eatwritewalk

the evening call to prayer is echoing through amman’s sky and whispering through my window. the fog swallows the last rays of sunlight and it’s officially the 40th night of the latest campaign of genocide on gaza.

for forty days and forty nights i have cycled through moments of feeling like i have the words to articulate the experience of witnessing the most horrific nightmare unfold in realtime, and moments of losing touch with language completely. for forty days and forty nights i have suppressed the urge to scream, mainly because i do not know what direction to throw the sound in

for forty days and forty nights

forty!

my mind breaks at the thought of how long that actually is

in islam, it’s the time of the formal mourning period after someone passes. no one has had the luxury to mourn in these last forty days or nights. not for the babies. not for the children. not for the teens. not for the parents. not for the grandparents. not for the siblings. not for the disabled. not for the hundreds of families who have been wiped off the civil registry. not for the thousands upon thousands of unburied bodies

no one has had the luxury to mourn the people who were killed on the first day, let alone all the people who are still being massacred by hellfire missiles and white phosphorus gas and the inevitable butterfly bluets that will follow. no one has had the chance to process the ways in which their lives have been taken. the ones with burned bodies, charred beyond recognition. the ones with chopped limbs. the ones who suffocated under the weight of bombed buildings. the ones who suffocated because machines that were keeping them alive ran out of fuel and electricity. the ones who are dying from the stench of death that has taken over the city. from the flies that feast on corpses that decompose in the streets. the ones who are dying from dehydration because water and food have been cut off for forty days and nights

forty days and nights. and there are still people who justify it. “it” being cold blooded murder. there is no other word for it. they might mask it in softer terms. might tell themselves there is some kind of moral reasoning, maybe even a theological one. there is none.

as i type that, i can feel the scream work its way through me again. it gets stuck in the same place in my chest every time. though sometimes my body has the ability to convert it into a sob. neither feels productive or effective, and i wish i knew how to alchemize those feelings into something that can make a difference. i wish i knew what could actually make a difference

the thought is overwhelming. the feeling of helplessness is overwhelming. i reach for my phone to take a break from that feeling. to check in on what’s happening. to see the unimaginable through the eyes of some of the people who have somehow survived so far in these 40 days and nights

plestia’s latest video is the first thing that shows up on my feed. that she can still find a reason to smile is a miracle. that she can share reasons to smile must be a testament to her personality. for a brief moment, the thing that wanted to be a scream inside me simmers down as i smile along with her

i think about how many times a day i reach for my phone now. how i ignore almost any notification until i check my saved searches to see a quick overview of who from the people i know to follow has posted an update. motaz. hind. motasem. abod. bisan. youmna. wael. samar. ahmed. anas. hossam. momin. abd. abdallah. mahmoud. mohammed. mohamed. ali. saleh. yousef. belal. dr ghassan. dr. kouta. dr. ezz. mosab. it goes on, and it will continue to grow. i think of how everyone i talk to has their own version of this list and has developed this same habit over the last 40 days and nights

forty!

i think about how a media theoretician i’ve followed for a while recently talked about the power of parasocial relationships. i think about how everyone i know from jordan is emotionally invested in and through people we have never met – will likely never meet – but who have become part of our every day concerns. soon the people i care about deeply in gaza in will surpass dunbar’s number and i wonder how that is fundamentally changing me. i wonder how waking up and falling asleep to the images and sounds of these horrors is fundamentally changing me. hours are measured according to when they do or don’t post. every moment of silence brings with it a question about their safety, an unfamiliar anxiety that can’t be quelled because even in real time there is a delay

there is a delay because electricity has been cut. and telecom networks have been cut. and both those cuts mean that communication is almost as rare as drinkable water in gaza. almost as rare as flour after the bakeries were decimated. i get nauseous whenever i think of that

