Cinnamon Zone

This is an email I received today, from Mohammad Omar, Palestinian journalist and photographer, reporting from Gaza. I'm not going to comment on this, you just try to put yourself in his place as an eye witness to the horrible situation there, not as a hero, not as a defender of the right, but as a human being...

Dear friends,
I'm scared, i was almost killed or at least bleeding
till death. three militants were closing all roads and
they sudden, they said to me stop during the curfew, i
stop and then the masked-men open fire under my feet
hitting the ground under my feet. i thought I'm
killed, and i could not explain or scream as the
shooting was louder than my scream, so I said, :" No,
don't do that, stop stop, please" oh, i was in tears,
this is the first time I'm begging someone not to kill
me, and then the other guy who's also militant was
standing in my side and said, we don't want to kill
him, lets shoot him in his legs and leave him bleed. I
said, what? why? and then he said, your ID, I show it
with the press card and then they let me go. I was
scared that they would shoot at me once I turn my
back, but alhamdllah this didn't happen, I was scared,
scared, scared to death. this was not pleasant
experience, and they were doing this, as I got stuck
and could not find transport back home, so I went
walking in the streets. I'm scared to death. those are
just evil and terrible people. I don't wish to be in
that position again. i can't stand in my feet
anymore, I feel pain and scared. those are working for
preventive security, which is working closely with
Israelis. I was wearing my bullet proof vest, but this
didn't protect me enough. today, more than 10 were
killed and tens were injured, many by Israelis, but
still some by Palestinian clashes between Hamas and
Fateh. they don't want this to be reported. I didn't
tell about this to my mother, she will be scared
again!

sad greetings!
Mohammed

The other day I was watching Grey's Anatomy, the episode in which Dr. Ellis Grey, who has come down with Alzheimer, recovers her memory and becomes lucid for one day. Being a veteran in the world of surgery and an exceptionally successful doctor, her life was devoted to her career, and it was nothing short of extraordinary. She's even went off at her daughter for saying that she was happy with her boyfriend, for she considered this something that ordinary girls say, not a promising girl like her who should be focused on her professional future.

During her few lucid hours, Dr. Grey looks back at her life, reviewing and even regretting some of her past choices, such as not building a bigger family and not fighting harder for the man she loved. Then she starts to imagine how her life would've been if her choices had been different, till she says something that stuck too hard in my head that I can't get it out, cutting to the chase, she said:

"And I would have been happy, just like Meredith says she's happy and that would have... changed everything... Maybe I would be fine and we could grow all together and life would be so perfectly ordinary"

So perfectly ordinary. Lately, the perfectly ordinary life has been of my biggest fears. I'm just too afraid that my life will wind up like this: Go to school, graduate from college, work and make money, marry, have children and die. It freaks me out, the perfect life many people dream about. How many times did you have people nagging about doing this because "everyone does it" or not doing this because "people won't like it/ will think ill of you/ will think you have issues…etc?

On the other hand, this made me think that, however extraordinary your life is, you can't afford to give up the ordinary things. But, I'm I just saying, why not make something extraordinary out of the ordinary? Which I think is possible if you have passion towards what you do, and a clear goal in mind. I don't want my life to be and expansion of tradition, I don't want my children to grow up in a society where they are hushed up and called blabbering "philosophers" just because they try to explain a different point of view.

Going back to Dr. Grey, I don't think she really meant what she said. I don't think she would trade a life dedicated to saving people's lives for an easier life. Yet, I think she would go back in time if she had the chance, not to have a different life, but to strike a balance between two lives: one that was her source of satisfaction, and another one she'll probably die yearning for: perfect yet ordinary.