Eid Mubarak...

Just a little greeting from me and my children to all my friends... Eid mubarak! This is us at our relatives house *with arabic taste*. God bless!

Closing up

After all my unkept promises I have finally decided to stop blogging here. There are a million reasons. I have truly loved sharing my thoughts with you all and I have learned a lot from you readers.

I would like to say, like a classic break-up line, "it's not you, it's me!".

My priorities are elsewhere. I am very much offended by the unpleasant comments (turning on comments moderation only helps your eyes, not mine - I still have to read it all to approve or not approve). I have concernes about whether or not to "be out there". I have philosophical concernes about how to write about the truth without hurting anyone. I've come to the conclusion that I can't and then there is really no point. I also sort of lost my purpose. I've said this before, living in Gaza I had stories served on a plate, being back in my ordinary life and describing that is much more difficult. I lost my focus. I am so busy with other things in my life that I have no time for hobbies at the moment. And there is a war. That's reason enough for anyone to feel depressed.

It is simply not fun anymore.

A great big THANK YOU to each and everyone that has read my blog(s). You have lighted up my life.

This time I am moving on for good without any links. One day I surely will be back but you might not know. I wish you all the best and most importantly - KEEP BLOGGING!

UPDATE: THANKS FOR ALL THE WELL-WISHES. THOUGHT I AT LEAST COULD END THINGS MORE NICELY WITH SOME OF MY SUMMER PHOTOS... (at least one promise kept) BYE!

Under construction

Only loyal and patient readers are still with me. And the loyal and patient readers will know that my blogging has been somewhat troublesome for me during the last months... So, this is a new beginning. I will surely be the same Imaan, but my blog needed a little "pick-me-up" and some comment moderation. Why let crazies kill the blogospirit?

I don't think anyone is troublefree when the world is as it is in these days. However my skills are not within politics, so it is not that easy or meaningful to express my thoughts on whats going on. But surely I HAVE opinions.

Holliday

Off I go. Joining my kids at our family's summer house.

And guess what, they don't even have a phone in their house.

I must be doing something wrong

I have always had a passion for writing (and reading for that matter). Blogs have opened a new world to me. I just don't know where to start. COME ON - other bloggers! Please tell me you share or at least recognize some of my difficulties?!

I mean, how honest can a person really be? REALLY be? Everyone say (including myself) that the blog-world is a wonderful thing, but the blogs I read, however well written and really good they are, are almost always impersonal. They are usually about others (about who was killed, who won the election, about a journalist who said..., about a man who did whatever) and seldom about the person him- or herself. Unless of course the blogger is an anon.

Sure you are free to blog about whatever you like, and maybe I have just not reached the world of personal blogs. Or is it that it is really not that interesting to know that for example Imaan endured endless arguments with her husband in the spring of 2006? Or are we just too shy, too private? Don't we dare?

Or is it just too trivial? There are so many things that happen to me, that I see or hear or experience, that might seem important to me in the moment but when it comes to writing it down I get suspicious. Would "the world" really benefit from reading my perhaps silly little stories (and I'm honestly not just saying that so my "friends" in here have to compliment me). And I wonder, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Aaaah, the human mind....

In my head it goes like: What's the point of blogging if it is not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Then it goes: Yeah, but... truth or dare? Do I (and do you?) really dare to tell the truth or do we prefer to describe the truths of others? As we see it? And is that even The Truth? And finally: Is the truth really what we want? Isn't almost everyone of us trying to escape the truth (like when people ask you "Hi, how are you?" we answer "Fine, thank you" however shitty we may feel). Is it like in the Cruise/Nicholson-movie when Tom Criuse's character say "I want the truth!" and Nicholson's character answers "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!"?

Well, people, I dare ya. MY TOP TEN LIST OF SILLY LITTLE STORIES:

1. Summer finally came. It is hot!

2. My Maryam just turned 3. There were also 3 parties helded for her, one in my grand-mother's house, one in my mother's house and finally one with her own friends in my house! Happy birthday Maryoma habibti.

