Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Syrian Summer: On Aging


My grandfather's study in Damascus (a.k.a. my favorite place on this entire planet)


"Stop annoying me! Oh my god! Leave me alone!" I woke up to the sound of my grandfather's voice, pleading with my laughing grandmother, who was waking him up. She must have been tickling him or something and he was agitated.

"La hawla wala quwata illah billah. Amal! You're so annoying!"

I cracked up and wished that to be my daily alarm clock rather than the default iPhone ones.

My grandfather had surgery back in June and no one told me till much later. Then, three days before our trip to Syria he fell and it scared the heck out of everyone, especially him.

Last year I noticed how different he was and I knew that the war had aged not only him, but everyone drastically. The thing is many of my grandparents' peers have passed and I can recognize how that shakes them. In last year's trip, I attended over seven funerals in a span of three months and it was surreal. I'm here now, and considering everything that's happened to me internally and externally, this trip has felt even more indescribable.

We sat on the couch and my grandfather elevated his legs up on a stool. I could see the bruises and scrapes from his fall on them and he looked off into the distance. I don't wonder too long what he's thinking because he usually ends up breaking the silence with the thought. "How do you take those cell phone pictures of your self that everyone is doing?" he asked, referring to the notorious selfie! I picked up my phone and told him to smile as we took our first selfie. He nodded his head in understanding. I wish I could post it but I wasn’t wearing my scarf.

My grandmother came and sat between us as commercials played in the background to our born again silence. She looked at him then reached over to massage his ankles gently and said, "Hello there, Mister Abdallah." (For my family, this is when Teta says her usual, “Ahlain Abdallah Beik!”) My heart cracked and then shattered and then its pieces melted and I wanted to cry. Why doesn't love like that exist anymore? I wouldn’t even ask what’s their secret because there’s clearly a divine power and destiny.

These two people were meant to meet, meant to marry and meant to make magic. Seven years ago I was blessed with the opportunity to spend six months of my life with these two phenomenal people in the best place in the world. The experience was utterly remarkable that I intended on moving back there soon after my final semester of graduate school I had left. But a few months after my departure, the revolution started and everything changed. Before I left, I asked my grandparents if I could take a photo with them and surprisingly my grandmother agreed.

See, in my entire lifetime, I never saw my grandmother agree to take photos. She hates getting her picture taken and always refuses. It’s a well-known thing. So when I took the risk and asked if she’d join my grandfather and I, and she said yes, I was floored, but I was moved because I knew why. I had just spent six months with her in the most memorable experience of our lives. When she dropped me off at the airport, she was crying like I had never seen before. Neither one of us wanted to say goodbye; and before I left, I gifted them a poem titled “Two Words” with the photo in a silver filigreed frame. It was a poem I wrote, expressing my gratitude for not only the time spent with them, but for everything they’ve ever done, including giving me my mother.

I had asked my grandma once, on a quiet afternoon, while my grandpa was sleeping after lunch, how they had met. Very briefly she said, “We were part of the same group of friends and he would always annoy me and make fun of my Aleppo accent.” That was all I got folks. My mom once asked and my grandpa said, “If Amal approves, I’ll tell you the whole story, but she won’t approve.” Now I’m curious. It sounds like such an exciting love story, but one that’s lasted a lifetime, something we don’t see anymore and something I’ve unfortunately lost faith in. Not in my generation anyway.

They were, and still are, people who do not hold each other back but rather push the other to keep going. My grandfather has no problem with my grandmother working and my grandmother always had my grandfather’s back—and his line of work was very challenging, including networking, moving, diplomacy and much more.

These days, if you don’t answer a man’s text in ten seconds, he throws a tantrum and says you clearly aren’t “wifey material” because you’re obviously way too busy to wait on him hand and foot. Yes, that has happened. On this trip, I overheard a woman in a kiosk explaining how she’s putting herself through school (in Syria) for a second degree, while working at a restaurant, until she can afford to open up her own clinic. An elderly woman who was listening said, “Wow, look at you! Working harder than men today!” The woman chuckled and said, “We don’t have real men anymore and women are left picking up everyone’s slack on top of their share.” I couldn’t help but laugh…loudly, and she turned to me. “Am I right?” she asked. I smiled back and said, “Don’t even get me started.”

I’ve heard it time and time and effin time again, that a truly secure strong man will not be intimidated by a secure strong woman, but as logical as that sounds, the question is are there any of those men around? This is rhetorical. Please don’t bombard me with answers. Life is answer enough. I’m traveling and finding women worldwide are struggling with this man-drought. My grandfather, may God bless and protect him, seems to be the exception.