i am not speaking about nausea as a metaphor or hyperbole. i mean it in the physical sense. my body experiences it so often throughout the day that i’m surprised i can hold meals down. perhaps my ability to do so is linked to how every bite i take is accompanied by prayer. every sip of water is recognized as a blessing. and that’s an extension of how everything i do throughout the day is now experienced through the lens of what i see happening in gaza. of what i see happening to gaza. atrocities i never ever thought i might see

forty one days ago gaza was already in crisis. and forty two days ago. and forty three days ago. it was already barely surviving the heavy blockade forced upon it by the occupation. it was already barely surviving the emotional toll of multiple displacements that generations of palestinians have experienced– many of whom have lived as refugees, in refugee camps, in their own country for decades

forty one days ago we were already talking about the catastrophic cruelties the occupation enforces throughout all of palestine. and forty two days ago. and forty three days ago. and for decades that add up to a century, people more eloquent than me and more consistent than me have been talking about the apartheid system that disappears people at random. about the military checkpoints where palestinians are made to stand between barbed fences until they are judged worthy to pass, but only after occupation guards demean and belittle them

forty one days ago all that was happening. and some people were listening. some people were looking. some people were talking. but many deemed it too complicated. some said it was not relevant, even though every system of oppression everywhere is connected

and then forty days ago a new round of ethnic cleansing began, and now we go into the fortieth night of the latest genocide campaign on gaza

the fog rolls in thick, and the rain thunders onto millions of human beings who have been bombed out of homes and hospitals, who have nothing to protect them from the elements but the now wet clothes they wear

for forty days and nights, a gang of politicians have ignored this reality — ignored humanity — for the sake of a few more dollars that they might make through alliances, or many more dollars that they might rake in through gas deals. and many media corporations continue to run with misinformation — barely correcting themselves after the damage is done.

but throughout these miserable forty days and nights, people everywhere have been seeing beyond the facade that has been fed to them. they are seeing a truth that they have long overlooked. and they are speaking in unison — amplifying palestine’s calls for liberation

and this global unity is something else i never imagined i would see.

my body is trying to tell me something. it has been whispering for at least a day now, and now though i have tried to hear it out before whispers turn to shouts, i can tell from the pressure in my arms that i have not been successful

i worry, of course, that it might be some kind of ill-times sickness. i remember an anti-virus meditation that i saved on a youtube playlist a while back. even at my most woo-woo i wouldn’t say that’s a silver bullet, but i swear at my least hippie, it cleared enough icky feelings that i have to at least kind of rely on it for days like this

i’ve been telling myself since yesterday that i’ll carve out 20 minutes for it at some point. i have not yet arrived at that point 

maybe it’ll happen when i make my way to the ocean. i’m close enough now that it seems likely. perhaps the water alone will feed whichever cells need nurturing. perhaps the sun will quench them. after all, it could just be some kind of exhaustion

i use that word very metaphorically of course because around town i have seen people who have a real claim to exhaustion. to the experience of exhaustion. and i know that as tired as i have ever been, as spent as i ever thought my body or spirit were, i know in my bones i cannot say exhausted

i especially cannot say that as i sit at a cute and boogie beachside caffe, sipping on an overpriced latte that i can indulge in the audacity of calling delicious. that i can pronounce my favorite, even though there are times it is inconsistent in its delivery 

today is one of those times. as the overflowing mug hits the table, and drips of coffee escape from underneath the bird art created in its foam, i know right away that it isn’t going to hit the spot the way that anything at this price point better hit the spot

i take a second sip, telling myself it’s probably in my head. that the temperature is hot enough. the roast is mild enough. that maybe this is the way i always use to enjoy it but time has distorted my experience of it. or could it be that whatever my body is going through has started to impact my taste. i basically tell myself everything i can to avoid doing the one thing i really shouldn’t do, but feel i absolutely want to do, which is to ask for someone to remake my drink

i think of all the ways i’m particular about things. how i am always torn between thinking it’s convenient that i know that i appreciate life at a very specific volume, and thinking it’s an obstacle when i’m imposing that volume on anyone else

i take another sip. still, everything about it is unappealing. what if i wait until it looses all heat and then add ice to it? perhaps that could be a simple solve to a small problem that is now taking up entirely too much space in my mind and in my notebook

i realize that i’m forcing myself to pretend to enjoy it, and so i wait for the line at the counter to die down until i obnoxiously waddle over, proverbial tail between my legs, and apologetically ask for a fresh cup  

without hesitating, the guy on the other side says sure and inputs the request. does he empathize with my alleged plight or is he so desensitized to wastefulness and outrageousness that this is the least obnoxious version?

