the challenge of reality

yesterday, after four hours of sleep, i thought that i  would not make it through the day without falling unconscientious on to the ground. i made it through the daylight hours and then crashed voluntarily and unconscientiously on to my bed for a few hours of slumber, re-emerged for a bit of work, writing, and then returned to another stint of four hours of sleep before the morning was upon me and with it a new day full of appointments and a long list of pending actions.

it all started well, i had the privilege of being able to vent "all" my ill formed perceptions about my own broken relationship with success. that "all" must be read like "some," it is just that i feel that there is much that i want to complain about success.

i am no foreigner to success, but to me this is one subject that i rather not handle, it is an hot potato of some sort, and i have memories of having my fingers burned time and time again. this is what i fight, the negative side of success, that which i call getting my fingers burned, that thing that hurts the most, how others end up interacting, and how i end up in a muddle. i have gotten used to muddles and i am tired of muddles. success is something i have gotten used to associate with both guilt and shame. no, there is no rationale here. none at all!

a dear friend who is recovering from a concussion after a fall some days ago while he was in kuwait, called yesterday. i am still savoring  that he called. he is a friend of mine with whom i enjoy an intimate and very privileged friendship, the other, the blond, the delicate one. other than the physical details, it seems that i use the same descriptives for all my relationships, friendships, and other i-ships.

ignoring and oblivious to that oddity of my friendships, we touched base on our malaises, he is rather busy with his life and his daughter, while i am rather busy with mine and my son. after he asked a second time about how i am doing, i vented for the second time yesterday, my uneasiness with myself, and when i told him that i have the distinct feeling that i live in a reality very far removed from that of those around me. he just said something that leaves me with a sensation of validation, while totally uncapable of recalling his exact words. strange!

i have honed my listening skills so that i can repeat verbatim a sequence in a negotiation, but then, when i am in an environment that i call home, that is, being with this friend, i seek validation. i search for nurturance, and it is as though the words themselves where not important, just what i wanted to hear, just my interpretation of it remains. besides validation, i also got the distinct impression that i fret and spend my energy unwisely on many an occasion.

the architecture of that abstract construct of my reality is fascinating. it is time to get back to my zafu, my running shoes and when all the pains of whatever abuse i have given my body, it is time to return to the tatami. it is time to throw it all away, once more. it is time to start fresh.

Technorati Tags: fluage, freedom, friendship, journal, reality, success, zen

rupture sous contrainte

yesterday evening i went for a walk with my legal-brained friend on our almost usual walk through the matte, to the new restaurant's terrace at the schwenllenmätteli, back up to the bärengraben and then to the rosengarten. granted that this is a rather scenic route, but yesterday it paled in comparison with the conversations that we had.

we had at one point a good chuckle about my proposal that we get married. after all, we do have great discussions, we do not have sex with each other, and we travel rather well together. granted that he is a disaster in the kitchen, be it with cooking or washing up, although he does conjure up a good salad every once in a while, as long as you do not mind enjoying it in disposable paper plates and plastic forks. he hates doing the dishes, even with a dishwasher, and he sticks by his guns.  really? i laughed, he laughed.

but that was later, before that, while walking on that part of the forested way where one well known bernese  patent attorney got shot to his death some years ago. we had a rather involved debate on monogamy, polygamy and polyandry. the patent attorney being shot somewhere along that path is unfortunately true, he had been a colleague of mine, and years earlier he made a decision that ended up costing him his life: he married a woman who later was convicted of having him shot.

my friend was trying to convince me of going with him to the pink beach in lausanne one of these days. although my moralist would have no problems to find itself in such a place, the rest of me seems to show little to no interest. i just find myself in the odd situation of my friend thinking of me as being rather a professor of monogamy, while the practice in my life has been one of polyandry. either sex is no longer as important as it once was, or i am getting old, or both, but somehow, i seek peace and quiet spots, or the tatami of the dojo or zendo. yes, and not only. still, the pink beach is on neither my public nor on my hidden agenda.

the situation gets just a tad odder when considering that another friend of mine who professes monogamy has at present implicitly intoned a few questions as to where i stand in this whole thing. so far i have either ignored or overheard the intonements. for me it is easy. polyandry always came easily to me, if it happens it happens, i do not go out looking for it. the only odd thing here being that i am female and close to the arab culture, where polyandry is just not "in" these days, although polygamy is still prevalent. however most men can not  afford polygamy, even in saudi arabia, and thus, for rather practical economical reasons, stick to monogamy, and the usual path of divorce and remarriage like any where else on earth.

