novel progress update

I've been getting many inquiries from friends regarding the publication of my novel. The key word here is patience. The standard time it takes from a book to be published from the moment a publisher takes on the work is 12 months. At the moment, the manuscript is being edited by the dedicated people at Spinifex. The whole process takes time, as after they send me suggestions I need to go back to the manuscript and work on it some more. The book is scheduled to come out sometimes in early 2014. I will keep you posted on the progress.

But the exciting news is that I get to keep all copyrights to my work.

As some of you know, I have posted some short segments of "Fragments" here on my blog in the past. However, as soon as I learned that Spinifex would be publishing the novel, I thought I had to forfeit those rights, and I went ahead and deleted all "Fragments" published so far. Now I was informed that all copyrights are mine, and specifically told that I am free to publish segments, I will be publishing short sections in the coming months for you to read.

I also invite you to help me think of a new title for the novel. Currently, the novel's name is "Life in Fragments." However, I would like to incorporate the word Haifa into the title. So any brainstorming is welcome. So far, I've received the following suggestions from friends:

* Haifa Fragments * Haifa in Fragments * Haifa Life in Fragments * Fragmented Haifa * Fragmented Haifa Living * Living Fragments of Haifa * My Haifa in Fragments.
One friend suggested I make Fragments into a verb.

Any suggestions are welcome.

khulud

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)

Raw Hatred

I just opened my Facebook page, and I see one of my friends sharing a photo of Channel 2 Newsstatus. The status is: “Jordan: at least 14 killed and 37 wounded in a bus accident near Allenby bridge crossing.”

The following comments were posted below the status by people:

[free translation from Hebrew]

v  Kululululu I couldn’t ask for a better morning than this… just a shame there isn’t another zero at the end [referring to the number of killed an injured].

v  Death to all Arabs, there is no place for an Arab in Eretz Israel. Maybe this sounds terrible to some people from North of Tel Aviv, but they also don’t deserve to live in this state. And yes, I am a proud racist, proud of my country and the soldiers protecting it.

v  Arabushim [a derogatory word for Arabs] – feel free to die, I don’t mind.

v  A pleasure, such a morning, big happiness, and if anybody has a problem with it is free to change countries because this is the country of the Jews, one people for all.

v  To all the leftists, you know what? I am h a p p y! There’s no happier person than me about what happened to the Jordanians… and I give you my word… that if, God forbid, this happened to us, and they published it for example on the news Facebook page of the Jordanians… I give you my word that all of them would write *

v  Hopa… nothing like starting the Saturday with a smile.

v  Arab son of a bitch die and burn Amen and get cancer.

v  14 people?????? But they are animals!

v  What happiness, a few Arabs less, it’s a shame that only 14.

v  Today is already beginning good!!!!

v  For every terrorist that died, an Israeli lives.

v  Wish for more such accidents Amen.

v  Not-pleasant, not-terrible.

By the time I write this, I found the original status with the picture of the overturned bus. There are more than 700 comments by now on the status, and most of them are similar to the ones I translated above.

You can read about the accident in English on YNET: "17 Palestinians Killed in Bus Crash."

I feel sick. I feel sick that when I walk outside of my home tomorrow morning, I will probably pass by these very same people.

how to tie a headscarf - Arab woman attacked by Jewish women at a train station in Jerusalem

A woman was attacked at the train station on Monday by other women.

Correction:

An Arab woman was attacked at the train station in Jerusalem on Monday by Jewish women.

Four pictures, taken by Dorit Yordan-Dotan, depict the incident. There is only one way to interpret the pictures. The woman was attacked because she was wearing a headscarf. But then Jewish religious women also wear the headscarf.

Correction:

The woman was attacked because she was wearing the headscarf in a way Muslim women wear the headscarf. She was attacked on account of being Arab.

A Jewish friend of mine shared one of the photos on her profile picture, with the words: “when can we begin comparing?” [I assume she was referring to the way Germans treated the Jews.]

I refuse to compare.

In this country, we are judged by our clothes/skin color/accent/the way we wear the headscarf.