my new mug arrives. as quickly as i knew the first one wasn’t for me, this second one welcomes me home. i’m in some modern day fairytale of that character with the porridge and i think it was three bears

everything about this week feels slightly fairytale-ish actually. just the fact that i’m here is some kind of classical magic

like my trip to new york, this one falls on the 10th anniversary of that special time in my life. i wasn’t meant to come to los angeles back then, but when my sister chose to go, i couldn’t resist the time with her

and so, as i sip on our favorite coffee, one table away from where i think i remember taking one of our favorite pictures together, i acutely miss her presence this time

i think back on all the trips we had the chances to take together and how much our relationship has evolved through them — sometimes devolved even. but considering where we are now, i can see the universe’s wisdom in putting us through those fires, forging a stronger bond out of what was already reinforced steel… taking it through a series of stress tests that i appreciate surviving together

i take another sip of my perfectly made drink and think on all the other fairytale elements that brought me here. there’s the logistics, first of all, which are not insignificant: the girl math that somehow divided by the artists’ math, which multiplied by chance and miraculously expanded a dwindling double digit bank account and stretched it beyond the wingspan of the 747 that brought me here. stretched it wide enough that even if this coffee hadn’t turned up perfect, i could have comforted myself with the promise of tomorrow, or the day after, knowing i could come back for another. a few months ago, i could not. and a few weeks from now i’m not sure that i will be able to again. but there is no space in this fairytale for thinking on anything but the present right now

i think beyond the logistics to the significance of this trip. i think of how the last time i was here, which was the first time in a long time, was for my grandfather’s funeral. and that even though there was a disagreement, even in his paperwork, of if he passed at 96 or 103, i was still shocked by the news. still torn apart by the sound of sadness escaping his children’s throats as they searched for words to comfort each other, each juggling their own feelings with the others, especially with their matriarch’s who after seventy some years of sharing everything with him, would have to now begin forging new habits to fill a void none of us can understand

and still despite all the sadness, and the reality check that even when you delude yourself into thinking that someone might indeed live forever, we were able to look just beyond our collective grief to actually celebrate his life 

and here i am, seven months later, back in town this time to celebrate a cousin’s love. and what a miracle that is ever, let alone in the story of a couple that came together in the midst of a pandemic. who when the world called for isolation, they gravitated towards each other, sheltering within each other’s hearts and making home, together

and what a serendipitous addendum to the fairytale that as i had finalized the dates of my travel, another cousin announced another wedding, to fall within the time of my trip

as i think of the chance of it all, i feel all the life i need return to every limb. health pulsing from my heart

where i come from, the ceremony that binds two people together is literally called the writing of the book

what sweet sweet fairytale is it that allows me to witness these first pages.

the buzz in the room is getting louder. voices and conversations are blending into one, which helps save me from focusing too much on other people’s conversations and zoning into my own thoughts

but there’s also something about the conversations today that i sort of want to stay tuned into. like the chatter from the table to my left. the older bohemian-biker gentleman is parting writing wisdom onto his younger listeners. dressed in a leather messenger cap, with a leather jacket, and baggy leather pants tucked into his leather cowboy boots, he speaks with an ambiguous accent. he’s flanked to all sides by what i assume to be his students — one british guy, a second from somewhere in america, and a young woman who just joined the bunch but has yet to say a word

they’re talking about scripts and stories. and while the plot lines don’t necessarily captivate me, just being in the vicinity of creativity is feeding my spirit while the almond cappuccino brings my brain back to life for the first time today