to me none of this is surprising, and then i very quickly forget that i must live in another reality. this reality of mine might be parallel to that one reality that is totally foreign to me and is lived by my neighbors and contemporaries. our conversation last night would have been much too trivial had it been limited to the question of the nature and plurality of my sexual relationships. it would have been not just trivial, it would have been insignificant.

prompted by the sight of the type of man whom i find rather attractive, spotted on the terrace of the schwellenmätteli, tall, blond, slender and a bit delicate, we continued our discourse on my present spectrum of relationships. once again, in my wonderfully empty life, there are wonderful relationships, and the conversation turned to two men who to me are not even on the same plane of the manifold of my reality, and to whom i maintain rather intimate and very distinct relationships.

one is dark, tall and classically handsome, and by far, not what on the physical plane gets my attention at the distance. yet, to this tall dark and handsome man i maintain a rather formal and distant relationship which is very inspiring and gratifying on the non-physical plane; he is a muse, he is a projection of my ego, and i have great admiration and respect for him. the idea of even flirting with the thought of being sexually intricated with him falls into some black hole of my conscientious, and there is nothing there feeding my curiosity.
the other, blond and delicate, just as strong in character, is a totally different story. when no restrictions are to be respected, we touch, and before we know we have fallen into each other's arms and forgotten all suffering.

all being the same, the issue is not about these two, or any other men. it is sunday, i have spent the whole day working, and now this issue returns like a nasty little fungus that fails to understand its undesirability in its tenacity and impertinence. the issue is at the core of me, it is that wavering uncertainty about my own right to existence. do i have a right to exist?

perhaps not. just consider that nobody and nothing has a right to existence. existence is not a right. existence happens, it is not a right. the sun shines, the river flows downhill to the ocean. we are all born naked and screaming. but all we want is food, sleep and sex. humans are wonderfully simple animals dabbling, struggling and inventing the abstract while pretending to be something else, while the while, when push comes to shove, we are animal.

causality is one hell of a catastrophe. i have no right to exist, yet i am, i have no right to life, yet i live. i have no right to conscientiousness, yet i am conscient.

perhaps i could stop asking the questions that lead no torture. if not there are all those toys at the pink beach meant to put existentialism on a realism plane.

Technorati Tags: bearpit, bern, berne, conversation, fluage, rosengarten, words

i love summer rain

finally i stopped complaining, worrying, and turning around in circles and i went to see my personal physician's vacation replacement. the fellow is not a total stranger, he is a neighbor,
on thursday i decided that after running and feeling more pain, that it was time to stop the procrastination. on friday morning i gave the practice a call, and got an appointment for the afternoon. after i told the good man all there was to tell about the history of this discomfort and he had me a few diagnostic tests, he came up with the conclusion this looked not like arthritis or an inflammation, rather it could be overuse, or some wrong movement...  the blood test confirmed that there is no inflammation. ok, there is something on my left hand that got x-rayed, but i do not know what that looks like yet.

much relieved i went to practice in the evening, and discovered at least one movement which i may have been doing wrong and that may be at the root of all of this. the minute my body showed me this, then i had to think of one of my sensei who has several times pointed this out to me, and somehow i have never really got it. well, i got what he said, it made then no sense to me, it makes perfect sense to me now. so that was it! i think it is time that i stop staring at him when he tells me such stuff.

Technorati Tags: floue, fluage

worrying, chewing gum and the tsunami

i am really hard pressed today to claim having done any useful work. it was one of those days for throwing in the towel.

went running, and yikes... no, that did not go well.
ah... there are days when all that happens does not seem worth of any notice, or is it that those are exactly the days that make a difference?

had a few conversations with my son about life, philosophy, enlightenment and other stuff, to say nothing of trying to free an old server from its motherboard.  the conversations were good, but the old server we can toss.

