existential crisis, take two.

As an instructor I am many things: feminist in politics, casual in presentation, strict in policy, detailed in assignments, sometimes funny, sometimes flip, sometimes focused in discussion. I like to think that I’m a good teacher. I can summarize difficult arguments in brief and clear language. I try to make space for students who wouldn’t normally speak to be heard. Though it is cliche and sentimental, I genuinely believe something powerful can happen in the classroom. I believe that people change how they think, or begin to change how they think about the world. And I generally perceive that change for the better.

This week, I was something in my classroom that I have never explicitly been before. This week, I spoke to my students not as an informed and (inasmuch as possible, objective) instructor, but as a Palestinian who had lived under occupation; as someone who approached the topic from a specific political perspective, with ideas grounded in theory as much as feeling, and with definite opinions regarding action and change. I have never done this. I have never been a Palestinian first. While I am unclear on how to describe that position in concrete language, I suppose the closest I can say is that to my students I stood in for Palestine. For many, I was likely the only Palestinian they had seen in person, or with whom they could converse. For many, I was the only indication that something like Palestine existed, that it was populated by real people, and that it was under occupation.

I feel incredibly conflicted about holding this position. I was clear when I began my sections that I would be happy to pursue our regularly scheduled activity. I was clear that if this was undesirable or unproductive, we could move on. And while it was productive and interesting for many of my students, I could tell that one student in particular was not comfortable, was not OK. While I wouldn’t characterize her posture as hostile, I would say that it was defensive. Now, 24 hours later, I still can’t shake the feelings of vulnerability and anxiety I felt in the classroom. What a curious effect of oppression, that in acknowledging your own personhood, you might feel guilty. Guilty to take a “biased” position, guilty to claim space, guilty to make those who would support your oppression feel at all uncomfortable. I know that this guilt is obviously complicated by the fact that I am her instructor, and we exist in a relationship that is unequal. And while I prefaced and reiterated multiple times that I was speaking that day primarily as a person with a clear position, rather than facilitating discussion and underlining concepts with no position other than conveyor of course materials, I feel so…icky. Did I do something wrong? Was this the correct course of action? Should I have stuck to the lesson plan? Isn’t it OK sometimes to be honest, to be me, to be Palestinian? I know that neutrality is a farce. I know that even when I play instructor, my personhood and politics don’t disappear, but neither are they as explicit as they were yesterday. I am afraid that I have alienated her. I am afraid that I was too transparent. I am afraid that the room will be altered irrevocably after this. I am afraid of my anger at feeling afraid in the first place. I am afraid I am not cut out for this job. I am afraid that now that I have been a Palestinian first, I will not be able to lie to myself– I was one always, throughout all things. I am afraid to be Palestinian. I am afraid to be.

my cat is not dead

It was the first time I had ever woken up with someone on Valentine’s Day. I had been in relationships in the past, but that year was first year that I lived alone, away from the prying eyes of my parents, and could spend all night in my own bed with a lover. I’d gotten up earlier to check the forecast, because it was winter in Ohio, and lots of snow was expected. By some miracle, classes were canceled.

A snow day. On Valentine’s Day. Perfect.

Snuggled in bed, his phone rang first. But he ignored it, as he was wont to do. Then my phone rang. I ignored it the first time. But it rang again and it was his roommate and the roommate would never be so insistent unless something was wrong. I answered, gave him my phone, sat, waited. Next to me, he shivered, eyes clouding, disbelief in the lines around his mouth “Are you sure?” My boyfriend’s cat was dead. It sounds almost funny now, like the beginning to a stoner comedy, or an 80s movie about babysitting. How absurd that on such a beautiful perfect morning, you could wake up to a call about your dead cat.

We got dressed. Tried to dig my car out of the snow but it wouldn’t budge. We walked, from my apartment to High Street, where his roommate met us in his car, took us back to his place. His kitten, who was also in many ways my kitten, was on the floor in the kitchen. Little paws stretched straight out, little eyes wide open. We wrapped him in something, a sheet? A towel? Drove him to the vet, where they gave us back his collar, which he lost, which I found again. They performed a catopsy (we laughed), discovered a blood clot that killed him instantly, no pain. We walked to a restaurant, had breakfast, bought dessert for later. We went back to his place, to sit with our other kitten, the brother. Laid on the futon. Watched Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. Ate chocolate. Cried.