He folded his napkin, like he usually does when he finishes breakfast, and said, “Well, I’m going to get ready.” My mother and I both squealed. “Ready for what???” Calmly and so casually he replied, “I’m heading to Damascus to handle some errands.” It was the most adorable moment to capture, hearing this cute old man say that phrase in that manner. “And what are these errands you are about to run, sir?” my mother asked. He listed that there were a few things here and a few things there. “Grandma, are you heading to Damascus today too?” I asked. She didn’t look up from her phone (she was playing solitaire as she usually does—then she scolds us when we even touch our phones LOL). “Not today.”

“Wait so grandpa is going to town but you’re not?!?!” I asked surprised. My grandpa replied, “See, she does this on purpose. When I want to go to the city, she doesn’t. When I don’t want to go, she does. She always does this.” He was kidding with her to see if he could get a reaction, but she was ignoring him, playing it cool, and keeping up with her cards.

Damascus was about a 20-minute drive from where we were staying on this trip—Yaafour—another area on the outskirts of the city. The temperature was cooler and it was away from the sounds of battle, or so we thought. Some days, they were still audible. But we all agreed that getting my grandfather away from the city, the crowd and the phobia he had of thinking he was surely going to need a hospital (a thought he was constantly expressing after his fall) was best; and since there was a place and availability, why not?

Slowly he made his way to the stairs to get ready and he stopped. “Amal, don’t come with me, okay? Just stay here and I’ll go by myself.” She kept her gaze on the phone and waved him with his hand. “Bye Abdallah!” I see the vein of sass travels through generations. I cracked up so loudly and my grandfather looked at me with a laugh. “That’s how I get her! I have to use reverse psychology on this one,” and he went on to go get ready. He dressed up in a white button up t-shirt, khaki pants and a baseball cap. He was the epitome of adorableness. They both were and they both made aging—living—seem like the greatest mission in life to accomplish.

But there’s another side to aging that is frightening or better stated, humbling. One night on this trip, my grandmother called all of us in to their bedroom to say goodnight. My grandfather was already in bed and she was slipping in. My mom, my aunt, my cousin and I joined them on the bed and suddenly a kissing fight erupted, thanks to my cousin and her charming sociable nature. She started harassing my grandmother with kisses and then my aunt joined in, then my mom and I dove in headfirst.

My grandmother was yelling at us to stop kissing her and to stop annoying her and to go away already, that all she wanted was us to come say goodnight. Karma, haha! But while my aunt and cousin continued smothering her with kisses, I turned and found my mom in the arms of her dad. He was holding her like a father holding his toddler—her head on his chest as he stroked her hair. I almost collapsed at that humbling sight. Suddenly my grandfather was no longer my grandfather, nor an old man in in his 90s, and my mother was no longer a mom, nor a woman in her 50s. They transformed into father and baby daughter and it was an utterly inexplicable thing to witness.

It was like they had escaped the current reality and entered a parallel mellow universe where everything was how it used to be and I had to back up and soak in the reality, the passage of time, the aging. We were three generations, connected by blood and lineage, but at the moment connected by touch—him to her and her to me, and it felt like this supernatural experience of literally watching the earth turn in bittersweet pain.

Last year, my grandfather thanked us for taking the risk to come and visit because he feared that it may be the farewell visit. So when God graced us with another opportunity, he wanted to savor every golden moment, so did we.

Oceans & Flames




It is with utmost gratitude that I announce I am now a proud author of a second poetry book. Nine years after releasing my debut poetry book, 91 at 19, I have finally published Oceans & Flames. This book, also a poetry anthology, highlights the work I found myself creating amidst my experience with and survival of domestic abuse.

Most people (if not all) were unaware during the situation, myself included. It took a few months after my divorce to recognize what I had actually been in and what it was that I got out of; to digest and process all of that took a long time and poetry was my greatest catharsis.

To compile these words together and read the ebb and flow of emotion, along with the intricately spot on illustrations created by my best friend and fellow Syrian American Artist, Sama Wareh, was remarkably overwhelming. It gave me greater goose bumps than when I was 19 and feeling the smooth glossy red cover of my first publication.

I want to hand it to Sama, who patiently worked alongside me on drafting perfectly coordinated images to the words; graphics that would align the pain with the beauty, darkness with light, oceans and flames.

I also want to thank my beautiful cousin Dima A.K. for doing the design of the book in a matter of days and keeping me on my publication deadline.

Lastly, my amazing family and their phenomenal patience with my transition—especially my mom and for her hearing me say, “I promise I’ll start editing your book as soon as I publish Oceans and Flames.”

Promise kept mama!

