we get to keep the ugly things

i start a new life. against my will, i trade the concrete playgrounds of michigan for dusty fields of fackoose and dull olive groves. sitting in the last row of a blue and wood trim station wagon, i push a white beaded headband off my forehead (for it slides forward always) and watch the sign from my father’s store fade away on the way to the airport. i will not see it again for four years. on the direct flight my sister paints my nails. late in the flight, i change out of a pink tee shirt and matching shorts, both trimmed with flowery pastel lace, and into a pair of black shorts, with a black and white checked top. my head band, unfortunately, remains the same. in that last hour, my body knows better than my brain, and i vomit right into the top’s scratchy ruffles. at ten, i am not an easy traveler.

in amman, my aunt makes stuffed grape leaves to greet us. we stay only a few days before attempting to cross the jisr into palestine. we plan to make the trip in two groups, my mother, brother, and two eldest sisters on the arab side, my third sister and i on the american. we make this decision out of necessity. L and I are too old to travel with our mother without howwiyat, while my two oldest sisters have them, and my little brother is too young to travel without his mother. my mother and her entourage make it through on that first trip. L and I are sent home, too young to travel alone. my aunt makes us fried spam. we try a second time, with a different aunt, but they claim her relation is not direct enough. my aunt in amman makes us bazaila (peas in tomato sauce with lamb). it can’t be helped. my mother comes back for us, and we cross the jisr on the arab side, despite earlier commands to do otherwise. it is the first real indication of my life to come.

at the jisr i watch israeli guards take things directly from our luggage and into their personal possession. my sisters’ makeup, my walkman, my stuffed animals. i watch them confiscate bottles of shampoo and lotion, i watch them paw through our clothes. one guard, seeing my horror, feels some shard of pity, lets me keep my trolls. we get to keep the ugly things. they are the only toys i have from my childhood. my hatred is so deep i physically recoil from myself. i cannot imagine how my mother feels, forced to endure the jisr twice, forced to watch them desecrate all our measly possessions and attempts at comfort. once, when during times of duress, arabs could still fly into tel aviv, my father lost an entire suitcase of gifts for us. we think it was stolen, but all i can see is that stupid smug guard’s face, trying on my sister’s confiscated (because it’s dangerous?) lipstick, and wearing the sweater my baba (daddy) picked out just for me.

in palestine i am strange. i am heavy. i wear coke bottle bottom glasses. my hair is in my face, my accent clumsy, my vocabulary limited to niceties. i play in the dirt with my cousins, get in trouble for being so dirty. i say something inappropriate to my grandmother, she chases me down the pebbly driveway between our house and my uncle’s. her feet are bare, she is throwing her shoes at my head. i dodge both. i am forced to do terrible things by a person in my extended family. things i still don’t talk about. things i have never written or said aloud. i start school in jerusalem. it’s american and run by missionaries. i cross the checkpoint everyday. first a car, then a bus, then a car, then a bus. the people stand too close on the bus. they smell. we are bad at personal space. i turn eleven. my grandpa dies. i eat pita bread sandwiches stuffed with salty french fries. i fall on the school steps, cut my forehead on my glasses. the blood is streaming into my eyes and this is what the world looks like everyday. they give me three stitches, no anesthesia. one day L and I are coming home from school. there is a curfew. we are rushing, hiding in arches. we are scared of tear gas, guns, tanks, rubber bullets. we are always scared, so we are never scared. fear is just life. this is what the world looks like everyday.

i stop wearing glasses. i stop wearing headbands. i change schools, to baba’s delight. i enroll in a arabic school in beit sahour. i walk to it every morning. ms. salwa teaches me arabic. she makes me cocoa on her green stove. i become popular. i become smart. i am the seventh highest scoring student in the class. i become cruel. i get kicked out of class. for wearing nail polish, for talking back, for making a picture of my math teacher’s fat head. i get my period, i bleed through my jeans and onto the seat of my desk. i am wearing a uniform over my jeans and t-shirt. it covers the stains. i write an essay about the universe, my arabic teacher reads it aloud to the class. my friends say i cheated, my teacher defends. i have a class devoted to painting pottery. the teacher grazes my new breasts when no one else is looking. i have the second biggest boobs in the class. i am one of the most popular girls in school. my boyfriend is nineteen. he is a dropout. he makes me a necklace. he is good except for when he is not, which is not often.

my mother slaps me. once for calling her a cow, another time for lying. i have a different boyfriend, but i don’t love him. i go back to the first one because he is good to me. he kisses my cheek. at camp i hear him telling others his girlfriend sure can eat. i stop eating. i am still heavy, but i am beautiful. i am beautiful and cruel. i tell on the principal’s son to the principal himself. he called me a whore, the son. he gets in trouble. my parents won’t let me go to camp this year. i slam the door so hard the little decorative window in it breaks. my dad chuckles, because he is still my baba and i am a teenager. he is not mad, but i am. i am so mad i can’t breathe. my mother comes to my room and tells me not to pay attention to boys. “a degree is power in a woman’s hand.” i believe her. my cousin slips his hand into my shirt while we are watching TV, aladdin. he slips his hands into my pajamas at night. he doesn’t make me do anything, so it’s better than before, better than the other one. but i don’t look at him. i read a poem at the school’s end of year party. my uncle dies. i dance in the carnival.

