mystique-cached

The End of the Affair

"Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. " Gibran

A Letter to my Beloved Readers,

Mystique created History and she's History, I'll miss you..
It's time to emancipate Mystique, since I've prisoned her in a vicous cycle in a very foolish moment of mine almost two months ago.
I won't stop writing, I promise.

And as Mahmoud Darwish once wrote:

One day I shall become what I want
One day I shall become a Thought, a Bird, a Poet.

Warmest Regards

Mystique

Knock Knock

Knock knock on my car window
A child's face curiously staring at me
With boredom dusting her face
Sparkles in her small Asian eyes

Knock knock
She's insisting
She's persistent
She wants me to buy the chewing gum

I open the window
Her entire gang surrounds me excitedly
I ask, where is your father, your mother?
He is mending shoes
She is breastfeeding my 5th brother

Ten Riyals and they're gone
All gone as fast as they came
A smile and a few gentle words and they're all gone

Knock knock
It's poverty knocking on the door

On the Washington Post article

Back in mid-Ramadan, the famous Saudi journalist Faiza Ambah contacted me and told me she wanted to write an article about Saudi bloggers. I was very excited since she is one of the first Saudi female journalists, and I couldn't wait to meet her.

The first meeting was cancelled since I couldn't get a driver for that evening (of course all of you know that we women can't drive here).

The second meeting was amazing. We've talked about many things: how I've discovered my talent, how I started blogging, what inspires me to write, and the reasons behind me writing of " Rantings of an Arabian Woman " and " Unleash the Buried Soul I & II ".

We discussed sexual harassments that women at work face here, a topic still untouched here in Saudi Arabia, and of course women's life in general.

Jeddah's Blog

Back in June Ahmed, OT, Rimyoleta, Shimozi, Didi, and I created a new blog called " Jeddah's Blog ". We aimed for it to be a way for Saudis and non-Saudis to see Jeddah through the eyes of its people. Faiza thought it was a great idea, and she thought the slogan "Good Morning Jeddah" was very catchy and carries many meanings, and she was disappointed when she learned that that blog is not actively managed. I explained to her how it is very difficult for most of us to write in our blogs and "Jeddah's Blog", and that many of the contributors got so busy with their lives that they barely could manage their own blogs.

Inkaleidoscope

Another blog I'd mentioned to Faiza was "Inkaleidoscope ". I told her how fond I am of Tantalize's style in his writing and his blog, and how "Inkaleidoscope" had writers from different Arab countries.

Henry Miller?

Faiza thought that my sensual writing was daring and asked me "Why are you daring?" I actually had no answer to that because I don't think what I'm writing is daring or can be solely classified as erotica since I barely mention flesh in my writing or the actual action that happens. If my writing was erotic then what would Henry Miller's "Tropic of Cancer" be? I'd rather say my writing could be characterized as 'sensual'. She asked me many questions concerning the sensual (fictional) "He & She" posts.

After that we exchanged a number of e-mails regarding why I blog anonymously, what I feel my contribution to Saudi blogs is, the comments on my blog, and e-mails I receive from readers including compliments, criticism, and sometimes hostile feedback. And of course I told her about my blog's stats, that the U.S. ranked number one, followed by Saudi Arabia, UK, then Kuwait.

The Washington Post article

When I read the article I wasn’t very pleased. The Mystique portrayed there is nowhere close to who I am and Faiza had met me in person and we had many conversations. The portrayal of me was all about sex! Actually, my blog has a combination of a lot of topics. Why was the main focus only about the relatively small sensual parts? That car incident is from real life, but it's a story I've heard, and I wasn't the girl in the car.

I did not sit down and immediately start talking about sex or when I got in touch with my sexuality. We talked about a lot of things and about how young women in Saudi learn about sex.

Long ago I've visited a Sex Shop here in Jeddah that almost a year ago was mentioned by Arab News in this article . It was quite a funny and humorous experience, since it was one of its kind here in the kingdom and actually over here we women actually find it quite embarrassing to buy personal things from salesmen, and to your very surprise men sell lingerie to us women, and now they are even selling vibrators, and I was hoping that this issue will be solved and only blogged about it because it was such a strange situation.

Conclusion

When I created this blog I'd never expected that I'd get this much attention from the media, and that I'd get people reading my blog from all over the world. The e-mails I've received from many readers really touched me, from girls writing to me about their personal frustrations, to a young girl collecting my writings and one day wanting to print it out as a small book, to readers actually e-mailing me every week to ask about my wellbeing.

Blogging was and is such a great experience to be exposed to such a diversified base of readers, from different countries, different religions, and varying experiences.

I do not represent anyone but myself, and I write for everyone. I write for you, he, she, and myself.

---

One blogger wrote a good comment about the Washington Post article: Blogging in Saudi Arabia .

Rantings of an Arabian Woman II

My Beloved,
I’ve never written a letter to you before
Never since my ink has dried
Never since they caught me crying over that cruel destiny of mine
Never since life took me by surprise

How can words reflect my agony
My agony since I’ve lost you
I did not lose you
They made me lose you

My Beloved,
I ask you:
Why didn’t God just made you a man of us?
A man from the Kingdom of Sands
Why did he decide ”You shall not be one of them”?
And leave me suffering here alone in this velvety room of mine

It’s just a name, it’s just a name
And all they care for is just a name
Would they ever realize that it’s just a name?

My Beloved,
You’ve left and took a part of me with you
A part that has been nurtured by them
Our enemies: My Family

Again
It’s just a rant
That I'll bury into the Kingdom of Sand

The Emancipation of Mystical Thoughts

Monday, November 20, 2006

The End of the Affair

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Knock Knock

Monday, November 13, 2006

On the Washington Post article

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Rantings of an Arabian Woman II

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Tunis II