Same Box

“Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.” Italian proverb

If We only remember this everyday

Perfection on the 14th

Image Via  Anderswallin

Every day around Iftar (breaking fast during Ramadan the Muslim Holy month) there is this hour of pure and complete perfection. It starts the moment the Muazen calls for the sunset prayers and it is time for iftar. It is amazing when you watch what happens minutes before that, fasting people rushing to get home on time to break their almost 12 hours of fasting, non fasting people rushing to get to their destinations either to be with their fasting family and friends, or just to be home because their whole world is officially off for the next hour.

The silence during this hour is amazing. It is like the bustling city decides to take a break from its insanity, from its noisy movements and its bad breath. It’s amazing how the big city decides to take a nap, and if you happen to go outside during that hour you will hear that silence, you will hear that gentle breathing of the city taking it’s nap, and this can only happen once a year in Ramadan. You will only witness this sheer perfection for thirty days. But the other night I was double lucky. It was the 14th and if you happen to have any idea about lunar months it is the time when the moon is in its full glory. The moon of the 14th, the subject of poems and songs, the tool that lovers use to describe the face of their lovers.

So tonight perfection was double for me. I stood there looking at the beautiful shades of dark blue in the sky, the sun disappearing and the moon dressed in its monthly glory triumphantly ascending. The temperature was just right with the perfect amount of breeze to tell me that the hot day was gone. It is one of those magical moments that we get glimpses of, except mine was an hour long. I took it all in knowing that I only have 14 days left to witness my one hour of perfection, and then a whole year to wait for it again. I took it all in feeling that we can be whole and complete and happy for just witnessing the perfect moon.

A car honked, a guy walked by talking on his cell phone, my land line started ringing and I knew it was time to go back to “normal” living. The hour of perfection was over, but i felt so lucky that I had a whole hour, for most of the time, it is as short as a second.

Happy Birthday To Me

 

Image from Zazzle.com

Happy birthday to me, etc….

Yes it is my birthday

43

43?

When the hell did it happen? I close my eyes and can still relive my graduation day. Damn it, I can even still relive my high school days, not to mention much earlier days, and with such vivid details. Is it good memory? I don’t think so, until last night I thought those days were close enough to remember without much memory muscle. I really believed (Am I one of those in eternal denial maybe ?), that 20 something was only a few years ago.

Talking to my best friend brought things back into perspective and I allowed myself to admit that the past 15 years were a blip. Literally a blip. What major events happened? Not much, besides work, I can’t even remember my past 15 years outside of work or the “framework” of work. My daily routine, my daily meetings, my daily thinking, my daily worrying, my daily happiness, my trips, my weekends, my holidays, all revolved around work. Later that evening I lay in bed thinking and decided that what I said was not entirely true. The true part is that work has been taken 90% of my waking and even my sleeping time, but isn’t that my choice and my passion? And then it is not really 90%, a lot happened in the past 15 years. I received a beautiful gift of a nephew to add to the two beautiful ones I already had, I created a wonderful business, expanded it, traveled, for business, but they were fun trips non the less since I cannot seem to be happy without doing what I do, I lost a father, made great friends, lost great friends, thought I fell in love, had 3 breakups and then found the love of my life and lived happily and sometimes sadly but really lived the past 15 years, fully and completely, and mostly happily so I should not complain.

What is it about birthdays that gets us thinking that we have wasted our time and our lives? What is it that makes us feel as if we should be sorry for the time that passed? Why is our first impulse to be sorry, what is it that gives us the urge to feel as if we have been unsatisfied and we are still looking forward to “live” our lives?

I am rebelling today. I have had a great life so far, the ups were great and the downs were wonderful teachers (with a big stick sometimes). The ups were monumental and the downs, well, just downs. Part of living nothing more or less. So, this birthday, this year, I will carry the ups with me and discard the downs and look forward to continue happytizing my life.