we have a going away party. i should have danced with him, my sister’s boyfriend’s friend. i wish i had. he was kind. we pack up everything. i pack up the trolls. i leave my name on things. a shelf, a wall. we leave pictures in the house. we leave furniture. we send 12 boxes back to the US. we keep our keys. i want to come back. i don’t want to leave. in the cab i watch my home fade away. baba’s dahlias, the arch, the steps, the ice cream shop, the falafel stand, the steih, the fields, the trees, the land. when i can see nothing else, i stop. i stop being cruel. i stop being beautiful. i stop being.

i start a new life. against my will, i start a new life.

history

“i want to worship your body” he whispers against my ear, urgent and throaty. i feel his breath travel lobe to fingers, curling around the steering wheel of my 4 door luxury sedan and i would kick this seat all the way back if i wasn’t parked in the middle of town, cop cars circling the lot at 3am this warm summer saturday. “i want to worship your body” he whispers against my mouth and how can i resist such desire? what sane person would deny such a reasonable request? but the headlights of yet another slow ambling car glint against the ring on his left hand and this situation is impossible. still, i go back for one more kiss and another and another because when was the last time my body was worshiped? i can’t recall feeling an out pour of desire so tailored to my body, to me. i hear myself trying to explain the unexplainable and it’s not much out loud, is it? but it is everything, and i am a teenager swayed by this ferocious lust, the unfamiliar thrill, remembering that it’s possible to be wanted.

nineteen and dating a handsome boy whose skin glows after he leaves the gym and his body is /cut/ before i started using the word cut to describe such manicured beauty. his hair is dark, almost black, and it falls over his face when he leans down into me and says “baby, we have time.” so we do and the taking is full and fast and he barely moves to lift me up against his warm body which smells always like tide. i am so light with him. so light he is careless and i don’t remember the first time we had sex, the first time i ever had sex, because i got so tired of his asking that i just accepted and though i like it now i can’t remember, can’t remember when or what i lost, if anything.

fourteen, walking down a street in palestine, the year before i move back to the states. it’s valentine’s day, and though i’ve spent most of the night dancing with someone else, it’s rami who walks me home in the dark. holds my hand, kisses my cheek when i get to my door. can you imagine? 14 and so flustered by the chastest of kisses. he is sweet and jubilant and thinks we’ll be together forever. i can’t tell him how i’m leaving. how could i? he’ll know eventually and the shine of being so loved will tarnish as surely as the silver tea pot that travels across oceans twice, but never gets used.

bully

in the eighth grade, mr. abdullah
kicks me out of class for talking back
but i can’t help it. the etymology
of OK is *not* german,
and my name is not spelled
with Os and he is wrong, WRONG,
about the nature of mary’s relationship
with arthur, the zany hero
of our english language books.

arthur is hopeless, easily swayed
by mary’s beauty, too responsive
to her strategically deployed sentimentality.
this is not true love–he is her desperate
last resort and i have resorted
to sitting outside this classroom,
its windows open to the courtyard
and i fucking care about arthur and mary
like they matter.

we never recover, mr. abdullah and i.
when i see him years after he remembers
me, barely, as that student who would become
nothing but annoyance in most classrooms.

i mean to say, because i am in the habit
of speaking, that i came by it honestly,
that it has had its costs, both petty and dear.
that there is no lunch money reward,
no one doing my homework. that i’ve sat
outside many rooms, turning over in my mouth
the words i couldn’t stop from spilling.

i mean to say, because i am in the habit
of speaking, that i am tired of hearing
my own voice thrown back to me and distorted.
that i am tired of seeing my name,
misspelled and misspoken and manipulated
beyond recognition. that i am tired
for poor arthur, bumbling and baffled
and bribed with false affection.

for poor arthur,
who can’t say anything right.

I’ve been watching too much Freaks and Geeks.

In the third grade, I had what was probably my first public breakdown. Janelle T, whose last name I completely remember, but who I will not name in entirety here for fear of Google search retribution, told me that I was a bad friend. I can’t remember why she said it, except that she was rich while I was poor, she was beautiful while I was not, she was thin while I was fat, she was popular, and I was, well, poor, ugly, and chubby. So when the new kids, Doni and David (twins!) joined our class, and Doni was my friend, I was ecstatic and Janelle was displeased. Doni eventually moved on, as all new kids who are nice but infinitely more interesting than you do, but Janelle wouldn’t let it go. She whispered to me at the desk I shared with Patrick R, whose name I also remember, who was also an asshole, even in the third grade: “You’re a terrible friend. Don’t you feel bad about that?” I was. I did. I believed.

I remember laying my head on my desk. I remember refusing to participate in activities. But here is what I remember most: Mrs Whitehead, leaning down to me, whispering again in my ear: “Don’t do this. You’re one of my most solid students. You’re not like this. Can you be a rock?” Maybe the exact words are off, but I know she had faith me. I know she told me I could be better, that I could be stronger. So I was. I did. I believed. Mrs. Whitehead gave me detention anyway, one of two times I ever received such punishment in my American schooling. (I got in trouble in Palestine ALL THE TIME, but that’s for another day). I understood why she did it, knew I earned it, though it was an odd feeling. Amidst the other kids who routinely populated the after-school special, I was misplaced. We all knew it. I didn’t belong with Seamus, who pinched my butt, or Robbie, who stole markers (this is totes real, and eerily in line with that Dane Cook skit). I was just passing through.