A Jewish friend of mine was driving through a checkpoint from Israel to the Occupied West Bank, along with a Palestinian friend of hers. I don’t remember the details, if the Palestinian woman was from the West Bank or if she was a citizen of Israel, is she had a permit or not. These are minor details. They are irrelevant to the fact that the Palestinian woman was scared she’d be arrested/investigated/humiliated at the checkpoint on account of the way she was wearing her headscarf.

Sometimes, we have to resort to humor in our small everyday tragedies. As they approached the checkpoint, the Palestinian woman took off her headscarf, and tied it back on in the way Jewish religious women do. Both friends laughed.

With one small change, a different tying of the headscarf, she was immediately changed from a “Muslim prospect terrorist” to a “Jewish religious settler.” They passed the checkpoint smoothly. The boy-soldiers smiled at them and let them pass.

Did the woman compromise her identity? No. She laughed in the face of the occupier, proving the soldiers’ stupidity.

During OperationCast Led, my daughter would go to school wearing the Kafiya [the traditional Palestinian black-and-white scarf]. I would ask her to put it in her school bag and only wear it when she arrives at school, and not on the bus. Was I compromising her identity? No. I was simply ensuring my daughter’s safety.
(c) khulud kh, 2013

woman - wake up | raise your voice | reclaim your spaces

woman
wake up
stand up

straight
unbending

raise your voice
dream the impossible

don't listen to them who tell you to
sit quietly

the corner is not your place
reclaim your space

you are meant for greatness
and greatness is
a smile of the eyes
a barrier moved
spaces reclaimed
(c) khulud kh (2013)

Dreams do come true

I have completed my first novel, "Life in Fragments" [tentative name], on 30 June, 2012. In its present form, it took me two and a half years to complete the novel. Throughout the whole period, I had my ups and downs. Ecstatic moments when I was able to complete a "perfect" sentence or paragraph, but more often, long bouts of depression when nothing seemed to work - no words were adequate to express what I thought needed to be written down. Words refusing to be formed. Jarred sentences. Annoying, uncooperative characters who just bounced off the paper and rebelled against any structure.

Struggle. sweat. blood. insomnia.

But finally, I pulled through the dark, and a novel was born. I felt my body emptying. A part of me was gone, just like after giving birth. I even experienced post-birth depression.

I let it all sink in.

After a while, I began searching for a home for the manuscript. Friends said: "it takes a while, sometimes even years." I had faith. Sent the synopsis and first two chapters for review by several publishers and agents. Negative responses in the best case, no response in the worse case.

An opening: an agent in New York agreed to read the whole manuscript.
The Director of the radical feminist Spinifex publishing house, Susan Hawthorne, asked for the first 50 pages, and then for the whole manuscript.

No response from the agent in New York.

I began to doubt my writing and my dream. I was seriously considering of giving it up, of throwing in the towel. Of searching for a new dream to chase.

I reached rock bottom. Complete darkness.

And then the email came. A contract is on the way with Spinifex. A small publisher, yet I am excited, as I feel that it is the right one to publish my book. They are a radical feminist publisher, very political. The perfect home for my first novel.

I haven't written anything in a while. Was on the verge of quitting. Now, with this news, I am again full of energies and belief in my abilities. My mind is brewing with the new characters of my second novel, "Tea at the Checkpoint."

At the same time, I am excited to be revisiting again the character of "Life in Fragments" for the purposes of editing the manuscript. To be honest, I do miss them often.

So, it is back to full-fledged writing for me again: editing "Life in Fragments" and working on "Tea at the Checkpoint." I'm not sure if I will have any spare time in the next few months to post articles here, but will try.

Until next time, dear readers and friends :)

welcoming back - from the back door only

Some exquisite parts of a mythical past always find their way into the present. The way to deal with these parts is to embrace them with a smile, knowing they are what have shaped you, molded you, and made you who you are. So, my dear mythological friend from the past, I open the door for you for one evening, with a forgiving smile. Welcome to my sacred space.

Nameless City - old writing fragment from 2007

Going over my old notebooks, I find a significant fragment I wrote back in 2007. Sometimes, you write something and, not knowing what to do with it, just lay it down in a corner for years. I think the time has come for this fragment to become alive again. I think I'll be using it as a basis for something in my new novel.