Yesterday I thought my cat had died. I was getting ready to leave, and he had been feeling sick, scheduled for a vet appointment for today. I wanted to check on him before I left, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I called and called, and he wouldn’t respond. Almost running through my apartment, I was in tears. Where could he hide? Didn’t cats hide when they were about to die? Why couldn’t I find him? But I did. And my cat was not dead. He is still not dead. He is fine. I am fine. Fine.

When you have mostly forgotten, have accepted, have moved on, and are happy and easy with your memories, when you think only with good faith on your past, when you are not sad just for sad’s sake, when you are fine, these things will happen to you. You will cry in your apartment over the cat you did not find in time. You will cry for the cat to whom you did not say goodbye. This is life reminding you of its balances. This is the future pushing you into your past. This is the present resenting your presence. This is life giving you a snow day, and killing your cat. This is. This. His-its-shit. Sometimes I hate this.

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.

Do You Remember Hanna Awwad?

One of my favorite things about sitting with my father and his contemporaries is the exchange of folk songs and old stories. There’s a story about my Ammo Manawail and Ammo Fouad as boys, fighting over the dried watermelon seeds. When Fouad let go, Manawail fell backward into the tray where Taita Hilwa, my grandmother kept her baby chicks. Ammo squashed the chicks, and the seeds went flying. He immediately went into hiding, and Hilwa (which means pretty) gave chase, tying a bandanna around her head before tracking him down. When Ammo tells the story, he mimes her tying the bandanna, and we all laugh. There’s the folk song my Great Grandfather Ibrahim wrote about a cat knocking Elias Kassis’ aoud onto the wheat grinder, and his wife, Katrina breaking him the news. There’s my all time favorite old Arabic song, Al Rosana, that my Aunt Anise knows, and I forget the verses to. I sing what I remember anyway, often when I’m lonely, or putting babies to sleep.

I don’t know if the story about Hanna Awwad is true, or just a word play with rhyme. I only really remember line of the song, “titthakaree Hanna Awwad” (do you remember Hanna Awwad)? And it’s response “kharaga wa lem ya’oud” (He left and did not return).  Tony and another cousin of ours, Fadi, used to tell it all the time. In the recesses of my brain, I think he went to the store for something silly, and was never heard from again. I think it’s real, because Tony always got in trouble when he told it. The story reminds me of Tony, who I loved like my brother. Who I miss, now that everything is different, and now that I am leaving. I’ve been in Palestine for 19 days, and I have only seen Tony once. I saw a couple of school friends to whom I’m related, and I didn’t see my best friend from my years in residence at all. She was supposed to visit, but never did. I’m not surprised by her absence, or by the sadness I feel about it. Short of seeing Lubnah and the kids, everything here hurts. And though the joy I get from spending time with my sister, and the ease with which we are ourselves, exactly as we’ve always been, is huge, the reverse, the pain of our parting is huge, too.

We leave Sunday afternoon, at around 4:00. The driver to the Jisr is early, and my parents are frazzled. They are running around the house, trying to tie up loosed ends while we meander in the drive-way, waiting. The waiting makes it worse because I have time to get (more) emotional. By the time they come down the stairs, I’ve already begun weeping. I hug Lubnah fiercely one more time, and get into the van with Rachel and my parents, and two strangers. The fam is coming to Amman with me for a week before I fly off, and Lubnah is working until Tuesday, when she will fly to France for the city. We take Wad il Naar to the Jisr, as we came, and by now I’m familiar with its dips and curves. I can’t say I’m sad to part with the terrain like I once was, or perhaps I’ve used up all the sad in the reservoir on this trip already. By the time we are in Jericho, I have moved to cracking jokes and gearing up for the maze of red tape ahead.