In the fourth grade I had my second detention. This time for refusing to go to Mass, and spending the hour in the girl’s restroom. Mrs. Paris, who I hated for claiming to never received my yearbook money, and thus denying me a fourth grade yearbook, was not understanding like Mrs. Whitehead had been. She took my denial as disrespect, and I hated her all the more. I cried when she denied me my yearbook. It was $12 I had painstakingly saved, the kind of money my parents thought was unnecessary spending, and thus were reluctant to give me, but I wheedled anyway. I took detention round two like a champ though. I decided to never let people like that see me cry again. I kept my word. My emotional distance in American schools continued before and after the Palestine years, until approximately the second year of my undergraduate degree, when I finally began to make friends again, began to feel.

It’s easy to make my middle school years the stuff of TV sitcom–I attended Catholic school until the fifth grade, when I moved to Palestine for four years. At HR, we couldn’t afford the tuition, and received complete aid from the Church. I even had breakfast and lunch vouchers. Everyone knew we were the charity cases, and they laughed at this, as they laughed at my father, who sometimes picked us up after school in a station wagon, driving it through the enormous pond that would form in the parking lot after precipitation. They called it the Yacht. They laughed too, at our funny contributions to school lunches, at the fact that my mother didn’t come to class for our birthdays, at our convenience store where they shoplifted, at my older sister, who didn’t date, and was therefore clearly a lesbian (oops. Wrong sister, HR). With a few minor exceptions, my memories of school are unpleasant, and bred in me a remoteness and an ease with disappointment that I carry until this day.

I think what I miss most about my girlhood is my gullibility. My willingness to take people at exactly face value, with no suspicion regarding their motives, or their truth. I believed so much, so readily–willing to take both praise and criticism in equal measure. These days, I’m told I’m bad at taking compliments, which is certainly true. And though it rarely happens (insert massive ego here), I’m equally bad at taking criticism. What I am good at, what I excel in most, is finding ways to say “I’m not a part of this. I won’t do this. I am putting my head down.” Of course, now it’s masked as distance and judgment, the farce of adulthood. Sitting on the sidelines of this or that affair, in the wings of social events and community stages, the whispers in my ears are mine alone: “Don’t you wish you were better than this? Stronger? Don’t you feel bad about this place?” I do. I wish. I believe.

You’ve got your ball, you’ve got your chain

I almost got into a car accident tonight. I started to write “I almost died tonight” but that seems a little over-dramatic, given that I wasn’t actually in one, there’s no way of calculating the likelihood of death if I had been in one. I was returning from a friend’s place, from an evening where I was not my best self, and was routinely snarky with an undercurrent of mega bitch. It/I was shitty, and the most I wanted was to be home, so badly that I questioned leaving it in the first place. So I was driving, safely, stone sober when a car in the left lane slowed to turn. In the right lane, I moved along, but the car behind the turning car evidently did not see my behemoth Olds, and came within inches of ramming sidelong into my car, into me. This is no Dave Matthew’s Band crash. This would have been a “that driver is fucked” crash. My gut managed to occupy both my knees and my throat, and I shook the majority of the drive home. When I had finally stopped, another car, in the exact same scenario, nearly side-slammed me again. Michigan, why are you trying to kill me?

Constantly predicting my own death, I have long assumed that if the cancer doesn’t get me like it gets most, I’ll go in a car. Isolated in the midst of getting from here to there. It’s a kind of poetic death, if you’re into morbidity. You die without ever reaching your destination, without ever feeling the weight lift off your shoulders when you are finally home. Without time to consider your options, why you spent so much time traveling, but very little time satisfied in the journey. I’ve heard the adage about the journey, not the destination, being important. I think this is bullshit. I don’t like being lost, I don’t like movement for the sake of it. I like functionality and form, the accomplishment of doing what you set out to do. I like arriving, and the journey is just that. Tolerable, sometimes enjoyable, but not the reason I get in my car in the first place.

At home now, I can’t sleep. I used to have panic attacks at night. When I lived at home, I was convinced that if I slept, I wouldn’t wake. When I moved, I would hyperventilate, convinced that my father was ill. I would stay up all night, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for dawn. When the sun came, I felt better. What respectable person dies during the daylight? I would call my sister, my mother, chat casually, ensuring that nothing was amiss. I haven’t had an attack like that in maybe a year? It’s hard to remember, so eagerly I put it away–tucked under the sheets as I make the bed, waiting for another night to come up, like that sock you lost but couldn’t be buggered to sift through the layers for.

So I breath. Deliberately, slowly. Wait for the shaking to subside again, wait for my body to relax its wound tension. I can feel the possibility in my bones, in every fiber of my body. I try to distract myself with happy things, a trick my father suggested when I was a girl, and had nightmares. 27 now, I still think of birthday cake. Oddly, I always imagine a white cake with a single candle in the middle, though I have no recollection of ever receiving such a cake on my birthday. If I were a different kind of person, I might say it’s the opposite of dying, that birthdays are an affirmation of living. Really, I think it’s because it was the one day where you got all the attention, all the presents. But I am not a different person. I am me, selfish, flawed, biting, sometimes brutal. I am me, but I didn’t die tonight.

Sun, Salt, and the Sea

I have been practicing my floating. As a non-swimmer, the feeling of my body weightless and at the whim of the water is unsettling. I am much more comfortable in control, my feet firmly planted on the basin. I began experimenting in the kiddie pool of our resort in Punta Cana, when we visited in February. A mere two feet deep, I could easily find solid ground again when it became too scary. Drowning is my earliest memory; my mother taking swimming lessons at the Y with her daughter, her hands under my belly. I am before years but I recall the emptiness when she withdrew her support, my small shape sinking into the blue of the pool. I went under twice since then, once at my Aunt’s pool when I played too close to the edge, and fell in. No one heard the splash but my cousin, who came to my aid as I bobbed uselessly. Again a couple years later coming down a slide at a beach in Michigan. I had studied the other riders carefully, watched as they came off the slide, fell into the water, and buoyed up seconds later. When I went down, I didn’t come up, and they sent a lifeguard when it became clear I wouldn’t find the way back on my own.

