Love actually

While I am certainly not fond of routines once they start taking over spontaneity, I do enjoy the, what I call, 'children' of certain routines like Christmas because after all, I was not born or raised religious. Our family didn't sing any songs, nor did we pray or attend Christmas mass. And we certainly never reflected on Jesus. To make a long story short, to us, Christmas could have taken place on a random day like May 16th if at all.

Christmas was rather a yearly tradition that we adopted, celebrated solely as a peaceful gathering of family and close friends, because as it seems the majority of the people, especially families, need a date and a reason in order to overcome past peculiar quarrels and focus on the one thing that matters most: Love.

A religious holiday, even in a non religious family, is the best subconscious force of it all - my parents knew that and took blunt advantage of it: family and friends would dress up, hug each other intensely, kiss and laugh. Those who walked into our apartment would forgive and forget - all in the name of the holiday. Cicero was right: ' An unjust peace is better than a just war.'

On nights like that, we would enjoy a never ending homemade dinner whose smell would blend perfectly with the smell of the tree, the smell of sweet burning wood from the fireplace, the smell of the masses of fresh white snow that the winter breeze would try to squeeze in, and the smell of the people I love. Needless to say that until this day, this very smell is the exquisite perfume of a long lost joyous time.

Dinner was usually followed by the mandatory gift exchange where my poor parents seemed disadvantaged to me. My sister and I would get various gifts in different shapes and sizes, wrapped beautifully in colorful gift paper, with bows and ribbons from all the people who attended dinner, while my parents would nod and smile, be polite by the book and thankful for their health.

It was perfectly fine for me to gratify my dad every year with a new tie that I could afford with pocket-money that I received from him. At the end of his life he was the proud proprietor of an entire tie collection and I wondered if I should have asked him for a pocket-money raise back then in order to buy him a nice watch. I came to the sober conclusion that it would have made no sense at all . Looking back, I see how the entire 'pocket-money-gift' from kid to parent was nothing but an act of Love and the living proof that it is the thought that counts.

It was one of the best days of the year, considering the fact that it was not my birthday but actually the one of someone else I never knew. Plus if you think about it: when else is it nowadays socially acceptable to put an entire chopped down tree into your apartment?

Moving to New York City with no family and close friends by my side had many downsides apart from the one that I had no one that I could have forced to cheer up, celebrate and love for the sake of Christmas - let alone the gift exchange.

Years later I might be physically not surrounded by my family, but thanks to modern technology, we force gather online and have a blast. I am delighted to spend my Christmases with wonderful, loving friends. We might not cook the 5 course dinner, but then again, we live in New York where time and space are limited, where gluten-free meatballs and fondue accompanied by many nice glasses of wine and 'all i want for christmas' on Pandora, followed by ice cream and 'Love actually' are synonym for a 5 course family dinner in Europe.

And when I arrived at my friend's apartment in lovely Stuyvesant Town, straight from the hospital with no makeup on and in my PJs from the morning, the most festive attire about me were my new winter boots and a bottle of wine. When I was welcomed at the entrance door with warm hugs and kisses by Jillian and Lidia, it was Love actually. Clearly it really is the thought that counts.

Deep Frozen Egg

I opened my freezer this morning to find the usual suspects: tons of italian coffee that my mum, who by the way is my biggest coffee drinking supporter, keeps on sending me from Europe where great coffee doesn't demand great finances ; 4 boxes of ice cream that i, for some reason, crave more in winter than in summer; 2 packs of frozen spinach from my roommate and last but not least, the permanent residents: ice cubes.

The usual suspects of the freezer were not one happy family but rather two. Category number 1 needs to be in the freezer in order to survive. Ice cream wouldn't be ice cream if stored in the fridge, neither would ice cubes. Category number 2 on the contrary is forced to be there out of human convenience. Spinach or coffee that we can't or don't want to consume straight away, is kept deep frozen and prevented from aging. Rule of thumb says we should freeze at peak quality. The same rule of thumb says that not everything freezes well, like lettuce or eggs in shells. Yet....

"You should freeze your eggs." is what I was told to do by a woman on a Saturday night to whom I had been introduced only moments before. And she didn't mean the eggs who come in shells.

A meeting between two strangers had turned uncomfortably intimate within a few minutes and while she kept trying to persuade me that it would be the best thing to do, I couldn't help but wonder how we even got that far...

