Language-less (or more)

I am. I am a woman who dreams in an unknown language. Who counts “one-two-three” in one language, and “four-five-six” in another. My thoughts come in fragments of four languages.

My language of love is the poetic song of this ancient land – Arabic. My language of politics is a language I have no connection with – Hebrew. My language of creative writing is yet a third language – language foreign to me and my land – English. And my language of family – well, that’s the simple language of my early childhood – Slovak.

Four languages, one brain. Most of the time there is chaos in my brain – I feel the words of these four languages racing, competing for my tongue. Fighting to escape.

Ideas I write in English I struggle with in Arabic and Hebrew when speaking. The things I write in one language I cannot express in writing in the other one. The words I speak in Arabic cannot be pinned down on paper. The intimate discussions with my family in Slovak cannot be rendered into another language. The heated political discussions with my friends in Hebrew become a struggle when I repeatedly attempt to document them in English. The words of passion in Arabic – well, I can never imagine myself speaking these words in any other language.

Each language leaves an imprint on my identity, as words shape our realities. Each language carries within itself a complete world – of traditions, cultures, symbols, jokes, street-language, and more. Descriptions of feelings and emotions can extremely vary across these languages. The same words – when translated – carry completely different connotations, denotations and meanings. Sometimes they carry history itself within their very letters.

I use all four languages on a daily basis, in different settings and in various contexts. I try to negotiate my identity between and within those four languages and the spaces left by the gaps. It is no easy task. The instant switch between languages feels a burden at times, while at other times I take it up as an intellectual challenge. One thing is sure: life is so much more interesting when experienced in four languages.

Waqfet Banat - Personal Narrative

Cover Image of Waqfet Banat (taken from Aswat's website)

There was a lot of commotion and excitement today at Aswat - Palestinian Gay Women's office. "Waqfet Banat - Personal Narrative" has just arrived from the printing house. A small book, with a colorful cover picture, inviting the reader to the personal, often guarded, private spaces of Palestinian lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex women (LBTQI).

The stories are corageuos narratives of individual women who have had to deal not only with the rejection of their families and communities, but with the very journey of self-discovery. While some celebrate their very identities, others describe the all-too-painful rejections they have had to encounter time and again. Some have emerged stronger and are able to live their lives being openly themselves, while others have been broken and have to lead a double life. A few were not strong enough (how strong can one be?!) and succumbed under the weight of patriarchal, religious, or societal oppression.

I want to personally thank the women of Aswat who worked so hard on collecting, translating, editing and making available this important book. I also want to thank the women who contributed the narratives: your strength and courage are an inspiration to me and I feel privileged to be part of your world. Thank you for opening your hearts and sharing with me your most personal experiences, thoughts, pains, losses and loves.

"Waqfet Banat" is an important contribution to Palestinian literature on sexual identity, and I believe it has the potential of changing perceptions among the public. But most importantly, I hope it reaches the hands of parents of young women on their journey of self-discovery, as family acceptance is a major thread running through almost all the narratives.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in a closer glimpse and a deeper understanding of sexual identity and its intricate interrelation to patriarchal oppression and societal norms.

The book is available in Arabic and English. To order a copy, please visit Aswat's website at www.aswatgroup.org.


Cover Image from Waqfet Banat (taken from Aswat's website)

Love Cannot be Defined

I was once given a book called “Conditions of Love,” written by some Armstrong (don’t remember his first name). I try hard to remember anything from the book, but in vain. Today I realize the reasons.

Love cannot be “conditioned.” Love cannot be defined by a single individual who has only experienced one kind of love, in one type of cultural and historical context.

Because love is a slippery word. It is a word meaning cannot be attached to. It doesn't conform to the rules of the Oxford Dictionary.

Love can be gentle, it can be ferocious, it can be calm and it can be raging. It can take you up beyond the tip of the edge, and it can take you down into the bottomless well of grief. It can be happiness, but it can also live in anger. Love can be ..... fill in whatever emotion and love can be that. And it can be all these combined together and much more.