In the Dead Sea, floating is easy. Lot’s Wife, that unnamed rebel, carries me, her body turned to such salt that it kills all the water’s inhabitants, cakes the rocks with her essence. The Dead Sea is riotous when we visit. The waves crashing against the rocks, which despite years of sanding, remain sharp under my feet. I lay in the water, moving my limbs in ways I can’t against gravity, and feel the same discomfort, nestled as it always is on my lower back. The water splashes into my eyes and I make my way clumsily back to the shore, eyes closed, blinded. A lifeguard comes to my aid with fresh water, pouring it over my face, demanding I open the eyes, wash out the burn. It’s like a baptism and I see anew; he pulls me up out of the water with one arm, hauls me back safely to the dock. I go in again later, careful to keep my head up. The Sea is luxurious, slippery over my skin. I feel wounds healing, my scars tickle. I paint myself twice with the mud from the water’s depths, letting it cake dry on my skin before heading back to the water to rinse.

The resort attached to this hunk of beach is beautiful. We tried a different place first, but their beach was closed, so we move on to the Movenpick, a Swedish import. In Amman, the shore is bought up by mostly foreign corporations that turn their chunk of land into a rich haven: upscale, expensive dining; top notch liquor; brown bodies in uniforms, fulfilling needy guests’ every whim. I won’t pretend I don’t enjoy the space, but I hate that my experience is filtered through this. Despite their best efforts, though, the sea remains as is. I am glad I haven’t gone back to the shore in Palestine, for I know that the size of the Sea is shrinking rapidly there, drained for use. The resort is a series of infinity pools leading up to the waterfront, and we watch the sun set. From afar, the Sea is as any other, but we know better. We have felt her secrets on our skin, tasted her brine, slathered in her silt.

From the Dead Sea we visit Hammamat Ma’in, or the Baths of Ma’in. They are not baths, really, but a series of hot springs cascading over the mountains. The waterfalls are fiery, and like the Sea, said to have high mineral contents, with healing properties. I had wanted to come here for those reasons, because my body still aches from my surgery. The first day at the resort, we try to visit the biggest, most beautiful of the Falls. It remains the property of Jordan, and is thus public access. When we arrive, there are no women in the water. They sit on the sidelines, many of them in full hijab, while the men run around in shorts and speedos, enjoying the hot, cascading water. My mother is upset; if we go in, we will be gakwed at, made uncomfortable. We could, and I say to hell with what they think, but even I know how unpleasant the experience will become.

We go next to the “family” fall, where a brood of women, also in full hijab sit on the sidelines still. There are only women here, and this cascade is pitiful in comparison to the last one. My mother is disgusted, still, and won’t even try the water. She returns to the hotel while Rachel and I stay, strip to our suits. The women are gaping at us. They are speaking Arabic, shocked at our attire, our desire to enter the water. I smile sweetly, say “Marhaba”, so they know I understand. We try to go into the water, but it’s scaldingly hot, and we can’t bear it. Still our presence has enervated the women, and a couple join our feeble attempts. I can tell they are amused by our presence, a spectacle. When Rachel and I decide to leave, they suggest we come back. Since I am not above being petty when they are so clearly mocking us, I tell them to enjoy the water, the heat.

We return to the hotel, and try to coax my Mother out of the room. She is going on about the disparity, how backwards she finds the behavior at the falls. Not much of a feminist, my mother’s stance surprises me: what bothers her most is how cruel this is to the women, how unfair. I am impartial on their behalf since I am more than accustomed to being stared at and judged by complete strangers at this point in my trip, but it’s a new feeling for her. We take to the resort’s Spa, which also has segregated waterfalls, also disparaging sizes. We flout the rules and hang out at the men’s, but I can tell she’s still unhappy. This fall is nowhere near the size, beauty or comfort of the main one. We end the day in the pool, where I try floating again. My ears submerged, my face just above, eyes closed, willing my body up, up.

The next day, my parents wake early, visit the main fall before it opens to the public, and my mother returns blissful, radiant. She says we have to go back again, at night when it closes to the public, or in the morning the next day. I promise her we will, though I am over the whole thing. With my departure date so close, I am childishly longing for home. I just want to go back to my life, my things, my time. Still, there is whole two more days to be spent in Jordan, and one more at the resort. We spend the day at the pool, where I continue to float cautiously, no more than a few inches from the wall. Rachel and I compete to see how long we can hold our breath without pinching our noses, and I try opening my eyes under water. It’s blurry, familiar, oddly soothing. Like most adolescents, my niece is bored easily, so the day of lounging has her frustrated, but I am content with our laziness. Later, we watch the football game in the lounge, become depressed about Brazil. We try the main fall again, but because it’s Friday, the public hours are later, and we return, thwarted again, to our rooms. I promise my mother I will wake early, go in the morning. I can tell she wants this for me, doesn’t want me to leave disappointed, because she hopes these small gifts will pull me back, like waves, more often.

Meanwhile, I drift in the water, unfettered by my usual neuroses. Weightless and light, just this once.

