Helia Ghazi
Journalist
Helia Ghazi Mirsaeed – Journalist – Toronto | Time… that tired cliché again: time is a strange word. I listen to its message. It says, “We’ve turned ten!” I pause for a moment. Suddenly, I’m pulled back, how many years ago, I can’t say. We’re sitting on the bed, talking about starting an online magazine.
I had just immigrated. The weight of migration had its foot on my throat, tightening its grip a little more every day. Like so many others who packed their memories in suitcases with dreams of a better, quieter life, I had arrived only to find that this was no promised land. We didn’t understand each other, perhaps because he had left years before me and by now had become part of this place. A place, a people, a rhythm I couldn’t yet relate to.
I was still fresh off the plane, and my heart still beat for a newsroom. I flailed, searching for a way to stay connected to art and culture.
But the idea of the magazine, that became a glimmer of hope for me. I wasn’t ready to surrender. I’ve never been one to accept defeat easily, and as usual, I wanted to forge my own path. Maybe this magazine could lighten the heaviness I carried on my shoulders.
I was searching for a bridge or something that could connect me to this new society and its people. I wanted to find a circle I could belong to, united by a shared taste or sensibility. I longed to recreate the same energy and joy I’d felt in newsrooms back home. Maybe, just maybe, this magazine could help ease my restlessness.
We’re still sitting on the bed… I drift back again, to some vague point in the past.
Ideas were coming at us fast—but they had to get in line. We needed to shape each one, one at a time. Naturally, the name came first. We scribbled everything that came to mind onto paper. He was more orderly than me. I was impatient, easily agitated. I couldn’t bear to wait. I wanted to move forward, to make it real. Wandering the alleyways of brainstorming wasn’t enough; I needed to build something.
The debate stretched on. But the ideas kept flowing.
First, the name: TitreMag.
And just like that, I felt like “she” belonged to me. She had a name, an identity, and I could now call her by it.
We’re sitting on the bed… again, I’m pulled back to that moment. Now she had a name. We called her by it.
Then came the headers, the sections, the bones of the thing. Step by step, small steps. As time went on, she started to grow branches, more and more of them. In the beginning, we were so meticulous, like two new parents with their first child, perhaps their only child.
I can’t believe she’s ten now. And I… I’ve forgotten how much she’s grown.
I sit at my desk. I type her name. She pops up.
I stare at it. The name I had chosen.
But now, I don’t recognize her.
She feels like a distant memory, a long-lost echo.
I keep staring.
Time stands still.
Still staring at her name.
With hesitation, I click.
She opens.
We’ve become strangers.
I don’t know where to begin.
I click around.
She’s grown. So much.
A faint smile crosses my lips.
I step away from the desk, but I’m still looking at the screen.
I walk into the kitchen, pour some tea.
Come back to my room.
Sit across from her.
It’s time to talk. To reconnect.
We must have a lot to say to each other.
It’s the weekend. A good time to get reacquainted.
I lean back in my chair.
I look at her.
I smile.
And together, we travel back ten years.
Yes—TitreMag is ten years old.
