My favorite kind of fenan

"What is wrong with this watch? It goes slack when I watch. It goes fast when I don't care-less..."

He wrote, "It goes slack when I watch," and, as I read that line, I got that tingle in the small of my back--the one that I get when something grabs my bones and shakes them until the vibrations hit my soul. It's a rare feeling but one that is often triggered by song.

In that instant during our instant messenger conversation, Ihsen Da Sole went from talented musician and singer, and all-around cool guy, to intelligent lyricist--my favorite kind of fenan.

I had heard his track, "Beef," before, and it sounded good. Its melodies flowed and fit well into the scheme of my music collection. I liked it, and then I left it alone.

Today, "Beef" took on a new life. Ihsen pulled out the words for me, separating them from the beat and the background and even from the title. And standing alone, fending for themselves against a blank canvas in an instant messenger window, they were simultaneously stark and soulfull.

I don't think Ihsen realized what reading those words, that line--"it goes slack when I watch"--was doing to me...at least not until I told him, "That's it! I have to write about you tonight."

In "Beef," Ihsen tells you about his struggle with time, a war that is so ordinary that an unattentive audience may just nod and sing along robotically. I urge you to pay attention; to stand on the battle field in the aftermath, when it is silent and still. There, you will find the most basic, commonsense, beautiful, complex description of a mundane moment that everyone experiences but forcibly ignores. And the words smack you in the face and you will be forced to face them. Then, you will hear that Ihsen is singing for you too.

These are the gems of music--the hidden trinkets that are discovered with each pump up of the volume, allowing for deeper excavation. These make music exciting to me. To me, an intelligent lyricist is someone who rhymes an experience that you know but have never before put into organized words. And that sensation transforms a song into a life soundtrack. I know now that I will think of "it goes slack when I watch" while I'm watching life tic-tock away on the clock on my work computer.

Ihsen's music is full of other such diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and black onyxes that surely emerge from his daily life: but nevermind that he produces Hip Hop shows from beginning to end to showcase the talents of Afrock; nevermind that he brings sophistication and maturity to the game with a classy style and a smooth sound that can still be tough when it needs to be; nevermind that he represents the soul of Tunisia with every spit and verse that he delivers in English; nevermind that he favors soul music in this phase of his life; nevermind that he is one of the hardest-working men in his hood and he's only 25; nevermind that he eats salty fish with his fellow countrymen on il 3eed; nevermind all of those details that have brought this lyricist to the place he exists in today--to the talent that he has evolved into in this era of his life; nevermind that he is looking at a future that will certainly be bright but that is a mystery right now.

Nevermind all of those things--because you will realize you know it all when you hear him sing it to you in that one gem verse.

***You may still be fighting your war with time, ya Ihsen, but those battles are creating your creativity, and

you are making some timeless music, my friend. Masha'Allah.***

Pine Wood

I walk toward the gates...

...I halt, look around--wait.

"Why have I not been stopped...

...by a 7aris or Palestinian cop?"

Shrugging my shoulders, I proceed without a care...

...ready to find out if he really has a pair.

I sprint stealthily down the lamp-lit path directly to the beige doors...

...I pause, just a centi before.

But it is not for fear or thought or second-guess...

...I am ready to put him to the test.

And with the spirits of Palestinian shuhada' at my back...

...I fling the gates open with strength that makes them crack.

But it doesn't startle Abu Mazen who is sitting on a money sack.

"You," I whisper. "YOU!" I shout...

...And I grab my 7andala necklace to clear my mind, which has begun to cloud.

I walk with a forward lean and fury...

...knowing that the shuhada' are on my side; my jury.

"You have sold your people for that wretched green..."

...I simultaneously wonder why I haven't yet been arrested for starting this scene (??).

I point my middle finger at him as I approach...

...because he doesn't deserve the dignity of a tashahud index finger reproach.

"You dress your son--not Mazen, the other one--in the latest American fashion...

...I've seen him at ZAN, peering at the girls with his Nike cap on."

"And in your other pocket are the shekels and pennies from your Israeli and American masters...

...In that pocket is your reservation to dine with those bastards..."

"...on the flesh and the bones and the blood of Palestinians..."

"....to gorge your fat bellies fatter on the marrow of dead millions."

A centi now separates me from Abu M...

...but not a flinch; nor a breath; nor a warmth surrounds him.

"You..." I grit my teeth and snarl...