A Tale of a Fateful Trip (Part Three)

The second morning of our trip, Rula ignores her alarm. One of my major pet peeves is being startled awake, so hearing “Imma Be” over and over again while she sleeps leaves me…put out. Our late start (which, by my standards, is still a startling 8am) also annoys Yousef, who is clearly over our charms, and is ready to be rid of us. The continental breakfast is a bizarre mix of croissants, cold cereal, and labana. I drink two cups of lukewarm coffee before giving up on proper caffeination, and we begin our journey to Yaffa.

Like Akka, Yaffa is one of the oldest cities in Palestine, also known for its port. Yousef drops us off at the “top” of the old city, which looks out over the ocean and the new city. Yaffa is, in a word, charming. The old city’s architecture is stunning, and it’s been maintained kindly. Next to it, skyscrapers play with the skyline and it’s the easiest metaphor for Palestine: old and new, tradition made modern. Unlike other cities we’ve visited, Yaffa’s population is composed of mostly Jewish Israelis. So here, the transition into Yaffa from Arab spaces is abrupt. In other places the Arab and Israeli bleed into one another, resisting the separation we all seem so intent on.

The city has planted gardens in every available space so that every angle, every view is a postcard, picture perfect. Rula is naturally delighted by this, and I spend some time reprising my role as professional photographer. I think if you can’t make beauty here, there’s no chance for you at all. Magically, Rula disappears each time I’d like to include myself in the scenery, so I make due with landscapes and details  unmarred by my comparative homeliness. In the old city, there is a sturdy rope bridge alongside one of the gardens. The ropes are linked with bronzed cylinders, each featuring a different sun sign. Legend holds that if you stand on the bridge, look out to the sea and make a wish, your wish will come true. Not one to miss such opportunities, I make mine grand. I feel like every holy site I’ve visited has come to this, acting from hope, hope a substitution for faith, or maybe a version of it.

Rula and I decide to walk alongside the ocean, on the pebbled promenade to the Yaffa port. The sea is sparkling and seductive, each crashing wave inviting the next. I am taken with her completely, resent Yousef waiting for us, resent that we’re here only for the day, and can’t go swimming. The sea is right there. Cars park in between glass and concrete shrines to capitalism and passengers take a five minute walk to sandy beaches. I imagine cubicle bound workers coming to eat lunch on the beach. I imagine teaching nearby, students asking to hold class amidst sun bathers. Could I resist?

Our walk is long, the sun doubly reflected off the water, so we barely reach the port before Yousef is ringing Rula’s cell, trying to hurry us along to the next leg of our journey: Jerusalem. Despite my repeated attempts to enter the city, or perhaps because of them, I am completely unprepared for the Old City, the massive wall that surrounds it, the seven gates. My breath catches in my throat and my eyes well. I chide myself over how many absurd tears I’ve cried on this trip but I can’t make myself see sense. The city is so changed, so foreign, but my body recognizes it, greets it like a lost lover. Here is where Lemma and I caught taxis to Jerusalem School, here is where Jacob helped me put in my new earring, here is where we bought falafel and ka’ak on the way home from school. I’m flooded with memories and they are crushing my air channels. Even entering the city I already feel its loss.

Yousef drops us off at one of the highest points in the city, looking down on the Old City, and we walk down, stopping at the Garden of Gethsemane to marvel over the 8 olive trees that have existed since before we changed our watches to AD. Here, a man gives us scarves to drape over our shoulders as we enter holy sites. The deference, like all things, turns a profit and he demands we pay him for the service. We haggle over the price, which seems petty now, and our argument escalates to insults, at which point I refuse to pay. Rula won’t engage, shrugging her shoulders passively so I am left only with aggression, and we walk away, down the slope, his words rolling behind us.

By the time we reach a gate into the city, the Lion’s Gate, we are exhausted and over-heated. We buy water at tourist prices and make our way inside. The sook is just as I remember. Lively, colorful, fragrant. I banter with shop keepers who treat me, for the first time in my visit, as an Arab and not a foreigner. I buy earrings and a necklace, a bag of Turkish Delight. Rula and I feast on falafel sandwiches in the center of the grocery market hustle and bustle. We visit the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus woke up. In my excitement about the sook, I honestly forget to visit the other holy sites until we are long gone. But I’m content with the trip. I fear that if I see too much, do too much, I won’t be able to hold on to my memories of a happier time here. The reality of now is already intruding with the receding then, and I can’t bear to lose anymore–the image of Jacob and I making our way through the cities arches, him holding my hand secretly as we perused jewelry. The image of a woman blessing my mother’s children, and my mother stopping mid-stride to give her money. The taste of licorice sticks on my tongue, the rich smell of the spice bins.

We make our way out of the Old City through the Damascus gate (Bab Al A’mood), the gate we used to enter through. Bab Al A’mood has remained just so-boys playing soccer in the courtyard, young and old folks sitting on the steps, smoking, speaking, being. Rula and I sit for a while, and I take in as much as I can. Its sameness is a salve for the change in the city, for Jerusalem has been excavated of most of its Arabs, and it seems like we are only here, in the Old City, a tiny bubble that may pop at any moment. We make our way back to the buses for Beit Lehem since Yousef has abandoned us for good. The bus sits 30 minutes before leaving, and I think this is enough time to pull myself together and not cry (again). I’m wrong. As soon as the bus pulls out, I cry under my sunglasses, surreptitiously sniffling so the man next to me won’t notice. I leave my lover for the third time, and for the second time, I have no idea when I can return.

