I’m leaving for Wales in two weeks. Reality has yet to sink in. I probably won’t begin to comprehend it until I’m hundreds of miles up in the sky, flying farther and farther away from anything familiar. When I went skydiving, I wasn’t nervous during the two hour car ride or while we suited up. My stomach finally began turning violently when we were on the small charter plane that ascended two and a half miles up. But I didn’t feel the full blow of the experience until I braced myself and jumped.

Watching movies like Taken and Trans-Siberian, which show the terrifying things that happen to unsuspecting American travelers, has made me aware of just how vulnerable I am. Anything can happen. Trusting people can be dangerous. Even though there is plenty to be cautious about, I’m not going to let it keep me hidden away in my dorm room.

Packing for a five month trip to another country is not easy. It’s a teeter totter of what to take and what to leave behind. A good piece of advice my friend gave me was, “If you don’t use it regularly now, you probably won’t use it there.”

There is only so much I can do to prepare and so little I can take with me. I’ve traveled to Greece, Italy, France, and Egypt. But I know that studying abroad in a country will be an entirely different experience, saturated with things that words will struggle to grasp. But I’ll do my best. I hope my experience impacts me as much as studying in Egypt impacted my friend Tim. Take a listen.

- Salma

My mom tells me that, in Egypt, people celebrate the new year by standing at their balconies and breaking the old dishes. Adults and children hurl the cracked plates, tea cups, saucers, and bowls, and the streets are a symphony of shattering glass. Anything that’s stained or chipped is sent flying over the railing to meet its end with a smash. One platter becomes twenty splinters, adding to a sea of shards glimmering in the Arabian moonlight. Above, families cheer and sing and laugh. Everyone knows better than to walk the streets on New Years. The last time my mom was a part of that Egyptian tradition was in 1987, so things may have changed since then.

Rather than listing resolutions for 2010, I went through my 2009 calendar and picked out the most significant experiences, learned lessons, and accomplishments from each month. Each year seems to be packed with more and more, and I couldn’t be happier. It’s easy to be thankful for the good times, but it’s so much harder to appreciate the bad times. The combination of highs and lows sketches out the portrait of who you are, what you know, and how you see the world. So I’m happy for the hardships I had too.

I’m beginning 2010 by studying abroad in Wales. I’ll be archiving my trip in blog posts to share with family, friends, and everyone else. =)

Happy Twenty Ten, everyone!

~ Salma

I’ve just added a third essay to Bottled Ships. It’s called Thorned.

Happy Thanksgiving!

~ Salma

“It’s the duty of the writer to listen to the stories of the powerless, and tell them to the powerful.”

I had the opportunity to go to a lecture by David Oliver Relin, co-author of Three Cups of Tea, a NY Times Bestseller. I haven’t read the book, but his talk was rewarding nonetheless. He shared an observation that has been reverberating in my mind:

Trying to focus a passion is like trying to shepherd a herd of stallions. When I heard that line, I heard a whip crack. A purpose. Not the ultimate purpose, but a strand of the many that, when woven together, create an unmistakable portrait of certainty and direction. That’s what I saw what I looked at David Oliver Relin. You can always tell when someone has a purpose rooted within him or her. It comes with a distinguishable aura that either induces admiration, intimidation, or jealousy. I choose to feel inspired.

Everyone goes through three stages: Who, Why, and What. Who am I? Why am I? What do I do about it?

My answer to the first is, I am a writer. Why am I a writer? I’m still exploring that question, and I explore it through answering the last one: I write.

Life is all about transactions. You give and you get. Answering the Why helps you figure out what you’re supposed to give to the world using what you do best. When I heard Relin make the above statement, I felt so naive, so inexperienced. It reminded me that I know nothing. But in a good way. When you start to think you know, a part of you feels like there isn’t as much out there to learn. When you realize that you know nothing, that the knowledge you have is the size of an atom compared to all the knowledge the universe holds, you truly begin to learn.

Why am I a writer? I hope I spend the rest of my life answering that question.

I wrote this as part of an application. I thought I’d share. =)

***

Using every letter at our disposal, we remix sounds like mockingbirds and shuffle words like card magicians. With a metaphor for every feeling and experience, we find ways to make the ordinary sound like a sunset frozen in descent – an awe worth the examination of each edge of its frame. Sentences are crumbs that lead you along the trail toward the inner workings of our minds, and sometimes our hearts. We can make you hear the melody of our thoughts with every ensemble of words.

Wherever we go, we are highly aware of our surroundings and search for the perfect words to describe them. While crossing the Bay Bridge, I saw thousands of hearts beating, creating the movement of the water’s surface. When the sun disappeared behind Bethany Beach, the waves became shining metallic sheets, curving with the moonlight and shattering against the shore. Pulling into the driveway after a short getaway, planes flying through the night sky looked like blinking stars slowly aligning.

If I didn’t carry a diary in my bag, I would lose track of all the scribbled sentences in the margins of my notes, textbooks, and planner. A journal is a time capsule, a necessity to every storyteller today. In the past, the spoken word alone carried narratives through generations. In some parts of the world, it still does.

Whether we are part of a literate culture or an oral culture, we all have a story to tell. We turn our experiences, knowledge, and ideas into highly intricate sculptures. Through the process of creating art and meaning, we become acquainted with wisdom. With 26 letters, 40 sounds, and 1,000,000 words at our disposal, it takes a lifetime to master the art of storytelling. At the same time, we must remember that it is not about being the best, it’s about being your best. There will always be someone better, so we can’t fulfill our potentials with external motivators. Otherwise, competition would blind us from learning from one another. Everything we need is within us. After all, that’s where the story begins.

