Bambi is blessed to have old and close friends who are like family to her.
Rita is one of them. It is hard to find words to introduce this friend to you, but Bambi will give it a try.
Rita is full of talent at so many levels. Bambi is both inspired by and proud of her. Indeed, she is smart and highly efficient while being a critical thinker. She has a rich philosophy of life, an authentic perspective on society, and a good sense of humour. She is also highly educated. In addition to her devotion to her lovely family as well as her inspiring career (in two different countries), she keeps impressing Bambi with her art creations and highly productive hobbies. Among her numerous other skills is her mastery of languages, including her beautiful French. She writes elegantly with beautifully chosen words and with much lucidity and a refreshing honesty.
All this being said, Rita has a precious quality in life: she is humble. Yet Bambi managed to convince her to accept to share with us part of her talent, appreciation of nature, and writing!
Let’s start with a picture Bambi received yesterday night from her friend with a funny note saying: “Spring is here!“
Bambi was much impressed by Rita’s new piece of art inspired by the cherry blossom season in Washington, DC. Bravo to her!
Following a brief interaction about spring and nature’s beauty, Rita shared another picture taken from the following source: https://bit.ly/40crm98.
(taken from: https://bit.ly/40crm98)
Is there anything more beautiful and uplifting to the soul than the above?
Bambi was deeply touched as this picture reminded her of a DEAR friend in Japan [hello Bente :)] and of another UNFORGETTABLE one in heaven (the eternal Firas who inspired Bambi’s blog!).
“The beauty of Japan through the eyes of Bente” is the title of an older Bambi’s post show at the very end of this one.
Bambi got it from Firas’ blog postmortem.
To come back to Rita now, she is generous. Indeed, she helped Bambi find a musical melody to go with the current post. She chose for us Dalida’s song “Le temps des fleurs” [“Flower Time“], which Bambi happens to adore.
Merci “Ratrout” (= “Little or cute Rita” :)). OK that was a Lebanese-style teasing!
Following the musical part of this post, it is now the the time to share with you Rita’s own writing. Many thanks for her generosity!
Bambi will first share her original French text, which she wrote a while ago. She will then conclude with a quick English translation of this text, thanks to the faithful and efficient, Mr. Google Translate.
If you happen to be a nature lover, a migrant or a new resident of such a lovely city or just a fan of the French language, you will adore Rita’s original writing piece! Its English translation also shows its depth and authenticity.
Rita’s text is about a specific moment in time in her adjustment journey to her new love (the beautiful Washington DC, and by extension, United States of America) in the magical cherry blossom season. It is also a time of mixed, and even negative, yet genuine feelings toward a birth country she left behind a few years ago.
Let’s call the above a sort of a love-hate relationship: A story of strong attachment calling for much detachment (LOVE) and of deep disappointment (HATE).
Let’s name Lebanon, which its diaspora around the world feels for it and is eager to see it finally rise (yet again!) from its ashes… into a brighter, and truly sustainable, politcal and economic future, which is free of corruption and of identity-based divisiveness, whether with or without external malicious interferences.
OK, Bambi will stop here to end this post with our linguistic “dessert”. Yes, she is referring to your beautiful text, dear Rita. BRAVO to you and thanks again for having accepted to generously share it. Please keep writing!
Original French
“Je suis plus concernée par la relation entre la vitesse du vent et l’état des trottoirs de Washington DC que par la situation libanaise.
Les arbres de DC sont ma nouvelle patrie.
Ils me consolent, me bercent, m’enchantent et leurs couleurs me coupent le souffle à l’automne.
Les dates du début des saisons sont inutiles dans ce pays. On devine les saisons par le feuillage, foliage en anglais, quel joli mot. Folie et âge, âge et folie.
L’automne passe vite à cause de cette saloperie de vent. Le vent fait voler le foliage, qui tourne un peu dans l’air, virevolte avant de tomber et former des reflets de ces arbres à leur propre pied comme si la ville flottait sur l’eau.
En Novembre, à la fête de l’indépendance précisément, c’est l’époque à laquelle les tapis sont ressortis au Liban pour être dépoussiérés, dé-naphtalinisés, suspendus sur les murailles et frappés avec de vielles raquettes de tennis sur les balcons des immeubles qui prennent soudain des looks persans ou turques. Très belle technique d’ailleurs qui a inspiré des pratiques innovantes de vol de tapis. Il y a un groupe pour qui cette saison est très lucrative, les professionnels ouvrent des boutiques de nettoyage de tapis mais les plus créatifs ont inventé une technique très simple qui consiste à nouer une laisse autour du cou d’un chat et de balancer le chat en l’air dans une trajectoire parallèle et à quelques centimètres du tapis convoité, le chat terrorisé se retourne et s’agrippe toutes griffes dehors au tapis et le mec tire le chat et le tapis avec, balance le tout dans sa camionnette et file à grande vitesse dans les rues sans arbres du Liban.
La promenade à Georgetown en automne, trottoirs recouverts de feuilles aux couleurs flamboyantes, me rappelle la sensation voluptueuse des premiers pas sur les tapis fraichement posés sur le sol glacial de notre appartement à Beyrouth. Quel dommage qu’il n’y ait pas d’équivalent en français au verbe to tread.