If time is a bitch, the biological clock of a woman is the pimp. And even though times have changed in quality, time in numbers didn't change a second.

One generation ago, motherhood at the age of 20 was given. Today it is incomprehensible. Woman nowadays have the choice to work and the opportunity to build a career. In many cases it is even a necessity. As a result, families are started later than sooner - if at all.

According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine the peak quality for a woman's egg is before she turns 20. From that moment on the eggs begin to diminish in quantity and quality. At the age of 40 a woman has a 5% chance or less of becoming pregnant naturally in any one month. The chance of chromosomal abnormalities like Down Syndrome increases to 1 in 100 at the age of 40, compared to 1 in 1000 at the age of 20.

To make a long story short: getting pregnant at the age of 40 or more is risky in many ways.

Freezing eggs falls in the "Freezer Philosophy" under category number 2 - the same as spinach. Also known as the "Convenience Category". I looked at the spinach in the freezer who, stiff and lifeless, stared right back at me. Astonishing how it had stopped aging and slipped through time's claws. Who would have thought that some day frozen eggs and frozen spinach would have something in common? I imagined their common slogan: "Preserve today while young and use later."

The difference is that while spinach is not part of our bodies, our eggs are. And while they might stay young and fresh in the timeless freezer, we still keep aging. Our hair will eventually turn grey, even if we dye it. Our skin will get wrinkles, Botox or not. At the end of the day, no matter how much we master the art of looking young, we will keep aging internally and mentally. No plastic surgery can change your date of birth.

The time difference between the frozen egg and the body that will carry it is as relevant as in any other good relationship. A year or two don't even count, 5 years are sexy, 10 great, 15 perfect and 30 is like the distance from earth to moon - nice from afar but impossible to explore.

Being the best parent possible to a kid, who needs constant action, attentiveness and patience, should be the highest priority for a parent. An attribute and necessity like patience, for example, is at the age of 20 endless and seems permanent - at age 40 it is a nice visitor. Raising kids requires a fair amount of energy. The very same energy that diminishes with age.

As a young woman who is about to turn 30 and is self - aware, I would consider myself as a liar or in severe denial if I would dare to say that nothing has changed in the past 10 years. It is not easy to see simply because one's natural surroundings age as much as oneself. Our lives are the reflection of subjectivity. My friends and family are the same to me as 10 years ago but certainly not to a stranger who sees us objectively.

When it comes to having children from deep frozen eggs, we should step back from the idea of what we want and respond to what a child would want. After all, motherhood is the opposite of selfishness...

What happens when the age difference between parent and child becomes questionable? How much could we understand each others worlds? Wouldn't grandparents vanish at some point? And while we would deprive them from us being able to give a 100% as a great parent, wouldn't we above all deprive them from enjoying their parents for as long as possible? Because by gaining more time for ourselves wouldn't we have less time to give to our kids?

Our priorities change all through our lives. The importance lies within making the right choices for ourselves and taking full responsibility for those. Keeping constantly options open prevents us from settling for anything at all. As my mum always used to say: there is a time for everything. Maybe we should keep this in mind, remove the deep frozen eggs and replace them by good old spinach.

Patience 1

 

©Saman Giraud 

Fashion Night Out In NYC

It was one of those perfect New York City nights...The city was as bright as ever, lights in every form and every color seemed to turn even the darkest corners of the city into a living stage. Music filled the late summer air only to be carried away by a light breeze and to merge somewhere in this clear night with loud, blissful laughter and jumbled chit-chat. The meatpacking district was flooded with performers, walking in every possible direction, taking over the streets and making them their own because tonight was the night where every performer was a protagonist - it was Fashion Night Out. 

When a wave of beauty in such diversity and grandeur crosses our way, we can let ourselves be carried away or hold on for a moment and watch - be the orgiast or the voyeur.

I stopped at the corner of 13th street and Washington and the longer I stood there, the more I enjoyed what was happening around me. The protagonists of the night were dressed at their very best: high heels and higher heels were clicking their way through the cobble stone pavement. Sheer, lace and sequins were walking hand in hand with the classic black 2 button suit. Skin was everywhere: shorts and hot pants, midi and mini skirts, dresses and gowns, sleeveless tops and bustiers. There was no doubt: skin was the fabric of choice. Panama hats, top hats, cowboy hats and fedoras adorned some heads, while others had chosen luscious feathers, beaded headbands and head scarves from Gucci to Pucci. And in the midst of all the fashion was the indispensable NYC traffic consisting of cars, yellow cabs and gypsy cabs, limos and stretch limos, fire trucks and NYPD cars blinking and honking in order to make their way, even if slowly through the never-ending waves of crowds. 

