Looking back since moving here in the UAE exactly two years ago, I can’t help but realize how much has changed since then, and how much has happened in such a short time…
And yet I can’t feel the day passing in Dubai….
Time here is as flat as the horizon of the desert, except for the highs and lows of life mirroring the pulsing cityscape with the elevating sharpness of the skyscrapers piercing the sky, tall obstacles you think you’ll never get through…
And yet you know you are as unpredictably temporary here as the traveling soft sands of the dunes.
Time…I don’t feel it when I travel from one emirate to another in a matter of two hours, and maybe it’s because the place is so straight … for in Lebanon, I would reach the top of a mountain from the beach, or to the deep colorful valley on the other side… Where I was born, perspectives would change in two hours’ ride, as would the scenery, the temperature, the people and their lifestyle.
But here the flat of the land muffles the sound of the soaring time traveling almost in the speed of light, disabling you from absorbing the chain of events that suddenly change the facts, from feeling the changes in you and around and you see suddenly when you stop to think, you’re not the same person you were, neither are the surroundings where you first landed into…
For the only thing you can stop here is yourself. And even then you’ll be fighting to stay still against the strong current of time.
Copyright © 2010 Daisy Tchiftjian
An Imperfect Servant Said:
on July 1, 2010 at 12:35 am
An interesting perspective, Daisy. I love your specific imagery and the power of the color with which you paint your picture.