Looking For Gold | Working on Metaphor

Post edited 12:10 am – June 28, 2011 by Haidy the writer

عرفت منذ أن التقيت بها بأنها من سيرسم طريقي الشاق في لوحاتها. مهنة صعبة لكنها وفية، فهي لا تتركني بعد ترجمة كلماتها حائرة، تذكرت كلما التقيت بها بالحديقة التي زرتها ولم أنسها، فكنت كلما فرغت من ورقة قلت "نعم، هذه أنا. هذا ما أبحث عنه. هذا المكان الذي أريد أن أحيا فيه." أَخْفَت السطور أول ورقة التي أُترجمها الستار الضبابي في الهواء، مثلما تختبئ النجوم في السماء لحظة ومضتها. أظهرت أرضاً غزل اللون الأخضر تُرابها حتى أحاط بشجرة الكستناء، تحمل على أوراقها أزهارا تبدو ككرات خضراء مُعلقة، تُخَفي حلوى بنية بداخلها. أما الطيور فقد اجتمعت على أغصانها وهي تُغرِّد في سكون الطبيعة لهدهدة الشمس حتى تنام، بعد أن جمعت أشعتها في عينيها وأغمضتها، مُخلفةً أطيافها تلهو مع مياه الشلال المتُدفقة حتى موعد إطلالة السماء في ثوبها النحاسي.
أرى النص أمامي فيُحولني لرسامة تمسك بقلمها، لترسم لوحة من خطوط اللّوحة الأصلية، تهبط فيها المعاني على أرضي، تجعل كل من حولي يُشاركني مشاهدة هذا الجمال، وهو يرتدي المترادفات الشرقية، التي تسحره بألفاظها فتُبدي ما كان يخفيه من جمال مسافر، وحينها أجلس مرة أخرى في الحديقة على أرضها الخضراء، أُنظر إلى السماء النحاسية فوق شجرة الكستناء.

The Amazed Tomato

September 3^rd 1987

5.00 p.m.

It was a painful day. Contractions kept squeezing my belly. Cold daggers planting their rough tips in my flesh. The hospital corridors were white & cold, totally indifferent to my suppressed screams. I felt cold. My husband stood there, by the wall, for the span of a minute, his face contracted in twitches of sympathy. "I have to go out of the room. I can’t watch you go through this pain". I did not answer. I was too overwhelmed by the pain of a body coming out of my body. I was taken by the miracle though in the middle of it. I was thinking "isn’t this the most amazing moment! Who said women are weak. Can a "man" take this kind of pain!". Oh yes, I was a feminist then, though at that moment, I didn’t name myself one.

**

Same day 6.30 p.m.

I came to my senses while the stretch was moving me out of the operation room. It was cold still. On my bed back in the room, I was "one" once again. And the second "being" inside has shown up. They placed her in my arms. They said "it is a girl". Wao, how I longed for a girl as a first baby. And there she was, a tiny cute amazed tomato. She was so red, too red indeed with those streaks of yellow soft hair on her egg of a head. She opened her eyes in amazement. I looked back utterly taken by the surprised eyes, "Are you the one who was in there?", it seems I was truly asking her. I was above the bed a few centimeters. I was floating with the redness of the "real" human being who was peacefully resting on my left arm. "Hi there", I said it with a big smile.

**

August 2010

Elgouna

Now the red tomato is twenty two, taller than myself, and "a true work of art" as I told her after knowing how she handled a break up with a loved one. She was so wise. At her age, I was a simpleton. It took me ten whole years to realize that my bond with her father has been severely cut at that moment long ago in the cold hospital when he told me "I can’t stay & watch you go through this pain". No man, you could have stayed and held my hand in love. You could have taken to yourself some of the pain by simply being there.

The twenty two year old tomato who is taller than me lies on the edge of the swimming pool overlooking the lagoon. It is very hot, but the water is cool & so blue. She is stretching her body on one edge of the pool, me on the other. She gives me a good laugh when says " I feel very exhausted. I have been floating the whole day". She has poured half the sun tan oil on her fair skin so in half a day she is a red tomato again.

**

Now

 Twenty three years have already slipped away! Wao! That is something. Is it me who is not growing old? Or am I being a fool not feeling the passage of time? How does one feel the passage of time? What are the symptoms? I think how in those years I have been "living", truly living. How I have recreated myself, how I breathed life into that beautiful docile statue of a Pygmalion I was handed just like all the other "good girls". How I have come to know "me" & the world anew, and how I have seen Reem grow up, carve herself the way she chooses. The tiny cute amazed tomato has become an amazing young woman, a true work of art.