June 2014,

Sometimes I just miss me, my thoughts, and what it is to be happy. This cup of black coffee, strangers I could have run into, places I could have been in now. But now I am here with the perfect kind of black. The smell, the freedom. I can be everywhere. I can be everybody. 

I stare into bottom of my cup. Black is never a sad color. Although it’s worn in funerals. In big ceremonies. I think people wear it to stand out. It shows a contrast against their skin. They want to be noticed but stay subtle. I hate this word, subtle. It’s delusional and charming. Maybe it’s why I’m always drawn into black. Maybe I should love white instead.

I could wear white. All white. It’s even a trend now. I could order a cup of hot white chocolate instead of coffee.  I could stare at the clouds. Weave weird new faces. Laugh at them and the way they surprise me. The shapes… I could handle the white page of my notebook I have to face every morning. Color it up with white words. Foamy and plain. But white scares me. It’s just very white. Black is purer. Black is more human.

June

I thought about the black and white pictures I used to admire. They are never black and white. They are grey.  Just different shades of grey. Exquisite and dreamy. It’s the way I remember every building. Every special face. The optimistic spice seller with a Mashmoom flower tucked to his right ear, the Madame in high heels in her feeble attempt to catch the train, high school couples. Clouds of smoke, the sound of coffee machines, my feminist grandmother. Grey faces. Grey buildings. Grey memories. Grey sounds. It’s a world of truth, here.

I love to write about it. It makes me want to listen to Phillip Glass. Draw my own world of glass. But I will always wonder about the next wild party. The new friends. I just love people as much as I love this. To write.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I want to live as many lives as I can. Learn as much as I can, through books and people I meet. Places and thought-provoking conversations. Sometimes music. I should choose one profession and build a constant career instead of jumping between things I am enthusiastic about. But I cannot settle. I love so many things to choose. Why do we have to choose anyway? When we can be good at so many things and we have a lifetime to try. A lifetime is never enough though, to wonder about all “the roads less travelled by”.

Yes. Robert Frost always comes to my mind when I think about existential matters. If we just didn’t have to choose. If we just were silly and thought about only having kids and settling with that someone. Someone with a smart spark of kindness. But maybe then, I wouldn’t be writing this. I would be less curious and more content.

If I just cared less about science, social justice, fashion and writing. Then I think I would be happier. Fulfilled. I haven’t felt fulfilled in a while. Will I ever be fulfilled though? I have to read more, to travel more, to write more, love and give more to the world. I have to stretch, to expand this space of land I am stuck in.

But then I wake up in the morning. This beautiful mess I have to sweep. Keep things minimal and clean. I have even traded Glass for Chopin. I am stable and growing. Taking the risk of no risks.  What is life but our constant fluctuation between extremes, seeking balance the process.

We go through high school where time seems to never pass. We enjoy the little things of life with a striking naiveté and joie de vivre. We go to college. Get a degree. Get a job. Get married. But live is still boring.  We think of having kids. Feel young again. Fill the empty spaces. We always have to fill the empty spaces. Find God. But life is still boring.

We still have to wake up in the morning, make a living and go home because we need something or someone to escape to.  Nevertheless, life is boring still. Unless you’re creative.

I have to have enough ideas to fill one page a day. I envy those who have a discipline. Who make themselves do things. Writers. Great ones.  But I am not a writer. I am just someone who loves to contemplate things and take notes to remember how they felt like. Forever preserve them in ink and paper. Put down words as neatly as possible, as the mood takes you. Till it won’t hurt anymore. It’s nice to write without the pressure of having to write every day. It’s more about experience than habit, just like traveling. You abandon your daily routine and you engage in something greater than yourself. More little things and people.

I love the feeling of possibility that comes with traveling. The feeling of anticipation when the airplane lands in the grass. The lights. The miniscule buildings. I love how you become nobody, when you slowly disappear in the crowd. Or better, any anybody. It’s one of the rare times when your ignorance is beautiful. Your ignorance is exciting.

I will go for an espresso, he said with a confident tone. When you’d like your tiredness to disappear. Espresso is like a leap of faith, it shakes you off instantly like cold water in the morning, then you are wide awake and ready to face the world. when you're weary or uninspired. You listen to the weird sounds of a city.  

Maybe If was an artist, if  knew how to paint elaborate paintings, or talk like a charming story teller, maybe I will be satisfied. But I am not. I am just someone who sinks in ordinariness, who rather like to write words naturally than speak. I guess I am happier this way.

August 23, 2014

I can no longer feel. Everything is loud and crowded. My morning coffee, The sunlight. The faces. Circles taking me and tossing my brain. I will close my eyes and start over another day. Maybe another day.