~ Salma

Falling in love is like having the world turned upside down. But it’s happening as gradually as the orbit of the Earth and you don’t notice the shift in ground. You begin to skip across the sky thinking that the world is right side up, with the sun stroking your feet and the grass waving from above. No melancholy can cling to you. There is beauty in a line, a single curve, and every second of time.

Falling out of love is like having the world abruptly flip back over. Without warning, you are hurled to the ground.  Your body is just as confused as your mind. Your stomach is still used to gravity functioning in reverse. Nothing can sit right and the very thought of food makes you want to puke. It takes a while to adjust, and it takes even longer before you can see straight again.

Anger gives you strength, but it has the density of hydrogen. When you really need a sturdy fortitude, you’ll lean on a nonexistent wall and fall right through. Seek strength in acceptance and in peace, in wisdom and in truth. Only then will you stand again.

I’ve heard many interesting interpretations of my blog’s name, “Bottled Ships.”

Because my father has an obsession with boats, I had a friend think the name was subconsciously influenced by my relationship with my father. This thought had never occurred to me. Someone else asked me if I chose the title because a boat inside a bottle has no where to go. It’s ready to sail the world, but it’s confined against its will. I had never thought of that either.

I describe what a bottled ship means to me HERE.

Interpreting the world around you is a way to interpret yourself. What you see says something about who you are. Pay attention to that. You’ll learn a lot about yourself, how you think, and the way your experiences have affected you.

So, what does a bottled ship mean to you?

Appreciation, respect, responsibility, boundaries, self-discipline: instilling a deep understanding of these and related topics are crucial for a successful, happy life.

Some individuals never realize that all their problems with people are a result of a lack of boundaries. Others allow themselves to be pushed into the backdrop of life because they never developed a strong sense of self-respect and self-worth. At the same time, some can’t tell the difference between self-respect and selfishness. There are also people who fail at maintaing relationships with friends, family, or significant others because they don’t know what it means to appreciate the people in their lives. Even more people don’t reach the finish line of their goals because of a lack of commitment and self-discipline.

The Self-Help aisle in book stores is saturated with guides to relationships, success, weight-loss, etc. The foundation of all these topics, the basic building blocks of these books are the brothers and sisters of the topics I began the post with. But because people don’t learn those skills at a young age, they spend hundreds of dollars trying to solve the resulting problems when they’re adults.

When these character traits are so important to how we relate to ourselves, others, and the world around us on a daily basis, they should be taught during childhood. If there was such a life skills workshop, would you enroll your child in it?

If the class is important enough to teach, should a Life Skills teacher be compensated just like a Science or Social Studies teacher is? Or should it be taught for free?

But now, consider the flip side. If you are the parent, would you pay for such an education for your child?

Throw in the concept of spirituality into the syllabus: a deeper connection to yourself and the universe; seeing life as more than day to day happenings and completed check-lists; the idea of the soul and the part it plays in your life. (This has nothing to do with religion. Someone can be spiritual but not religious, religious but not spiritual, or religious AND spiritual. They are very separate.) Does that change your answers to the previous questions?

Please comment. I want to know what you think. =)

I just added a new essay, “The Day I Broke My Brother.”

I’ve dedicated a section of the sidebar for easy access to my essays, right under my weekly quote box.

Enjoy,

Salma

Effective October 1, 2009, it is illegal to text and drive in Maryland. If pulled over, you can get fined up to $500.

Sadly, I admit that I am one of those people who steer with their left hand and text with their right.

I’m a textaholic. I type paragraphs at a time, then check for spelling and grammar before I hit send. Something hilarious is happening and I have to share it with one of my friends, or I’m doing something ordinary and message someone out of boredom. I’ll even have long in-depth conversations that can last for hours. Why not pick up the phone and just talk? As a writer, I gravitate towards anything that allows me to illustrate my thoughts on a page, even if that page is two inches wide. It’s an odd thing.

But if you’re in a room with someone, texting is like carrying a conversation with two people at the same time. Your attention is divided and you aren’t fully involved in either dialogue. The same thing happens if you’re at an event and texting someone who isn’t there. There are all these people around you, but your head is elsewhere.

Texting keeps you from being in the now. You are not fully aware of your surroundings because a part of you is focused on someone who is somewhere else. Sometimes you’re even thinking about where they are and what they’re doing.

Being in the present is one of the hardest things to do these days. While you’re experiencing one hour, you’re thinking about the next. We plan and plan. Very rarely do we fully immerse ourselves in the here and now, in the plan we made. We are constantly watching the clock for the next thing to come.

Consequently, your awareness of your current surroundings is limited. How much are you missing that you’ll never know you missed? Who did you just miss out on talking to because you were staring down at your phone and didn’t notice them?

Over the summer, I went to the beach as many times as I could. One of the weekends I was there, I walked the night seashore with my younger brother and his friend. While they threw a football around, I sat on the sand and stared at the sky. I blocked out the world and thought about nothing except the grainy sand between my fingers, the hush of the waves rolling against the beach, and the stark contrast of stars against a pitch-dark backdrop.

Suddenly, a tiny ball of light flared and streaked four inches across the sky. Then it disappeared. I had just seen a shooting star for the first time. I was in awe. It was the most miraculous three seconds of my life. I found out later that it was the week of the Perseids meteor shower.

If I had been looking at my phone or thinking about what we would be doing the next day, I would have missed it. Of course, immediately I wanted to get up and tell everyone I just saw a shooting star. But I grounded myself and kept my eyes fixed ahead. I allowed the feelings of wonder and appreciation swell within me.

You get so much more out of life when you are in the present, when you immerse yourself in your surroundings, and when you give the person you are with your undivided attention. People notice and appreciate you a great deal for it. Your relationships with others are heightened and rooted in a deeper level.

Everything in life happens so fast. Stop trying to race ahead of it because when the world is unraveling behind you, you’re actually losing.