Whenever I think of the love I have, one word instantly forms in my mind: “intense.” That is the kind of love I am experiencing in this stage of my life. But of course it is accompanied by other emotions as well. Ours is a love riding a wild rollercoaster. It is at the same time thrilling, breathtaking but also scary. It is painful fear mingled with exhilaration. It is like lovemaking – with an amalgamation of feelings beyond pain and joy.

Reading “Mornings in Jenin” by Susan Abulhawa, I came across a paragraph that will remain with me always. Reading her definition of love, I was magically drawn to the concept. I felt, yes, this is my kind of love. Not the philosophical notions of love fed to us. Her kind of love touched me in a deep place of my very existence. Here is the paragraph:

“Amal, I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell. I see your confusion. Consider fear. For us, fear comes where terror comes to others because we are anesthetized to the guns constantly pointed at us. And the terror we have known is something few Westerners ever will. Israeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our own emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme.

“The roots of our grief coil so deeply into loss that death has come to live with us like a family member who makes you happy by avoiding you, but who is still one of the family. Our anger is a rage that westerners cannot understand. Our sadness can make the stones weep. And the way we love is no exception, Amal.

It is the kind of love you can know only if you have felt the intense hunger that makes your body eat itself at night. The kind you know only after life shields you from falling bombs, or bullets passing through your body. It is the love that dives naked toward infinity’s reach. It think it is where God lives.”

“Mornings in Jenin” is one of those few books that have made a deep impression on me. Its scents, colors, grief, pain, and hopes will remain with me always. I urgently recommend this book. But my recommendation comes with a warning: at the beginning of the book, a small ball of joy makes its home in the readers stomach, but suddenly, and very violently, this tiny ball betrays you and transforms itself into a knot of grief that keep growing and pushing itself upward, until it settles into your throat, making you unable to breath. This knot will accompany the reader to the very last lines of the book.

Post

"she opened her post box and was taken aback. first, by the quantity of the mail. But something was not right. Reaching in, she drew a heavy bulk of letters. All were torn open, their contents scattered. some of them were torn to pieces, others just crumpled. Love letters, bills, notifications of a big package waiting at the post office. She didn't understand. she could tell by the dates on the stamps that this was at least three months worth of mail. who did this? and why was she all of a sudden targeted? or was it not all of a sudden? she felt they were closing in on her."

google "Ameer Makhoul"

shhh... there's a gag order... all I have to say is google "Ameer Makhoul"

Imagine You're on a Military Training

Walking my two dogs in my neighborhood, I saw a mother with her 7 year old boy. The boy was carrying a cage with hamsters in it, and I heard him complaining to his mom how heavy the cage is and how difficult it is so him to carry it.

My first thought was that the mother would find words of motivation, telling him that he's doing great, or that they're almost home or some such words.
Instead, she tells him: "Stop being such a brat. Just pretend you're on a military training."

MILITARY TRAINING???? A seven year old boy????

I don't think I need to add any commentary here...

Sarkuzi will liberate the Muslim woman – part two

Reading my last post, my dear friend Talma brought to my attention the fact that again this is an attack directed at a certain group – the Muslims. What about other groups, such as nuns or Jewish women in traditional dress? So clearly this is yet another campaign to demonize Islam.

And if we take up Sarkuzi’s claim that the Burka defiles women’s honor, then why not outlaw pornography, sexist advertisements and magazines that show all-too-often almost naked women? And what about advertisements using young girls in seductive positions? There is no end to the list of things that portray women as mere sex objects. It’s a whole industry. But of course this is allowed in the name of terms as “freedom of expression” and other such noble terms.

