Memories to last a life-time

When I eat a chocolate chip muffin... I remember you.
When I skip while walking down the hall... I remember you.
When I light a scented candle... I remember you.
When I listen to Beyonce... I remember you.

Letting go is hard.. accepting change is harder.
Knowing that from this day on.. nothing will ever be the same..
The comradeship -though deeply cherished- will now have a different meaning.

And yet..
When I watch "The Day after Tomorrow"... I remember you.
When I ride my bike, the wind tickling my scarf... I remember you.
When my eyes tear up from sucking a sour Warheads candy... I remember you.


I found a way to let you in... but I never really had a doubt
Standing in the light of your halo.. I got my angel now
~Beyonce

For Good Cause?

I pity the plastic skull on my bookshelf..

It has witnessed many forms of physical abuse under my hands...

Poking wires through the foramens to observe the different paths of the nerves as they exit the cranial vault and pass through the superior orbital fissure and infra-temporal fossa...

Moving the mandible too many times left and right..right and left.. so I can comprehend the difference between Bennet's Angle and his movement.. thank God it doesn't have an articular disc or it would have been completely degenerated by now...

Injecting local anesthesia into the maxilla and mandible from every possible angle.. if there had been real muscles I'd be dealing with bilateral paralysis in both arches...

And the last straw.. practicing extraction.. as if the poor thing hasn't suffered enough.. now I'm hauling out all its teeth...

Ah.. the adventures of a dental student!

Humanity? What's that?

I hate when tradition conflicts with common sense and religion.
When we have to live our lives according to standards set by ancestors who breathed air unpolluted by automobiles, who survived without the kinship of television or the internet

I hate when the thin line separating truth from fraud becomes blurry, so that even with my prescription glasses it's hard to tell which is which

I hate that by growing up it gets easier to discover the gruesome faces behind the gorgeous masks

I hate that when someone smiles at you, you immediately think: "Oh great, I wonder what she wants from me this time", instead of the smile being a mere symbol of kindness

I miss sincerity.
I miss kindred souls.

It just can't get better than this...

The moment that takes your breath away...
Untainted, innocent and pure.

When you're studying for a mid-term and your 6 year old sister kisses you on the cheek -out of the blue- then heads off to grab her Strawberry Shortcake coloring book from the bookshelf.

When your eyes fill with tears as you listen to your Christian Filipino maid announce her Shahada for the first time in the local mosque.

When you gaze from the balcony and see your teenage brother place a bowl of water on the staircase for the chirping pigeons on the patio, in the heat of the never-ending Jeddah summer.

When you're chatting with your best friend reminiscing the good old "high-school" days, the atmosphere in the room filled with warmth defying the bellowing winds of Riyadh's winter outside.

When you pray with devotion to Allah on the night of your General Medicine final exam that you'll do great the next day, the calmness that envelopes you knowing that only He can hear your supplications, however versatile they may be.

When you're awake at that un-earthly hour of dawn, it seems as if the whole city is asleep and all your dreams are achievable, all impossibles are possible.

When you quench your thirst with the cool water of Zamzam after performing Ummrah under the stubborn sunrays at noon.

When you catch the spark of pride in your parents' eyes, no words are even necessary.

These moments I live for.
These moments I cherish.

Perfect..yeah right.

You know that age when you're 12 and you look at college girls and think
"Wow, they know everything"
"They can do everything perfectly"
"Nobody tells them to "Grow up and stop acting like a baby"

Well guess what?

We don't know that much..
And doing something flawlessly is only if it involves a box of ready-made Betty Crocker Brownies..

I gaze at my 12 year old cousin and think
"She can do all the mistakes she wants"
"Nobody tells her that "You should know better, you're a grown-up"

Tis a pity.. tis true..

So many wars with unknown heroes...
So many sacrifices forgotten...

A dozen researchers make a revolutionary discovery yet are hidden in the phrase "et. al"

Months of work done behind the curtains... yet only the actors get the applaud..

A 5- hour surgery ends with success yet only the chief doctor is thanked.. forgetting the crew of nurses in the same OR...

Recognition can make a WORLD of a difference!

What could've happened?

I'm always prevented from flying by fear that gravity will bring me down..

Have you ever thought of all the possible "What if's" in your life?
I have.. alot..

What if I had said what was on my mind instead of holding my temper.. and replacing my snarl with a frosty smile?
Perhaps lost a friend..

What if I had pressed "post" on that harsh comment in my facebook status.. instead of pressing delete?
Most likely gained an enemy..

What if didn't "edit" that email and substitute my unsympathetic words with politer synonyms?

What if I spoke up when I had the chance?

What if I ignored my common sense and followed my heart?

What if I had said "Yes"?

A night of many nights..

Snug and comfy in my Penn State sweatshirt...

From my balcony I am watching the world go by... a mother walking home from the supermarket.. a bored teenager kicks a Pepsi can on his way to the Cafe...

The night air smells like the sea.. memories float.. palm trees whisper.. a mischievous giggle can be heard if you listen carefully...

A sudden change in the atmosphere...

I realize that I am now witnessing time rewind...

The world is walking backwards.. and I'm peeking through a mouse hole...

Could that handsome gentleman racing his peers without a care in the world.. be our cranky old neighbor.. who pokes the young boys with his cane heading to Asar prayer?

