Two Degrees Separation

The following was inspired by Flamingoliya..(this one's for you gal!)

As I watched another episode of Nizzar Qabbani, I couldn't help but drift away into my own thoughts. My parents who are lovers of poetry always spoke about him and in particular my Mother. It was always the case with such icons like Abdulhaleem Hafeth, Arabian women always admired them as though they knew them personally. I found it quite entertaining.

My personal encounter with Nizzar Qabbani was in the two degrees separation kind or is it three degrees. Who knows! Well, here's the concept, it's that you basically know someone that knows that someone and therefore he is a one degree separation from you. The two degrees is someone that you know...knows another person and that person is therefore two degrees of separation from you and so on and so on. I could never really tell which degree was which so you'll have to forgive me for my ignorance but hopefully you get my point!

It all began one Eid holiday a few years back when I found myself feeling down and decided to travel to one of my favorite spots known to cheer me up; Lebanon. The denial of how crummy the world is never stopped them from having fun (refer to a past post to read more on that) and that was exactly what I needed; some fun to forget the woes of the world.

My friends and I decided to have dinner with a show at a place called Cart Blanch. The singer performing that day (many years ago) used to be famous but fate had turned on him and he was now singing to people while they had dinner. When I had watched him sing that night he had been struggling to get back on his feet and was hoping Lebanon would be his ticket back to fame (history would show that the decision to be in Lebanon would be the best decision he ever made in his life as he know suffers from great fame all over again). The singer in question is Kathem Al-Saher.

At the end of that night, as my friends and I were about to leave, the man who played the violin in his band came up to me and said "El Ostath Kathem yereed ey3arif low treedoon a7ad ewasilkom?" At that moment, it was surely impossible for any words to come out of my mouth. I was in shock! (Please refer to future posts of episodes of a Journal of a Single Gal to read more on this!).

For now and to make a long story short, having met Kathem Al-Saher personally who later met Nizzar Qabbani and sang his words of poetry, I can't help but watch the episodes and feel like I've met him. Whether it was one degree, two degrees or three..it doesn't really matter...I watch TV knowing that somewhere in another life we had written poetry together..don't ask me how...I just know it...and what a fascinating man he was...