Before arriving at the Jisr, we stop at a maktaba in Jericho to get tasareeh (permissions) for me to exit with my howiyyah. Of course, I have my passport, so the tasareeh shouldn’t be necessary, but apparently the jawaz (passport) needs a month before it’s accessible on the computer system. I marvel at this techno fail–that you could receive your passport but not use it for travel–the entire time we are applying for the tasareeh, which cost another 55 shekels. The van takes us to the Palestinian side/building/agency and chaos ensues. My father wants to make sure Rachel can travel with us because she’s a minor, we need to buy bus tickets and cargo tickets, we need to make sure the suitcases get on the bus, we need to pay Palestine 134 shekels a pop to leave, we need to show our passports and howiyyahs and tasareeh to some dude at a desk to be arrogant and troubled by. I have forgotten something crucial, something I should have considered before agreeing to all this: traveling with my parents makes all things 100 times more difficult. We leave the Palestinian border with 4 bus tickets, 5 suitcase vouchers, 4 “exit tax” receipts.

A bus takes us to the Israeli side.  Well, first it takes us to a gate, where we disembark, walk through metal detectors, and load onto a another bus. This second bus takes us to the Israeli border, where another metal detector awaits. We are let off the bus in small groups, and the Israeli guards divert me, Rachel, and Mom directly to the building without passing through security. Men and women wearing hijab are directed through this first metal detector. Inside the building, another metal detector and a baggage scanner await. All travelers go through this, and my father goes through three times: the first time he has forgotten his belt. The second time he has found a key in his pocket. The third time is beep-free. We stand in line to have our papers stamped and stapled and shuffled but the line is taking eons. There are approximately 100 travelers and three people working the booths. Like Meijer, we pick the slowest cashier. From here, we go to another station, where the woman demands proof of exit tax payment, and yet another, where a man checks our passports and howiyyahs a final time.

We get our bags, and load them onto a third bus (which also requires a ticket and luggage vouchers) that will deposit us at the Jordanian border. On the bus, we fill out a white card with some banal information which is then checked when we disembark. The suitcases are taken from us to be checked, again, and deposited on the other side of the border, to be retrieved when we complete our Jordanian stamping and shuffling. When we enter this building, we’re given a number, and for a moment I am ecstatic: no elbowing old ladies in line, no other travelers attempting sneaky “cutsies.” My enthusiasm is misplaced. Even given numbers, people swarm the windows like vacationers at the cruise ship buffet. When you do manage to hand your paperwork over, they ask you to have a seat on the chairs and wait for your name to be called. No one does this. They stand at the window staring down the workers, waiting for a moment’s weakness to ask for favors. My name is finally called, and I am cleared to go through. I pay 10 dinars for my visa to enter into Jordan.  Meanwhile, Rachel is being held back while she secures a green card. I myself have one of these, bu I don’t know what they mean, or what they are for. Merely that they are part of what Jordan wants to see.

After we all make it through, we buy various treats from the duty free, and go outside to find a taxi. My father negotiates a price to Amman, and we bundle into the four door, for an hour ride to Ammo Manawail’s. On the whole, our trip lasts 5 hours. As we’re driving, I notice things I didn’t notice 19 days ago like the spread of American fast food joints and designer labels. You can get everything in Amman, for a price, per global capitalism’s intention. Still, I feel lighter here, my heart ready to shake off some of the heaviness;  I didn’t realize it was so heavy until it lifted. I am excited for the next week, because I will be taking in Amman as I never have before: the Petra, the Dead Sea, Hammamat Ma’in (Turkish Baths). We visited Amman often, but always spent the time with family. The whirlwind schedule suits–I don’t want time to think about what I left. What if Hanna had come back, after 11 years? Would he still be lost? Wasn’t I?

Ammo’s house is mostly as I remember it with a few key changes. They have removed the small fountain from the right side of the main entrance to make a car park, and they have hired a new live-in house servant. His name is, Mina, from Masr, and he is only 22. Manawail has always stood out to me as the richest person in our family, and his house belies it. It’s enormous, well kept, not visibly rich,  but deeply, like old money. I love it, but it makes me feel dirty. I hate hearing Ammo yell at Mina (he yells as a way of communication), but Mina is new, and doesn’t know that Ammo barks at everyone. Still, I feel strange when my bags are wordlessly, and invisibly taken to my room. I inquire later about Mina’s pay, and become disgusted with myself even further, but everyone seems convinced they are doing him a favor. I try to engage him, but he averts his eyes from me, from everyone but children as far as I can tell, with whom he plays, easily, often.