Sarkuzi will Liberate the Muslim Woman

Picture taken from the campaign of the International Society for Human Rights

Sarkuzi (no, I didn’t get his name wrong. It makes me mad whenever my name is misspelled, so I decided to do the same with names in other languages. See who gets mad now) has come to the rescue of Muslim women. He has promised them liberation from the Burka in the form of legislation. Again, the West has harnessed its legal framework to the benefit of the primitive east. The Burka will be outlawed! Yippee! Freedom from the patriarchal sexist oppression! WRONG!

Yes, we live in an oppressive patriarchal society. Some more oppressive, some less – but all societies are ultimately oppressive and sexist. And we women suffer the most from this structure. The west needs to reevaluate and reconceptualize its notions, concepts and values. The legal system inherently and essentially serves the oppressor. Social change will not come through legislation.

Yes, after this law passes, we will no longer see any veiled women in the streets of France. And that is the ultimate aim of this law – to disinfect the streets from the Burka. Nothing more, nothing less. But has the legislator thought about what will happen to these women? Instead of liberating them from the Burka, this law will only further push them underground – making them completely invisible. Does the legislator think that these women’s husbands will all of a sudden let their women roam the streets of France unveiled? Well, think again! They will continue to wear their Burkas, but as the law will make them outlaws, they will remain at home, hidden from the eyes of society. Thus, this law serves to further oppress the women. Is the legislator so blind? This is such simple logic.

And now to the question: then what is the solution? How do we liberate women? The only way is through attacking the roots of the cause – which is the patriarchal sexist value system. There are many grassroots feminist women’s organizations throughout the world who are committed to eradicating this oppression. Their work is focused on education and awareness-raising rather than on forced, artificial and superficial solutions. Yes, the road is long and difficult, but change is happening – slowly, but surely. So please, dear westerner – if you can’t sincerely help, just leave it to the women themselves to work. Because your solutions – as they are formulated now – are only detrimental and harmful to advancing our rights!

A Woman's Place

Hanady's voice was barely a whisper in the night. A sad voice, a voice with no body attached to it... I could tell she had been crying before, for a sob escaped over the phone line, secretly inserted between her words. 'I didn't know who else to call, Khulud.' I could hear the screams of a baby from a distance, and another child sobbing and breathing heavily close to the phone.
I remember Hanady from the university. A young woman... no, barely a woman. A girl trying to be a woman. In the second year of our studies I noticed a thick gold band on her finger... an invisible shackle... but she didn't know it then. She walked the dark corridors of the university, an Arabian princess, unawares. Dark curly hair, big olive eyes, smiling eyes. Expensive clothes from her fiancé, and every now and then a new, thick gold bracelet or a necklace... more shackles, until her body felt too heavy under the weight, but she still walked the university like an Arabian princess... smiling, the whole world under her feet...
That's how I remember Hanady.
Her fiancé, I heard, was an important business man, something with importing or exporting or something like that. From Nazareth. Good family. Rich family. Did she marry him for love? Or for money? Or because she was twenty two and it was time? Or was it an arranged marriage?
Don't know, doesn't matter now.
Everything is gone now.
What's left is a house to clean, long hours alone in the dark house, a meal to cook from scratch, a bruise over the left thigh, another under the eye... the left eye or the right eye? This week it's the left eye, but last week it was the right one... a sore arm from hitting the wall... a broken bone...
Then, as if that were not enough, two babies... born one year apart. Teeth that hurt at night, one already pulled, more to be taken care of. A few white hairs that seem to multiply too fast. Hanady's hair isn't curly anymore... she has ceased to be an Arabian princess, unawares...
Hanady isn't even a woman anymore... she only breathes, and walks, and cleans, and cooks, and cares for her babies...
There is no Hanady anymore...
Hanady doesn't live here anymore... not in this house, not in this body...

p.s. I wrote this short piece a few years back, after receiving a phone call from a woman I studied with at the university. As far as I know, her husband still abuses her and she lives an unhappy life. She calls me about once a year to pour her heart out and to draw some strength to go on.