Quand il ne reste plus aucune feuille sur aucune branche d’aucun arbre des rues et des parcs de DC, c’est l’hiver.
L’hiver que je détestais au Liban et que j’adore ici. L’élégance révélée de la ville dénudée de tous ses ornements. Des lignes infinies de troncs d’arbres robustes et noirs qui marquent les perspectives de la ville, montent en s’effilant pour former des nuages de branches noires étonnement fines et faussement fragiles. Il n’y a pas de métaphore, les arbres sont des poumons. Et quand il neige, une ligne blanche se dessine au-dessus de chacune de ces lignes noires qui voudrait bien la porter.
Soudain, se produit le miracle des cerisiers en fleurs. La nuance de rose la plus claire qui puisse exister sur le marron le plus foncé que l’on puisse imaginer. Aucune feuille n’a encore osé se former par ce froid, aucune autre couleur ne vient déranger ce contraste éblouissant. Une fleur d’une fragilité indescriptible sortie de ce bois d’ébène dur et hermétique. C’est là que naissent toutes les métaphores.
Le printemps arrive dans la plus claire des teintes de vert, presque du jaune qui se fonce à mesure qu’il pousse. Et la chaleur du vert recouvre la ville jusqu’à l’automne suivant.
L’été qui fut ma saison préférée toute ma vie n’existe pas ici.
L’été des vacances, l’été des retrouvailles, l’été de la séduction, l’été des histoires.
Il n’y a pas d’été sans mer.
Mais la mer était polluée, je ne le savais pas, ou je refusais de le croire.
Depuis un moment, j’essaie de comprendre, d’analyser pourquoi des larmes me montent aux yeux à chaque fois que j’entends l’hymne nationale américaine et l’indifférence pour l’hymne libanaise. C’est à la lecture des deux textes que j’ai compris.
Rien n’unit les libanais, le Liban n’existe pas. « Koullouna » est une fiction et les mots « land » et « home » me font pleurer comme une orpheline.
Ça fait plus de cinq ans que je n’ai pas vu la mer. 69 mois. 2,110 jours. Le pire c’est que je ne veux plus la voir”.
ENGLISH
“I am more concerned with the relationship between wind speed and the state of the sidewalks in Washington DC than with the Lebanese situation.
DC trees are my new home.
They console me, rock me, enchant me and their colours take my breath away in the fall.
The dates of the beginning of the seasons are useless in this country. We guess the seasons by the foliage, foliage in English, what a pretty word. Madness and age, age and madness.
Autumn passes quickly because of this damn wind. The wind makes the foliage fly, which turns a little in the air, twirls before falling and forming reflections of these trees at their own feet as if the city were floating on water.
In November, precisely on Independence Day, is the time when carpets are brought out in Lebanon to be dusted, freed of mothballs, hung on the walls and beaten with old tennis rackets on the balconies of buildings that suddenly take on Persian or Turkish looks. A very nice technique by the way which has inspired innovative practices of carpet theft. This season is very lucrative, for the professionals who open carpet cleaning shops. The more creative ones have invented a very simple technique, which consists of tying a leash around a cat’s neck and swinging the cat in the air in a parallel trajectory a few centimeters from the coveted rug. The terrified cat turns around and clings to the rug with its claws out and then the thief pulls the cat and the rug with it, throws everything into his van and goes at high speed through the treeless streets of Lebanon.
Strolling through Georgetown in the fall, sidewalks covered with flamboyantly colored leaves, reminds me of the voluptuous sensation of the first steps on the freshly laid carpets on the freezing floor of our apartment in Beirut. What a pity that there is no equivalent in French to the verb to tread.
When there’s no leaf left on any branch of any tree in DC’s streets and parks, it’s winter.
The winter that I hated in Lebanon and that I love here. The revealed elegance of the city stripped of all its ornaments. Infinite lines of sturdy black tree trunks that mark the perspectives of the city, tapering upwards to form clouds of surprisingly thin and deceptively fragile black branches. There is no metaphor, trees are lungs. And when it snows, a white line is drawn above each of these black lines that would like to carry it.
Suddenly, the miracle of the cherry blossoms occurs. The lightest shade of pink that can exist on the darkest brown imaginable. No leaf has yet dared to form in this cold, no other color disturbs this dazzling contrast. A flower of indescribable fragility emerging from this hard and hermetic ebony wood. This is where all metaphors are born.
Spring arrives in the lightest shades of green, almost yellow that darkens as it grows. And the warmth of green covers the city until the following autumn.
The summer that was my favorite season all my life does not exist here.
The summer of holidays, the summer of reunions, the summer of seduction, the summer of stories.
There is no summer without sea.
But the sea was polluted, I didn’t know it, or I refused to believe it.
For a while, I have been trying to understand, to analyze why tears come to my eyes every time I hear the American national anthem and the indifference to the Lebanese anthem. It was after reading the two texts that I understood.
Nothing unites the Lebanese, Lebanon does not exist. “Koullouna” is fiction and the words “land” and “home” make me cry like an orphan.
It’s been more than five years since I’ve seen the sea. 69 months. 2,110 days. The worst part is that I don’t want to see it anymore”.
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