That night, Ammo Manawail hears about my fig-lust, and sneaks me three straight off the tree in his garden. He tells me to eat them downstairs, so I don’t have to share, and I selfishly do. Upstairs, I hear the women talking about weight loss, how fat they are, nose size, depilatory choices. Next to them, the men play cards for dinars, smoke cigarettes and argiylah. I excuse myself from both spaces, feigning exhaustion, and walk down into the basement, into my room. The finished basement is 10 degrees cooler then the house above, and it’s a house unto itself, fully furnished, a spacious kitchen, 1.5 baths. A picture of Seedo Farid hangs in the living room, and one of Ammo Fouad sits in my bedroom. The last time I saw him was in a dream, shortly after his death. I resolve things that way, in my sleep. In my sleep, Rami forgave me for leaving him and not loving him back enough. In my sleep, Dalia and I have a Lifetime reunion, holding each other as the years recede meaninglessly.

In Amman, I can’t sleep at all so I unpack as Fouad looks on. I sing Al Rosana, my favorite verse: kolhum habibhom ma’hom wa anna habibi raah. Ya rabi nasmit hawa t’rod il habib liyah: everyone has their love with them, but my love has gone. Dear God, send a gentle breeze to bring back my love. It sounds cheeky, but it’s not. The rhythm is so simple, the register so earnest. I sing what I know to Fouad as I prepare for the next week, prepare to go back to another kind of home. Meanwhile, there are Taita’s chicks, Ibrahim’s cat, Hanna.

The answer is yes.

Yes, yes. I remember.

Gilligan Does “il Dakhil” (Part One)

Maybe I am biased, but none of the many drivers I’ve ridden with here can compare to Saalih. On Wednesday morning Rula and I make my third attempt to enter the Israeli territories;  a driver named Shakir picks us up at 6:30am. This time, we are attempting to cross the mahsoom/checkpoint in Beit Sahour, which, like Mahsoom al Nafuck, allows vehicles through. Shakir is an Arab Israeli from Nazareth, fluent in both Arabic and Hebrew. His van is tidy, and he offers us ka’ak (a delicious sesame bread) as we make our way to the mahsoom.

We came to know Shakir through my cousin Rafat, who works as a tour guide for a Palestinian agency. Rafat, in addition to arranging for our transportation, has also arranged for Rula and I, should we get through the checkpoint, to join a tour group for two days as they visit Nazareth and Jerusalem. I should say I never got the opportunity to apply for tasareeh (the visa or permissions for Palestinians to access Israel) since Beit Sahour residents can only apply on Thursdays, and last Thursday was my Uncle’s funeral. Even if we are turned around, I have already decided I will not apply. Perhaps it’s stupidity or stubbornness, but I won’t put myself at Israel’s mercy more than I already have.

When Shakir sees the guard at the mahsoom, he curses briefly under his breath. This guard is new, and doesn’t know Shakir. Still, Shakir smiles widely, converses with him for a moment in Hebrew, before requesting our passports. As we oblige, the guard walks away, and Shakir hops out of the car to follow, passports in tow. He is gone for less than a minute, though it feels longer. Upon his return, Shakir says we have been rejected, and I feel nothing. I expected this. But Shakir guns the car anyway, and it takes me a few more seconds to realize he’s joking. The guard was having breakfast, and didn’t even open the passports to check for visas. Suddenly, I am officially in Israel, my access the result of some random man’s hunger. Shakir and Rula congratulate me, but I don’t feel victorious. I feel sick; how arbitrary and cruel these stipulations and manipulations are.

Shakir drives on, for we are trying to make it to Nazareth (al Nassra) in two hours. He is a genial driver, mostly quiet. He offers bits of information as we drive through the diverse terrain of the (my? our?) country: here is Abu Ghosh, the last Arab-occupied space between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Here is Megiddo, the military and political prison for Palestinians. The way Shakir imparts this information reminisces of a museum tour: here are some curious things, some things from the past. It’s as though the Arab population and the reality of political prisoners in Israel are not part of the present, not part of daily life. At some point, I must tune him out, because he seems to think that the reason the Palestinian territories are poor is merely a matter of laziness. I feel like one of my students: Shakir is a nice guy, except for the little bit o’ racism. Still, I am grateful he can show me these things, grateful that for as much as he expresses distaste for the “Arab work ethic,” he is also happy to help pull one over on Israeli security at the checkpoints.