Could those two youthful girls playing marbles in their floral jalabiyah's with colors defying all laws of fashion.. possibly be the old maids living in the huge villa at the the corner of the street.. mentally noting every neighborhood activity to gossip about it later on over their routine cup of tea...

Could that bashful lady carrying a tray of Arabic coffee across the yard with her long braid swinging down her back.. perhaps be my grandmother?
If I could only see her dimples..!

And like the curiosity that killed the cat..

I am back in year 2010.. with all my never-ending worldly issues..
From Iceland's volcano to my Oral Biology exam Wednesday morning...

*******
Isha prayer rings in the sky...
Young boys beware of a poke in the gut by Amo Ahmad's walking cane..

Ah! How he used to run!

Starbucks, Tim Horton's and House of Doughnuts

A cappucino on my way to the clinics.. need all the energy for the huge amount of calculus I'm removing...

A hot chocolate mellows me down after my prosthodontist professor completely humiliated me in front of my patient...

A cup of tea as I sit in the fifth row in the classroom while the professor rants about the criteria of teeth selection in a complete denture...
"Remember girls.. three very important factors: Hue, Chroma, and Value.. these help us choose the exact color of the teeth"

Sigh.. I've reached the milky way, heading off to Mars...
I hope the glazed doughnuts haven't finished by the end of the lecture...

Solitary

What if the heart can't stop loving?

What if it tried hatred, indifference, and numbness but nothing works?

What if love is the only hat that fits..
the only medicine that cures..
the only key that opens?

What if love has becomed a curse you're doomed to endure a lifetime?

Thank you...

To the lady that bumped into me as I was carrying two cups of Starbucks double mocha macchiato on my way to chat with my mother on the marble courts surrounding the Holy Mosque of Madinah…

Thank you for drenching my niqab in chocolate and filling my limited air space during sujood with that wonderful aroma...

That was before..

A few years ago I used to confuse between "lingual" and "palatal" until I finally realized they were synonyms...

A few years ago I would mix up between "oligo-" and "poly-".. the world of medical prefixes and suffixes was a mystery to me…

A few years ago studying the muscles of facial expression would bring me to tears.. was it "orbicularis oris" that was around the orbit and "orbicularis oculi" that surrounded the mouth.. or vice versa?

A few years ago the medical dictionary was my best friend.. "sialolith", "gastrectomy" and "rhinorrhea" were looked up several times.. till the pages became worn out…

A few years ago I would quaver when dissecting a rat as I put the spleen aside to observe the pancreas…

A few years ago I would hold back the nausea as I removed the skull cap from the cadaver to examine the dural venous sinuses…

A few years ago I would stare at a radiograph of the skull and know nothing about it except that it wasn't an image of the femur…


That was then…

Now I know…
Now I can…

Irresistible

It's a full-moon night...
I noticed as I filled the kettle to make myself some arabic coffee...
The moon looks so desirably alluring from my kitchen window...
The warm breeze gently tickles the flirtatious curtains...
The cardamom fills the air with its soothing scent...
The saffron magically turns my plain fingers into gold...
My "Benign Tumors" lecture lays untouched on the counter...
"Hemartoma" or a moon lit walk??
Too late...
I grab a date to munch on as I head to the yard...

Graffiti

A father drops his son off at school..
As soon as he turns the corner.. innocent "Ahmad" changes his profile in a hurry...
He takes off his shimagh and stuffs it in his backback.. squirts some hair gel and quickly readjusts his hairdo into a trendy mohak...
He takes his i-Pod from the pocket of his thobe, checks his reflection while putting the latest "Boys like Girls" song and hums along aimlessly...
He smiles in remembrance as he sees the graffiti on the walls of his school..
"A work of art" Ahmad says to himself "Who knew I had it in me"

Red means stop, take a minute and imagine

The cranky red light shined with anger.. it was too early to enjoy life...
Especially with 5o cars honking at you per hour.. including our minivan..
I took a sip of my latte and observed the surroundings while Taylor Swift sang "Love Story" through my headphones..
"You were Romeo you were throwing pebbles.. and my daddy said stay away from Juliet "
*****
A Palestinian mother stood with her young daughter waiting for the school bus..
Her red blood- shot eyes indicated a serious case of insomnia...
How could she possibly have a good night's sleep without thinking of her husband lost somewhere at the borders of Palestine in unknown condition..
If it wasn't for her routine cup of turkish coffee.. her sanity would've died long ago...
*****
Across the street a Pakistani driver washes his owner's red car...
Stealing time in between wipes to gaze at the bus stop...
The little girl was a picture of innocence with her bouncy ponytail and Hello Kitty lunchbox..
He remembers his own imaginary family in his mind...
*****
Next to me my cousin lays her head on the window dozing off to sleep...
The driver taps his fingers on the wheel in annoyance...

Wake-up call

You walk through life blinded by your own worries and sorrows that you become oblivious of the world around you...

You forget that other people suffer BIGGER things, real thorns scar their skin while you suffer the agony of a frosty stare from your loved one..

Some see their beloved slowly die in front of them while they are unable to help except for a wistful smile… while you watch "Grey's Anatomy" and sigh wondering if you'll ever find your real life "McDreamy"…

I'm NOT claiming who bears more pain…but sometimes when you broaden your horizon and remember that there IS pain somewhere else in the world.. it eases your sorrow.. at least for me it has…

Pain is a universal language… no translation is ever needed..