it’s 1:30pm. outside of ramadan, i can’t recall the last time i was uncaffeinated at this hour. and unlike ramadan, where my first day i down two panadols before sunrise to stave off the inevitable withdrawal headache, today i didn’t. and yet there was nothing pulsing in my skull. but my mood was starting to take a hit, which was amplified by my directional disorientation as i seemed to loop around myself in circles in my attempt to to exit the confusing maze of downtown manhattan

determined not to turn to my phone for help, i was sure i could use some kind of intuition to navigate my way up town. wanting to avoid looking like a tourist in the midst of dozens on dozens of people taking 9/11 tours, i’m not even sure why i was so keen on differentiating myself as if anyone was paying attention. the more rational reason, i tell myself, was to conserve power as i realized i’d left my extra battery pack in the hotel

alas, eventually i capitulated to the google god and allowed it to lead me to the nearest bookstore — a grounding destination just outside the loopy madness

from there, i shook off the hiccup of the morning and decided to bring myself to reggio. it’s darker than i remember it on the inside. perhaps because the last time i was here, it was in the middle of winter and the sky wasn’t as bright as it is today… the contrast between out and in must have been less jarring

like the weather, there are many things that were in a different season last time. and i know the metaphor is right beyond the surface, inviting me to dig deeper into my psyche, into the changes i’ve experienced

but i’m not quite ready yet. my second cup of cappuccino arrives, and as i lean back to take in all its bitterness, i remember a photo i found of me at this exact bench and table once upon a time. i was reading a novel, one hand holding the book and the second casually propping up my chin. my short hair, perfectly straight and framing my face

what is most noticeable to me at least, is my posture. almost dancer-like , my back was so effortlessly straight. i don’t know when or how that started changing, but it is one of the things i miss most about my younger body. as i realize that, i straighten up a little and make a promise to myself that i’ll put in more effort to correct it

i look up from my notebook and notice someone across the room taking a picture of the space. i wonder if i happen to be in it and if maybe i’ll be able to find it online later. if maybe i’ll have a visual comparison of my two selves. i try to see myself through a lens that might not even be pointing at me and try to imagine the two hypothetical pictures side by side

my hair is longer in this one. wavy where it was once straight. it sits to the side and contrasts the many colors of my oversized shirt. my back curves where it was once straight. my legs no longer cross over each other as comfortably as they once did – a testament to the size increase of my thighs. i’ve learned different ways to rest the base of my foot on table edges to try to weigh them down. i was not at my skinniest in that first photo, but i am definitely at my thickest now. there are moments that it bothers me. and more moments where it doesn’t

it bothers me mainly when i see how different i look in pictures — ironic, considering that’s what i’m hoping to be captured in right now. it bothers me when i feel the subtle aches in my shoulders from the pressure of sizes i’ve outgrown

it doesn’t bother me though when i’m going through any day, consumed moment by moment in whatever i’m doing. i try to emphasize that to myself in an effort to remember that that’s what it’s all about

it wouldn’t show up in any photo, but i think perhaps the main difference between the two versions of that picture would be that the girl with the short hair had no worries about time. she didn’t trip about resources running out and having to maximize anything. she must have felt that every moment had a chance to last forever and an equal chance of recreating itself

the girl with the long hair is a bit more challenging to dissect though. she’s much more appreciative of the temporary nature of life, but also a little too conscious of it sometimes

and sometimes that consciousness can cause her to put unnecessary pressure on things that the short haired girl would have just cruised through lightly

as i look around the now empty caffè, still imaging the two versions of the picture, i try to take some mental snapshots, thinking that perhaps i’ll paint some version of this moment one day

a new group of people walk in and sit to my right. they discuss the mythology around the cappuccino machine in the corner. the history of this special place. “you can’t fake history,” one of the patrons says as he admires the details of the artwork