We stop only once before Nazareth, pulling into a small convenience store and gas station. It must be near a military base, because there are dozens of soldiers milling about. They are so young, so casual with their machine guns strapped across their bodies. They flirt and joke with one another like the teenagers they are and I am sad for them, sad for us. I know Palestinian boys who dropped out of school because the Intifadas made attendance impossible, because they lost families and loved ones, became disaffected by the war, the incontinuity of their lives. They are casualties, the cost of occupation and its resistance. I wonder about these Israeli soldiers, their uniforms heavy on their bodies, aging them in ways I couldn’t imagine. Do they believe in what they represent? Do they resent it? I can’t pretend to know what they think or feel, but to me, they too seem to be casualties, collateral damage of a different sort.

We make Nazareth in the predicted two hours, though it costs us the more scenic drive along the coast of the Mediterranean. Shakir pulls up outside of a strip of stores, and a second driver, Yousef arrives to take us to meet the tour group. We thank Shakir (which, incidentally, means “one who thanks”) and transfer vehicles. Yousef also works with Rafat,  also speaks Arabic and Hebrew. As we drive to catch up with the tour, we inform Yousef of our newly hatched plan to travel with the tour on day one, and then ditch it the second day, to visit Yaffa and Jerusalem on our own. Concerned with our shenanigans, Yousef calls Rafat, and together they agree that Yousef ought to stay with us for the whole two days instead, acting as our personal guide/driver. Though this idea grates at my nerves, Rula is ecstatic to have someone cater to her every desire and a place to leave her things between locations. Her enthusiasm trumps my tourist-sex fantasy, and we plan our itinerary with Yousef. Nazareth to Tiberias to Akka to Haifa on day one. Yaffa and Jerusalem on day two. It’ll be a miracle if we manage it.

Arrival and Affect in Amman

Sitting on the plane as it descends into Amman, I can’t believe I’m so close. In the monitor nested in the back of the seat before me, I am watching a small digital rendition of the plane making it’s voyage, but somewhere the connection is faulty because my plane hovers an inch to the West of Amman, even as we are taxiing on the runway. The visual suggestion of the stalled trip is so convincing it anchors my disbelief. Passengers bolt up before we barely touch the ground. Their impatience comforts me; this is how Arabs do. We’re not going to take the pilot’s admonition or the fasten seat belts sign very seriously. What could possibly happen now that the wheels are on the ground? I peer out the window to find grapevines climbing their way up the sides of plane garages. I smile. I am beginning to believe.

The triggers are little. The chaos of the baggage check as you leave Queen Alia’s airport. The black and yellow checked curbs barely containing drivers who treat the roads as a competition, aggressively cutting across lanes—how many are there? Used to the regimented lines of the States, I couldn’t tell you. I look for more familiarity in the crowd, and my heart jerks a little when I realize for the first time in any memory, I won’t see my Ammo Manawail at the airport, waving vigorously. He is fine, just away at the moment, but the dissonance of my arrival mirrors my feelings. Everything is familiar. Everything is not.

My third uncle, Ammo Afif, picks me up in his red Toyota instead, which he bought the same year I was born. The car is spacious, and has held up exceedingly well over the years. I find myself thinking it’s aging more gracefully than I have. But then, I’ve become overly sentimental sometime between the stone facades of buildings and the rickety fruit stands scattered on the side of the road and am thinking everything here ages better. A fine mist of dust travels with us, and it functions like rose colored lenses. Everything here is beautiful. Everything is grand.

When we arrive at Ammo’s house, it’s the scent that clinches it. As soon as I open the car door, I smell Jasmine. I didn’t know I missed it. I didn’t know I loved it. It carries me into the house, mingles with the scent of stuffed grape leaves. It’s not long before other family members begin to arrive, kissing both my cheeks, thanking god for my safe arrival, asking about the welfare of the people I left behind. The greetings roll off my tongues deceptively easily, as later I will coax out casual language slowly, my mouth and brain stubbornly refusing to recall the right words, place them in the correct order. I’m forced to choose my sentences carefully, and alter meaning according to capability. The stiltedness of my speech makes me feel less like myself, and I spend the evening hugging my own shoulders, crossing my arms against my chest. I’m sure my posture speaks my discomfort, but my relatives here are unfailingly kind, and if they are thinking cruel thoughts, they’ve chosen not to voice them. I see messages in their eyes, glances to each other, but that language is something else I’m not fluent in. Better and fair, I suppose. I share these same intimacies with my sisters and close friends, and can’t wait until I see Lubnah again to begin exchanging them.