Copies of Oceans and Flames are now available on CreateSpace and will be available on Amazon early September. To purchase, click here: https://www.createspace.com/7240033.

Love,

Lady Narrator




Monday, August 7, 2017

Syrian Summer: Vantage Points


For the past few days, I’ve been having nightmares. I haven’t had these in a while and they leave me waking up in a daze. The weirder part is each nightmare has been about someone that’s no longer in my life. Be it ex-husband, ex-friend or ex-love that I painfully had to let go of recently.

The quote says that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I think distance does too. Distance also puts things into perspective. It shows you what matters and what doesn’t. It also shows you who matters and who doesn’t, which can be an agonizing reality to face, but that distance gives you the courage to do things you can’t do when you’re “home.”

I found myself detoxing my soul and my online social networks from toxic groups I didn’t even realize were killing me—physically, emotionally, mentally and financially. Was it easy? No. I mean it’s easy to hit a button that says BLOCK or UNFRIEND but it’s the aftermath and the meaning that weigh on you. I told myself I had the rest of my American time to worry about that. Right now on Arabian soil, I would concern myself with who and what mattered. That’s the miracle of this place—for me anyway.

The hotel balcony overlooked the shores of Lebanon and an excitingly busy street. I loved the sounds of traffic—honking cars and screeching tires. It reminded me of the lullabies that put me to sleep in California. My ex-husband used to harass me about that all the time. He told me I was seriously messed up that I couldn’t fall asleep to the quiet and for being nostalgic to the sound of horns and sirens and slamming brakes. For 20+ years those were the sounds that put me to sleep. How was I supposed to adjust in one night to the eerie silence of his overly quiet dark empty hidden neighborhood? I’m a city girl and will die a city girl. Give me skyscrapers and downtowns and I’m set!
 
My mom was napping inside—the byproduct of jet lag. I sat on the balcony enjoying the humidity that was balanced out by the air condition that was coming in from the open door to our room. I watched the cars drive and swerve. I relished in the waves and their capability to crash against those ocean rocks and find themselves whole again, united. Resilience.

We were out of mugs, so I used the water glasses to drink my Nescafe and eat really old and stale peanut M & M’s that I found in the hotel minibar. Across the street, I saw a car trying to back out of a full lot and into the street. It was inching out slowly and then slamming on the brakes, and it did so with so much trouble for ten minute before finally getting through.

I laughed at the manifestation of perspective right then. The entire time the car was inching back and forth, I kept talking to the driver (from eight stories above, so really I was just talking to myself) and saying, “Keep going! You have room. Yallah! Go! It’s okay.”

With eight stories of height, I had a different vantage point than the driver and could see the clearer, bigger picture. The driver, however, trapped within the four doors of a black sedan, couldn’t see further than his/her peripherals. Why can’t we understand that this is how life operates for each human? Why can’t we all comprehend that sometimes others do not/cannot/may not be able to see the fuller bigger picture and need their own time and space to grieve? To heal? To find their way?

After my divorce, I faced this stupid frequently asked question:
“How were you dumb enough to get caught in an abusive relationship?”
It ended up inspiring a poem where I respond:
“I am not dumb, nor have I ever been dumb, nor will I ever be dumb, but being intelligent does not equate with being immune.”

It’s always easier said for the outsider than it is done for the insider. Why don’t people get that? Everyone is suddenly an expert critic when it’s not their story, but turn the tables and they suddenly become paralyzed. Growing up, people always had this desire to remind me that “not everyone thinks like you, Dania,” but they forget to remember that not everyone thinks like them either.

I stood on that balcony for a long time, beneath the sun and extreme heat, mesmerized by the visual representation of reality I had just witnessed. “What are you drinking?” My mom broke my train of thought as she stepped out onto the balcony. “Coffee. You used the other mugs so I resorted to these. I hope they don’t crack.” She pursed her lips. “Why didn’t you just wash one of the mugs?” I shrugged my shoulders and gestured for her to join me.

“Everything seems so small, insignificant and peaceful up here. Can we just stay forever? Or maybe go back to Hawaii? I think I’m done with California.” I began unloading on the one and only loyal human in my life.

The plans for the day seemed lax, which was a relief for my jet lagged self. The debate was over where to eat, what to eat and when to eat. I was just glad that there was a plan to eat. We sat together over more coffee and talks with the family. “Has anyone gone back to visit Drosha?” I asked. My cousin, who had come to Lebanon to see my brother (who is currently unable to enter Syria) gave me a sad smile and pulled out his phone.

