Reconnecting with Life
I've been in Jordan for about 10 days now. I'm here for Christmas and New Year's, but I'm also here to remind myself that I'm a human. I don't know if it's LA or my obsessive immersion into filmmaking and writing, but something beautiful happens when I come to Jordan. I reconnect with this feeling of having other things in life not to miss out on. Family. Friends. People in the streets. Real things that have nothing to do with movies. Don't get me wrong, I never want to not make movies. Movies are my life, but most of the time I'm too caught up in the movies that I get disconnected from life.
Jordan. I love coming to Jordan. I love walking in the street. I love going downtown to the "balad" where sellers call out for vegetables. I love having breakfast with my family. I love visiting my grandma and cousins. I love hanging out with my childhood friends. I reconnect with life when I come to Jordan. And people are different. These are my people.
It's funny because I'm halfway torn between being Jordanian and being Americanized. I've been in the States too long to ever want to give up the individual isolated lifestyle that I love because of freedom and unattachement to things. It feeds my creativity. But then there's the other side that tells me yeah, Jordan feeds your creativity too. Maybe one day I'll come back and live here. I feel so fortunate that I stayed connected with Jordan over the past 16 years while living in America. And by the way, if you ask me, I think that all the grumpy faces you see in the streets have a smile underneath waiting to come out.
posted by Amin Matalqa at
8:47 PM
5 Comments:
:)
V.GOOD
Ameen, I often wonder how you and Laith do it with careers in film. You are smack in the middle of the very best and worst of America...perhaps a Jordanian heritage grounds you in such a way that the hype and ego of the biz doesn't affect you. May it always be so!
Amin,
This post really made me smile and cheered me up. It is so odd because while I have never visited Jordan yet, growing up Jordanian in LA, I can sense some understanding of how you feel. Listening to my relatives and how they feel about Jordan, the streets, the people, the atmosphere, it just makes me proud to be Jordanian.
I believe this is a story of success, I was never believe that oneday we will have a creative director like you here in jordan.
I also have a dream to be the "compositor and motion graphics artist" number one in the area and am working hard on this. maybe I didn't have the chance or the ability to study what I like wherever I want, but thanks god we've got internet and amazon.
I'm really happy for hearing about you, and happy for you.
Mazen Abu Srour
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