these three sentences are lined up according to chronological order... so the story starts like this:
once upon a time, not too long ago, i was sinking under layers and layers of work, plans, and Rihamiat project material and i realized that it has been a while since i last visited Momastery and i decided to do some blog reading and there it was, G's POST, saying "see you next year" not using these exact words, but she's taking her advent break and will be back when December is over. "Be Still" was G's ADVent ADVice and i thought well, my December is not that busy, i don't get my kids too many gifts anyways and when i told my son you're having 3 gifts this year just as many as baby Jesus received, he was quit thrilled, so maybe i shouldn't grab my organizer and pencil and start crossing out plans and cancelling events blindly, honestly, there isn't much on this month's page.... so what's the problem then? why does this "Be Still" STILL sound relevant? i thought for a moment then a drawer opened in my head, it wasn't stuffed with useless things, everything there was useful, practical, and much needed, i could also close the drawer easily without the need of squishing things and squeezing them together, but the problem with this drawer was its lack of categorization and you know how much i love CATEGORIES and COMPARTMENTALIZING my life and my everything... THAT's it then, this is why Riham is unable to function well, even though compared to others i appear to be well organized and things are perfectly planned, TO ME they are NOT... and in order to do some winter clean up to my drawer i need to "Be Still" so that i can have a clear mind and sharp eyesight to decide what's important to me and my family and what's not, to separate jewelry from junk (figuratively and literally... again, because of the Rihamiat project material).
the next chapter of this story arrived with my decision to take a break, not in the sense of doing nothing, but actually doing more, and doing it differently. Where's the break then? the break is stepping outside my comfort zone of familiar people and familiar places, as much as i love the small circle of people i know in this city (which is 99% composed of church members) i still needed a break, i needed to walk away for a while until i can say "i miss you guys" far enough to feel like going back again. so i signed up for a Christmas bazaar, a gathering of 40 different groups or individuals who have their own projects and business from food to crafts to clothes to leather bags to Christmas decoration ... you name it. the table rent was a bit expensive so i shared it with another lady who paints on cushions, so half the table had Rococo hand painted cushions and the other half had Rihamiat items.
i carefully selected which items to take with me on that day and accurately calculated the discount i want to add on some pieces. i didn't know what to expect during the 9 hours i'm spending on that chair but i was open and ready for anything and everything only to discover that one can't be fully prepared for "anything and everything" specially when the attack comes from your own memory with floods of images, feelings, smells, people's faces, songs and languages... it was overwhelming and at some point i felt that i can't take it so i remembered the "Be Still" technique and it seemed to work right then and there...
the general atmosphere was so familiar, when i was growing up, one year after another we used to organize and participate in Christmas bazaars just like this one, Christmas music, cold outside (it was the last day of the "Alexa" storm), warm and cozy inside with dim yellow lights in a beautiful huge room... there were pieces from my Damascus there... several times during the day i wondered just for a split second why people were speaking Egyptian Arabic and not Syrian!
then the language i heard brought back memories from my collage years in Beirut, i tried to remember words and sentences with some Christmas and New Year greetings too and shared it with a few people who spoke Armenian, they were total strangers and the Arabic they spoke was Egyptian (again not Syrian), but they made me miss my Armenian friends and a flow of memories rushed inside my head of how i first fell in love with the Armenian language and culture 13 years ago because i saw it through the eyes of my friends who were proud of their nationality and heritage just as proud as i am today of my Alma Mater, my Haigazian University...
little did i know that by logging out of my present i'll be automatically logging in-to my past and wearing the glasses that show me again who i am, where i come from, and how and where a major part of my character was shaped, these 9 hours spent on one chair at one table were a trip back in time visiting places so dear to me giving life to memories i stopped feeding for such a long time i thought were dead... in the middle of the trip i was still meeting new people, getting to know amazing potential friends, exchanging experiences and ideas with a fellow soldier on the battlefield of establishing her personal project... in every new encounter i had and during every hour of this bliss i felt grateful for my husband and mother who took turns looking after the kids until it was time for them to pick me up...