“i think i’m gonna stay here and read for a while,” another one of them says, as the person nearest me muses out loud “i wish i lived in new york. i’d just stay here all day and write a novel”

and that wish of hers, vocalized out loud to her friends, binds to the caffeine that comfortably courses through me now to give me the moment of clarity that i’ve been searching for since the morning

i don’t wish i lived here, or anywhere other than where i do. i wish i could visit much more often, but i’m actually so perfectly content with where i live. with how i spend my time there. so much so that j probably wouldn’t have planned any time away if it weren’t for my cousin’s upcoming wedding

and in an odd way, i think it’s because of my appreciation for where i am in life, combined with my awareness of everything’s temporary-ness that actually unlocks some kind of anxiety for me

it feels like i’m standing at a very high altitude, enjoying a gorgeous view. and although i believe it can get even more beautiful, i’m also acutely aware of the risk and reality of a possible fall

because wow have i fallen from some high places in recent years

and before i allow myself to dwell on any of those experiences unproductively, i remind myself that wow, have i also gotten up and climbed again. and again.

— written september 21, 2023 at caffe reggio

there is only one reason i enjoy signing into facebook anymore – to see the memories

it’s become a ritual of sorts, on the nights that i’m still awake when cinderella’s curfew hits, that i open the app to see what fresh images it will serve me from ‘on this day [x many] years ago’

today, it takes me back exactly a decade, and though it feels like it could have been that long ago – obviously. it was – there is something off in seeing an absolutely accurate timestamp on this particular memory. it is a memory of a post i shared the day i was going to NY for six weeks. how i wish i could take that trip again now. instead, i’m planning on stealing six days in the fall if i can. and though i’d love more, i’m actually also very content with that possibility — as long as one of those days is a friday and i get to spend it at the nuyorican. and i need to check if and when the bowery still has their weekly poetry nights because my memory isn’t currently holding a reminder of when that might be. perhaps because there was a time i was spending multiple nights a week there so they all overlap in the way that only time can let them

even just the idea of being back in either of those venues floods my body with a kind of endorphin that i haven’t felt for a minute. i start to think of what an evening in those spaces might look like. would i continue to miss lily’s after a show to indulge in her jerk corn and roti with curried vegetables? would i have to debate between her plantains or banana pudding, or would my stomach make space enough for both? i can hear the music. i can feel the way the dim lighting in the colorful room soothes me. i’m there already

a past version of me is there. as is a future version. we’re discussing the poems. which one moved us the most – shook something that was lodged deep inside. the way everything shook the night i saw that sweet man who could only remember the way his fingers meant to move on his instrument as his memory of everything else began to fade. he took the stage to perform one more, maybe last, time

i can’t remember too much from his performance, but i remember the way i felt: open, loving, and in awe of him and all of the elders in my life. i remember it made me feel closer to my grandfather – alive then, a coast away, with his memory in tact, but somehow there with me that night too

past me and future me discuss my grandfather, and how even though there’s probably a way to tally all the sentences ever exchanged between him and i, there was a certain bond there that i appreciated and nurtured in my own way as i matured. there is another version of my timeline where i had enough courage to start more conversations with him. to ask him questions that maybe were the starting point of long and deep conversations we never had in this timeline

past me and future me talk about that night and remember another artist who took the stage… wait, was it that same night or another one? it must have been another trip, years after my first, when a poet got up in all her glory and prefaced her piece with a statement about a certain politician coming to power and how it felt like the world was ending, so even though she never does this publicly, f– it, she does now, she said

did she know as she said that, that she was planting a seed of inspiration inside me? did she know that at the time i had been walking around the city wrestling with an existential dread that would eventually break me but then free me? did she know that over the years to come at least one person in that room would chew on that sentence many times over — each time tasting something different in her words?

past me and future me talk about all the artists we can think of. all to avoid, or at least skirt around, discussing ourselves. how the first time i came here for 40 days, i said it was to write a story, and i penned a chunk of it but never finished. and another time, i had the chance to be here for half that time and wrote half as much until i shied away from the page for so long it almost felt permanent

and this is the point where i can no longer hear the conversation between those two versions of myself. perhaps because i know this is the point where present me needs to interrupt, or to take charge. to begin writing all those stories hidden in between the folds of what could be and what might have been. and maybe then i’ll add more seats to the table, and fill them with an abundance of possibilities of all the coming versions of myself.