...but perplexed, see his face is gnarled.

"YOU!!!" I shout again, and spit in his eye...

...Nothing. No reaction. I say to myself, "Is that dye?"

I wipe the darkened saliva from his vapid face...

...and upon touch realize why 3abbas has no grace.

He is soulless and made of wood...

...not from Palestinian olive tree branches but from pines grown in an American hood.

I am overcome but not completely surprised...

"We have always known, haven't we? Geppetto has been puppeteering our plight. To this, Palestinians were wise."

I pull on my 7andala chain, and swing it left and right...

....pendulate once more and follow with a punch to the puppet's cheek; full of my might.

An alarm goes off: "Finally..sheeesh!" I sigh...

..."No security before because a puppet can't die."

I step backwards twice, then turn to see the Ramallah moon...

..."To think, your milky glow has even touched this fake bafoon."

I march quickly toward the exit and the Palestinian night air...

...Gliding on the breeze of the shuhada' still there.

I step out of that marrionette theater with my right foot first...

...grip the remnants of the entrance...

...and look back at the punctured pine-wood nothing, still propped up on its purse.

And knowing that, once Abu M is confirmed as khashab publicly...

...and the disgrace of Israel and America will be made for all to see...

...the Palestinians will rise and will finally be free.

I smile my first real smile, and shout with glee...

"La teez teezee! Inta mish ra'eesee!"

For the last time, I turn my back to the puppet, and, with 7andala, moon the oppressive and fucked-by-money regime...

To Palestine, I face forward and open my arms, and say, "I can stay here now..."

"...You are home for good now, Reem."

The prayer offering

"As-salama 3alaykum wa ra7mat Allah. As-salama 3alaykum wa ra7mat Allah."

She sits, cloked in prayer garb and serenity...

...but with a heavy heart.

She cups her hands to mimic angel wings...

....but draws them in to capture her psalm.

She says:

"Sub7an il Malik il Qodoos, Rubb il mala'ika wal ro7...

...ya Allah, ya 7abibi...

Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity to pray."

She looks up at the ceiling, searching for the Spirit, and envisioning God's expanse looking down at her...

...but through teary eyes, all she sees is the film of fluid and everything remains unclear.

She continues:

"Bshkorak ya Allah lal shahr il mubarak, Ramadan...

...but I'm scared now that it's over.

Evil has been re-released into the world...

...but we are celebrating 3eed?"

She looks down at her hands and feels a lump in her throat and a salty bead on her lip.

She offers this prayer:

"Ya Allah, please help us carry the spirit of Ramadan forward..

...to harvest it in our hearts and heads, and to grow it with love and purity every day.

Ya Allah, let us be kind to one another and seek out the good...

...rather that smirk and summon the evil.

Ya Allah, build our strength so that we may resist temptation...

...and turn ourselves into soldiers of spirituality."

She sits taller, and feels the tears drying on her cheek, and speaks with more confidence:

"Ya Allah, remind us that none of us can judge any other. You alone are The Judge.

Ya Allah, help us to prefer forgiveness...

...help us to prefer pulling each other up rather than pushing each other down.

Ya Allah, remind us to appreciate and say, "Al 7amdulilah..."

...and remind us to be charitable."

She closes her eyes, cups her hands closer to her face, and whispers:

"Ya Allah, please keep my parents in the warmth of your love...

...and my grandparents and my aunts and uncles and my cousins and all of their families and friends and all of my friends and their families and friends...(Allah y7fazkom jamee3kom)...

...and forgive us all.

Ya Allah, help me to be a better daughter, grandaughter, niece, cousin, family member, friend, and acquaintance to them all...

...and a better Muslim and insha'Allah a mu'mina.

Ya Allah, strengthen the spirits and iman of those who have less than us and more than us and the same as us...

...and remind us that we are all humans, not one better than the other...

...and remind us that we will leave the material world with nothing but our souls and our deeds.

Ya Allah, remind us to hoard good deeds rather than meaningless materials...

...but bless the hard-working, whose intentions are pure and sincere...(Allah ya3teekom il 3afeeya)...

...and bless us with the intelligence to follow in the example of the Prophets, may peace be upon them, to make this temporary world a better place.

Ya Allah, make this world a better place."

And just before she cradles her face with her hands, her soul speaks:

"Ya Allah, bless me with the opportunity to be a mother, to be like my mother--the love of my life--and to harvest that love in my heart and self, and to grow it with more love and purity, and release it into the world."