The bus drops us off at Mahsoom Beit Lehem, where we go through Israeli security to return to the Palestinian territories. The solider looks at my passport, looks for a visa, but asks nothing. She hands it to me and we make our way back through the gates and turnstiles in the sun on the other side of the wall, where fruit vendors ply cucumbers at 10 shekels a tray, and a yellow taxi cab waits to take us home.

The Three Hour Tour (Part Two)

I think time moves more slowly on this side of the globe, each hour stretching into three. The day begs to be seized, over and over and you wait for the sunset like some kind of mercy. Rula, Yousef and I arrive at the hotel Wednesday night at 9:30pm, and we have managed each location on our itinerary.

***

We begin with the holy sites in Nazareth, visiting the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic church versions of the annunciation (ie, where Mary finds out she’s knocked up). The Orthodox church is small and modest, its interior colorful and ornate. It opens to the center of Nazareth, the city courtyard. I sing to Rula an old Arabic song about lovers meeting in the courtyard, she is not amused. The Catholic version is a behemoth building, a new structure built over the old church. If you descend into its bowels, you can see the old stonework, the altar. This church is a tourist hub, with opulent mosaics of the Virgin Mary lining the walls. There are mosaics from all over the world, and most of them are stunning, rendering her in the image of the people from each nation. The mosaic from the US is easily the ugliest, forged in industrial looking metals, posed aggressively as though she were priming for war.

We go next to Cana, where Jesus allegedly performed my all time favorite miracle, turning water into wine. This church is smaller, but still beautiful. We walk in the eaves, where people have left money and notes tucked into the walls, thrown on the old, fenced off foundations. There is a striking stained glass window of a woman staring straight ahead. Her face is harsh, regal, and I can’t place her. The writing on the side is in Latin. I like her suggestive stare, the coolness she emanates. Though she too is aggressive, she lacks the garishness of the American Madonna. I try the wine at the tourist shop before we leave. It is too sweet, and I’m amused by my own snobbery.

We move next to the Tabgha, where Big J multiplied fish and bread to feed thousands. By now I am over the whole religious tour thing. I can’t get worked up about these places like the other tourists can. They are bent over the old stone, doubled over in the pews, praying with a fervor I can’t conjure or emulate. It must be amazing for believers to be in these places, but all I feel is mild curiosity. The magic for me is in the antiquity, the stories these sites could tell, the lives they’ve witnessed. After Tabgha, we make a longer drive to Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Tiberius is mostly a night-time town: a long boardwalk and port for passenger boats. Today, the little shops are closed, the walk mostly empty. But when we were young, we would get tasareeh into Jerusalem for religious holidays. After visiting the religious site in the morning, we would go swimming in the afternoon, and end the evening in Tiberius by riding one of the boats. The boats would meander around in the sea, and on deck a DJ spun music. We’d dance and laugh in the twinkling lights strung about the boats mast, reflected in the clear, crisp water. There is a picture of me dancing on one of these trips, on the Lido, my arms up framing my face, which is over-sunned and glowing. I look happy. I was.

After Tiberius, we go to Akka (Acre in English), a port  and harbor off the Mediterranean. I have also been here before, and it’s as beautiful as I remember it. Akka is hella old, and has a long military and political history. Like certain churches, you feel time here, walking along the city’s massive wall, looking out to the water as it crashes into the stone. In its old city, there is a “sook” or market. Sequestered in the arches of old buildings, the sook reminds me of Jerusalem. Here though, amidst the jewelry stores and juice carts are residents. With one turn you can find yourself in the courtyard of the old prison, or at the front door of someone’s house, where children’s clothes are strung up to dry, and a Brazilian flag hangs over the walkway. I love it here, all this practicality, hope, and history merged into one nook. I sing here, too. A Fairuz song comparing the singer’s love to the wonders of the sea, the mountains, and so on.

We spend a lot of time in Akka, primarily because Rula is bound and determined to get a picture of herself on the wall, the sea at her back. I take pictures over and over, and each time she looks at it, makes a suggestion for improvement, and asks me to take another: get a wider shot; only capture me from the waist up; wait until the wind settles; angle the camera down. She wants to preserve her image here, perfectly, next to famous icons, but when I ask her why they are famous, she can’t tell me. I alternate between finding this travel quirk amusing and annoying, erring on the side of annoying. Her unhappiness with the photos is evident on her face, and I want to shake her, and say “maybe it’s not the fucking photographer, maybe it’s your fucking face,” but I don’t. I understand the desire to record, but my patience grows thinner and thinner. Later, Rula will tell me I am rough to travel with, that my personality is “tough.” Imagine that.

From Akka, we go to Haifa. By now, Yousef is rushing us along, wanting to be done with the day, have dinner, and he, too, is grating on my nerves. I remind myself that he’s been a gracious host so far, and that he probably has a life he wants to return to. But then I think that he offered to do this, and will be paid for it, so I want him to stop whining, and stop making me feel guilty for exploring. These two impulses directly reflect my Arab training and my American “get what you paid for-ness.” In Haifa we visit the Baha’i Shrine and Gardens. They feature an elaborate, scaling stairwell; it looks like what I imagine the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were like. We climb as far as we are allowed and turn around to look back at the city, sitting near the sea. These lands are beautiful, the view is a postcard. There is such diversity and elasticity in the Palestinian/Israeli terrain. As always, I mourn the eviction of Arabs from these spaces. In the Holy Land, the metaphor of being cast out of Eden is apt, and as in the original tale, I know it’s unfair, unjustifiable.