Nulla Dies Sine Linea - Progress Log Entry no. 1

24.3.2010
2:10
Ok so this is my first entry of my “Progress Log.” Supposed to rapidwrite my progress in writing. So I’ve started reading the “Writing on Both Sides of the Brain” to overcome my writing block and to write more effectively. Mainly – to write. What I’ve learned so far is that I need to learn how to separate the two functions of the right and left side of the brain. First – let the music, rhythm and voice out through the right side of the brain. This usually happens as we use rapidwriting and don’t let the critic come between the finger and the keyboard. After that – and when the time is ripe – let the critic in to do all the editing, rewriting and crossing out. Sounds logical, especially as I am writing at the moment in this very way. Not paying any heed to the critic. Not thinking too much. And it’s going pretty well because the fact is that I wrote what I wrote until now in less than 4 minutes. Usually it would take me at least half an hour to write a paragraph this long. But this is different, because here and now I’m not really concerned with any metaphors or fresh language. Only letting my thoughts roam.

As far as my novel? And its progress? Well, I haven’t written for a while. I don’t really know where the novel is going. Don’t have a story line yet. I mean I’ve got the dilemmas and I know more or less the political orientation of Maisoon and Ziyad – but how in the hell am I going to make it be felt in the novel? I can’t just write “she thinks this and he thinks that.” It has to be played out in real-life scenes. In their actions. In their dreams. In their inner monologues and their dialogues with each other.

One way to go about it is just write the scenes I’ve already got, separately, and then try to do some sort of pasting or putting them together. But this doesn’t seem right to me, as I need to know the chronological order because I want the two characters to grow somehow in their realizations or understandings. At first, they are complete opposites in their political understandings, but I want them to come closer. The same goes for Maisoon’s father – first an alienation of her from him, she doesn’t understand anything about him, doesn’t know he’d been a political activist in his youth. Then she starts putting the pieces together – learning somehow about his activism, his theater, his poetry, his dream of being an actor and a poet (both? Why not, we’ll see). Ok, so there’s an idea. This can be the story line – Maisoon’s search for understanding what happened to that “subjugated” generation of her father and their dreams.

And then, parallel to this, I can have her political development – from being mere “errand runner” when she drives the kids to hospitals and goes to olive harvests to becoming something else. Another kind of political activist.

And then parallel to her development we have Ziyad – who’s the farthest of all in all of this, and his search for his own identity: who is he?

And lastly, we have Layla, Maisoon’s mother – and her dreams. I need a dream for her. A dream of education. She can be the “three times oppressed woman.”

Great. This progress log has already helped me clear some of the clutter. I even feel like continuing to write but I don’t know what to write. Tomorrow I will be reading chapter four of “Writing on Both Sides of the Brain” and will be doing the exercises in the chapter. Looking forward to it actually, as when I did the rapid writing, it really felt good though my arm began to hurt (I did that exercise and the first one also in my notebook no. 4).

I will let the new thoughts about the characters and this story line of their political development / understanding / awakening sink in for a few days and think of way how to write it. Maybe parallel chapters – going back and forth with Maisoon. Alternating the chapters between her and her parents, her and Ziyad, and just her. Maisoon being the threading link between all the characters. And I almost forgot – I need that one character from a refugee camp. Now this will be difficult. Do I want him fanatic? Do I want a tragic end for him? Does Maisoon fall for him? Will that be too much? Not if it’s a 600 page book. And also – do I want just one character? That wouldn’t be doing justice. Maybe I need a contra character to him. Someone who’s lost a loved one but turned to non-violent resistance? Wow, this is complex – but at the same time I’m getting excited. Very much! At the prospect of this creation. Yes, I feel mature as a writer. I feel confident that I can do it.

I’ve written almost two pages in less than half an hour. This proves how fertile my brain is when I decide to put the thoughts into actual words black on white. I feel exhilaration just at writing this. So how does it feel to actually be writing the novel? Complete ecstasy! Energy. I forget my own tiredness and how tired my body feels. I even forget – if only for a little while – the pressures of my work and all the tasks I have. It’s pure pleasure. Tomorrow I will find the time to read that chapter four and to do the exercises. Maybe even do a bit of writing “Life in Fragments.”