Nameless City - written in 2007

The first time they met, it was an unusually warm spring evening, while Maysa was taking the long way home through the park. As she walked through the unfamiliar streets of the strange city, Maysa tried to bring back the smells of the souq in Wadi Nisnas on a Friday morning. Za'atar and bitter Arabic coffee in tiny cups in the crooked alleyways, each leading to its own secrets, its own sad stone houses with their long gone inhabitants. In her grandmother's garden, underneath the pregnant grapevines—laughter. Stealing unripe grapes with cousins – what are they called in Arabic... Oh I’m beginning to forget… husrum—dipping them in salt and then making sour faces as they touch the tongue. No za'atar in this city. No husrum either.

He was sitting under one of the larger trees in the park, an unnoticed shadow blending into the dim light of this nameless city. He had a large black leather-bound notebook propped up on his knees and seemed to be writing something. His complexion dark olive, Maysa had mistakenly thought he, too, came from that ancient world of hers. Or was it because she was thinking of Ziyad?

"Salam."

He lifted his dark blue eyes to meet hers. She had expected brown eyes, not blue. He put the notebook down – and before it closed onto its contents with a finality, Maysa was surprised to glimpse in it not words – but a grey sketch of a tree.

"I'm sorry if I've interrupted you, but I just thought that..."

He was looking at her with his intense blue eyes – not really looking, she sensed, but searching for something inside of her – or was it beyond her? She could feel him gaze at something on the inside. After a few moments, he smiled faintly and shifted a little to the right, as if inviting her to share the tree-trunk with him. Maysa hesitated, we don't do this in Haifa, but something stronger than her made her sit down next to him, brushing his left arm for a moment.

A few moments passed in silence, then he opened his notebook and returned to his tree. "Which of the trees are you drawing?" she finally asked, unable to identify a tree that would come close to the one on the page. He stopped, looked at her, a faint smile brushed his face like a light breeze – she thought she could trace a slight disappointment in his eyes. "I thought you already figured that out."

They sat there, Maysa watching as he outlined the last leaves on his tree, looking up every now and then to see tired people walking back home from work – how many of them are exiles, how many call this city their home, how many are heading to one-room apartments only to sink down into their memories, for how many is this city a nameless city... how many.

She wished she had brought her notebook with her. Have to have it always with me, just like back home. She searched her bag for a scrap of paper, a tissue, a forgotten bill from a cafe, a train pass, anything she could write on, but her bag was empty of such necessities, save for a document from work she could not write on. She didn't dare ask him for a piece of paper. So she ended up reciting those words in her mind, trying to make up a melody to go with them so they wouldn't evaporate like so many words she had not guarded. Ya Allah, I’m doing it again! Ziyad was right when he said it would ruin me and everything around me. Can’t continuously transfer my life onto the paper. Gotta live it, habbuba. Gotta live it. The memory will take care of all the rest. But what about a backup? Oh, Ziyad, how I miss you—wish you knew how you fill up my body still.

He finished his tree and closed his notebook. Then he got up, and walked away, shrouded in a thick layer of silence. Maysa remained there, under the tree, trying to protect the melody in her head—so the words don’t dissipate.  

After that first time, she always took the long way home, through the park, something in his notebook – that tree – didn't leave her be. And the stranger was always there, with the same notebook, drawing the same tree. Sometimes she sits by his side, watches him drawing, other times she smiles at him when he looks up and continues on her way. But the feeling is always there. There is something about him—but what?

A week goes by, two weeks, and Maysa comes equipped. “Hey,” but she knows not to expect a reply. He doesn't even lift his eyes up from his notebook to look at her. She stands there for a moment, watching him draw some tiny leaves on his tree – an olive tree! – then she sits down next to him. Opening her bag reluctantly, like an illegal immigrant who’d been asked to produce his non-existent documents, she pulls out a small, cream colored cloth bag. From it emerges a freshly sharpened pencil. Next Maysa takes out a notebook – not leather-bound like his, just an ordinary school-kind-of-notebook. She does all this slowly, deliberately, as if waiting for his approval, but he seems not to notice her, or her notebook. Maysa opens the slightly worn notebook, puts the pencil between her lips, and sinks into deep thought – or so it seems. She skips a few pages, then writes in big, bold letters at the top of a blank page: OLIVE TREES.