We dine on the coast in Haifa, at a small seafood joint run by Russian immigrants. We watch the sun set on the water, eat ice cream. I inch closer and closer to the water, and when we finally do leave, I can smell the sea on my clothes, taste it on my lips. Maybe this is what the apple was like for Eve.

***

Our hotel is back in Nazareth. Rula and I are shocked at the early hour, collapsing onto the bed in laughter driven by exhaustion and absurdity. The hotel is sparse, clean. The shower head is delightfully abusive, and before long we are shiny and fresh from the bath, hoping to God room service exists (it doesn’t) and that there is an open store close by to buy something to drink (there isn’t). We fall asleep thirsty but content with the day, anticipating the next.

Mourning and Melancholy

It’s been my experience that Palestinians (at least, Sawahrah, people from Beit Sahour) take weddings and funerals very seriously. Wedding preparations go on for months. There can be up to 6 different wedding-related celebrations per one couple. In short, my people throw down. Unfortunately, there are no weddings during my visit. Instead, much worse, there is a funeral.  My Ammo Anise (precise relationship is confusing) was 86 years old. He married 3 times, fathered 13 children. His body crossed the jisr midday, and was buried in a family plot in the evening. He was shorter than my grandfather, but with the same wily eyes I associate with the Shomali clan.

Since receiving the news of his passing, the family has been caught up in the obligations of the dead. Like weddings, funerals are events unto themselves, with elaborate stages of mourning. Before the burial, mourners spend all day at the deceased’s home, women in one space and men in the other. Though now this tradition is observed because homes are seldom large enough to house all the grievers at once, I think it originated because of some standard gender assumptions: namely, that women’s grief would be huge and crazy, while men, more reserved, would be uncomfortable with these displays of emotion.

During this vigil, mourners bring nonperishable goods to the family’s home, and the family (extended, at this point) serves coffee, tea, cacao with milk, and a soft sweet bread to the visitors. I’ve been to two of these vigils, both held in my parent’s home here in Palestine. For both of these, the women mourned indoors, and the men set up chairs under the dahlias in our front yard. First, for my grandfather, Seedo Farid when I was 10. Seedo Farid was a tall, graceful man who built houses and farmed olive and fackoose fields (cucumber’s more chill cousin). I can’t say I know much about his personality; I only spent time with him thrice before my family moved to Palestine, and by then his health had deteriorated significantly alongside his mental acuity. I remember he favored my cousins, because they lived here. I remember he called me “Kendu” instead of “Mejdu.” I remember trying to catch his lanky frame once, when he attempted to walk from his bed to the Veranda without aid, and was betrayed by those limbs. I couldn’t stop him from falling, but I was tall enough to hold his torso up after he dropped to his knees, my arms under his until someone came to help.

My father came from America from the funeral, and though I knew I needed to be sad, I was ecstatic for my father’s arrival. We had just moved home, and I missed him fiercely. I’ve always been sweet on him, I guess. My father cried as he walked the dirt road from the taxi to my Uncle’s house; he wept openly in the arms of his brothers, my mother. As it has done ever since that day, my father’s tears undid me. He’s gentle, sentimental perhaps to a fault. Selfishly, I want him to be less so, because I can’t bear how distraught he becomes, because I can’t bear how often I’ve been responsible for that sadness.

We sat through a second vigil for my Ammo Fouad, my father’s oldest brother, when I was 13.  For the second, my sister Lemma and I worked kitchen duty, washing Turkish coffee cups only to see them sent out again within minutes. In the corner of the room sat bags of rice, coffee, and sugar. On top of them sat Tony, my sister’s then boyfriend, ignoring the gender separation. He was there, ostensibly, to help and he did, by lightening the mood, mockingly washing out coffee cups with a flick of his thumb.

The vigil persists until the viewing, and picks up again after the burial, for three more days. This third day, il thalith, engenders a church service. You are surrounded, in some cases, for a week, as nearly every person in the city comes to express their grief. On the seventh day, il saba3, a memorial is held. When my granfather and uncle died, we held both these separately. Now, for Ammo Anise, they are being condensed into a day. Both out of a lax of custom, and because of his advanced age and full life. There is one final memorial service, al arbi3een, 40 days after the death. I found out recently that you can decrease the number of days until this service, and therefore break the family’s public mourning period. You simply subtract the number of children the person has had from 40. So for Ammo Anise, the 40 becomes 27. I had a full on laughing fit when I heard about this. It’s so bizarre.

Even if the events are over, the mourning period demands a certain deference. When Ammo Fouad died, we didn’t turn on the TV or radio for 40 days. We didn’t go to celebrations of any sort: weddings, birthdays, baptisms, for a year. At Christmas we didn’t decorate. Mostly, these extreme measures are ignored today. But when someone dies young, you’ll find the traditions resurrected. When Ammo died, we were all so bereft we did it willingly. Well, as willingly as a young girl can when she is informed her birthday party is off.

Ammo Fouad’s death shocked us. We all wept. Hugely, to befit the size of his character, his heart. He was a UN representative who worked in the Congo at the time of his death. He was loud and vulgar, but charmingly so. He knew just how far to push a joke, a person. He smoked Rothman’s, at least a pack a day. Drank whiskey on the rocks hours before his death. My aunt says he knew it was coming and insisted he go out doing what he loved. Every death in my life since then has been shadowed by Ammo Fouad’s. Each new death rekindling an older grief.

