Thoughts #1

I hope you continue to love me, 

despite my distance,

my hesitance,

my ambivalence,

my fatigue,

I hope you continue to see my beauty,

no matter what.

A selfish thing to ask of you,

but I hope in your doubt,

your hurt,

your despair,

even your anger,

I hope you continue to look at me with fondness.

I hope you continue to love me.

Because I love you.

Excerpt from my diary; 16 October 2018

Seoul - in film

The year 2014 doesn't sound too far in my head but once it clicked that it was actually five years ago, Seoul quickly became a distant memory. When I last came to this historical and cultural city, I promised myself I would come back and being the traveller I am (self-proclaimed, really), visiting the same city more than once is not really my thing. I always believe that I should use my time and money to explore places I have never been to.

But I ate my words and surrendered with no hesitation to the idea of visiting Seoul when my friends suggested it as our holiday destination. In no time, tickets were purchased, AirBnB was booked and we were on board on a flight to Seoul. Arriving on late summer weather, the transition weather was pretty brutal throughout our one week stay, yikes. It was unpredictable, it rained almost every day and when it was not raining, it was hot as the Sahara with an unforgiving strong wind that literally swept me off my feet (thanks Typhoon Ling Ling!). But other than that, no complains haha!

Seoul was still the same for me - vibrant and absolutely beautiful.

Melbourne - in film

January 20th - January 29th 2019

My heart, mind and soul were tangled dead by December. Desperate to relieve the heavy weight on my whole being, I braved asking Mama and Papa about going on a solo trip to Melbourne and staying there for a while with my best friend, Emily. To my surprise and joy, they agreed and the next thing I knew, I had “Melbourne” on my January 2019 itinerary, set to fly after my final paper.

Being the emotional human I am, 8 hours of “me, myself and I” was comforting but lonely at the same time, not to mention I had the rows all to myself for both flights (cue extra emotional background music). I pretty much had Quran on Spotify as my company throughout to soothe any incoming “waterworks” and I was really really trying my best to stay upbeat by the time the plane touches Melbourne soil. 

9PM touchdown, super chilly night weather and seeing Emily walking towards me at the airport after a year of not meeting started my 10 days journey of self-healing, rediscovering beautiful places (and myself), eating delightful food and making new friends. With this trip, I recouped the idea of “being in the moment” and “taking things slow” because I sincerely believed my biggest flaw is the fact I always try to thrive too fast and too hard, that when I don’t achieve it in the amount of time that I’ve set, I will completely lose myself in despair. 

Buuutttt there’s nothing a holiday can’t fix, right? True enough, I came home feeling like a better Haifa. 

And much like this renewed and rebranded Haifa, I decided to take my photos slow too. I fell in love with the idea of not knowing how my photos will turn out. As dramatic as this will sound, the first time I used my film camera, I literally finished it in a day and got it developed the next day because I simply can’t wait. Which completely defeats the purpose, right? So, I decided to use this whole film photography to teach myself to be patient.

I packed myself three rolls of film and went on to take photos for 10 days. I tried my best to not think about how it will turn out. Like hey, it might come out blurry, or my shawl is flying off or I could just be plain ugly but hey! It’s okay!

So here it goes, the photos that turned out alright. 

National Gallery of Victoria -

Entry #1

After keeping silent for a while, I kinda miss my little room in the virtual space. So, I figured documenting bits and pieces of my thoughts and trivial amusements might do me some good. The Internet has always been defined - at least to me - as a place where it allows us to channel the best parts of ourselves that we deem worthy for the world to see. Reality isn’t so fun, imperfections are difficult to veil but here, this virtual realm is flawless. We are flawless.

So, this is my coping space - when the going gets tough, I hope to make this small corner on the Internet my safe room to keep my tough going.