Technorati Tags: , enlightment

rubber bands for the soul: i have left so many loves stranded on so many beaches

a man's face on the wooden board of ideas in my atelier looks away as i write. i write, i do not type. i can not type, i can not even spell, much less punctuate, yet, i write. i look at his face and i get the idea that somehow all is well, the world and i are at peace.

the man with the peace inspiring face once pulled my body close to his and i felt the physical intensity of his being, while unable to distinguish desire for movement from desire for warmth, i was left feeling part of his world without any ambition of ever belonging. i had found a muse. my muses inspire, and leave me free from the ills of possessive desires. these muses are men, but for a being who formed "its" identity inspired by a male, men, are the natural source of inspiration since they provide me with the best mirrors i can find in humanity.

today is filled with anxiety. i will not even?? try to understand this anxiety, for me it is time to savour it. my bones hurt; my personal physician is on vacation for the next two weeks, and i do not feel like going to a stranger. my bones have hurt for weeks, i have procrastinated and rationalized for weeks, eased by the fact that during training do i rarely feel my pain. sometimes the thought that it might be something nasty, not just arthritis, occurs, and i find myself not caring. now, you are allowed just one guess as to what the theme of the story i am working on is.

i got up and then found myself doing something that i have wanted to do for a while, a first step in the editing of "out of context" now published as a blog very much as a first draft, full of punctuation errors, to say nothing of lopsided sentences. i want to indulge in the editing, and i do not dare the indulgence. first i must complete the present project. anxiety, as the dictionary claims, is that state of muddled up doubt and fear of ever impending doom lurking in the immediate horizon. no, the dictionary does not put it in those terms. before and exam or a very important public appearance, i can count on diarrhea as though trying to get rid of the fear and apprehension. the fear of failure, the disappointment of not looking good, the apprehension about being though a fool.?? no, those who know me, will never have guessed that being on the spot light is something that frightens the daylights out of me. at least, if not the daylights, certainly the bowels get discharged. bowels can perhaps not be equated to daylights, but you get the idea. still, anxiety is a dark diarrhetic state of ill being.

i look at his face, and i know that i can do it. it is about success, success without guilt nor shame. just as i write these words, i know there is something infinitely sweet in them. truth has always eluded me as the biggest lie ever. the trouble with the english language is its fucked up insistence in ignoring orthographical differentiation. still, with all its imperfections and ambiguities, this is the language which i have chosen to colonize and make mine. lie down and die, cast your die and and lie. how sweet it is to have been held in your arms, and how sweet it is to have experienced those fleeting moments of energy and movement! that, my friends, is ecstasy, that is it! that is what i fear.

we are all fucked up about the fact that what we like the most, we claim to be improper. human nature, if it is anything at all, it is contradictory, not just fuzzy, but plain contradictory. between lies about lays, and being fucked up about sex, we exist. that is not the truth, that is sweet. but then i love the way stephen king writes, and his stories bore me, while i delight both in the style and the stories of doris lessing.

it could be that, as doris lessing says, unhappy childhoods seem to produce fiction writers. i have yet to claim either an happy or an unhappy childhood, only because i have never quite claimed my childhood, much less have i attempted to classify it in general sociologically sugar coated nouns. happiness goes right along with truth, and it too, abounds in the realm of the Chimera. happiness is not what i experience after an orgasm, then it is either exhaustion, thirst, or the need for sleep. at least that is not what i call happiness, for that particular sensation is?? beyond the claviature of my being, i do not know how it sounds, tastes or smells, and after a good run along the beach, then i also feel exhaustion, thirst and sometimes the need for sleep.

this story is one that i am feeling down through my bones. gratitude is what i feel when i look at that peaceful face of a man who to me represents ease, speed and focus. will i claim my own childhood, or does it matter how many loves i have left stranded on those beaches?

Technorati Tags: anxiety, beach, childhood, chimera, fluage, inspiration, muse

opening today and symbols

DSC 6797, originally uploaded by intutum.

that i woke up startled by fragments of a dream in which one character in my life appears without much ceremony and with the remembrance of the feel of his body against mine has absolutely nothing to do with either the architecture of Renzo Piano or the art of Paul Klee.

the Zentrum Paul Klee opens its doors to the public today for the first time in Berne, the forever forgotten capital of Switzerland that also forgot good old Paul a lot of times until he was rather dead.

i forget!

and how very often do i forget?

to begin with, i have not been much in a blogging mood. secondly, i would be hard pressed to label the mood that i have been on or in or out of.

it is like this, i am doing exactly that i thought that i would not have the guts, skills or desire to do, and at that, that is exactly what i want to do. i am working round the clock, i am reading a lot, and i am taking concerted action towards goals that i have had for a long time. within a few months i will be more specific as to what these goals are.

i have however disrupted my routine of getting up at 5, and i do miss it, so it is time to get back to it.

it is a good thing that i often forget... because sometimes i am fuming mad.