the last few months have been the most exhilarating and exhausting of my life. after a year of sending out hundreds of job applications, of seeing my savings dwindle down to pennies, of desperately hoping someone would take a chance on me so i could restart my career in a new country, i finally had the attention of every company i’d ever wanted to work with.

it took a year of rejections to push me to the brink of creativity. to get me to think of the simplest yet most effective marketing experiment i’ve created to date. the campaign was designed to get the attention of many companies by targeting one. its reach spread wider than i had expected and opened doors to opportunities i had only dreamed of.

but as companies around the world were reaching out publicly, the one company that i had targeted was privately telling me that i wasn’t a fit for their needs. as emails of support were flooding my inbox, meetings with airbnb’s CMO were cancelled and my followups were met with silence. professionals i admire were calling my work impressive, but the person interviewing me was saying he couldn’t contextualize my experience because i “hadn’t worked at facebook or google or studied at stanford”.

i felt the wind knocked out of me as i heard those words. i remember gasping for breath while trying to maintain a calm exterior. i interlaced my fingers to stop them from shaking, exhaled deeply to control my cadence as i muttered words about my own company’s growth, the clients we had, the work we did, the team we built. but as the interviewer’s eyes wandered out the room in the middle of my monologue, i sensed that my attempts were hopeless. and though they were looking to hire someone to design their social media strategies, despite my 10 years of marketing and social media experience and despite the reach of my latest campaign, i was told i wouldn’t be that person. the decision had been made.

doubt crept into my mind even as other companies continued to reach out. if the one company that benefited from this experiment didn’t want to hire me, what chances would i have with anyone else? i had used all my marketing skills and passion to drive their brand into news tickers around the world – headlines were appearing in chinese, german, arabic and languages i couldn’t recognize. twitter and facebook were abuzz with positive conversations about airbnb, but that wasn’t enough. or maybe it was too much, i’ll never know.

all i do know is that in that moment, i was crushed. gutted. my confidence was shaken. i had a choice, though. i could allow myself to be consumed by doubt, to accept their rejection as a judgement on my skills. or i could push through it by focusing on the bigger picture, on the end goal, which was to get a job at a top tier company in the valley.

messages continued to pour in. from california to calcutta, rome to riyadh, people were telling me that they were inspired by what i had done. some had been facing their own career challenges and said this gave them a glimmer of hope. others asked for details of how it was done so they could try their hand in creativity. all were overwhelmingly kind.

and though the people who wrote told me i had inspired them, the inverse was also true. i drew confidence from the support of strangers. i found strength from their words and gained resilience from their stories.

i met with dozens of companies from established organizations to exciting startups. some reached out directly and others i went after myself. i was finally at the point where i wanted to be a year ago when i first moved to san francisco.

with every interview i learned more about myself and what drives me. i already knew that i wanted to be part of a stellar team, that i wanted the opportunity to grow and learn and do exciting work. and as i answered what felt like an endless stream of questions, i was able to draw in the details to those broad brush strokes.

i found everything that i wanted in upwork (formerly elance-odesk). from the start of our conversations, i was impressed by the way the company focuses on data driven decision making, on experimenting and testing obsessively to improve their product. i was inspired by how they’re helping millions of talented freelancers around the world build their careers online.

i’ve felt a rush of enthusiasm take over me with each person i’ve met there. as i sat through round after round of interviews, i found myself scribbling notes between conversations about what i could see myself learning from each team member. nothing excites me as much as that feeling, that instinct that i’m signing up for something that has so much potential and promise.

and it’s that potential and promise that outshines all of the anxiety and self doubt that i experienced. it’s that feeling that proves to me that the campaign was a success, that by forcing myself outside my comfort zone, by pushing past rejection and focusing on my own goals, i was able to unlock opportunities i would have never had. and for that i’m grateful.