Nostalgia

It has been 2 years since I stopped writing! I never had it in my mind to stop blogging. On the contrary, there were always things, thoughts and ideas I wanted to share, but I was always busy and there was always the common excuse “no time”. When friends used to ask me ‘why did u stop blogging’ I found it easy to say ‘the Syrian government has banned blogger.com’. After all, we are all human beings, i.e. inclined to blame others!
Now, being away from Syria, having left my parents, my family, my friends, my home, my street, my work, and my memories behind… I come back to my blog, feeling the urge to read some of my previous posts, anything to remind me of my old days and bring back those beautiful memories…
Although I am very happy in my new life which I willingly chose, I always miss everything back home. I miss looking from my window at cars outside, at pedestrians, at children pedaling their bicycles watched over by their Indonesian maids, at students studying German language at Goethe institute, thinking maybe of also leaving Syria to continue their studies abroad and most probably of not coming back again!
I miss Shaa’lan Street and all its mess, traffic and the crowd out there. I miss Salhiya Street and Abu Abdo, the cocktail shop and his famous fruit salad, I miss Aljahez Park and its surroundings, I miss restaurants, coffee shops and Shawrma, I miss old Damascus, and every single stone right there, I miss the strange faces I used to see there, faces of sellers, of beggars and of people that it never happened to see them twice!
I miss the smell of pollution back home, the dirt on streets, the dusty buildings, the big ugly green trash bins full of stray cats and its bad smell. I miss mad taxi drivers and that hidden anger and the question of why I didn’t fight with them?!
I miss all of Syria and its weird, difficult and incomprehensible texture, the mixture of old and new, rich and poor, beautiful and ugly, familiar faces I never saluted at all, but used to give me some sense of security, the feeling of being home…
In Short, I miss the unique spirit of Damascus.
Am I going to return to Syria? No one could tell how soon that will be.