I always feel I never have enough space...I need space. I need space to breathe...I need space to re-arrange things, to give them their due place...
Space and place are synonymous in my head. Ever since I lost my place, I have lost my space...
Ever since I lost my place, I find I need more and more space...I also noticed that I've crammed the space in order not to feel the loss of the place...and I find myself fighting for space, hoping to turn it into some place...
Only few will understand that...not many...that's okay. The important thing is that I understand it.
They say there's a time and place for everything. But what if you've lost one or both ? what happens then ?
What if you happen to be suspended in some space...with no place - what happens then ?
Well it's totally logical - when you lose your physical place, you need space to make up for it...
The non physical space becomes your place...which you inhabit, it becomes your new home...and with some luck your garden...where you can plant just about anything you want...but still no guarantee that it will sprout...
They say woman is earth...earth is all about place and space no ?
It's the land, the house, the home - your place...and what if you've lost all of them ? Where is your earth ?
So you invent space...
Space is abstract...it's somewhere out there and you need to furnish it all over again...space is void and you need to fill it up, trying to re-recreate some earth, some place...
Of course, you can become very Zen about the whole thing - and become a terrible tyrannical minimalist. But Zen is all about choice, about choosing to give up the place so as to find the space. Zen is not about constraint...
That is why the Other will never understand...unless s/he has been there...in that place...
And when suspended in that space, where you lost all references, all anchors, all flags, all place...you realize, apart from the fact that it's imperative that you construct something again, bring it down to some physical form, to some physical place...you realize on some inner level, that space and place are one...
How to explain that ?
Take sorrow or grief for instance...sorrow takes up all the space, all the place...
I've always wondered why people need to know where their beloved ones are buried...they need to know the place, so the grief takes up the delimited space inside of them...so it does not overtake all of them...
Buried as in anything buried and dead...I play with words...so many levels...
And in that space inside, there are compartmentalized places for every experience, for every buried one...like some graveyard, you will occasionally visit...
But people are a bit/very stupid...they always exclaim - this is so weird, where did this come from ? --- forgetting that that inner space is nothing but yet another place...
Managing space has become an obsession for me...how much to give for each ? who takes what place ? It may be because I live in tight surroundings...and I've filled up the space...or it may be because I have shun from giving the right amount of space for each...maybe am too scared...too scared that they will take over the little space I have left, having lost my place...maybe am too scared to realize who it was that really made me lose my place...or maybe am too scared to acknowledge that my place was never really a place...
If all is construct --- then I can construct anything, everything....anew, again...
Except for the graveyard inside...
Yes, just as I thought; my story -- my place and Iraq's are one...
Or as we say in Arabic - Ma fee mafar - There is no escape.