The evening winds on. Some of my relatives play cards at the square table while others chat over tea, then coffee, then chocolates. The thing I want the most, a cigarette, eludes me. I can’t bring myself to smoke in front of these folks, because I know it’s not done by women in public, and I know it’ll get back to my Dad. 27 and still put in my place by custom. It’s not like he doesn’t know. It’s just a courtesy, I suppose. When everyone heads home, I return to my room. The bed is hard, and the screen on the window won’t budge. I’ll have my cigarette tomorrow. I hope.

if you agree to the conditions

since i was a wee girl, my parents have reiterated, more time than you can possibly imagine, how important my palestinian heritage, culture and traditions are to them, and thus must be to me. and they are. monumentally hugely important. my family and falasteen are the core of my being, whatever that means. i derive a lot of who i am and what i am from that very strong base. for my parents though, saying i value the culture (and displaying that in numerous ways) is mere lip service unelss it’s followed by one end-all, be-all act of disassimilation. that act is marriage to an arab man.

my dilemma. arab–not opposed. man–not opposed. however, the likelihood of this super feminist, fairly queer lady settling down in the manner my parents imagine is, well, unlikely. and it’s not a light-hearted matter, though i’m apt to say i don’t care or it doesn’t phase me. my mother can and will disown me. she has already threatened to do so with my brother, who is currently living with his “american” girlfriend and her son. the reason it hasn’t happened yet is for the sake of my father, and because my brother is a boy. the only boy of five children. the child they kept wishing for until he happened. he cannot be discarded so easily as the fourth girl after three dutiful daughters.

it’s a lot of pressure, this marriage thing. first, i’m not really a big fan of the whole marriage bit. second, i’m not entirely opposed to not-male people as life partners. in fact, truth be told, i’d prefer a non-bio kinda boi. and i can’t imagine this going over well. ever. and thus it often seems i have a choice: my family or my hypothetical partner. sometimes i wonder if i’ve sabotaged relationships to avoid this very choice. sometimes i wonder if i’ll be in a relationship again, knowing the stakes.

sometimes i am incredibly angry at my parents. for giving up so much to bring us to the US. for taking care of us so well. for letting me know what it felt like to be loved so thoroughly. and then to realise that love is ultimately conditional. i can’t imagine a world where i don’t call my mom or help her stuff a chicken. i can’t imagine a world where my dad doesn’t tell lewd jokes at dinner, and putter around in the mikthaa in the evenings.

mostly, i am sad. sad that i disappoint them daily. sad that the decisions that bring me joy bring them pain. sad to think i might not find a lover who gets it, sad to know i have parents who refuse to. and i can sympathise with both sides. who wants to come into a family where the family will never accept you? and as for my parents, how can they not be crushed at what seems to them not just a rejection of culture, but a straight-up rejection of their hard work over the years? it’s as though i’ve taken everything they’ve given me and packed it in a box, set it on the doorstep. thanks but no thanks. it’s not how i feel, but they can’t read it any other way.

this is on my mind because i recently had a phone conversation with my mother, who, btw is in palestine. she wanted to talk about my brother. as she is so adept at doing, she goaded me into a lose-lose conversation in which she basically claimed that if i cared about my parents, or understood them at all, i wouldn’t have done the terrible thing i did. the thing, in case you’re curious, was moving back to the state they reside in without moving back into their home. that’s right. i’m an unmarried arab girl who lives in the same city as her parents, but not in the same house. it’s as though i slaughtered a small animal for sport, or shot a man in vegas, just to watch him die. it’s that kind of sin, people.

but i digress and have forgotten where i was going with this post. i guess i’ll end by saying these are my guilts and my struggles as a queer arab feminist. this is my life. it ain’t easy.