My book...................

I roll up my sleeves and search for the cigarette I never smoked before.

My stubborn nature keeps me going, not letting me quit of any dream I chose for my own.

So many battles behind me...no more space in my brain for dirty matters of any kind. I react to evilness with violent rage...still on the way to react to it in a state of full bliss and peace, yet not there quite yet.

My brain is too focused on CREATION, on BEAUTY.

Ugliness hurts me and evil intentions stab me like a knife going deep into my guts. I am no more of the world that surrounds me. I have managed to create my own world where all I see is joy, love, animals and children, great men and women, achievements of the soul and more...

Sitting to write a few more pages of my book is a an act of courage, every single time it happens. A voice says: "Don t do it. You're gonna screuw it up. Who do you think you are?!"

The other, much more silent than the previous one, simply says: "Just do it." Not much for an inspiration, huh?! But it does the trick. It has to. If I don't believe I CAN DO IT in a great way, then nobody else can convince me of that. This is from ME to ME.

I m not only dealing with heavy work but also with my own demons, what to tell and what silences to keep, that fine and impossible balance between truth and diplomacy.

As I m afraid, terrified, every time I prepare to dance on stage, I also feel the same when sitting with my wide open legs (like I'm giving birth...and, well...I am!) by the wooden table where I am working on my own book.

In front of me, a huge indian fabric piece with two dancers from the temples ("Devadasis") coming out of their own private lotus flowers. Outside the window, there is the Cairo traffic providing me with the proper soundtrack and the decadent walls of another building in eternal reconstruction.

I have my cup of cappuccino by one side, my notebooks and tarot cards by the other, the baby cats outside my door asking for tenderness and food and me, inside of myself, being as brave as I can in order to become, once more, totally VULNERABLE and ready to throw myself into the blank pages on my computer.

My muscles hurt. I am a dancer, after all. This body was not made to remain still for hours, writing. This seems to be anti natura, an incredible effort I ask of myself. Maybe a silent, immobile kind of dance I didn't know before. It's still dance, though...I see it now.

I stretch every once in a while and light another candle, go out to watch the baby cats of my building, their mother, boyfriend and fellows (all of them are daily companions of my doorstep). I feed them, caress the ones who have gained confidence in me, smile with their playing around and see how my brain is renewed from this sight.

Returning to the blank page, I write again full of doubts and fears.

"What do I think I'm doing?!" - I ask myself.

Why is it so hard to believe in our own abilities and so easy to firmly take in the ghosts of our inabilities? If someone says "You re talented", I may smile but always doubt it.

If that same person tells me "You have no talent whatsoever" the echo of that phrase will haunt me for the rest of my days...why is that so?!

Writing my own book has been, more than anything else, the struggle between my inner demons and my persistent courage to NEVER GIVE UP of a dream.

I am up for the battle!

Let's do it, dear ghosts.