The first books I read for Kamal Salibi were The Bible Came From Arabia followed by Who Was Jesus. I remember spending a whole day and night locked in my room until the faint morning light crept through my window and I'd realized that it was the next day and I was still without a second of sleep. It was November and it was raining outside and foggy and just typical of London. I always loved the weather in London when I looked out of the window - but never when I had to walk out of the door. I had class - and I wanted to speak to my professor about the books - so I changed and braved the rush hour of the tube to get to school.

I used to love our professor, this Indiana Jones type of character who had converted to Islam and married a Muslim woman and stunk of alcohol. I assume he consumed whiskey like water, probably even used it to wash his face and brush his teeth. I was much younger, and I don't mean just in years, and I had found in him someone who was ready to answer my questions in a very captivating manner and from a place of experience and knowledge that I lacked. After class, I followed him to his office. I was at that time most interested in researching and studying the three monotheistic religions, hence why I felt it necessary to study contentious work that defied convention - regardless of whether it was complete and utter nonsense - such as Kamal Salibi or Patricia Crone or Christoph Luxenberg amongst others. As I sat in the mess that was his office, he talked to me about a paper he wanted to share with me that addressed the issue of Paraclete/Parakletos in the Gospel of John. He had always been interested in finding and emphasizing the nexus between, especially, Islam and Christianity.

I told him I had been reading Salibi's works on the Bible. He pleaded with me not to waste my time on such works. "Why?" I exclaimed. "Because it is, to say the least, an exhilarating read, however it is based on an unsound foundation of merely philological examination of history with complete disregard to archaeological evidence and without a multi-disciplinary investigation of varied sources." I remember I did not like how he brought me down and I did not understand why - at least not right away. Now that so many years have passed and I have read Salibi's seminal A House of Many Mansions, I understand what Professor Indiana Jones there was trying to convey to me. Salibi, in this book, presents a reinterpretation of the Lebanon myth(s) and a departure from an earlier history of Lebanon which he had written several decades earlier. While I feel that Salibi is good at disregarding certain facts when writing history (as with many in the business of writing and rewriting history), this book qualifies as a fine examination of the different perceptions of the history of Lebanon as held by the different politico-sectarian groups within the Lebanese makeup. It is one of his best regarded works, particularly when compared with his controversial studies on the history of the Bible.

I am regretful that I had to cancel on a chance to have tea with him some time last year. I had a pressing matter to attend to and I somehow took it for granted that the opportunity to meet with Salibi would not be lost. I wonder what I would have said to him or whether I would have been star struck. My friend tells me that Salibi was quite expansive and talkative and that I would have been at ease talking, rather listening to him. Anyways, I wanted to say something or write something about this man. That he is really brave for asking the questions he did and for looking at the world from a different angle and for undertaking such research and arriving at such conclusions. Whether there may be some truth in his postulations or whether he was completely mistaken. At least he tried. Now that he has passed from this world, I wonder if he has come to learn the truth of what there is after death, who Jesus really was, and whether the Bible came from Arabia.

Here is an excerpt from A House of Many Mansions, which, sadly, still holds true for our Lebanon even after the passing of several decades :

"Officially, the Lebanese Republic still exists within its internationally recognized borders, and so does the state...The state [in reality], however, has long ceased to exercise sovereign control over its national territory. There remains an administrative bureaucracy which continues to provide a cover of legitimacy to public and private transactions, as well as a minimum of public services of deteriorating quality. Otherwise, particularly where security is concerned, citizens are left to fend for themselves. In different parts of the country, different Christian or Muslim gangs are in control...The people of Lebanon remain as divided as ever; the differences among them have come to be reflected geographically by the effective cantonization of their country, and by massive population movements between the Christian and Muslim areas which have hardened the lines of division.


In all but name, Lebanon today is a non-country."