I don’t like loud people. Those who want to speak, who listen to you only to come up with an answer. I am more with the silent, yet outspoken. The kind, the misfit. They make me wonder about what’s going on in their heads. Those I cannot always read. These people are the most exciting thing in the world.

It’s a nice August afternoon. The beach looks surreal in the dawn. My hair is light. Fishermen in the morning. Humming sounds of water as they travel. The little island looks bright. But I miss November. I need to feel things. I need a lively newness.

September 1^st, 2014

There are days when there are no words in the holes between my ribs. I seek books; listen to the echoes of someone else’s vague existence.

I will let these inadequate thoughts rest, and breed. I will feel better in the morning.  I will be genuinely interested in people, their lives, again.

Today I am lonely. I will spend my life missing people I never met. The void they crease. Their absence. Life would be bearable if they were here. Will they ever be though. I feel the weight of a 100 years.

September 13^th, 2014

Although Algiers seemed underdeveloped in terms of what a new visitor can do. There was a certain rawness to it. The buildings, the faces, even the language, the welcoming people. They sort of look up to you, as a Tunisian national. I hate speaking like this… like a political scientist, almost humorless.  I want colorful patterns. Intriguingly sanguine patterns of language. I feed on them.


June 2015,

Second day of grief in this complex landscape called my Tunisia, yet even in your darkest moments, you continue to inspire me, as you always did. To see you beaten, defeated, again, while you try to stand back on your feet.You, who knows best the pains of being stabbed in the back, by your own children.

In your jasmin, in your bleeding, the world watched you with curiosity, at times with admiration, at others with grief, atmost with doubt. You were never perfect. Vulnerable. That's where your strenghth lies. And beauty. You know who you are and you believe in what you can be. You continue, you move on. You believe in the power of life and love over distruction, and death. You make things happen. You create. And will regenerate.

Your blue will overwhelm their darkness. Coming in endless shades and hues. One day, your rainbow will come. Now, trust me,you will overcome.

July 10, 2015

It is such an intimate experience, to see a new day rise, the first couple of hours, where everything seems to be in slow motion.To be awake to the freshness coming with the first rays of sun, the momentary silence of the streets, sounds of fishermen in the water slowly halting their activities, watching people as they crawl back to work. 
This day is fierce. This day is mine.


August 14, 2015

Yesterday, Tunisian women's day by the measure of the modern democratic world, a vacation day by the measure of a working woman, another random day, in a random week of the month, by the measure of Baya, a young lady living in Kairouan, a city in the south west of Tunisia, one of the most underdevelped. I will let my thoughts linger to imagine what would it be like, to be a woman there, and would it be like to be a man, a young man.

This is a brief, late Tunisian Women's day reflection, although I don't believe in such occasions ( Men's day, anyone? ), but I have to admit it. It made me think about women inspirations that I relate to, including the one that marqued me the most; my grandmother. Reflections about feminism and my biggest female support system, which taught me a lot about being a GROWN WOMAN; (and singing QB in the shower! )

To open yourself to people, to allow yourself to be unapologetically vulnerable, growing and embracing imperfections, to accept misfortunes with graceful fierceness, to keep your joie de vivre, make fun of life, and ourselves, to make things happen to you and those around you, to learn to be more of a woman, a memorable one.

Sepetember 9, 2015

Drops of ink,
In my solitary morning,
I try to catch,
My flamboyant words,
Impalbable, fleeting,
With the end of August.You play with your strings,My effervescent thoughts,Until they die,In my monring coffee.


November 25, 2015,

I will not hate, nor fear nor hide.Your terror, will never outburst my color. Nor will I seek revenge, and feed your expired martyrdom, your perishing seeds, mortal. I will grieve but will live, cherish in youthful joy this city, this world. Make an art out of this living, eclectic, vibrant, genuine. Just like my city, and that will be my tribute. 

February 7 2016,

I don’t want to forget today, I woke up feeling exactly like myself, with itching unwoven stories, all the layers, all the colors, the space between my bones, in sunny tenderness and yearning, for a new day. I love this milky newness of Sunday mornings, coffee stained cups, oh gentle January. This perfect ordinariness. Now I can give to the word.

February 14, 2016

Today, I have no exquisite words to throw on your complex mood. But I'll be forever expanding, forever unfolding, in different shapes and unexpected twists. I love to watch you hold your cigarette, your perfumed elegance, with Edite piaff playing in your head, and a melancholic joie infused look on your face, almost nostalgic. 

Will this unstuck my inspiration? Living through people sometimes. This dull ordinariness suffocates me. One must live in order to write. I dread Monday mornings.