Twelve Months in Damascus

It took me a while to organize my habits and my life in Damascus. I continued to wear the "activist" template, I continued to be attached to the internet, going out meeting new people, till it hit me; I have only 12 months to stay in Syria, I have to make the best of it, and it has to do with my career.

It's 6:00 AM now, I woke up to begin applying my reading schedule. I am to write 100 pages for the next 12 months, and then I am heading to the US for my PhD. This year I am spending in Syria is going to decide which school I am going to go to in the US, good or bad; am I going to write a good dissertation? Good argument?

I am starting to feel worried, anxious, on a different level, on a selfish level. And I am starting to feel myself growing up. My life is starting to get serious.

I am preparing myself to take the GRE test next month, I am also going to start taking Hebrew courses for my PhD next month-I have decided that my specialty is going to be on Arab Jews' literature- and I am looking for a part time job.

I am professionally, happening.

One thing that worried/worries me about coming back to Syria is my parents. People tell me that yeah! It has been a while since you've been living on your own, it sucks when you're with family again. That implies that "not living three years alone" makes everything alright.

It has nothing to do with the three years I lived away from parents, or away from anybody's rules. It is not like things were fine, then I earned my autonomy that it is hard now to let go. Things weren't', aren't, won't be fine in any masculine family/society/system. The problem is not "me having three years of freedom", the problem is rather "not having freedom" in the first place.

So it's not "freedom" that makes things abnormal and hard for me, but rather "the lack of it" and it has always been this way.

In fact, these three years of "freedom" made me deal with the "lack of freedom" situation better; now when I hear a stupid thing, I say OK and go to my room, close the door behind me and all is gone. It can all disappear now, with closing the door, it didn’t before. Lebanon had made me step one step, the first step, to being a grown up woman.

Yesterday I thought of a slogan to launch a campaign against sexist men and patriarchal society:

من حقّي أن أخطئ

Which I might consider launch the thing if something bad happen.

Couple days ago I got back home after spending four hours in the national museum. Dad interrogated me about where and with whom I was..and I just looked at him..

Dad, in two months I am going to turn 27, I have lived in Lebanon alone for three years, don’t you wanna ask me about my experience there? What it made out of me?

Don’t you wanna get to know me dad?

Did you know, dad- and this is me talking to myself- that I wrote the first prose lines and I got the second poetry prize in Balamand University?

Did you know dad, that I have learned how to take photos and people ask me to use them?

Did you know dad, that I have made a lecture in front of 50/60 people?

You want to know the guy who was with me? that's it? no further questions? About me, perhaps?

"we're old friends dad, he's visiting Damascus. He works in Dubai".

Couple weeks ago, I learned that Itar Shame' are performing in Tiatro theatre, I went there, I saw them live, moving, I heard the voice that once came out of my recorder, I listened to the music, I looked at their faces, I am watching an awesome Syrian band singing live in front of me. Because of this real present moment, I never knew how proud I was for I am Syrian. I was proud of them.

They started at 9:00, my curfew ends at 10:30, which means I have to leave at 10.

I had to enjoy one hour of Syrian patriotic feeling.

Yeah, I miss Damascus, I miss "my" experiences with Damascus, My Damascus, I don't miss them, their stupidity, superficiality, simplicity, sexism, complexes, sickness, and I will never forgive them, they keep on making me retreating to closing the door. I don't want to close the door no more.

I can happen here as well, I want to happen here, I want here to happen, and I want to be part of its happening. It's silly for me, the Syrian, to happen not in Syria, which reminds me of Yazan father's words.

It is because of them, and because if "their" government, that I am not happen"ing". It won't be for too long though, I'm not that patient.

It occurred to me long time ago and I am recalling it again: that sexism, dictator Arab regimes and White West, have something in common: they have the power to marginalize others. We, the others wont happen, till we fight back.

One of the things I really like about dad, is that he appreciates education. "go and do whatever you want with your career, tistifli".

I am going to fight back, on all levels, when the time comes.

In Damascus, everything sounds familiar though I have changed, but my heart is still beating, I miss him, always, it hurts.

In Lebanon, my Syrianism is attacked, I blogged about it, now I feel my sexuality is attacked, I am going to be blogging about it.

Comments will be disabled from this blog. I am going to write addressing myself and honesty, rather than writing for a certain audience-in the back of my head.

I have chosen this blog title to decenter the "Damascus" among the Damascenes, among Syrians, I am interested in focusing about the invisible Syrians, the invisible Damascus, Iraqi refugees, Palestinian refugees, human rights' abuse, women abuse..etc.

This blog is going to be both personal, reporting and uncovering life conditions on some of the uncovered issues. Iraqi refugees, sexism and Syrians living around Damascus city, are my main concern at the moment. We'll see.

Twelve months in Syria, with him in my heart, I, the student, is starting to happen.