While I drove back home last night, I was blinded by the high beams of this ambulance coming up behind me. I moved over and in a few seconds it had disappeared into the dark. That feeling of sickness in my stomach - that I seem to have been carrying around recently - intensified twofold. I think the ambulance was probably driving at more than 160 kmh. I know because I, too, was driving like I had an urgency. How very irresponsible on my part. I know. But I longed to get home from what seemed the longest drive of my life. A bit exaggerated but it seemed unending. I could only think of how I still needed to park the car, go up to my house, get out of my heels and clothes, get into something comfortable, brush my teeth, wipe my mascara and just hope that exhaustion would numb me into sleep. A few moments later I drove past the scene of the accident, which involved three cars and it seemed terrible. I recited a quick prayer and kept driving as fast as I could.

When I was going through some old boxes earlier tonight, I happened on a stack of old photographs that I had overlooked and forgotten about. I sat on the floor and spread out the photographs.

Before me was another world. A world that my mother, father, and grandparents belonged to and loved – and often poeticized – and that itself belonged to the past. Not much a distant past because, in some absurd way, I belong to a segment of this past. Who I am is inescapably a consequence of this past that preceded me.

There was a photograph of my grandmother sitting on a chair and behind her was her portable little radio. She looked like she had been caught by surprise in a moment of unreadiness. She was never one to enjoy posing for the camera. I remember sometimes – whenever it wasn’t the news - Umm Kulthoum’s voice on the radio resonating across the house as my grandmother prepared lunch. I had no idea what Umm Kulthoum looked like until one day I saw this woman through the television set standing on stage with her handkerchief reciting in the same voice I heard from the radio. There was an eroticism, in the noble form of the word, that she represented and that later when I grew older, I fell deeply in love with.

That was the television, which represented for me a world of endless possibilities. I was enthralled by its images, sounds and stories. I would wait for everyone to disappear into the kitchen or sit on the balcony and I would take up my favorite hobby – after, of course, playing dress-up in grandma’s shoes and frocks. I was particularly fascinated with old films from Egypt, and I was living vicariously. There was something magical about this melodrama of forbidden love in black and white from the golden years of Egyptian Cinema. But then, I became more interested in colored films from the 60s with the typical virginal heroines and later with the slightly unrestrained women of the 70s. And most of these films, in some way, inspired what cannot be described in words, a certain feeling of sadness - but one that rarely concluded without that glimpse of hope.

And the reason for this excursion? Maybe my attempt to confer meaning on a past that seems to be weathering away, for which I feel a deep sense of regret...

It is nearly five hours past midnight and I can hear the adhan in the background. For as much as it is soothing, it reminds me more than anything of how awfully tired I am.

I walk to the balcony where I sit and write against the backdrop of buildings that have long gone to sleep. I feel stifled by an intense kind of fear. Most of my days I live in a sense of panic that does not necessarily seem to be connected to anything in particular. Or it could be that my stomach is ulcerated. Sometimes I even rethink my need to be around people, even the dearest of people to me. I just feel unable to contain their sounds and voices and words and emotions.

I think I am starting to lose the dream in my heart. This said, it could be very possible that it is only a feeling that shall pass once I get some sleep. I will sit here for a few more moments and listen to this beautiful song that takes me to younger, and happier, days.

It has not been particularly hot this summer, unlike last year. But, many things were different last year... A few days ago it rained in the early hours of the morning, and the day persisted in greys. And today I sat in a bistro with a friend and I could feel the sun shy. It hardly worked its way down my shoulders. I watched a few tourists walk in and out, several women engaged in conversation, and a young couple lounging in the corner. There were very few people around us and many tables were empty. It is as if autumn has arrived – sooner than its time. Somewhere after main course, I could feel a little bit sick to my stomach. It is difficult to explain such a feeling or why it happens to me these days. The most I can say is that the numbness is gone and I am now, perhaps, a bit terrified. But what has made me this way? And my natural instinct is to run away. Or escape but I long more to be found. And I find myself in the midst of a dance, where change and loss flicker around me in a complex reciprocity. I am not sure what to do about it. Sometimes, it is all too much for me. But I love it – maybe because this new, in all its unpredictability, promises beauty, just immense beauty.

Feeling introspective tonight.

I have been trying to learn this beautiful piece over the past few weeks. I will eventually be able to play it without looking at the notes. But, tonight I just want to listen to it. And I want to think of that beautiful little French city on the river. And how far from it I have come.