(by the way, the organizers of this huge event made sure all tables were covered with a nice green plain table cloth, but they gave us the freedom to change or add to it, so this was my "sharshaf aghabani" a Syrian red Christmas table cloth i chose to come along with me on this journey for luck, good vibes, positive energy... all of the above and much more)
whenever i felt weak and hungry during that adventure i would read a few lines and re-energize: "Minding the gap is a daring strategy. We have to pay attention to the space between where we're actually standing and where we want to be. More importantly, we have to practice the values that we're holding out as important in our culture. Minding the gap requires both an embrace of our own vulnerability and cultivation of shame resilience - we're going to be called upon to show up as leaders and parents and educators in new and uncomfortable ways. We don't have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with action." and i may add to Rene's paragraph Glennon's famous phrase: "We can do hard things".
towards the end of the day, Christine, the mastermind behind this event and the most energetic authentic extrovert i've ever met, came to my table with her big smile: "Izzayek (how are you) Riham? Eh el akhbar? (how is everything going)". i asked her about this henna tatto lady downstairs, i noticed her table earlier when i went down to grab a super tasty lasagna piece with an extra yummy éclair mini cakes for lunch, "Go go now, she's leaving" Christine ordered in her usual over-excited mode. so i ran downstairs and the lady was just finishing when she looked up to me and smiled, the last customer left admiring her Christmas bells tattoo and another bell rang in my head "Be Still"... it's my very first henna tattoo ever and it's for free so shouldn't i feel guilty for choosing anything other than my kids' names or my husband's or a Christmas symbol? no, because "Be Still" encapsulates all of the above including myself... the lady looked puzzled so i wrote the two words down, she admitted her English handwriting is not as great as other tattoo shapes she masters, but i told her it was ok, yet she added a heart instead of the dot above the "i" and this looked beautiful enough to me... and a couple of minutes later i walked back upstairs holding my left sleeve up with a "Mind The Tattoo" look on my face addressing the crowds till i reached my table safely and waited for an expected Rihamic regret to creep into my heart and wash away my internal big smile.... but it didn't...
"dare greatly" doesn't literally translate "go get a henna tattoo", and it's such an adolescence-ish behavior to say "i want a tattoo like Glennon's" but this was my visible proof to myself that i've sealed the deal (with black ink instead of red wax), i can do hard things, i can get a henna tattoo (was that story i heard about a henna tattoo that never came out as promised true?!!!!), i can participate at a huge Christmas bazaar and display my work for the public opinion to crucify me or carry me to the seventh heaven, i can leave my kids for 9 hours for the first time in my life (for as long i've had them, inside or outside of my womb, Sep.2008), i can be sociable and presentable with total strangers once again all on my own since the day i got married (Aug.2006), i can step into the arena and say this is who i am, i can show up and be there one hour at a time.... then i can go back home and justify to my kids why "mama wrote on her arm" while they are not allowed to draw on their faces and each other's skin !!! (but the actual message was that mama gets away with it without anyone yelling at her but poor them, they get yelled at and sent to the bathroom to step on their stool and keep washing the paint off their hands and faces, life is so unfair i know)...
the story doesn't have a happy ending though, to be honest there isn't an actual ending, yet.
the next morning i had to take a picture of my tattoo (of course) in daylight, and (of course) near my beloved window (the one you're sick of hearing about in almost every post)
but then the effect of yesterday's ecstasy faded away and i went back into my regular daily routines of unexpected routines, the kids were fighting and demanding breakfast, i couldn't get up early enough to have my coffee before i could recognize their voices, the house was more messy and unclean than ever because i was too busy in the past few days preparing for this stupid Christmas bazaar, i had no plan for lunch, and things got out of control inside that drawer once again...
i tried to silence all the voices in my head so i could "Be Still" for one minute... SHUT UP I WANT TO BE STILL... the magic left the tattoo and i had to handle things all by myself without the super powers of any wand...
maybe there's no such thing as a quick fix, bazze2 lazze2 (spit and paste: a term my friend taught me about work done quickly to glue things up with your own spit, sorry if the image is too disgusting), a tattoo is only a tattoo, a book is only a book, a blog is only a blog, unless each one of us finds her own steps like in step 1 step 2... step infinity... to be still in her own noisy way, to prepare Him room in her own messy heart 'n house, to feel the true joy, gratitude, and magic of Christmas in her own wandless life... i can't say that i've figured it out yet, but i'm working on it, and right now all i need to do, the step i've planned is go take a shower with the hope that the tattoo will be one degree less dark on my pail skin !
