That Will Be The Day

BEING a writer is a very strange business. It’s really funny, I mean, what could be said about it? A lot, I would say. But does it matter? Would it make sense? Only a writer can write about being a writer, right? Am I a writer? Well, I certainly believe so! But what does really make a writer? Is it anyone who writes anything? Does a writer only become a true writer when he or she is published? See, I don’t know about that.

What I do know that writing is not something that we do; it’s something that tells us what we are.

It is said that everyone, every single person, would at least, at one point or another in their lives, would think of being a writer, of writing a book about something; more often their dark side of their indigestible life, or perhaps even some particular things or issue that they believe they know more about than the rest of the population of our earth all together.

I do believe in that, yes, everyone does think of that at least once in their lifetime, but what really does make a real writer from a fake is the reason behind wanting to be one in the first place. It is when someone blindly believes that he or she are destined to be writers, that it is the one thing that they can prove themselves in, that it is what drives them to want and explore and move forward. You don’t write to become rich, you don’t write to become famous, you don’t write for any other reason than to just do that, write.

You see, I’ve heard people that I know saying they want to write a book or two, to become writers, but the simple fact that they admitted it to someone else is the proof that they are not meant to become ones. They would throw it in casually in the conversation, as if it was something that could be done conveniently whenever they pleased.

“Yes, yes. I have always thought about that. I have it in my mind that one day I would write one, yes, sure. Why not?” They would say, or words to that effect.

There wasn’t a certain moment in my life in which I stopped and said “Aha, I will be a writer. I will write books and sell them. This will be my living,”

No, no. I didn’t say that, I simply found my self writing, I wasn’t even sure I liked it, I just did it. Like an impulse, it came as natural as breathing or the crying of a newborn child. It’s in the blood, it’s not something that you gain or develop. Some people are meant to be writers, some people have no choice but to be, sometimes it takes longer to realize that. But when you look at your past, you will realize that every single thing that happened or that you went through was another step towards finding out that that is your destiny, to knowing that it is what you are, that it has been in you all your life, like a curse, but a beautiful one at that. You will realize that as a child you loved to make up stories in your head and that sometimes you found yourself writing them down, or making them into drawings, and that as a teenager you would have conversations between imaginary characters, perhaps you would even construct alternate realities to your daily events. It just takes time, but once you realize your gift, and master it, you could never give it up. And you couldn’t even if you wanted to! It would just keep flowing through your mind and out your fingertips.

Take this for an example, why am I writing this? I am writing because I felt a need to. I had this itch, this relentless desire to write (you might even say that a writer would consider his writing – the actually writing process – as his or her best friend). You do it when there is no one else around, when there is no one to talk to, or even when you need an escape. It could be for a number of reasons. I was up tucked in my bed, alone, reading a book – a short stories collection for some writer I’ve never heard of before. I only bought the damned thing because it was cheap and I’ve had it for months, forgotten among the pile of paperbacks kept beside my lamp desk – I have fallen out with my girlfriend and I have had a bad week (but these are two separate stories on their own which I wont be getting into here), and on top of that, as if fate and irony were laughing at my face, I came, interestingly enough, across a story about a first-time novelist! Put all that together and you’ve got yourself a good enough cause to trigger the need for writing.

So, I picked my shirtless self out of bed, not finding it perilous at all taking in consideration the fact that it is three in the morning, as I was apparently wide awake and sleepless, and came downstairs to my trustworthy computer and switched it on. And here I am, writing. Writing about writing, about being a writer! Everybody is asleep, or so it seems. I have an older brother and a younger sister. They are both dull and predictable. My parents, well, they are my parents, and that’s saying a good deal!

They weren’t too keen on accepting the fact that their son, who they, for some mystic reason, had high hopes on and expected the most from, wanted to become a writer. When you from that sort of background and living in a community such as this, it’s kind of hard. You’re just not expected to make a decision like that. Be a writer? What for?

“That’s what I want to do,” I had told them “That is what I am going to be,” I said after studying the prognostic look on their faces that said that I will probably snap out of it, get over it, and forget about it, in duo time. Parents would never really, truly, honestly, want their children to be writers, no matter how much they would say they do or how hard they tried to show that they care and support you in your quest to become one. I could tell that I am a disappointment to them now. Perhaps I will always be until I became rich and famous. And that in itself baffles and angers me greatly, that success is based on these two trivial and superficial components, which are a cause of malaise to me.