Sorrow - dark, sweet, poisonous - follows me. Sometimes it is fierce and glaring, following closely ahead, every time threatening to subdue me into disability. Sometimes, it is but a shadow that walks behind or beside me, rushing after me in every direction, that it becomes an extension of my self. Sometimes it visits me in the night, as a stabbing pain, or as an augury of death, driving away the slumber from my eyes. Sometimes it paralyses me with fear, that the fear of living becomes more immense than the fear of dying. Sometimes it hangs over me, drawing the kohl on my eyes, and lining the smile from my lips that I seem almost without sorrow. However so, we have never been closer, sorrow and I.

hüzün in Istanbul

For twelve months, I studied the Ottoman Empire in hopes of one day referring to myself by the boastful title of Ottomanist. I spent many sleepless nights learning the mosques of Istanbul (and Bursa, and Edirne) with absolute devotion. One evening in March I decided to miss class for sleep and was awakened by a phone call from my classmate. She told me that my essay scored the highest in our class. I almost fell off my single bed. I rushed to share the great news with my flatmates - or rather lined the five of them up to have them watch me dance around in a few moments of transient happiness. This was nearly half a decade ago.

However, this fascination for, particularly, the mosques of this period never escaped me. I always imagined that one day I would find myself in the presence of such magnificence as the Süleymaniye or the Selimiye or the NuruOsmaniye or the Fatih or the Sultanahmet. And that they would cause my heart to stop beating. Indeed, for a few seconds.

Below her skyline of domes, minarets and towers, Istanbul is a city that overwhelms the onlooker. With all her colors, textures, smells, sounds, and flavors. Sometimes my head would become overfilled with all things Istanbul. I would often escape into silence on the balcony of my hotel. I would sit in the early evening on my own and watch the Bosphorus in peace - away from all the noise, the hustle and bustle, the people. 

When I walk through the streets and bazaars of Istanbul, my companion has been Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul: Memories and the City. At moments, such as when the sun is setting and the sky is an orange hue, I would look for "hüzün". Or melancholy. In his memoir, Orhan Pamuk devotes a whole chapter to the "hüzün of an entire city", which he explains is shared amongst the inhabitants of Istanbul. 

"To feel this hüzün is to see the scenes, evoke the memories, in which the city becomes the very illustration, the very essence, of hüzün." 

This "hüzün" is a collective melancholy that is rather poetic than just sad, just dispirited, just despondent.

Perhaps I have felt this "hüzün" in the few places I have been. In London, the winds of late September arrive, the paths are covered with fallen leaves, a palette of crimson and gold washes across the oaks and chestnuts, wayfarers rush to escape the imminent frost, the sky is grey and veiled with clouds, the sun goes into hiding, sometimes emerging only to take leave moments later, red double deckers whir down the streets, followed by black cabs, and hurried bicycles, and as the day ages, the air grows progressively colder.
  
And many miles away in another city, I sit on this bus as it drives by the Bosphorus. I lay the book on the empty seat next to me, and I stop to look from the window. Red wooden summerhouses and baroque palaces line the waterside, ferryboats are travelling across and their reflection on the waters are outlines of crimson, amber, emerald and azure and people are walking before this perpetual tableau. How could I capture such that is only felt? And only passing? One day I shall look back on this fleeting moment of "hüzün" and I shall wonder if ever I were here. 

old habits die hard

It is dark here and everyone is asleep in the house. I walk to the kitchen and open the fridge. I feel a prevailing sense of loneliness. I thought it would disappear once I had returned to Lebanon. It hasn't. But, it is slightly less biting than the loneliness I felt earlier this spring within the walls of my modern studio in the heart of London.

I was looking for something tantalizing to put in my mouth and there in the corner in the lower compartment was a basket full of cigarette boxes. Brand new cigarette boxes still in their plastic film. Partagás, Cohiba Club, Davidoff Slims, Glamour Menthol, More, Vogue SuperSlims. Some of these names I never knew existed and I have spent one third of my life with cigarettes. In my house, they like to collect these lovely looking cigarette boxes. But, they never touch them. Except for one box of Cohiba Club that had already been opened - maybe many months ago - and was missing one cigarillo. The first thing that came to my mind was that I could steal a cigarillo and smoke it on the balcony. But I didn't. Not because of my high sense of obligation towards a promise I made more than three years ago. But simply because I just could not be bothered to be reincarnated into my 16 year old self. Sneaking onto the farthest corner of the balcony and lighting a cigarette at 3 am. Maybe some other time.

