thirty-eight

12:28:45

I'm stretching my legs during lunch break.

And enjoying the play of cool shade and sunshine circles that diverge and converge through the filter of leaves. It's cool and warm at once, like the weight of a broad thought that considers both melancholy and happiness.

This little courtyard has always been my refuge. It's small enough to be filled with a single person's presence, but large enough to accommodate those who walk in in twos or threes. It's evident that the first arrival owns the place from the way a he or she walks in, looks around, notices the occupant and walks back out. The circle of intimacy that I create by the simple act of sitting down pushes away those illiterate in the divisibility of space. I won't ignore you. On the contrary, I will gladly make room for you because I understand your need to interject a flight of stairs in between yourself and the crowd. Crowds to me are like starless night skies to a ship's captain: unnavigable.

My first contact with water could have been deadly. I was too young to remember, but my grandmother painted the picture for me. I was about three, scavenging the shore for shells and pebbles, when suddenly I decided to run straight into the river. Fortunately, my grandma saw my dash for mermaidom from the corner of her eye and dove into the water to yank me out before the current washed me blue. To this day, rivers bewitch me. There are so few here in Lebanon. I've learned to love the rhythm of tides and waves of the sea, buts its depths and endlessness frightens me. Crowds make me cower, crowded people too I cannot handle. I fare better on single currents.

And sometimes surfing the net. I've always been a lucky black widow in the world wide web.

Over the years I've ridden it to Tower, to Simply, to Botticelli, to White Russian, to Hugg and to Imaginary Extraordinary Him. The sea has currents too it seems and I will let them take you to their stories.