breathing in the words

"Sitting here now watching the wrinkles of these old doors and writing such nonsense as the painting of the letters. But no matter it is only words but then I live my life through words I like to breathe them in slowly and fill my lungs with them and then feel them warmly spread through my blood to all parts of my body until I reach the saturation point but I can never reach that point. The more I breathe them in the more I want of them even now when I promised never to breathe these words out of my body again. But a time comes when I can no longer contain them within me and have to breathe them out somehow someway because ultimately I need to take a fresh breath. But life doesn’t wait Asmahan not for me not for you not for us. And so I must breathe all these words out and empty my body of them so that I could somehow someway pick up some fragments of me before they are scattered and lost completely."

- from Majid's doors of writing, edited from Haifa Fragments manuscript, forthcoming by Spinifex Press.

another note on belonging

the meaning of belonging

this constant search, need, thirst for – recognition, legitimization, most seek.

Incongruence here.

Boundaries of belonging –

For me are:

liquid *** ever-changing *** soft *** flexible *** non-existent *** existent *** real *** fabricated *** illusionary *** slippery *** elusive *** not definable *** incongruent.

- khulud خلود

lost in translation

parts of my identity

have

been –

for some (un)identifiable

reason

lost in translation.

Floating between –

the languages

in a –

void

between the –

continents.

returning my nationality to you

Come to think of it

ultimately -

my (your)

nationality

is just an empty shell

i used to think –

i

need to belong to.

But,

and since –

you (us)

do not (can not)

ever –

see

me –

as one of

you (us)

Therefore –

i

out of my own –

free

will

give it back.

And instead –

i

chose

to be a –

citizen of the world.

Unshackled by –

belonging

nor by –

that

word become

dirty –

called

nationality.

(c) khulud khamis (2013)

Language-less (or more)

I am. I am a woman who dreams in an unknown language. Who counts “one-two-three” in one language, and “four-five-six” in another. My thoughts come in fragments of four languages.

My language of love is the poetic song of this ancient land – Arabic. My language of politics is a language I have no connection with – Hebrew. My language of creative writing is yet a third language – language foreign to me and my land – English. And my language of family – well, that’s the simple language of my early childhood – Slovak.

Four languages, one brain. Most of the time there is chaos in my brain – I feel the words of these four languages racing, competing for my tongue. Fighting to escape.

Ideas I write in English I struggle with in Arabic and Hebrew when speaking. The things I write in one language I cannot express in writing in the other one. The words I speak in Arabic cannot be pinned down on paper. The intimate discussions with my family in Slovak cannot be rendered into another language. The heated political discussions with my friends in Hebrew become a struggle when I repeatedly attempt to document them in English. The words of passion in Arabic – well, I can never imagine myself speaking these words in any other language.

Each language leaves an imprint on my identity, as words shape our realities. Each language carries within itself a complete world – of traditions, cultures, symbols, jokes, street-language, and more. Descriptions of feelings and emotions can extremely vary across these languages. The same words – when translated – carry completely different connotations, denotations and meanings. Sometimes they carry history itself within their very letters.

I use all four languages on a daily basis, in different settings and in various contexts. I try to negotiate my identity between and within those four languages and the spaces left by the gaps. It is no easy task. The instant switch between languages feels a burden at times, while at other times I take it up as an intellectual challenge. One thing is sure: life is so much more interesting when experienced in four languages.