once upon a time, not too long ago, i was sinking under layers and layers of work, plans, and Rihamiat project material and i realized that it has been a while since i last visited Momastery and i decided to do some blog reading and there it was, G's POST, saying "see you next year" not using these exact words, but she's taking her advent break and will be back when December is over. "Be Still" was G's ADVent ADVice and i thought well, my December is not that busy, i don't get my kids too many gifts anyways and when i told my son you're having 3 gifts this year just as many as baby Jesus received, he was quit thrilled, so maybe i shouldn't grab my organizer and pencil and start crossing out plans and cancelling events blindly, honestly, there isn't much on this month's page.... so what's the problem then? why does this "Be Still" STILL sound relevant? i thought for a moment then a drawer opened in my head, it wasn't stuffed with useless things, everything there was useful, practical, and much needed, i could also close the drawer easily without the need of squishing things and squeezing them together, but the problem with this drawer was its lack of categorization and you know how much i love CATEGORIES and COMPARTMENTALIZING my life and my everything... THAT's it then, this is why Riham is unable to function well, even though compared to others i appear to be well organized and things are perfectly planned, TO ME they are NOT... and in order to do some winter clean up to my drawer i need to "Be Still" so that i can have a clear mind and sharp eyesight to decide what's important to me and my family and what's not, to separate jewelry from junk (figuratively and literally... again, because of the Rihamiat project material).
the next chapter of this story arrived with my decision to take a break, not in the sense of doing nothing, but actually doing more, and doing it differently. Where's the break then? the break is stepping outside my comfort zone of familiar people and familiar places, as much as i love the small circle of people i know in this city (which is 99% composed of church members) i still needed a break, i needed to walk away for a while until i can say "i miss you guys" far enough to feel like going back again. so i signed up for a Christmas bazaar, a gathering of 40 different groups or individuals who have their own projects and business from food to crafts to clothes to leather bags to Christmas decoration ... you name it. the table rent was a bit expensive so i shared it with another lady who paints on cushions, so half the table had Rococo hand painted cushions and the other half had Rihamiat items.
i carefully selected which items to take with me on that day and accurately calculated the discount i want to add on some pieces. i didn't know what to expect during the 9 hours i'm spending on that chair but i was open and ready for anything and everything only to discover that one can't be fully prepared for "anything and everything" specially when the attack comes from your own memory with floods of images, feelings, smells, people's faces, songs and languages... it was overwhelming and at some point i felt that i can't take it so i remembered the "Be Still" technique and it seemed to work right then and there...
the general atmosphere was so familiar, when i was growing up, one year after another we used to organize and participate in Christmas bazaars just like this one, Christmas music, cold outside (it was the last day of the "Alexa" storm), warm and cozy inside with dim yellow lights in a beautiful huge room... there were pieces from my Damascus there... several times during the day i wondered just for a split second why people were speaking Egyptian Arabic and not Syrian!
then the language i heard brought back memories from my collage years in Beirut, i tried to remember words and sentences with some Christmas and New Year greetings too and shared it with a few people who spoke Armenian, they were total strangers and the Arabic they spoke was Egyptian (again not Syrian), but they made me miss my Armenian friends and a flow of memories rushed inside my head of how i first fell in love with the Armenian language and culture 13 years ago because i saw it through the eyes of my friends who were proud of their nationality and heritage just as proud as i am today of my Alma Mater, my Haigazian University...
little did i know that by logging out of my present i'll be automatically logging in-to my past and wearing the glasses that show me again who i am, where i come from, and how and where a major part of my character was shaped, these 9 hours spent on one chair at one table were a trip back in time visiting places so dear to me giving life to memories i stopped feeding for such a long time i thought were dead... in the middle of the trip i was still meeting new people, getting to know amazing potential friends, exchanging experiences and ideas with a fellow soldier on the battlefield of establishing her personal project... in every new encounter i had and during every hour of this bliss i felt grateful for my husband and mother who took turns looking after the kids until it was time for them to pick me up...
whenever i step into unfamiliar territory i take with me a weapon or a defense mechanism that i might need to use and on that specific day the first thing i could think of (other than three photos of my husband and two kids) was Brené Brown's book "Daring Greatly" and i was on the "Mind The Gap" chapter...
