reply enthusiastically that I am Palestinian. Yes, Palestinian! I wear my Palestinianness like a valuable old shirt that warms my existence. Its sleeves too long, its shoulders too wide. I do not know when I wore this shirt or when it wore me. I walk on, apprehensively, nervously, eagerly, cautiously, in bewilderment. I find nothing that pleases me nor anything that comforts me. Every time I move to a new place, I remember, with warmth and nostalgia, the old place which, at that time, neither pleased nor comforted me.     
Wherever I go I am surrounded by words and labels which frighten me, words which increase my nervousness and my apprehension; words which squeeze me into a tight container, which is in turn squeezed into an even tighter container, then into another and another . . . like Russian Dolls. Ever since I can remember I have been feeling my way across the shrapnel of the word “Palestinian.” There are the Arabs of Palestine, Israeli Arabs, the Arabs of 1948, Palestinians with Arab citizenship, Palestinians with foreign citizenship, Palestinians returning from Kuwait, Palestinians fleeing Kuwait, Palestinians fleeing Iraq, Palestinians who hold passports, Palestinians who hold travel documents, Palestinians who hold travel documents and ID cards. There are terrorists, nationalists, suicidal-bombers, martyrs .. there are Palestinians who do not know Palestine.
And there is me and my shirt. My shirt which is woven from the delicate threads of my father’s memories and my grandfather’s stories. My shirt, which is soiled with racism and tattered from constant upheaval. How I wish that I had remained in one corner all my life, a corner which I would have memorised and which would have memorised me, so that if I moved away I would miss even its garbage cans!     
* * *
My corner is but my shirt.
My boundaries are but my shirt.
My shroud is but my shirt, for there is no equality even in death. I realized this when my father-in-law died. He was a man saturated with his city, Jerusalem; if he left it for a few days, its scent would seep from his fingertips, from his breath. He wrote his own history in the pain of his city’s history, and on his death, his city carried his coffin upon its shoulders.
As for me, I will end up a stranger in a strange land, even if fate would have me die in Palestine. Despite my shirt, I am a stranger to it, and it to me. It will not recognize me. It will reject me, like a body rejects the implantation of foreign organs.
I will soil its soil.
My dear diary, I will bury you before I am buried. I will shroud you with the remains of my shirt into which I used to shrink and which now shrinks inside me. I will bury you under the first olive tree I meet along my way. I have only written in you when I have been very sad, and I have written in you very often. You are the wall on which I can express the freedom of writing freely, and my freedom has only been the limits of your pages.
You only know that with which I have defiled your white pages. With the axe of my words I have dug into you a well for my pains. You have contained my vacuum. You have eagerly awaited our meeting every sunset and I have emptied myself into you, my dear diary. Where should my vacuumness emptiness go now? Nothing left of me but letters that dampen my feet. I bend down to dry them in vain. My letters are many, and my shirt, darned so many times, can withstand no more.
How, from the very beginning, I had feared this to be my end! How I had feared finding nothing but tatters when I grew old!
I grew old, my dear diary, but my shirt did not. And no matter how much I wash it, never again will it return to its original whiteness. I wear it, I feel cold. I feel cold, my dear diary, I feel cold yet I forsake it not.
Every harbor knows me, it is true, and every airport … and there I remain still, writing my story in the waiting room.
Fadwa Al Qasem
Dubai, UAE
Originally written in Arabic, and first published in Al Adab Magazine, Lebanon, http://www.adabmag.com/
Translated by the author herself.
*Author’s own interpretation/translation

Dubai, UAE. The Courtyard on Sh. Zayed road.

Amazing, Astonishing, Astounding;

Beautiful, Colorful, Charming;

Delicate;

Deceptively Simple;

Elegant but.. Ephemeral, Fragile, Fickle, Flimsy, Fleeting;

Graceful, Glorious, Hesitant;

Hopeful yet Hopeless;

Insatiable, Intense, Idyllic, Impatient;  

Joyous, even Keen;

Light, Magnificent, Nimble;

Opulent but Oblivious;  

Playful, Pleasing, Pretty but also Pitiful;

Quaint;

Reckless, Sensuous and Selfish;

Small, Transient and Tragic;

Unattainable, Uncertain, Voracious;

Wondrous, Wavering, eXalting;  

Youthful.. Zealous!

Don’t judge me just yet .. I am still a work in progress. I believe I will always be a work in progress. Experimenting, learning, stumbling, dancing, loving, crying, laughing, yearning .. waiting?

I did not bother to think of new year’s resolutions, but I started a new notebook for 2008. It’s just become a habit, I have this notebook with me all the time. It’s not a diary, it’s a collection of everything that flashes or lingers in my head. I will scan and publish some pages of 2007 notebook over the coming months.

I am also going to break into another copy of my book, the collection of short stories published in 2005, to create another altered art book. But I am not sure yet about what I will do with it. The first was a mixture of inserted collage, writings by others which I like, images, input from my jewelry designs. The second involved people in my life chosing words from the pages of my book, and I created a collage and some artwork around the chosen words while hiding the rest of the text.

Thanks for visiting my blog over 2007. Please continue to share your thoughts and comments.

Fadwa