Instead, I thought I'd write about it. But, I had already made my grand departure. Who's going to take me seriously again? Well, I don't care too much anymore about what is right or wrong. And I am not very sorry for the big farewell. I truly did believe at that point that I did not want to write. I had promised myself I'd stop writing once it became a burden. And I did stop. I felt such a great sense of relief. Like I had unloaded a crate of bananas from on my shoulders.

I guess the only thing in life that is constant is change. And, I have had a change of mind. I want to write again. I want to print my own words in this black void of (cyber) space. In the other dimension of reality, I have dressed myself in a slightly stiff exterior recently. It is my way of shielding myself. From being vulnerable again. To my own foolish dreams. However, deep down, very deep down, I want to escape these walls I have locked myself within. And here is the place where I could set myself free on a little recess like when we were back in school.

A few days ago, I was on the phone to one of my good friends. She told me how she wanted to return to the world of blogging, how she would adopt a new identity and discuss whatever the hell was on her mind. I felt a sense of wistfulness and I told her how I was beginning to regret "liquidating" my blog. She advised me to follow her example: return with a new persona. While I carry more individuals than I can count in this one little frame, I could only be posh lemon the blogger. To the outsider, this name may represent nothing or maybe someone very silly and pretentious. I don't know. To me, it is my only and dearest nom de plume.

At my first residence in London, I made so many friends - more males than females for obvious reasons (female jealousy and all that). But, they were all lightweight, most of whom are no longer part of my life (or even my facebook). But some remained... A few of these were three unforgettable Black British girls, two from the Caribbean and one from Africa. We became close, the best of friends actually and I had the most amazing time with them - until I started believing the title they had given me. Posh is what the title was. They called me Posh all the time. And Lemon - well, apart from my appetite for limes, lemons, citrus fruits and all things sour, I always wished my parents had called me Lemon. Instead, they picked for me a much less than ordinary name.

I am back. I guess old habits die hard.

This is my last post. Goodbye.

So, it's that time when I write this farewell post. I've said goodbye once before - back in February 2009. But I didn't truly mean it. I didn't even delete my posts and archive. I didn't limit my blog. And I resumed only 3 weeks later.

But this time I mean it. I have given this much and enough thought. And my reasons are many - which I shall not get into. But, I'll just say that it is a feeling that this blog has overstayed it's welcome, and that it has exhausted its charge. However, those 4 years of blogging have, dare I say, changed my life.

I actually had a beautiful post in my draft folder that I had wanted to publish in June. I talked about my trip to the states and how it's been almost a year since I stood in the airport in California and waved goodbye in tears. I stood there and it crossed my mind for a split second, that maybe had it not been for this blog, for being posh lemon, I wouldn't be there in that moment of time. My life, indeed, took a different turn. Maybe I'll leave this for a future book deal - I pray I get one.

And, after over 6 months of deliberation, I finally took this brave decision to delete almost 4 years worth of posts. A small legacy. A posh lemon legacy - if I may.

For those of you who have been reading this blog and sharing your valuable comments and advice, thank you so much. For those of you who have written me emails and had to wait for days and weeks for a procrastinating Posh to respond to you, thank you so much (for being patient with me). For those of you who were tempted so many times to tell me off or lambast me but never did, thank you so much (for sparing my already soft feelings). And for those of you who have invited me to meet and build a "real" friendship and had to bear a rejection from me, thank you so much (for not taking offense and for understanding. I am flattered and I do have some regrets)

And for those of you few bloggers (and you know yourselves), whom I got to know on a personal level beyond this blog, thank you for breaking and entering. I say breaking and entering because that's what happened. It was not necessarily my choice but I am glad it happened despite me. My life wouldn't have been the same. You have truly made that great difference because each of you are very special individuals in your own right. So, for being my friends, thank you so much.

I am not very far away. I am on twitter. As posh lemon. At least for the time being. And, I will still be here. Commenting on your posts. Checking your blogs out. Cheering you on. You can reach me any time.


Goodbye.