Glimpses of an Ordinary Night in Haifa

The place: not a very secure neighborhood, upper story, one room apartment with an attached roof three times the size of the apartment.
The people: four students, two men and two women, all in their late twenties, three of them Arabs, one Jew.
Time: about 23:20, I'm already high from smoking marijuana, and so I'm not so sure about the time.
I'm half sitting, half lying on the mattress, listening to their souls... through music...
Happiness? Or is it sadness?
Do we miss these moments even as they are occurring?
If they last too long,... it will become too painful.
These fingers; are they expressing what the soul is saying?
Are we in music lost?
Do we lose total control in music? Does music become us?
Tayseer taps his fingers on the guitar as if it were a durbakky... desire... it is making love to the music...
Maybe actually we become in music...
We are music!
I hear your soul through the music!
It is angry... or maybe the feelings lose their names as they become sounds...?
I wonder if you can see the sounds enter my body and become one with it...
Each instrument you take in your hands – becomes you.
The sound of it enters into you and becomes one with you... you become the music and the sound...

The music stops suddenly, we smoke another joint of marijuana and drink some more red wine. Ehab, who studied law at a college for two years only to quit and now studies theater at Haifa University and writes plays, said: "Music takes on different colors." After that, silence... more smoking, they all laugh at something I didn't hear, and then they continue playing.
Yes, I think it does... it wears all colors of the rainbow...
But it also climbs mountains. And it makes you climb the mountain with it, and does not let go of you. You are forced to climb with the music, until again you become the music's colors... and then, you become the music...

Maybe I am to live for music...
Maybe I am to dance for music...

You will create music for me... and I will live through it... I will be born through it.
You will give birth to me, until I become the sound, the music, and the colors... and I will be your woman!
My body is the instrument, and my soul contains the strings. You are playing me... playing the strings of my soul...

Now the music becomes two colors, two sounds, together, but distinct... making love.
The one – strong, firm...
The other – soft... softer: an echo.
The softer one becomes louder now, trying to be heard, trying to remain in control.
But the first one doesn't give in, and takes over now completely.

And now... and now... now I feel like making love to you like these two colors and sounds...

23:50
They have stopped playing again, and are now talking, and I am wrapped up in my words... hiding my desires and feelings within the pages of my notebook.
I hide them from all to see.
I want my thoughts kept to myself... please, don't touch my thoughts, it is a volcano!

A woman. Nurit. Now she has taken the djembe and started playing.
A woman... seducing me? Can I face it? She is playing music... for me...
But... Tayseer is fighting for me, he is playing louder now and faster... or is he trying to seduce... her?
She is falling for his music, now their rhythms are falling together, in perfect harmony.
Is he playing for her, or... for me?
I don't know. The music reached its peak, and so did we all, and with exhaustion, the music faded and stopped. But! Tayseer starts playing again, softly this time, scooting his body closer to mine, and looking at me, caressing my face with his soft music... A man.

I went out to the roof to take some fresh air, leaving my blue notebook open on the mattress, with the pen next to it. Ehab and Tayseer were sitting on the edge of the roof, smoking and talking. Nurit stayed inside by herself. I think that I willed this situation, where she can have a chance to glimpse into my notebook, and... maybe... comment on the last lines.

You are reading me... me the ink. And Tayseer is outside on the roof. Walked out of me for a moment? Left me with you. Is he giving me a chance to be with you alone? Or does he want to see if I let you read me? And I thought this was going to be a night of making love to you... but it turned out to be much more than that.
Is a woman walking into my life? If she is reading me...

Nurit:
'Writing here feels as if I'm violating your sacred stream of consciousness... are you going to come here any minute now... the tension... help... you've seen me... writing in your notebook... I'm caught inside your net... it's frightening... I have to let go...'