A few minutes pass before she begins to write. Because for her, right now, it is different. It has to be perfect this time—tired of erasing and rewriting olive trees, the pencil moves across the page in a yawn.

His olive trees are laced in a mournful sliver of the fading sunlight of a nameless country, uprooted from where they belong.

Maysa has her very own olive trees, memories from another world, another life. A life she can’t go back to—ever. Ziyad will forgive her, but is she ready to be forgiven?  

It was the tree of his imagination. It was the olive tree that stood for all of Spain’s olive trees. “So you miss home?”

That evening, the evening remembered by them both as the beginning of their shared “olive tree” story, he told her his name – Manuel. Then, like the Nisan rain in Haifa that catches you unprepared, he invited her to his place, “just a shabby little room in a nameless city,” he added in apology.

Two total strangers, the only thing binding them together – but of which only one was aware for now – the olive tree, walking into the descending darkness, each with his own memories clinging to the shadows following them.

They reached a street lined with dilapidated, identical two-story buildings built in a time long forgotten. As they were climbing to the second floor, wooden stairs creaking loudly underneath their weight, Maysa thought to herself, I don't know this man. What am I doing here?

But when Manuel opened the door, and said, almost in a whisper, “Welcome to Oblivion,” she understood that feeling she had felt from the moment she saw him in the park. A feeling of something binding them together – sadness, or was it the need to escape from, or return to, be erased, be swallowed up into oblivion...

Manuel's one-room apartment was unlike any she has ever seen.

As they sat on low, moldy cushions on the small balcony with a view not of the Haifa bay, but of the dark street below, leaning against the wall, their bodies slightly touching, listening to Flamenco music, sharing a bottle of cheap red wine, Maysa felt that something again. Something she couldn’t quite identify as a feeling, but it was there nevertheless.

And then it flooded her like the khamseen reeh of Haifa. Memories of another night, of music of a different – yet in so many ways the same – kind, and of friends tucked neatly into the folds of a memory, guarded against intruders. But that was a night before Ziyad. It was Tayseer’s world, where she no longer belonged. 

Shai at the checkpoint: My burnt arm

For those of you who are following my experiments with new characters in my new novel, "Shai at the Checkpoint" - here's more of Suhad. Again, only raw writing, incomplete scenes that need to be developed more... needless to say, your feedback is valuable! again, not on the structure-level, but on how the characters make you feel, and whether they're credible enough, and can you relate to them emotionally? So, here we go:

There you are again. With that self-centered, self-assured walk. Like the world belongs to you. That jumpiness when you walk tells it all. The way you carry the kanun – bare, without a cover to protect it. But I can tell you have great respect for it, though you try to be casual about it. Again, you’re unshaven today. The same jeans, with that imprint of a thick wallet on the left back pocket. And you’re always either rolling a cigarette or smoking one. You must smell like an ashtray. But I see you take care of your body. In that white tank top o can clearly see the well-defined muscles of your dark shoulders and arms. Full of contradictions, aren’t you?

Oh yes, I see the way you look at me, like a hungry animal lurking for prey. And I don’t like it. you want to devour me in one piece.

At the same time, you probably think I’m too much of an intellectual for you. Or too proud to even talk to someone like you. Or too sophisticated with my leather briefcase.

Mother always told me I need to marry someone who would challenge me intellectually and let me grow. And I listened to her. Married a real intellectual. Dr. of Political Science, no less. Head of the department. And oh did he challenge me. Heated discussions into the night about the nature of the nation-state, the political identity of a people, what defines a nation, why democracy has failed, and what not.

I don’t deny it, they were indeed very challenging discussions. Intriguing even. I learned from him, and he even enriched my thought. Often, I found his ideas spilling into the lectures I was preparing, reflected in a different way in class discussions with my students.

Sometimes I miss these talks of ours. He was a good friend. A close one, even. There was mutual respect between us. We cared for each other deeply. When my migraines would completely disable me for several days, he always made sure the blinds were drawn all day long, and even kept my father away with his loud chatter. He made me shai three times a day and brought me my favorite fruit in the summer – khokh abu wabar.

Yes, we lived like good friends. We shared household chores, spent relaxed evenings in the garden reading through each other’s notes for the upcoming lectures, giving feedback and constructive comments.