3. I just read the da Vinci Code. My God! Go take a good look at your nearest Mona Lisa copy.

4. I had a visit from the wonderful world. My cousin (almost little sister) who is a lawyer (det står så i ordboken, E!) came for a visit to my suburbian working-class "hell". I suddenly felt (not suddenly, I have always felt it, but it just suddenly surfaced again) LOST.

5. Speaking of classes... Isn't it getting worse or am I just waking up? Speaking of suburbian hell... Do I hate it or love it? I'm not sure. Muslims in minority (or any other group in minority) will recognize this: Do I want to live in a suburb with many muslim neighbours or in a "nice" area with no muslim neighbours? Well, let's not get into that just now.

6. I had a visit from the wonderful world 2. My father came and as we were walking through my area we agreed that somehow there would not be weeds in the flower beds in a "nice" area, but somehow the flower beds in my suburbian working-class "hell" is full of weeds. Aren't we all paying rent?

7. My father took all the children with him for some days. I repeat: ALL the children. I AM FREE!! I'm about to join them soon for my own "vacation". My grand-parents has a house on the west coast, so photos from the wonderful swedish summer are coming up.

8. Yesterday: Sweden won 1-0 againts Paraguay (in fotball people). I usually love to watch fotball games (if Sweden is involved) but yesterday I couldn't resist the other channel showing the brilliant Fahrenheit 9/11 by brilliant Michael Moore. The way I found out though that there was a GOAL was hearing my neighbours loud shouts of "YEEEEEES!!!" through my open balcony door.

9. I just found a new Gazan blog.

10. It is almost on the day exactly ONE YEAR AGO since I entered Gaza.

Now the best part is that... after "coming out" about my marriage problems, things have actually gone from worse to better. Yes. I belive that no marriage is perfect. At some point(s) there have to be some compromises done, what ever the details for each marriage would be. I have been married 8 years now (our anniversary come up within a few weeks just) ALHAMDULILLAH and there has been some difficult times. To sum things up I was starting to feel hopeless because my husband didn't seem to hear me. I was speaking to a wall. May it be the Gazan gene or the male gene, I don't know.

I'm not yet sure what has happened. I'm not naive. There has been no over-night extreme make-over changes, but somehow somewhere he seem to get it (and I have also done some re-thinking). It's not perfect - but it is better.

Something else

Thought I'd write about something completely else.

Today my son (he's turning 7 in just a few weeks now) had his weekly Qur'an lesson. It's a wonderful thing because, here my son is - in a Stockholmian suburb in Sweden, being half swedish-half palestinian learning Qur'an from his bengali Imam (who is the son of a great and well-known Imam from Bangladesh). What a wonderful multicultural ummah, mashaAllah.

They speak arabic together and as I was eavesdropping (well, actually couldn't avoid it - small apartment) from my room I heard Ibrahim laughing and making (polite) jokes with his teacher.

That made my heart smile today.

Don't worry...

We are not going back to Gaza.

And these are the words that build a fence between me and my husband.

There has been so many warm and good advices in The Comments that I don't know where to start. Let me say this... I'm not spilling it all. Out of respect for my religion and my husband. As a good sister pointed out it would of course be recommended to keep it within the family. As for my husband... well, I could only imagine if he had his own blog and wrote personal stuff about me. My God! However, after some serious consideration I decided this is what I needed to do. My personal thereapy.

Yes, men are men, aren't they? And a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do. This is another thing I would like to point out, that it's not ONLY the Gaza vs. Stockholm issue going on. Seemes that my sisters in here married from other palestinians know very well what I'm talking about.

I'm sure Laila is fainting by now saying "there she goes again - it's all complaints, complaints, complaints!!" (it's a joke, Laila habibti). And it may be true. There is of course another side to this story (which would be on my husband's - so far - imaginary blog) and that is HIS SIDE. So let me say that I am surely no piece of cake. Even though I have some serious complaints on him, he surely have some on me. And as we blog along the picture should be more clear.