Memories of here, pt 1
“what is your father’s name? your father’s father’s name?”
it feels wrong to call him anything but dada. “abdelraheem,” i say. i’m not even sure that was his name. if you repeat anything long enough, it becomes truth. sliding a passport under bulletproof glass, my fingers strapped into a lie detector. criminality is my birthright.
i remember feeling car sick in Abu Rami’s Skoda. we were on our way to Erez, that patch of journey where i don’t get cell signal. these are the practicalities of occupation, in and out of connectedness.
this land is your land; this land is my land.
the unit economics of falafel say so much. singlehandedly reveal my ignorance. i know so little on how to transact.
the sky is different in Gaza. the sun melts in technicolor slow motion. the Mediterranean has its own magnetic field. the moon hangs low and heavy, even as a sliver it commands. no wonder we idolize the crescent.
there are as many ways to wrap a hijab as there are to leave your lover.
my sandled feet get dusty from visiting the fruit stand. i learn to measure time by cycles of life and death. strawberries are a winter fruit. figs late summer.
the sidewalk ends and suddenly you have to traverse virgin land to harvest your bounty. i sit on the tub’s ledge and wash my feet.
the eyes of apples. i went there to watch them watching us, but they were blinded by a car. one man’s art is another man’s parking lot.
condolences are a group activity. minarets call us to pray and call us to mourn. limestone homes shield us from summer but conspire with winter.
an urdu speakers mouth is a slow cooker for arabic, melting harsh syllables into tender vibrations. the azaan blends into the landscape, i don’t notice it that often. does that make me settled in my surroundings? or an indictment of my frayed faith?
have you ever had your soul crushed by traffic? could there be a more glaring symbol of being collectively stuck? we could end this gridlock if we unified around a goal. otherwise we’re complicit in our victimhood, the headlines say.
gutted zucchini stuffed with spongy rice. sticky and dense it laps up the tomatoey sauce. grape leaves collapse dramatically, like breaking down a tent. morning campfires have no place in a desert.
the yellow-plated cabbie sends a voice note to the green-plated cabbie. he wants to make sure i am received safely on the other side of the barbed fence. ajnabiyya bas asmaraniyya. she’s a foreigner, but her skin is tan. shakl 3rabi. she looks like us.