She continues, speaking aloud:

"...but You are Most-Wise and know better than I whether I will be fit and have been formed to take that role..."

And whispering through fresh tears, she adds:

"...and I will accept the fate that You have prescribed for me...

...and I am patient and submit to Your Will..."

And she hopes:

"Ya Allah, bless me with the opportunity to be a mother."

She wipes her face with her palms and her psalm, and she sits silently.

She knows and feels the love she has for everyone she named in her prayer (she loves them and sacrifices every ounce of herself for them. Her love for them is absolutely genuine)...

...and she tears for them and herself...

...feeling that evil will now be lurking and tugging and that it will likely be interrupting her prayers to come.

She sits taller, and responds to her fear with confidence:

"La, insha'Allah la!"

And with that, she grabs her prayer beads and recites "Allahu akbar" and "Sub7an Allah" and "Al 7amdulilah" 33 times each...

...and she feels secure and OK; she knows Allah will make everything right.

She returns the masba7a to its holding place, presses her right palm against her bed and her left palm against her leg to stand, and says:

"Ya Allah."

She smiles.

Naseem il ney

There is a breeze that passes over and through me but leaves all too quickly. I look back, searching for the soul that ran away. I look forward..."Where did the zephyr go, and when will she return?"

I continue to walk under the sun, eyes closed and arms open...waiting for her to embrace me again; to re-place me into her trance.

But she does not come.

The ney whispers in my ear his summons to the dear naseem to visit me. He pipes and pulls and prays for the wind's safe return: "Oh that you are Allah's warm, sweet breath...Come and wash over this fasting walker, dehydrated and longing for you to protect and propel her."

"ON YOUR LEFT!": I hear the cyclist's jarring warning interrupt my song. I keep to my side and stare beyond him and his hoard. "It is not you I am concerned with," I think. "Leave me and go. I only long for il hawa. She is the one I will respond to. As for you, cyclist, stay left, pass, and vanish."

I let the negative energy evaporate from me into the still air, and il ney blows his highest pitch at it, launching it to chase the cyclists and push them farther away. This release creates a holey place for my beloved breeze to travel in and out and through freely.

"Ya Allah....ya Allah," my heart beats. It too awaits its refreshment.

I continue to walk forward.

Suddenly, a tress is lifted by an invisible force, and a spirit wafts into my nostrils-larnyx-pharnyx-trachea-lungs. Il hawa granted il ney his wish, and I am the beneficiary.

The wind has fully embraced me now. She swivels with the sounds of her companion ney in a beautiful infant tornado that only I can feel and that is not mature enough to carry me away.

And then, sprinting through adulthood and racing for death, il hawa settles down and dies. Il ney and I are left to mourn--we pray for il naseem's rest and rebirth.

I open my eyes to the sights of the trail and the cyclists that pedal passed. I do not see the zephyr but I know that she is gathering herself so that she may greet me again.

"Allah ykhaleek ya ashlab Shalabi u ya3teek il 3afeeya...inta wil ney." A tress lifts up and caresses my brow. The breeze is reborn.

Today, I am...

Today, I am...

...awake at 5:53 a.m., full on cereal, peanut butter, and coffee, and now fasting but not sure whether Allah will officially accept it.

...thinking about the cancelled phone calls of the week and the surprise text message exchange about a dream that I wish was true.

...an oxymoron: filled to the brim with cynicism, anger, and melancholy, and coated in hope, fashion, and spirituality.

...hoping that the Jewish reggae artist is not a Zionist (research suggests he is not); his music is good, and it would be quite a shame if he was that stupid.

...a lover of efficient music by intelligent people.

...staring at a bulletin board of my life, and realizing that I haven't tacked much on in the past two years.

...transported by the Nescafe Red Mug label to the Ramallah market in which 3amo bought me the coffee. He has such a lovely smile, masha'Allah.

...smirking: my dad is a funny man.

...am not intimidated by others: I don't care what your title is or how much money you're worth. You have no superpowers. We are both humans and equal.

...appreciative of others' opinions.

...sure I'll break my 5-day "no workout" streak.

...something new; tomorrow, I will be too.

"I'll be the ground..."

I sat down in front of my computer hoping to write something to break my dry spell. I sat with nothing. So, I plugged in, and asked P.O.S. to inspire me via my iPhone's iPod.