Here and now, in the wake of so many lost loved ones, my father’s sadness cloaks the house again. He will not observe the mourning traditions as he did for his brother, but he will carry the added heaviness daily. And for him, we’ll carry it as well. Here and now, in the land my father wishes to buried, we all step a little more softly.

israel unsettled

From the Bethlehem area, there are approximately three checkpoints into Israel. My sister calls everything past the checkpoints “il daakhil”, the inside–inside the wall. Lubnah won’t call it Israel, and give the occupation a legitimate name. Portions of the wall have been under construction since 1994, but really got underway in 2002. It is enormous, intimidating. I suppose that’s the intent, but some aren’t so scared. Some treat the wall as a canvas for the feelings of a caged people: messages of hope, peace, banality even, are everywhere.

the wall in beit lehem

i want my ball back.

I can’t tell you how I feel about Israel. I can’t claim I would see all the people who have come here since 1948 be uprooted. My people were uprooted, and we’re still a little miffed. It would be silly to pretend I am not angry about the illegal settlements. It would be naive to pretend that the brutality Palestinians experience at the hands of the Israeli government doesn’t continue to shock and infuriate me.

Today, my mother Mariam, my sister Lubnah, my two nieces Rachel and Marie, my nephew Jacob, and I attempted to enter Jerusalem. The morning is lazy: my parents go to church, come home for coffee on the Veranda. By noon, the sun is at its peak, and the air sizzles with it. Lubnah comes to pick us up in her car, and we all pile in, plus my father, so he can take the car home after we have been dropped off. We wind up the hills to Beit Lehem (Bethelehem), and park just short of the checkpoint’s entrance. We past fruit vendors as we begin the path inside.

walking to the security screenings

I feel claustrophobic and criminal as we ascend to the security screenings. We are attempting to enter only on our US passports. When you cross the jisr from jihit al ajanib, they stamp your passport with a visa that allows you inside  Israel. As Arabs, no such visa exists. Arabs instead apply for tasareeh (the Arab version). We are attempting to enter without tasareeh, partially from ease, for the application for these kinds of papers is time consuming, and not always successful. Since there is no religious holiday upon us, our chances of receiving tasareeh are diminished. We are also attempting this in defiance, subterfuge. I cannot, nor will I ever, believe that Palestinians shouldn’t be allowed into Jerusalem freely. It is home to three major religions; a part of my heritage.

As girls, Lemma and I passed the checkpoints everyday to go to school in Jerusalem. The system was less elaborate then, before the wall, but still frightening. Soldiers with guns would smirk at us, two young girls alone, and leer at Lemma before allowing us through. I remember their cruel faces, and try to remember that they are doing a job assigned to them, but it’s hard to remain fair when I recall our flushed faces, Lemma’s hand clenched tensely around mine as we underwent scrutiny.

Today the first soldier passes us through without incident. We flash our passports and she waves us along. A tiny seed of hope flourishes. The second screening involves a metal detector, and we pass here too. By now, we are growing excited. Perhaps, this once, fate is on our side. We arrive at the final gate. An Israeli soldier stands guard, and a second inside a booth demands our passports. She checks them for visas, finding none. She and the other soldier in blue are confused: we have American citizenship, but no visa. In my head, I am chuckling. I can tell she thinks there is some kind of clerical error, and is prepared to send us through without. After all, we are with children, and I look foreign enough for all of us. What threat could three women and three children pose?

Before we can pass, a third soldier arrives. He is wearing green, and speaks to us in Arabic, though we feign ignorance. He is insistent on visas, and seems as confused as the others. Finally, after 3 minutes, a light bulb goes off above his head. He says to his companions something, though I only understand “Palestina. ” He begins to ask for our IDs (howwiyat). Had I been at the head of the line, I would have handed him my MI driver’s license, but I am not, and Lubnah stands silently, her face a mask of confusion. She gives the man the kid’s birth certificates instead. But this soldier is hip to her game, and insists “al howwiyah low samahti”, the IDs if you would. She tires, I think, recognizes the gig is up, hands him her howwiyah. He takes it and smirks, says something to the others even I can tell is derisive, lacking a knowledge of Hebrew.

He pulls Lubnah aside, speaks to her alone. Later she tells us he has essentially threatened her. If she goes quietly, he will not have to alert the police about her attempted deception. During the conversation my sister’s posture is casual, she leans against the turnstile and regards him coolly, unphased by his threats. He tells her that he is just like us, and to not make trouble, or else he will request a police escort.  If she applies for tasareeh, he is sure she will get them. But he is not like us. He stands there with the privilege of his uniform, backed by armed forces. If he has pulled her aside to save face in front of the other guards, that kindness is nullified by his threat of her safety.

We turn to leave, and Marie, 7,  can’t understand why we haven’t gotten through. Neither can I. In that moment, I hate him. His stupid mustache, his green uniform. We are demoralized and humiliated. I can’t tell if beneath her glasses my sister is crying, and I am glad we kept sunglasses on. They are tiny masks, a little defense against the wall, metaphorical and literal, we have come up against. We didn’t actually expect to get in, but the confirmation that we are not allowed access to our own history hits hard. My father has waited outside, so we make the long journey, back through the barred walkway to the car. We try to lighten the mood by cracking jokes, as we are wont to do, but underneath our smiles the sadness sets in. Lubnah announces that we will apply for tasareeh on Thursday, the day designated for residents of Beit Sahour. The set of her mouth speaks determination, and I am proud of her resilience. We will return to Jerusalem yet.