Technorati Tags: atlantic

Cool Calm & Collected

Cool Calm & Collected
Posted by: rabani.

Your environment doesn't affect you much. It is how you perceived or make of it. Or deal with it.

irimi nage: no guilt, no shame

there are days when it all flows: it is one of those days.

i got up much later than the default time of five in the morning. there were good reasons for this, all not too terribly impressive, ranging from going to bed late and being tired. these last few days have been intensive to say nothing of the last few weeks.

yesterday before going to sleep i did take two capsules of ibuprofen (isobutylpropionic acid) in an attempt at self diagnosing what has been a rather bothersome and persistent pain on the left side of my skeleton (foot, shin, hip, shoulder, elbow) that has had me more worried than just the physical discomfort could account for. my symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis or degenerative arthritis are nothing new, and it is something that i can live with rather well. yesterday i felt the pain down to the marrow of my bones, and at one point during the morning training i was in the verge of tears. it was at that point that i faced my discomfort and continued to train.  what brought me to the verge of tears was not the physical discomfort, it was my body working through the challenges that i have created in my life. since i have recently gone to visit my family physician for what have seemed at the moment emergencies that turned out to be nothing more than the fact that my body reacts rather wisely to the strains that i put it through in the weekly regime of a dozen hours of training, i hesitated in again seeking out medical advice. my family physician is someone whom i hold in high professional esteem, nonetheless i am still the one that knows this body, physiology and psychology better. clearly if my body did not react to the ibuprofen, then i had cause to worry and seek out my good friend in his practice. this morning i woke up without pain, returned for a couple of snoozes and by the time i got up, it was close to nine in the morning, and with all the worry and preoccupation, i had neglected to look into my calendar last night or this morning to see what was on the agenda besides the stream of continued work.

i was surprised when the door bell rang at nine. i was at my desk going through the morning news and having my coffee. it was a good friend, we had planned the kick off of a joint project for this morning. this is a project that is important to me, important to both, and to which my commitment is unwavering, yet i had forgotten about the immediacy of the appointment in my pain yesterday, and in my relief this morning. although i had forgotten for the instant, i had prepared for the appointment, and we got in three hours of work and got the project going.
later in the afternoon i went to the post office, and the books i had ordered had come in, so had another book that i had ordered at one of the local bookstores. all the books that came in were related to the project.

now i look at my office and atelier, and frankly i could use some organization here, it is a blessed mess in much need of order. i no longer subscribe to the idea that a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind. insanity may be very mine, and while once more i listen to arabic music while writing this blog, i wonder how much blogging i will be doing in the next three months. what is clear to me is that yesterday on the mat i broke through some barrier of mine. my body is much wiser than my rather intellectual ego.

while last summer i had plans that included a lot of time at the beach, i will not be going to the beach this year until about september, and right now i am bound to the alps, and a few outings to germany and france.

Technorati Tags: floue, fluage, trafal, zoom

do i really care about you*?

you, the many faces of you*. do you think that i care about you?


how many words are there to designate a teacher?
teacher is much too plain.  professor, coach, sensei, master, guru, teacher just the same, whatever the word, whatever the title, you are a teacher. but where are the leaders?

"... she invariably asked the questions. the questions were not always the same, yet the story is but one. one story that i saw here in the corner of the sitting room, her body draped over the old green canapé, an amounted something of humanity, a being in desperation."

when one of you is my muse, then who am i? are you my muse then when you are being my creative spirit? you are not one of the nine sister goddesses associated with the graces in greek mythology and considered to be presiding over learning and the creative arts. yet i care about you. why would i care about you, when i certainly do not care for you? would i care for you if i had the chance? would you still be the muse if i let you come within reach?

if i knew the answers, would i share them? if i shared the answers, would that make a difference? but, do i really care?
when one of you is my lover, then who am i? are you my lover when we are miles apart? right now i can not bear either the thought of you returning, nor the thought of you disappearing. i wish i did not wish, and i wish i knew, yet, i do not know. why would i care about you?
if i do not know, why do i ask all these questions? do i want to know?