The notebook is in my hands again.
She has to let go... her last sentence.
Is she telling me no? Is this rejection? The ultimate loss of any chance?
I have loosened a piece of thread for her, and she has let go of it...
I let her read my feelings! I let her read... me!
Now she sees everything.

Nurit:
'I am drawn to her words like a magnet. Her words are so powerful. Can anyone write such beautiful words...? She is a true artist, because she writes herself into the paper.'

I don't understand sometimes... anything... do people ever let go of their shackles?
Do they let themselves be who they truly are? Or do they have to be what they want to be?

I am just I.
I cannot be not I.
This is who I am.
What you see is me.
I am glass...
You can see through my body and into my soul...
I don't hide my desires towards him,
I don't hide them towards you.

And now you are playing music... for yourself? Or to seduce me... again?

Or is all this seducing happening only in my mind? Maybe to her it is only music... maybe she doesn't see the colors... or feel the sounds... maybe she is oblivious of all this. Unaware?

I let the notebook lay close to her, but she only read it... didn't pick up the pen to write anything.

So you have nothing to say. You go back to the music in order to avoid writing down your feelings.
Because if you see them on paper – your feelings – that will mean they are out of you.
That means you can't control them anymore. They are out there. It might mean that I will know...
But I do know!
Maybe you don't know yet.
You are not letting go of your feelings.
Maybe that is the smart thing to do.
But I don't think when it comes to my feelings. They are there, inside, and I let them be.
I let them out, because they desire to escape.
Oh, woman! How much more you make me feel than a man. He couldn't make me feel what I feel with you!
So... what is this feeling? I only know it exists... but I don't know what it is...
Are you again seducing me with music? And with your body moving to the rhythm of your music?...
I don't know where this is going. Tomorrow, you will not be here. But that doesn't mean anything. You have entered my soul and given me new experiences and new emotions that I will carry with me always...
Tomorrow you will not be here, and I will stay with Tayseer.

I feel like making love with you... Tayseer... now...
I leaned toward him and let him read this last line.
This line is...me. This is the real me. The me who never hesitates to express desires or feelings.

I saw Nurit on a few more occasions after that, but I never felt those intense emotions with her again. Maybe it was a one-time experience... or maybe just the influence of marijuana. But nevertheless, I am glad I experienced those emotions, for I discovered new things about myself.

One night, and a lifetime of feelings... this is what I live for – complete freedom of feelings... complete freedom of thoughts.

***

After that night, I discovered – for the first time – that writing can be dangerous.
I also found out that just as I hide behind my words and my writing, he hides behind his music. But, like Nurit, some people decide to ignore the emotions boiling inside them and screaming to be let out. Instead, they repress them even deeper. But not us. We are aware of them, and release them. I on the paper, with my words; he into his passion for music. And this is the very reason why he is so hypnotizing when he plays... because his soul gets tangled up in it as well, not just his fingers. This is the secret of great artists. That they express their emotions, desires, and fears in their art.

***

how can i tell my feelings
not to,
when they do
how can i ask my heart
not to,
when it so desires to?

To my Invisible Readers

Dear Invisible Readers,
we think there are some certainties in our lives that we can count on. small ones. like the fact that my two dogs will knock me down with their love every time I come home. or the fact that my daughter - at 15 - will still call me every night to cuddle up with her, hug her and stay by her bedside for a while. or the fact that the blog we enjoy reading will be there tomorrow as well.

Well, guess what? there are no certainties in life. the other day I came home and both of my dogs were sleeping on the sofa, neither of them jumping to greet me. they were just enjoying a lazy evening - and who can blame them, really? with my daughter, I'm sure a night will come when she won't call me, though I dread that night, because that will be the night that she will cease to be my little girl, and become her own person. but of course it's a most natural process, and I will embrace it when the moment arrives.

as for blogs - I received an email a week ago from a friend of mine asking me "what happened to your blog? It won't open." well, for private reasons, I decided to change the URL (the web address) of my blog. I didn't think much of it, as I thought I only had a handful of readers. well, guess again. Today another friend of mine asked me: "why did you delete your blog?" apparently, she received an email from a woman who reads my blog asking her how come I "closed my blog".

every now and then I meet a friend and she would refer to something I wrote on my blog, and I am taken aback each time to learn how many women (and men) read my blog.