I could tell from the way he was settling comfortably into this life that he was happy. Content that he reached his destination – the final end point.

But not me. I wanted more. Looking back, I sometimes wonder if I weren’t selfish for wanting more than that for myself – for us.

But still, I wanted more. Oh yes, much more. My insides were burning, my throat dry, thirsty. I was yearning for something greater. But I didn’t know yet what it was I was in search of.

I wanted the ground to be swept from underneath me. I wanted to experience something so intense it would leave me filled with so much energy enough to set me on fire. Leave an eternal mark on me like a hot iron sizzling on the skin.

I wanted to be set on fire and burn like the phoenix. To die an intense death and be reborn all fresh and new all over.

I thought at first there must be something wrong with me for wanting this fire intensity.

But there was something in me craving to experience the utter opposite of intellectuality. Raw, unhinged savageness.

At that time, I was immersed in teaching a course on the erotic works of D. H. Lawrence.

***

And just when I made the decision to break free, all hell came undone. Well, not exactly, but it sure did feel like it when I hit the ground. I don’t remember much of that day, only fragments. I remember walking to Um Tayseer’s house. I remember the ground shaking under my feet. And something burning my flesh. Then, just half a second before everything turned into blackness, the smell of the earth.

I woke up in a hospital bed. Baba was sitting next to my bed in a black vinyl reclining chair, snoring softly. In the white light of the hospital room, I remember thinking that he somehow aged overnight. He was unshaven, the short bristles snow white. He slept with his mouth slightly open, Darweesh’s Diwan open on his lap. I studied him, moving through all his body with my eyes. I needed to concentrate hard, because I didn’t want yet to move my attention to the burning pain in my right shoulder, going all the way to the tips of my fingers. His right leg jerked and the book fell off his lap. He opened his eyes wide and was surprised to see me glaring at him, with a screwed up smile.

“Susu… you’re awake, habibti.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but only a croak came out, which at first I didn’t recognize as my own voice.

I saw he was struggling not to let the tears out, but his lips were quivering.

“Ba… baba, ween… Hi… sham…?” I looked around the room in search of white roses, for he always brought me only white roses.

Baba’s face wrinkled up in anger. “You just had to wake up on my shift. Couldn’t you wake up two hours ago when mama was still here?”

My mind started racing. Something bad happened to Hisham. I squeezed my brain, but couldn’t remember where he was when the ground shook. Was he hurt really bad? I looked at baba with pleading eyes, my mouth dry, “Hisham?” Baba realized what I must have been thinking, and he put his hand on my good arm. “He’s fine, Susu. It’s just that… he left. This morning. For London.”

Wonderful. The ground shakes under his wife’s feet, and he flies to London!

***

Three weeks later, he came back to an empty house. I had baba pack my library and move the eight boxes of books back into my old room. Mama packed my clothes and my art pieces. Nothing else was mine in that house. Hisham didn’t even call. Our marriage dissolved without words.

It’s been four years now, and I can still feel the dead flesh on my arm burning every now and then.

I’ve seen his since – in the souk, meticulously picking his fruits. Parking his can close to the bakery on Khoury street, while I waited for the bus. I had made up my mind to see right through him. Nevertheless, every time I glimpse him, I get all worked up and become all self-conscious about my disfigured arm. It starts burning all over again, and all I want to do is run. Run away from this burnt flesh. So I focus really hard on the soles of my feet, planting them more solidly on the ground, so that they don’t take off. And I wince from the pain.

Neighbors tell me he’s always and obsessively asking about me. Even now – four years later. He holds on to every piece of information. When he sees me, I feel his eyes piercing my body. He watches every movement I make, until I’m out of his sight. Yet he never makes a move in my direction. He knows he’s made his choices and now has to live with them. There is no forgiving his abandonment.

Teta made me the most beautiful glove to wear on my disfigured arm in the summer. People who don’t know I’ve been burnt think it’s a weird way to make a political statement. The colors of our heritage – black with the small hand-stitched designs that adorn traditional Palestinian dress. Yahud think it’s a fashion statement. One glove, all the way up to my shoulder, in the smoldering hear of Haifa’s Tammuz. I smile for their stupidity.

