Bella Kassab

“I am thirty-five years old, and it seems to me that I have arrived at the age of grief. Others arrive there sooner. Almost no one arrives much later. I don’t think it is years themselves, or the disintegration of the body. Most of our bodies are better taken care of and better-looking than ever. What it is, is what we know, now that in spite of ourselves we have stopped to think about it. It is not only that we know that love ends, children are stolen, parents die feeling that their lives have been meaningless. It is not only that, by this time, a lot of acquaintances and friends have died and all the others are getting ready to sooner or later. It is more that the barriers between the circumstances of oneself and of the rest of the world have broken down, after all—after all that schooling, all that care. Lord, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me. But when you are thirty-three, or thirty-five, the cup must come around, cannot pass from you, and it is the same cup of pain that every mortal drinks from. Dana cried over Mrs. Hilton. My eyes filled during the nightly news. Obviously we were grieving for ourselves, but we were also thinking that if they were feeling what we were feeling, how could they stand it? We were grieving for them, too. I understand that later you come to an age of hope, or at least resignation. I suspect it takes a long time to get there.”
― Jane Smiley, The Age of Grief

“I surrendered my beliefs
and found myself at the tree of life
injecting my story into the veins of leaves
only to find that stories like forests
are subject to seasons”
― Saul Williams, , said the shotgun to the head.

“سـ تتعلمين كيف تتخلين كل مرة عن شيء منك ..
كيف تتركين كل مرة أحداً .. أو مبدأ .. أو حلماً .. !
نحن نأتي الحياة كـ من ينقل أثاثه و أشياءه ..
محملين بـ المباديء .. مثقلين بـ الأحلام ..
محوطين بـ الأهل و الأصدقاء ..
ثم كلما تقدم بنا السفر ..
فقدنا شيئاً .. و تركنا خلفنا أحداً ..
لـ يبقى لنا في النهاية ما نعتقده الأهم .. !
و الذي أصبح كذلك .. لـ أنه تسلق سلم الأهميات ..
بعدما فقدنا ما كان منه أهم .. !!”
― أحلام مستغانمي, فوضى الحواس

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi