Glimpses of an Ordinary Night in Haifa

The place: not a very secure neighborhood, upper story, one room apartment with an attached roof three times the size of the apartment.
The people: four students, two men and two women, all in their late twenties, three of them Arabs, one Jew.
Time: about 23:20, I'm already high from smoking marijuana, and so I'm not so sure about the time.
I'm half sitting, half lying on the mattress, listening to their souls... through music...
Happiness? Or is it sadness?
Do we miss these moments even as they are occurring?
If they last too long,... it will become too painful.
These fingers; are they expressing what the soul is saying?
Are we in music lost?
Do we lose total control in music? Does music become us?
Tayseer taps his fingers on the guitar as if it were a durbakky... desire... it is making love to the music...
Maybe actually we become in music...
We are music!
I hear your soul through the music!
It is angry... or maybe the feelings lose their names as they become sounds...?
I wonder if you can see the sounds enter my body and become one with it...
Each instrument you take in your hands – becomes you.
The sound of it enters into you and becomes one with you... you become the music and the sound...

The music stops suddenly, we smoke another joint of marijuana and drink some more red wine. Ehab, who studied law at a college for two years only to quit and now studies theater at Haifa University and writes plays, said: "Music takes on different colors." After that, silence... more smoking, they all laugh at something I didn't hear, and then they continue playing.
Yes, I think it does... it wears all colors of the rainbow...
But it also climbs mountains. And it makes you climb the mountain with it, and does not let go of you. You are forced to climb with the music, until again you become the music's colors... and then, you become the music...

Maybe I am to live for music...
Maybe I am to dance for music...

You will create music for me... and I will live through it... I will be born through it.
You will give birth to me, until I become the sound, the music, and the colors... and I will be your woman!
My body is the instrument, and my soul contains the strings. You are playing me... playing the strings of my soul...

Now the music becomes two colors, two sounds, together, but distinct... making love.
The one – strong, firm...
The other – soft... softer: an echo.
The softer one becomes louder now, trying to be heard, trying to remain in control.
But the first one doesn't give in, and takes over now completely.

And now... and now... now I feel like making love to you like these two colors and sounds...

23:50
They have stopped playing again, and are now talking, and I am wrapped up in my words... hiding my desires and feelings within the pages of my notebook.
I hide them from all to see.
I want my thoughts kept to myself... please, don't touch my thoughts, it is a volcano!

A woman. Nurit. Now she has taken the djembe and started playing.
A woman... seducing me? Can I face it? She is playing music... for me...
But... Tayseer is fighting for me, he is playing louder now and faster... or is he trying to seduce... her?
She is falling for his music, now their rhythms are falling together, in perfect harmony.
Is he playing for her, or... for me?
I don't know. The music reached its peak, and so did we all, and with exhaustion, the music faded and stopped. But! Tayseer starts playing again, softly this time, scooting his body closer to mine, and looking at me, caressing my face with his soft music... A man.

I went out to the roof to take some fresh air, leaving my blue notebook open on the mattress, with the pen next to it. Ehab and Tayseer were sitting on the edge of the roof, smoking and talking. Nurit stayed inside by herself. I think that I willed this situation, where she can have a chance to glimpse into my notebook, and... maybe... comment on the last lines.

You are reading me... me the ink. And Tayseer is outside on the roof. Walked out of me for a moment? Left me with you. Is he giving me a chance to be with you alone? Or does he want to see if I let you read me? And I thought this was going to be a night of making love to you... but it turned out to be much more than that.
Is a woman walking into my life? If she is reading me...

Nurit:
'Writing here feels as if I'm violating your sacred stream of consciousness... are you going to come here any minute now... the tension... help... you've seen me... writing in your notebook... I'm caught inside your net... it's frightening... I have to let go...'

The notebook is in my hands again.
She has to let go... her last sentence.
Is she telling me no? Is this rejection? The ultimate loss of any chance?
I have loosened a piece of thread for her, and she has let go of it...
I let her read my feelings! I let her read... me!
Now she sees everything.

Nurit:
'I am drawn to her words like a magnet. Her words are so powerful. Can anyone write such beautiful words...? She is a true artist, because she writes herself into the paper.'

I don't understand sometimes... anything... do people ever let go of their shackles?
Do they let themselves be who they truly are? Or do they have to be what they want to be?

I am just I.
I cannot be not I.
This is who I am.
What you see is me.
I am glass...
You can see through my body and into my soul...
I don't hide my desires towards him,
I don't hide them towards you.

And now you are playing music... for yourself? Or to seduce me... again?

Or is all this seducing happening only in my mind? Maybe to her it is only music... maybe she doesn't see the colors... or feel the sounds... maybe she is oblivious of all this. Unaware?

I let the notebook lay close to her, but she only read it... didn't pick up the pen to write anything.

So you have nothing to say. You go back to the music in order to avoid writing down your feelings.
Because if you see them on paper – your feelings – that will mean they are out of you.
That means you can't control them anymore. They are out there. It might mean that I will know...
But I do know!
Maybe you don't know yet.
You are not letting go of your feelings.
Maybe that is the smart thing to do.
But I don't think when it comes to my feelings. They are there, inside, and I let them be.
I let them out, because they desire to escape.
Oh, woman! How much more you make me feel than a man. He couldn't make me feel what I feel with you!
So... what is this feeling? I only know it exists... but I don't know what it is...
Are you again seducing me with music? And with your body moving to the rhythm of your music?...
I don't know where this is going. Tomorrow, you will not be here. But that doesn't mean anything. You have entered my soul and given me new experiences and new emotions that I will carry with me always...
Tomorrow you will not be here, and I will stay with Tayseer.

I feel like making love with you... Tayseer... now...
I leaned toward him and let him read this last line.
This line is...me. This is the real me. The me who never hesitates to express desires or feelings.

I saw Nurit on a few more occasions after that, but I never felt those intense emotions with her again. Maybe it was a one-time experience... or maybe just the influence of marijuana. But nevertheless, I am glad I experienced those emotions, for I discovered new things about myself.

One night, and a lifetime of feelings... this is what I live for – complete freedom of feelings... complete freedom of thoughts.

***

After that night, I discovered – for the first time – that writing can be dangerous.
I also found out that just as I hide behind my words and my writing, he hides behind his music. But, like Nurit, some people decide to ignore the emotions boiling inside them and screaming to be let out. Instead, they repress them even deeper. But not us. We are aware of them, and release them. I on the paper, with my words; he into his passion for music. And this is the very reason why he is so hypnotizing when he plays... because his soul gets tangled up in it as well, not just his fingers. This is the secret of great artists. That they express their emotions, desires, and fears in their art.

***

how can i tell my feelings
not to,
when they do
how can i ask my heart
not to,
when it so desires to?