Refuge...

In my despair moments I searched for a refugee to sooth my shredded mind, mood and feelings.

I closed my eyes trying to disconnect to my cluttered entourage hoping to find a peaceful corner where I can seek some self contentment and serenity.

At first there was nothing but darkness. While after I started hearing giggles. I listened carefully and it appeared to be children laughers

A bit later, darkness scattered and voices became clearer…

And there I was, just a little girl playing in the garden.

I was in my village surrounded by my cousins…

We were baking in the old fashioned way and eating proudly what our small hands prepared and gathered from figs and grapes.

The trees were our little houses. That branch was the bedroom and this branch was our sitting room.

The leaves served us as plates to serve on.

And there was the walnut trees which we could never invade as they were tall and so short were our legs. However we tried to take benefit of their fruits by throwing stones on. Poor trees… they must have suffered a lot but revenged well as barely these stones were able to get us what we desired.

Our pets were stone with a whole which we recruited carefully and tied to a rope in order to drag them with us wherever we go. Many times these imaginary pets (mainly sheep) rebelled on us by hurting our ankles and causing them to bleed as we always stripped over them…

The Donkey was always on rotation among us, but my uncle’s donkey was so stubborn and lazy… he barely moves his legs although we used to kick him a lot.

The hens were not also that lucky as they were under a continuous surveillance. As soon as they laid the eggs we stole them and asked my aunt to cook them for us… damn, they were so delicious!

As for the cows, they used to raise their eyes to the sky, asking God’s mercy to spare them our little hands. We used to beg our aunt to let us milk with her the cows, but we squeezed and squeezed and milk never came out. We thought that only my aunt hands had the magic touch.

And the evenings, Wow… they were tremendous.

We used to sleep outside. 9 little floor mattresses all aside screaming for a bed time story. They were creepy but we loved them.

And when our head lay on the pillow, the last thing we used to see is a sky crowded with millions of stars watching us from above. Many times we tried to count them but never came to an end… Truly such skies don’t exist anymore.

Those were lovely days…. The best I knew…