Some books never really leave me. Even when I’m not reading them, they linger—waiting, whispering, returning. I’ve given some away, passed them from hand to hand, watching them travel far. One book, I know, made its way through friends until it disappeared entirely. And yet, somehow, it is still here.

I want to share some of these books with you. Four in text—each bound together by an invisible yet undeniable thread. Four more appear only in the images. Among them, a vinyl a friend brought back from Damascus. I don’t know much about it, but it felt right to place it among the books I love.

The Blue Light by Hussein Barghouthi

There’s a blue light following me—everywhere I go. It’s been five years or so.

I was in Santos, Brazil, when it found me. The waiter pointed out—you speak Portuguese like the man at the kiosk by the sea. So I went to him.

He mainly sold books.

Midway through our conversation, he pulled one out. Held it up. Do you know this one?

I said no.

You must, he said. It’s important. And gave it to me.

The blue light flickered.

Among the Almond Trees by Hussein Barghouthi

I will not lie and say I am unafraid of sickness and death. The Blue Light leads me to the almond trees. Will I ever return to Palestine?

Hussein went back to his hometown carrying the weight of a cancer diagnosis. The doctors suspected AIDS. What a relief. Who knew one fate could be gentler than the other?

“I’m not a visitor here, nor a healthy person, nor a founded youth, nor a martyr. I’m an ‘ordinary sick person,’ an expression caught between the dictionary of the living and the dead—between the new births on the upper floor and the morgue on the lower.”

I am not sure if the monastery is within or without. Hussein always blurs boundaries or merges realms. I cannot help but look for God. Is God within or without?

Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson

Carson keeps drawing me a triangle. Not just a line between two points—there is always a third. I think of my lover. Who, then, is our third?

I miss you. Something tugs at my chest, an invisible thread pulling me toward you. Tears prick like needles, stitching me into the space between us. I think of tatreez and the olive branch on your forearm. Your skin like earth. Your smile warm like homeland. When are we ever complete? This is our third. The fleeting sunbird.

“To address yourself to the moment when Eros glances into your life and to grasp what is happening in your soul at that moment is to begin to understand how to live. Eros’ mode of takeover is an education: it can teach you the real nature of what is inside you. Once you glimpse that, you can begin to become it. Sokrates says it is a glimpse of god.”

The Upanishads

“It moves. It moves not. It is far, and it is near. It is within all this, and it is outside of all this.” (Isha Upanishad, Verse 5)

I struggle to reconcile Eros with God. They both feel elusive. I am so conditioned. There are church bells ringing in the ears of this dog.

I am not disciplined enough. I am weak. I will never realise the Self. I need to control my senses. I stare at my face in the mirror like Hussein. Do not go crazy.

God sends you seas and birds. They are your teachers. The blue light flickers. The sunbird lingers. The thread holds. Do not despair.

You are a woman of words. You are a woman of your words.

“May my word be one with my thought,
And my thought
Be one with my word. O Lord of Love,
Let me realise you in my consciousness.
May I realise the truth of the scriptures
And translate it into my daily life.
May I proclaim the truth of the scriptures.
May I speak the truth. May it protect me,
And may it protect my teacher.“

Om shanti shanti shanti