Are we aging or just appreciating?

I know what you're thinking --this girl hasn't written anything in ages and now she's invading my newsfeed with two posts in two days... I'm actually writing this for me more than for you, just because I'm so over-excited that I actually feel like writing and I'm not gonna miss out on it. It's magical that a simple night in is inspiring me to write.

So, last night... Let me give you some background information. I am staying with one of my best-friends, in his New York apartment. We met in journalism school 7 years ago right here in Manhattan and have been quite the inseparable pair ever since --like he said yesterday, I don't think I've ever spent so much time hanging out with anyone else. The year after we went to Columbia, we were both in our early twenties, living in New York, starting our careers... and doing all kinds of crazy shit at odd hours in the city that never sleeps.

And so yesterday afternoon, when he came home from work, I was there waiting to hear all about his day. Keep in mind this is my first night in New York City in about 18 months. He comes home after a long day (he's kind of a famous success story) and we wind down as he is telling me about his day. Then we decide to go out --for juice. Apparently New York has turned into this super health-freak zone in the last few years and everywhere you look there is something organic, detoxing, vegan-related and other things I don't understand yet. So we go to this juice bar, and I follow his lead, order this juice that is supposedly really good for you. Then we walk around the neighborhood for about 30 minutes looking for a liquor store, and I have a brief flashback of us 6 years ago... except this time, we're a going in to buy --wait for it-- ginger cognac. Not wine, not beers, not vodka or even whisky. Ginger cognac.

We get home, kick off our shoes, I start making grilled cheese sandwiches, and he takes out two pairs of those hotel slippers and gives me one. By 9pm, we were eating, drinking ginger cognac and watching The Voice ("because it makes his mind switch off"). An hour later we're both ready to shower and go to bed, and I hear him screaming from the bathroom door: "Yas... Are we aging?"

Truth be told, six years ago, on a random tuesday night, we'd sometimes end up renting a car at 11pm and would find ourselves driving to Atlantic City. So yeah, I guess we are aging. But the absolute joy that comes with spending time with a friend eating grilled cheese, drinking cognac, watching The Voice... it's priceless. Even in New York City.

sundays and oranges

“Someone has somewhere commented on the fact that millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon” Susan Ertz

I used to hate Sundays.

When I was younger, the year my mother died, I used to spend every Sunday alone. I remember the rain, and the gloominess around the house, the gray sky, the emptiness of the chair where mom sat for two months straight with that respirator thing next to her, and me just staring into the television, feeling sorry for myself. My father would go out with friends, taking my brother and my sister with him, but I would refuse to go. I would rather sit on my couch, stare into mom’s empty spot and cry myself for hours, filled with hatred and anger, wanting to scream but having no one there to hear me. Sundays were cruel.

I’d think about the time when my dad was still my hero. I was six or seven, we lived in Paris, and my brother wasn’t born yet. We would have McDonald’s on the Champs Elysees, and then my father would take me to the movies, and it was our special time for just the two of us. My mom would be with my sister, and I’m not sure what they used to do but I didn’t really care, I was the older one and my dad would let me pick whichever movie I wanted, and he always enjoyed it just as much as me. We used to be happy on Sundays.

And then Sundays became all about how empty my family was. Without my mom to hold us together, I could feel it all coming apart. I was sixteen and I had just lost my mother and I was angry and life was as gloomy as those Sunday skies in February.

Then Sundays started changing, with the seasons and the years. When I moved to New York, Sundays became my favorite day of the week. We would wake up late and head down to Soho for brunch, and it is on one of those lovely New York Sundays that I tasted Eggs Benedict for the first time in my life --what became one of my absolute favorite things to eat. 

When I moved back, Sundays turned sour again. I worked for a TV station, which meant that it was open seven days a week, and I worked the Sunday shift. And I did not like my job. And I was stuck behind my computer for seven hours in a gloomy office with no windows, eating Casper and Gambini's Santa Fe salad. The upside? I'd get a message from my entire family who would be gathered for lunch, saying they watched me give the 5 o'clock news. It felt good to know the only reason I went to work on Sundays was for my family to sit around and ouhhh and ahhh at me from 5 to 5.25pm. 

When I finally quit my job, I was so excited to have Sundays back in my life, that having lunch with my family was pure pleasure. I learnt how to actually appreciate it when my uncle and my dad would fight about politics, when my cousins would scream about who broke the computer, and when my aunt would serve us the most delicious meals we would have all week. 

