Happy Hands

The Prophet once said that, if you don't like something, change it with your hands first, then your mouth. (And if all fails, by all means, keep your mouth shut.)

One of the reasons why I'm so happy to work with my hands (and my mouth shut) is because my hands seem to make a more sustainable difference than my mouth.

I honestly enjoy making people writhe with pleasurable pain when I give them a massage. I enjoy seeing a neat pile of anything I sort out. I enjoy writing, because it's something that comes through my hands too.

Even the satisfaction is more real when the work comes through my hands, you know?

Our hands bring forth the fruits of our hearts and minds. Bless our hands, writers, cooks, builders, drivers, hairdressers, maids, surgeons, mommies and playful daddies, for the good things we do with our hands, make the deepest impact, carve the deepest memories, and affirm the deepest faith. Amen.

What good things have you been doing with your hands?

Kinda Happy

I've been too happy to blog.

Blogging Writing had been my way of expressing dissatisfaction toward Saudi, family, society, work, fucking every and anything. Since I became happy(er), I kinda lost my drive to write. That's a dear cost for happiness to take.

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I had to be happy now. There's so much dissatisfaction a girl can take in a life time, you know? I'm getting too old, too sober and aware of the shortness of my time on Earth to be unhappily dissatisfied, even for the sake of writing. It's about time that I welcome some joy in my life.

I'm talking about the simpler kinda happy. Not cackling victory, or gleeful laughter, or absolute absence of grief. Just happy. Just seeing the world as it is, and still finding happiness. Just looking at my failures and flops and still be happy anyway.

Then forgive myself for indulging it.

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Feelings are contagious, see? We infect the people closest to us with our feelings. It's just the watery way we are.

It's not selfish to indulge in it, because joy is a very good kind of infection. I got to hear people say that they're happy to see me happy. They're happy for me even though they don't understand how I could be happy. They're happy even though I'm off the conventional path of "happily ever after". They're happy for me even though and even if.

And that's kinda awesome.

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I want this kinda awesome to spread. Which is why I started writing blogging again.

I want you to -- at least -- smell happy when you read my writings. I don't know how people can be interesting without scandalous headlines and gossip juice. I don't know how to translate this calm, quiet kinda happy into writing.…but I plan to figure it out, and you're most welcome to join and wonder along.

…as long that it makes you happy too.

Saudi Family & Sex-segregation

ضع "السعودية" في جملة مفيدة…و لا أقول لك؟ ضعها في جملة و خلاص.

Untie is an article addressing the over-tightness of Saudi families. I would like to state for the record, that even though I think that you were so eloquently sexy in that article, Omran, I also think that YOU'RE WRONG and you're missing huge elephants.

In fact, families in Saudi are separated. Sex-separated, that is.

If having to go through life's milestones without your loved ones doesn't look like a broken family, then what does?

Define family

My mother couldn't witness my brother's wedding vows because it's an all-men ceremony. Even at the wedding reception, she can't really see her whole family celebrate together. Not really.

Sex-segregation or none, how about giving "family" its working definition? As family, we spend our days together whether good and bad and awful. Family members give each other first row stadium tickets in each other's live shows.

Because grief and joy are sexless and, in milestones, it's our family's approval we seek and fear, no matter how big a crowd we show for.

Taking away the right to be each other's witnesses is a dirty, emotional rip off. Aren't graduations, weddings and funerals the most important events that one would hope to go through together as a whole family?

I could care less if it's a grand wedding or Reverend Elvis in Vegas, when it comes to milestones (pinnacles of our everydayness) you can't just segregate loved ones from each other based the contents of their bras and briefs... It's just wrong.

Thou shall not remain a family when the crowd gets too big.

If Saudi hails itself as an Islamic country, where have the Saudis seen a hadith or Quranic verse that said: ولا تختلطوا. Where was there a religion in the world that said, thou shall not work and speak and mingle with the opposite sex?

I would love to know who came up with the idea of sex-segregation in Saudi (among other things). Because the bedus in the desert don't practice this kind of segregation. There's a sheet between where the parents and children sleep, but the desert and donkeys and darlings are together in joy and grief and scandals.

I heard that, in Jeddah, they're supposed to be more advanced than the bedus. I guess, even now, it can only go so far as the privacy of our Saudi living rooms.

More than Words

For someone with thousands of followers, the Timekeeper is a very, very quiet community leader.

Sure, he does his share of talking when he teaches and receives guests. When they ask for his advice. When a behavior requires scolding. Or forgiving. He’ll say enough to reinstate equilibrium but nothing more.

And with all that time he spends in public, nobody really knows him. Nobody really knows if he prefers mayonnaise or ketchup, or when his feet hurt, or when his heart breaks, or that being at his age feels like an engine running on secondhand spare parts.

Nobody asks either. Partially because most folks are too engrossed in themselves, and partially because they know that he carries too heavy a burden to bother anyone else with it.

But when it comes to sentiments, sincerity and soundness of mind, nobody doubts the Timekeeper’s silence. Much like when nobody doubted Buddha’s teachings when he reformed meditation. Or Muhammad’s trustworthiness when his tribe called him a delusional liar.

For we all know that words and silences are redundant in proving absolute truths.

Breaking Up Smooth

Are we not friends anymore?

No, we still are.

Are you going to stop loving me?

No, I still do.

We didn’t have sex when we dated, are we going to start now?

In your dreams, Hon.

So what’s the difference between dating and not? Just the relationship status?

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That was pleasant. Maybe some folks are too old and tired for drama. Age does that to people, you know; teach you thing or two about letting go and healing. Older folks are too forgetful to expect permanence and remember too well that all wounds heal. Some folks are just lucky enough to have romance outweighed with age.

A breakup is not the end of future involvements, not the end of respect and kindness for each other. A breakup can be an acknowledgment of unconditional love, whatever is the relationship status.