***

So, ultimately, in some distorted way, it was Hisham who made it possible for our marriage to end. Or maybe it was my burnt arm. Or the University of London for inviting him to give a course on geopolitical changes in the Middle East over the last decade. It’s not important. What is important is that I was weak and didn’t dare leave the prison of that marriage when it became suffocating.

My students think I’m a hero. For learning to write with my left hand. For being too proud to ask for any help. For struggling with the coffee machine with my one good arm. Every simple task has become a challenge during that first year, but I refused to give up.

Mama thinks I’m stupid. For refusing compensation money for “victims of terrorism.” But I could never compromise my values. How can I be categorized as victim of terrorism when I can’t accept the mere fact my arm was burnt by terrorists? It doesn’t make any logical sense. Therefore, I simply cannot accept the money. Medical care – yes. But nothing beyond that.

Um Maysara doesn’t think I’m a hero. Nor does she think I’m stupid. These superficialities don’t concern her. she is concerned only about me continuing with my life “after” in the same way as “before.”

“Society needs to acknowledge that people come in different colors and shapes.” At first, I didn’t quite understand her obsessiveness about this notion. But she opened up when I asked her about it straight out. It had been a slow day.

(c) all rights reserved to khulud kh, 2012.

my undisciplined shadow

when you go -
my shadows walks away with you

untitled 27/11/2012

These words of yours

Belonging

Culture

Language

Make me want…

To feel them

Deep into my bones

Their meanings

Which I have –

Never

Understood

To the core of their depths

But

It may be

That I am

The lucky one

For not knowing

Them.

non-words on the pain of wars - the war on Gaza, November 2012

Words of despair…

What are they?

Where are they…

Stuck between the pages of my thesaurus…

Words of pain…

Refuse to be pulled out from the dictionary of synonyms and antonyms…

Words of agony…

Non-existent in the whole of the Oxford dictionary.

Non-words

No words

Only something stuck inside my throat

(c) khulud kh, 2012

meanings of home

(c) photos by khulud kh, 2012

Home. What is the meaning of home? How can we define it? Or, rather, can we collapse the meaning of home into one coherent concept? But why should we? It is much more captivating to de-construct its meaning and to discover a plethora of layers, dimensions and meanings to this one seemingly simple concept. 

During the past year, I’ve been engaged in thinking and re-thinking the meaning of home in different settings. These have been separate processes that are tied together in unexpected modes. And, as befitting, they all finally collapse into words on paper, ink by word, for this is the one medium in which – intriguingly enough – I feel most at HOME.

more to come soon... follow up

rain - my muse, my lover

(c) painting by khulud kh, 1993

Rain – i pray you into my bones

into my mind

to create

from the sound of you
rain – don't let me become cracked dry

like the brown earth of a Tammuz

sun-crunched day

you have come so close
touched my bare bones with your rain
now they are soaked...
cracked

you have reached those geographies of me –

that naked – Madness

when you come – I become

in you

without you

you are that which soaks the dryness – all the cracks

when many run away

it is I who come to you

for life

for breath

for the wetness in you

and for –

that quality in you

the smell of the earth

when you’re gone – is the memory of you

waiting for a night

when you will come – my lover

to listen to your splashing on the asphalt

to smell your brown earth-soaked wet

and to create in your life

thank you rain – for

that sense of ALIVEness

only you – my lover

(c) khulud kh, 2012

Coming soon - conversations with Zeina

(c) painting by khulud kh, 1993

Since I completed my novel, I'm all over with my writing. Experimenting with disabled characters, erotic writing, and now, Zeina. I think soon my writing will find its own way and some round characters will emerge. For now, I am having fun with experimenting. At the moment, I have some three or four different directions, with different characters. Maybe they'll cross ways and merge into one story, or they may diverge into separate novels. I'll let them decide. At the moment, I am deep in conversation with Zeina, a professor of Arabic language, who found her way - intriguingly enough - into the underworld of selling her body for money. Right now, I am very careful of not labeling it "prostitution," because Zeina herself has somehow convinced me that there's so much more to it. In her own words, "it all depends on how you define it." Which is in itself worthy of analysis. But let's wait and hear the analysis from Zeina herself. Hopefully I will have something within the next few weeks to post. Follow up.