And then, as the catalyst of most changes, the infamous breakup happened. And it was on a weekend. So that started a whole new tradition of me spending every possible minute at the Twins' house. One comforted me with his world-class scrambled-eggs, and the other listened to me whine for weeks. And months. The tradition of Sunday brunch with friends was finally installed. The sound of the Hyper Twin working away in his kitchen always brings a smile to my heart. I walk in and sure enough, there he is, hidden behind pots and pans and cutting boards, one eye on the boiling water, the other making sure he doesn’t chop off his finger along with the tomatoes. I put my bag down, take off my jacket, and before we even say hello, he starts giving me directions. "Start pressing the oranges. There are more of them in the fridge. We need at least thirty."Ah, the oranges. I get the same task every time. 

Now since I started working on a TV Series, Sundays have a whole new meaning. The alarm rings at 6, or even 5am sometimes. Then it's a myriad of things to do, actors who we need to get to the set in time; schedules we ned to follow, the lunch we have to make sure is here on time, the make-up for every actors, oh, and the actually acting...  We go home more tired from the weekend then from the week at work... But it's the kind of Sunday that mixes productivity, good company and fun. And that has to be the best kind of Sundays of all.

Now yesterday was a Sunday. I woke up with a kiss, went to brunch with my friends, talked about different TV opportunities with my TV peeps, had coffee with Classy, had a whatsapp group conversation with 5 friends who are in five different countries for about two hours (felt like we all went out for coffee), then had dinner with my family --finishing it all off with my grandmother's most famous dish and my ultimate favorite: horra2 osba3o. 

I guess I kinda' like Sundays now. 

it's a wrap!

I can't believe it's that time of the year again.

The lights are shining on every street in the country --it's not just green and red anymore, now it's purple, blue, yellow and pink. The songs are overtaking every FM station I have a hard time listening to on a normal day. We did the tree at home like we do every year, my sister, my brother and me, with the cheesiest Christmas Carols in the background because it's our tradition and it reminds me that even though the years go by, we always find ourselves once a year to do this together. Christmas had different meanings for me in the course of my relatively short life and I am surprised to discover a whole new feeling this year.

When I was a child Christmas was about presents and Santa. For the last ten Christmases, it's been about missing loved ones. But suddenly I feel like I might have grasped a new meaning to what this holiday is about, at least for me.

I feel profoundly lucky. I was just thinking that on Sunday, driving down from Bikfaya where I had a 48hour shoot this weekend. We barely got any sleep, were up on our feet in the freezing cold since 5.30AM and were shooting all day with our heels digging in the mud and our fingers turning blue. Yet this weekend was magical. The energy of people coming together to create something fun, even if it's hard work, and to smile and laugh and freeze while doing it made me realize that the single goal I had set for myself this year, I've actually reached: I found passion.

I smiled as I had that thought, driving down in the fog without my eyeglasses and with smudges on my windshield, feeling completely blinded. I smiled because I realized I am not waiting for anything to happen to me anymore: it's around me, all the time, and I feel it. I wake up in the morning and I can't wait to get started with my day because I have so many things that I want to do and people that I want to see and I know that I am lucky to feel that way. It didn't used to be like that. It used to be: I believe that I will do something fulfilling one day, and in the mean time I was filling the gaps. Now the days and the weeks and the months are all converging in one giant bubble of time. I don't stop and do nothing anymore, and when I do, I actually appreciate every second of nothingness, making it a special activity in and of itself.  I've learned how to appreciate time.

When I was younger, 10 or 11, I didn't really have friends to hang out with in school. I was bit shy, I didn't know how to impose myself, so I would hide out in the school library during recess, always finding comfort in my books. Then things changed, and I met the group of people I have been friends with ever since. I've always felt lucky to have them, and I thought I didn't really need other friends. I never really made an effort being social --who needs a million acquaintances anyway? Turns out I was wrong to be so closed-up to people for so many years. This year, I met new people every week, made a dozen of new friends, each of them unique in his own way and all of them important. And I've learned that everyone I meet can bring something good to my life.

And as family goes, I've never felt closer to them. It's true, we've had another loss this year, this month actually. But Saturday morning, as my aunt enters her third week as a widow, she will still get up and make "Shorbet el Eid," stuff the turkey and set-up the table. The Christmas tree will still be lit and the presents will still come, and the magic of Christmas will have to find us despite the sadness. This is what this holiday is about for me now: last year, I had a thought for all those who passed. All those who are gone and are around us in the form of memories and pictures --and I can't believe that another face is now behind a glass frame. But this year, I'm having a thought for the living. Spending our energy on ourselves and on our loved ones who are right here in front of us, because that is the way to go on, stay strong, and make those above us proud.

So here's a Xmas thought, for the living: Go do a random act of kindness. Be spontaneous, do something big, something small, to someone you know or a perfect stranger.