And, within seconds, he told me: "Don't let them choose for you." And I thought: "I hate how everyone is trying to tell me what I should and should not eat for iftar. It's my siyam and my choice--not theirs."

"Goodbye" repeated and my thoughts continued to flow:

"If I want za3tar and 7ummos and khubiz u bes, and don't want salmon and pasta, that's my PREROGATIVE..."

"And if I don't want to go to 3azayim during Ramadan because I think they encourage gorge-fests and bother me and cause stress and take the focus away from spirituality and religion and Allah, that's my choice. Don't get offended. It has nothing to do with you or your house or the quality of your food. It's just my choice."

"And if I want to travel from VA to Jerusalem to pray in the 7aram, and buy makhloota from As-Samman, and then catch the 18 to go to Ramallah to eat Baladna Booza and visit Rajai at Venus, and then pass through Qalandiya, ride the bus passed Beit 7anina back to the bus stop behind the vendors' shops to catch the 75 to go back to Siti's house in At Tour--that's my choice, not theirs...IT'S NOT THEIRS; THEY WILL NOT CHOOSE FOR ME!"

And then the drumroll quiets into a monitoring beat which paces a mellow cadence...and it brings my pressure back down and it sucks the flush into my veins away from the surface of my cheeks and I feel my eyes blink a little slower. I rub my temples with the pads of my index finger and thumb...

Reality settles within me like a spirit from the second life renting my body to communicate a message to the living. It just needs a mouth piece and limbs to gesture with--and I'm just the vessel for this temporary employment.

The message is for me: "Reem, sometimes, the choices have already been made. Try to defy them, and your 'free will' will likely be tied with handcuffs and denied entry. What then?"

How do I choose between defiance and acquiescence when my first choice is that neither would exist? How do I choose when neither yields freedom as an option? How can I choose for myself when I am not free to be myself?

And then P.O.S. dedicates to the brave and the snake, and "to the sweat in the face of a man misplaced who finds his own lane."

A drop follows his lyric from my brow to the edge of my desk, and I see my choice swimming in the salty bead. To be without fear is to be with freedom. I will not be paranoid; I will not care about them. My lane will wind under MY stomping when and where I CHOOSE to place my footsteps.

"Never fill in the blanks/Let 'em hang in the ranks...I'll be the ground/Nobody gets me down."

And I choose to be grounded there again with a "free-range" visa. I'll be leaning against the Qudsy railing, jingling my six shekels, waiting to step on the first step of the 18...again soon. 7ur ana...that's my choice.

Red

"My red comes from my Palestinian side."

I've had to explain that more times than I can remember. I am always more than ready to explain it again--to pronounce with pride, "PALESTINIAN." Many think my red was passed to me by my Hungarian grandmother, but it was not. In my appearance, I am 100% Palestinian.

Sidi Yousef (Allah yir7amo) was my ancestral red head. Because of him, I have freckles. Like him, I have red hair. For dar El-Khatib, I am a token red-head, who stands out in the family photo--almost every Palestinian family has at least one of us. My family has several.

We--I was chosen to carry Sidi Yousef's red forward. And I carry it on my head and in my heart.

My blood is red like his was. He poured it out of himself, and siphoned it into his children, who filtered it into their children--and then flooded it into me. His red pumps the lines that bulge through the thin skin around my wrists and hands. His red pulses through that snake that climbs from my left leg's ankle, twists to my hamstring, and, trapped under a thinner layer of dermis, slivers slowly up my knee and thigh. I watch the red turn the thick, blue tunnel green as my Palestinian adrenaline gushes it through.

His red makes my heart boil and flushes my cheeks. I squeeze my hand so tightly that my nails dig into my own flesh, and my red--his red--drips down my wrist as my knuckles turn green, then black, then white.

Today, that red is stiffening a fist, and right before it meets your blue and white face, his red--my red--pulses aloud, "WATON."

Today, you see our red drowning you from inside. It bursts your vessels and chokes your throat. It streams from your nostrils, now shaded in green with a broken bridge. It crusts a deeper red over the cuts and digs now contouring your cheeks. Our red stains the white teeth left hanging in your mouth, and splatters under the formerly white teeth that were knocked out. Our red dries black onto your skull's skin--around the crack, punctured by the rock the knock out landed you on.

And as you attempt to squint up at me behind your throbbing, bleeding pupils, you see the red on my head, and I tell you, "The red comes from my Palestinian side."