It appeared to me that every thing that exists or could possibly exist was represented right here in this very moment at this very corner. Every country was represented, every style lived out, vintage and new, young and restless, male and female, heterosexual, bi, gay and transgender. It was one of those precious moments that reminded me that despite or maybe because we live on a tiny island like Manhattan that shelters almost 1,6 million people, where we feel physically constricted at times, for very obvious and legitimate reasons, we have the luxury to have the limitless space for individuality.

Fashion Night Out captures the legendary spirit of the city and all I could do was smile and think: New York, I love you.

Balloons

 

©Saman Giraud 

Mercy In The Sky

This is my story,

Once upon a time or two

We must have, first met, somewhere else

Familiar feelings

Made love intensely, could you be someone else?

Or my biggest cravings?

My tall heavy brick walls were to you paper thin

You're my favorite breastpin

I shut the door, thought I will keep you here

Forever and ever

You must be my blessing or my biggest curse

Where is the difference?

I didn't suffer from being cannonaded,

Bullets penetrated

My Love I never

Asked for your love

You push me back yet never let me go

Stop holding me, you should bestow

As if I, as if I could change that we're not one but two

As if I, as if I could change that we're not one but two

Love don't cry

Mercy in the sky

In my dreams

I painted shadow black the day we parted

All I kept

Were memories of how it started, how we started

My lips are tasteless dry

My love I never stopped to cry

Never asked you why

Never said goodbye

I never stopped to cry

I'm waiting for you, pick me up and fly

Wingless we will try to make it to the

Mercy in the sky

Lyrics written for Samira Dadashi

©Saman Giraud

Papi

Forever with Us - Forever with You

Special thanks to Alexo Wandael

Puzzle

More than 10 years have passed since I lost my Loved One to one of the two consequences of life - its ending. Some of them passed like a blink of an eye, too fast to notice, others dragged on like a dreadful disease with no cure known of but time and patience to soothe only the symptoms. And even now, more than 10 years later, I catch myself every now and then looking for bits and pieces of him within others who are still alive and amongst the world I live in.

Knowing I would never find him in one piece here again, I started a never-ending puzzle called Dad.

The stranger who walked into the restaurant had his soft shiny forehead with the profound forehead rows, the cab driver had his all-knowing, humble and innocent gaze that for some reason always reminded me of Bambi, my uncle had his deep voice with the lovely scratch right where it belonged, my friend had his shaving brush, its handle made of hematite and Sephora had his perfume, a smell I could hardly describe...

I carefully chose and collected all those pieces over the past decade, handpicked each of them like flowers, held them as strong as I could and replaced in time some by other, more accurate ones, to create a wonderful bouquet.

I wanted to create a new photograph, the best I could possibly create, of my Loved One, dated with the present, of one who since long ago belonged to the past. And each bittersweet time when I met a new piece of him, each time when I thought I had just collected another piece of the puzzle called Dad, I was reminded that none of those pieces would ever belong to me or come to life. There were merely borrowed for a blink of an eye yet my eyes stole their glimpse forever.

A friend of mine once said that the yearning for the one you love and lost would never diminish and certainly not disappear. He was right.

I must miss my Dad every day because every now and then the snowballs that I would shape of an insatiable longing for him and that I would gently throw behind my back, on my way to nowhere, would turn into an invisible avalanche suddenly overwhelming me from behind and carrying me away... My only salvation in these moments is to melt the avalanche from the inside in order to break free which turns all the snow into all the tears I have, streaming down my face, as rapid and uncontrollable as only an avalanche can be. My heart shrinks to a size beyond my imagination and breathing is nearly impossible. Crushed by the heavy pain and trying to hold myself, the pressure in my head rises and causes a terrible headache. It is the wind that forces itself through my open mouth into my lungs, grabbing the space it is entitled to, that makes me breathe again.

No matter where I am, in my head I start running home as quickly as I can and on my way I think of all the things I possess. I go through every item, every purchase, every piece of paper or fabric. All I need is one thing that was his, one thing that can soothe my pain and save me - for now.