Technorati Tags: fluage, muse, music, night, unfocused

wer erfand den avocado?

ok, i am not into paper mail. i suspect that is due to the fact that i get too few love letters. i get none, and that is indeed a good thing, i would most certainly not be able to deal with it at any rational level, much less at some emotional level. that said, what on earth am i rambling about?

that i had a most interesting time yesterday? yes i did, but i am not willing at this point to blog about it; the episode was much too precious and the storyteller is much too greedy.

once a week i go to my post office box and get my paper mail. usually it is mostly bills and other correspondence that gives me quite a bit of back office work of which i am not necessarily very appreciative. in simple words, bills, taxes, and the whole administrative bungle that goes with my civil life. ah! and you thought that i did not have a life!!! but then, you think?

today i trodded down to the post office after i did the lunch time friday grocery shopping, was expecting a book order to come in, instead there was a package with three bottles of rather fine wine. once again, so much for expectations.

i write best to the sound of J. S. Bach's music, today i am listening to Abdul Majeed Abdullah instead, you go figure! it must be the mildly warm temperatures in the helvetic capital and the amusement of expectations failed, or my longing to find myself again in the middle east. for years i have been looking for an opportunity to travel to yemen, and for al i know i might not be ready to deal with the place, and my local foreign office does not necessarily recommend travel to yemen. slowly it is starting to dawn on me why i have a certain affinity risky endeavors. finally i am starting to get what it is that has people climb the north face of the eiger, trek out to mount everest, risking life and sanity. risking sanity can only be a positive proposition, however most of us hold dearly on to life, especially when spiritually dead.

among my pile of the usual administrative paper mail, there was a marketing brochure inviting to participate in the Royal Open in Evian and experience the Evian Masters golf course. i read the brochure with great amusement. the royal parc evian hotel is indeed pure luxury, and just across the lake from lausanne, a short and agreeable boat ride away. i have had the privilege and good fortune of being invited to sojourn -- yikes! what does english do to beautiful french words? --  there last year, and ever since then i get regular post from the hotel management, although they ignore my blogging  activity, and even if they don't, what is certain is that "cairo otaibi" is not on their database, although other otaibis may be. all out of context jokes aside, the truth for me is that it is indeed a pleasure to be constantly reminded of how rich the world is, not just the otaibi clan, although as a large saudi clan, it has of all kinds among its members. although i am fond of hiding my contempt in subtle sarcasm, there is none here. i just woke up in a story telling mood today and the sheer confrontation with luxury makes me reflective and grateful that i am where i am, doing what i am doing.

that said, who invented the avocado anyhow?

Technorati Tags: evian, france, lac leman, lausanne, switzerland, unfocused

how retarded is RS?

Wired News: The Washingtonienne, a Novel:
On May 16, Robert Steinbuch, a staff attorney for DeWine, filed a federal invasion-of-privacy lawsuit against Cutler, identifying himself as the "R.S." of Cutler's blog, citing her written references to his "spanking and hair pulling" during their bedroom antics and claiming to be a victim of her writerly ambition, resulting in "humiliation and anguish beyond that which any reasonable person should be expected to bear in a decent and civilized society."

(i am so disappointed with the admission boards of some law schools!)


Robert Shapiro, justice will prevail!

Roger Samson, life is beach, so why did you pull the plug on the full bathtub?

Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain - New York Times

Watching New Love as It Sears the Brain - New York Times:
"New love can look for all the world like mental illness..."

just do not take my word for it. with or without NYT, that is what it feels like, like an obsession. to me, that euphoric feeling of desiring somebody is not love, it is a possessive obsession. it is a feeling, it is fleeting, and if it serves anything at all, that i do not care to elaborate on. that state of confusion often referred to as "being in love" is nothing like what i call being in love with life itself. the latter is peaceful, nothing like the sheer madness of the former that feels like a curse. whenever i fall pray to it, i am left with nothing more than to take a few deep breaths.


many thanks to my friend who initially pointed out this article to me.

Technorati Tags: falling pray, NYT