whenever i felt weak and hungry during that adventure i would read a few lines and re-energize: "Minding the gap is a daring strategy. We have to pay attention to the space between where we're actually standing and where we want to be. More importantly, we have to practice the values that we're holding out as important in our culture. Minding the gap requires both an embrace of our own vulnerability and cultivation of shame resilience - we're going to be called upon to show up as leaders and parents and educators in new and uncomfortable ways. We don't have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with action." and i may add to Rene's paragraph Glennon's famous phrase: "We can do hard things".
towards the end of the day, Christine, the mastermind behind this event and the most energetic authentic extrovert i've ever met, came to my table with her big smile: "Izzayek (how are you) Riham? Eh el akhbar? (how is everything going)". i asked her about this henna tatto lady downstairs, i noticed her table earlier when i went down to grab a super tasty lasagna piece with an extra yummy éclair mini cakes for lunch, "Go go now, she's leaving" Christine ordered in her usual over-excited mode. so i ran downstairs and the lady was just finishing when she looked up to me and smiled, the last customer left admiring her Christmas bells tattoo and another bell rang in my head "Be Still"... it's my very first henna tattoo ever and it's for free so shouldn't i feel guilty for choosing anything other than my kids' names or my husband's or a Christmas symbol? no, because "Be Still" encapsulates all of the above including myself... the lady looked puzzled so i wrote the two words down, she admitted her English handwriting is not as great as other tattoo shapes she masters, but i told her it was ok, yet she added a heart instead of the dot above the "i" and this looked beautiful enough to me... and a couple of minutes later i walked back upstairs holding my left sleeve up with a "Mind The Tattoo" look on my face addressing the crowds till i reached my table safely and waited for an expected Rihamic regret to creep into my heart and wash away my internal big smile.... but it didn't...
"dare greatly" doesn't literally translate "go get a henna tattoo", and it's such an adolescence-ish behavior to say "i want a tattoo like Glennon's" but this was my visible proof to myself that i've sealed the deal (with black ink instead of red wax), i can do hard things, i can get a henna tattoo (was that story i heard about a henna tattoo that never came out as promised true?!!!!), i can participate at a huge Christmas bazaar and display my work for the public opinion to crucify me or carry me to the seventh heaven, i can leave my kids for 9 hours for the first time in my life (for as long i've had them, inside or outside of my womb, Sep.2008), i can be sociable and presentable with total strangers once again all on my own since the day i got married (Aug.2006), i can step into the arena and say this is who i am, i can show up and be there one hour at a time.... then i can go back home and justify to my kids why "mama wrote on her arm" while they are not allowed to draw on their faces and each other's skin !!! (but the actual message was that mama gets away with it without anyone yelling at her but poor them, they get yelled at and sent to the bathroom to step on their stool and keep washing the paint off their hands and faces, life is so unfair i know)...
the story doesn't have a happy ending though, to be honest there isn't an actual ending, yet.
the next morning i had to take a picture of my tattoo (of course) in daylight, and (of course) near my beloved window (the one you're sick of hearing about in almost every post)
but then the effect of yesterday's ecstasy faded away and i went back into my regular daily routines of unexpected routines, the kids were fighting and demanding breakfast, i couldn't get up early enough to have my coffee before i could recognize their voices, the house was more messy and unclean than ever because i was too busy in the past few days preparing for this stupid Christmas bazaar, i had no plan for lunch, and things got out of control inside that drawer once again...
i tried to silence all the voices in my head so i could "Be Still" for one minute... SHUT UP I WANT TO BE STILL... the magic left the tattoo and i had to handle things all by myself without the super powers of any wand...
maybe there's no such thing as a quick fix, bazze2 lazze2 (spit and paste: a term my friend taught me about work done quickly to glue things up with your own spit, sorry if the image is too disgusting), a tattoo is only a tattoo, a book is only a book, a blog is only a blog, unless each one of us finds her own steps like in step 1 step 2... step infinity... to be still in her own noisy way, to prepare Him room in her own messy heart 'n house, to feel the true joy, gratitude, and magic of Christmas in her own wandless life... i can't say that i've figured it out yet, but i'm working on it, and right now all i need to do, the step i've planned is go take a shower with the hope that the tattoo will be one degree less dark on my pail skin !
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