- [I kinda' forgot the whole point of this post, so please bear with me]

anyway, now that I know I have many more readers than I thought, I feel more responsibility... for what, I have no idea.... maybe for the contents?? Or the frequency of posting?? Hey, I need help here...

for those who are not that familiar with the format of the blog - it allows you to post comments at the end of each post, and you can post the comments anonymously or through your google account. I'd really like to read your comments and feedback, what you would like to read more about, what you don't like, or if you have any ideas. because it's true that first and foremost I write because writing is my life. But for that, I have my own personal journal where I write all my personal thoughts - my own desires, fears, lusts, grievances. but here, in this public format, I write because I think it's important to make my voice heard. though I write about personal issues, they are also political.

- [ok I'm writing this at 3:25 in the morning, and have no idea whether I'm making any sense]

In short, just leave me your comments and let me know your thoughts. for more personal thoughts, you're more than welcome to send me a personal email to khulud.kh@gmail.com.

hugs,
khulud

Haifa - the city of co-existence

Haifa is considered to be a city of peaceful co-existence by many. But is it indeed?
(1) I've lived most of my life in Jewish neighborhoods, and still I am annoyed when people give me a second look when I speak Arabic on the phone.
(2) Spending time with my daughter at the neighborhood public parks when she was little, the other kids would either play with her or ignore her. She would be treated like any other kid. Nothing about her would betray the fact that she is part Arab, her being blond with blue eyes, with a non-Arabic name. Until she'd call me "mama" and ask me something in Arabic. Then all the heads - those of children, parents and grandparents would shoot all in perfect harmony and accusation towards me. How dare I (dirty up their neat little lives)?
(3) Teenagers sitting in the back of the bus usually play songs on their mobile phones. Back when I didn't have a car I'd ride the bus everyday and just listen to people's conversations. I've noticed that whenever a song in English or Hebrew would play from the back seats, the passengers would be content. However, every time, and I mean every single time, that a song in Arabic would come from those back seats, there would always be one passenger who'd ask them to turn the music off, as it was annoying. And when the kids would ignore the passenger, she/he would then ask the bus driver to make them turn it off. A verbal argument would follow.
(4) My partner was once asked by a bus driver NOT to speak in Arabic on his phone.

This is only a tiny fragment of the co-existence of Haifa.
Think again!

unfastening, unlacing an identity

a detached procession of vieled figures in black.
all marching in silence, to drop their identities into one great box.
the box of lost people.
swallowing the fabrics - scintillating yellows and oranges, deep reds and greens, shimmering blues, and all the rest of them.
leaving them naked.
leaving them all dressed in black.

In the Name of.

Leaving Part of my Identity Behind

I love winter.
I love it for private reasons, but I also love it because I like to wear my scarves. I have scarves of every color imaginable.
But the scarves I love most are forbidden to me.
If I wear the red-and-white Kafiyya I get suspicious looks. I feel like people stare at me like I'm a strange kind of cheese and they try to figure me out. But it's not that bad - I can manage with that.
The problem arises when I walk out of the house with the black-and-white Kafiyya. It has long lost its meaning.
It has been politicized and then de-politicized.
Politicized when the west has turned it into a symbol of terrorism.
De-politicized when it started being mass-manufactured by brand labels in all colors of the rainbow and become a fashion statement.
So before I leave the house in the winter, I put on my black-and-white Kafiyya, wrap it around my neck, and contemplate the woman with the olive skin in the mirror for a few moments.
Then, with a thread of sadness unspooling from a corner of my heart, I take it off and hang it back, leaving a part of my very identity at home.