Parents, all parents, to no fault of their own, want every one of the children to grow up into something big, something or someone “important”; and that includes getting into one of the enlisted promising-good-and-stable-future careers… such as say, typically, an engineer, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a geeky rocket scientist for Prophet’s sake! Anything remotely close to the kind of jobs that you would say, as a kind, you would want to get when you grow up. My brother used to say he wanted to be a rich Arab oil lord, my sister a nurse. I used to say I wanted grow to become an astronaut!

“That’ll be the day!” my father would laugh at hearing that, filled with satisfaction and comfort that his children had the potential to be greats!

Not that they would ever admit that they think there is something wrong with being a writer.

“But, son, that’s a hobby. You need a real job!” they would say, as have my father. And to be very frank, that is, to any true writer, is as insulting as saying to a macho man “Your weenie is as tiny as your pinky!”

Parents, like mine, would go as far as showing interest in what I write. Asking me every now and then – never often enough - about my latest work and how it was coming along, but that’s the end of the line for them. I was thrown at the rock bottom of their interest agenda the minute I revealed my presumptuous determination to become a writer, which also served as close as the final nail in my coffin! It was like once that was out in the open I was of no more use to my parents. Their true attention was re-directed at, and distributed equally between, my brother and sister, who were vying for their parentally-blessed careers in business management and political sciences, respectively.

My brother, Yousif, aged 27, is now a senior executive at one of those big corporate firms, with lots of smart-suited young people in large fancy offices, which one would find at the 30th floor of some skyscraper or the other. My sister, Hanan, aged 19, is a sweet, pretty girl making her way, fluidly, through college. No doubt she will be staffed in the campaign of some grey-haired politician running for parlimant in the coming few years.

Me, I’m 24, jobless and, according to most people I know, career-less! I am yet to publish my first book. I had a few shorts run in this journal and that but those weren’t convincing.

I had to refuse my father’s offer, the same that Yousif and Hanan had received after graduating high school, to pay my way through college, because he certainly could afford to. I don’t come from a rich family, but I have to give it to the old man for managing his finances quite well.

“Well, I don’t want to go to college. I don’t have to go. I don’t need to,” I said to him, staring him in the eye. My mother sat nervously at the other end of the sofa, head down, looking at her locked fingers. “But I sure could use that money for kick-starting my writing career!” I added boldly, knowing that it would piss him off. He sighed and grumbled and as he turned his back to me, leaving the stuffy living room, he said in a loud whisper: “That’ll be the day.”

Mother, bless her, has always done a great job in being the link, the joining part, of our family. Trying through endless and accurate negotiations to settle any pressing and current issue threatening the peace of the home, but like the peacemakers of the world, she fails miserably. That is not saying that her efforts weren’t appreciated. But some things are just meant to be, they are better left alone to take their paths without alternation and interference.

Being a writer, to many, might not sound like a smart idea or a pleasant experience, but it’s worth it. Don’t tell me how I know, I just do. It’s defiantly the most rewarding thing I’ve ever come across and I have the feeling that I am yet to reap my just rewards. It doesn’t matter what everybody else thinks, the downs, the disappointments, the hard times, the writer’s blocks! They all go away. You just got to shrug it off and keep doing what your inner self tells you to do. Don’t think about the people’s opinions, don’t think about the press, don’t think about the money, just do what you best do in the best manner that you know and give the finger to the rest of the world. If you are a writer, you are a writer, you will always be. No one can ever take that away from you. No one can change that. It is a fact.

It’s almost five. The prayer call has died away and I could now hear the birds singing. They sing to their youthfulness, to their new day. They sing of love making and of nostalgic essences. Their mere singing is a declaration of their self. Dawn is coming. Another day. Another story? Maybe. The outside world is lightly murky, just like my future, but just as well as I know that this murkiness will be wiped by the fresh, golden rays of the morning sun and that the world will be bright once more, I know that so will my future.

I hear footsteps, descending the stairways, some one is up already! I am almost 100% sure it is my father, for he is the only one with the habit of waking up in the very early hours of the morning. I rub my eyes and look out the window again.

“You’re still up!” indeed, it was my father, his voice croaky and gurgled.

“Looks like it,”

His eyes are puffy, his falling, white hair scruffy and he looks like a giant apple in his red pajamas!

He sighs but it comes out sounding more like a yawn.

“Aren’t you ever going to give up on that?”

I hesitate. I look at the screen, its pale brightness hypnotizing and dull; then down at my fingers, perched upon the wide keyboard, nails trimmed and shiny; then at the window once more, where the hedge now is actually visible and green again; and then I look at my father. With a sly grin on my face, honesty in my eyes and sarcasm in my voice I say:

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If you wish to use anything either text or graphics please ask permission