Back at home, in the house we used to live together, I used to run to the bathroom and smell his shaving brush, I would snuggle his sweater or lay my head on his favorite pillow - inhale as slowly and deeply as I could and exhale only as little as necessary...But time carries away not only the people, but also their smells.

In my new home there is no trace of his existence simply because he didn't move in with me. He was not even granted a visit because Life said so and Life didn't grant me an objection. There is nothing left to smell, nothing to touch.

When I reach the peak of my desperation it hits me out of nowhere and I suddenly remember that there will always be one thing that will be with me as long as I live - at all times and at all places:

I would always have my reflection in the mirror. I would stand there, drenched in tears, my eyes burning, red and swollen, giving my best to force my eyes to open and take a good close look at myself because somewhere there, in my reflection, must be a piece of him. A piece that I could not only see, but also touch. A piece that was alive, here and now. One that not even time, the best thief of all, could steal from me and no blow of destiny could ever separate from me.

He was truly a marvelous man and it took me all those years to understand that I would not need or find more words or better words to describe him in order to paint the picture that would do his soul justice. All I needed to do is to describe my longing for him.

I am the daughter of a father who would have given her life to save his.

More than 10 years have passed and this never changed.

Kissing In The City

There are certain truths is life that are intangible. Kissing is one of those truths. It is a truly wonderful thing to do and anyone who ever kissed, knows that. Besides being healthy, it has stress-reducing effects, it was and always will be a form of affection. Romantic kissing reflects being into each other - literally.

While many people worldwide consider Paris to be the city of love, no one can really tell why. Paris symbolizes passion and romance - another intangible truth.

You will find bright lights, romantic restaurants, lovely rivers and culture in many other cities too. The difference is that two lovers in Paris will show their affection no matter where they are, no matter what the weather is like or what other people might think about it. And they will show it very clearly.

According to Wikipedia, public display of affection is very common in 'developed countries' like the US. I could not agree less. Coming from Europe, I was shocked to see the lack of showing affection in public. French kissing being the least of the problems.

In New York City, kissing in public and showing that you are into each other is considered by many people as rude, intrusive or even disgusting. And yes, in some restaurants or public spaces you will be asked to stop showing your affection for each other by some sort of authority in order to protect others. From what, will remain a mystery. Simultaneously, New Yorkers absorb any form of affection like a dry sponge longing for water.

The Big Apple is ruled by Apple which according to Digitimes, secured 60% of the 'global touch screen capacity' with 50% of the iPhones and iTouches being used in the US. This leads to the conclusion that touching is very popular in the US - at least when it comes to technical devices.

In a country where people love to iTouch everything, from their iPhones to their iPods, going all the way to stoves and even microwaves, I wonder if the classical screen replaced the classical skin?

According to the Durex Sexual Wellbeing Survey, out of 26 countries, the US has one of the Top 3 lowest weekly sexual activities with 53% of the participants in the survey having weekly sex, the same amount as Nigeria by the way. The only country where people have less weekly sex than the US and Nigeria, is Japan with mortifying 34%. Weekly sex in France is common for 70% of the participants.

In New York City where the stress level of the regular person is probably as high as the Empire State Building, one should maybe consider excessive kissing instead of excessive workout in the gym. Not only is it for free, but it is also effortless and far from being exhausting. Furthermore I never met a single person in my life who suffered from muscle soreness as a result of kissing, but I can say that anyone I know suffered from it as a result of workout.

At the ends of our lives, no one will look back and regret having not touched enough screens, but rather having not touched enough lovely people. Devices just like money, leave no marks, only dirty fingers. But human affection can shake us to the core.

When it comes to excitement, I'd rather have my lips vibrating from a beautiful kiss, than a phone vibrating in my pocket.

swan

it seemed as if over night

she had turned into a swan

he, who was holding her tight

was holding her at dawn

every night

tight so she would not fall apart

her feathers covered in silence

every night

loose so she could breathe from her heart

in her sleep she felt his presence

with each dusk that followed the dawn

he who had already turned himself into a swan

was able to see what was yet to be seen

who she is, will be and has been

farewell he said and one more embrace

chest to chest and face to face

the stains of his absence were washed in her tears

the door shut and gone were her fears

her walk was sublime

was it her or was it time?

my love!look who i am! she wanted to cry

but her words failed to describe

and her voice turned shy

and with the heavy weight of his embrace

she learned to fly