Drosha is the name of an area on the outskirts of Damascus where my dad’s family had a summer home. Every Friday was spent there from noon to 10:00 p.m., eating, swimming, taking photos, playing cards, napping and just enjoying Syria’s scorching summers with family. A little over seven years ago, it had been remodeled from the old raggedy red run-down shack that it was, to an actual livable home and I was blown away. I remember the last time I was there, it was actually winter, which was a possibility thanks to the remodel and inclusion of heaters. We played charades in the living room, a game I had spent three days preparing the words in Arabic for and fifteen minutes explaining to my uncles, their wives and my cousins. It was one of the most fun Friday afternoons ever.

That same living room was shattered. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there. The marble floors lacked luster. One sofa chair remained in the corner. I gasped as I swiped photo after photo of the home I remembered, in pieces. Walls crumbled. Ceilings on the ground. Trashed. I have seen videos and photos of Syrian homes in shambles, but to see your own home as rubble puts things into an even more vivid perspective.

I knew that this trip was going to give me a deeper perspective into the vision I got last year and that is something to fear. Somehow this trip, I feel weaker than last year. I don’t know how much of this bigger picture I’ll be able to swallow.

Syrian Summer: We're Back

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She poured the coffee into tiny ceramic cups from the cupboard of her hotel suite. I wondered why I never drink this coffee when I’m in America, as my grandmother leveled off the four cups. "Do you like cardamom?" she asked. "I do," I replied, and she continued to let the little cream colored droplets of cardamom fall in to my cup. The smell was intoxicatingly beautiful and I knew it had a certain charm here in the Middle East than it did in California; and as I sipped it slowly to the gorgeous view of the sea and listened to my father's mother share stories, I held back more tears.

I had already cried on the drive from the airport to the hotel, taking in the perfection that is home. Sure, it's not Syria, but it's so close and resembles it somewhat, and technically these countries were all one once, so we are one. At least, I wish we could remember that more often because we Arabs seem to be better at division than at rounding up together.

Nonetheless, I savored in the messy traffic, reckless driving, honking, colorful lights and Arabic billboards, and it was immense that it sent me to tears and yet again I questioned my capability to leave at the end of this "three week" trip. Last year it was supposed to be six weeks and it turned into three months. This year I have school, work and applications but somehow, that all seems moot in comparison to sharing coffee and laughter with family in the Arab world.

I hate distance, as much as I hate war.

The news played in the background, a common setting in every Arab household. A story about Trump appeared and I remembered how a year ago, in Syria, I watched election drama with utmost conviction that he'd never win. Syrians around me however, carried opposing convictions and we Americans caught ourselves quite the curve ball from left field.

"The state of humanity," we all sighed as news story after news story left us shaking our heads. My grandmother began telling us a story about a neighbor of hers in Damascus, who was originally from a Bedouin village on the outskirts of Aleppo, who hadn't been able to see or visit her hometown and family since the war. Then, a couple of weeks ago, she decided to make the journey and take her children to go see their mother's hometown and their grandparents.

On average, a trip from Damascus to Aleppo is roughly four hours. Last year we learned that because of closures and checkpoints, it has become an approximate 8-9 hours. But this woman's journey differed. Her village was an hour outside of Aleppo but it took her another ten hours via bus to arrive because the typical route was under pressure from battles between three groups trying to gain control.

The poor woman and her children traveled almost 20 hours on the road to see family in a rural village for a couple of days, then traveled the same distance in return. She said it took her three days of sleep to recover but the ache of realization lasted a lot longer—grasping the damage this war has caused.

A sad silence filled the room as we took in this story. "Did you enjoy your dinner last night?" she asked, alluding to our midnight escapade for authentic shawarma. America, I’m sorry, but you ain't doing it right because one bite into that hot and juicy chicken shawarma from Abu Waseem's joint and I died and came back reincarnated as the same woman, lavishing in the same sandwich. (And I’ve been off meat for almost two year now yet I still make an exception for this perfection—I paid the price later but it was worth it.)

Abu Waseem is a Syrian man who owned a shawarma shop in Damascus, really close to my dad's family's house. A few years ago he left and came to Lebanon and opened up shop in the downtown area and O. M. G. We each inhaled a foot long piece of perfection with freshly cut fries, legitimate hummus (something else I can't find in America) and pickles. Oh the amount of pleasure it brought to our souls. It's tradition. Upon landing in Syria (now Lebanon), the first thing we do is get shawarma, with a can of Ugarit soda, and dive in to home. No one cares what time we land or how tired we are from the 16+ hour journey, this tradition is never to be broken.

Honking cars overpowered the news as we finished up the coffee. I took in the cups and washed them, returning to hear another story about the Arab nations.

"We fell apart when we became more concerned with ourselves than with our neighbors. There's a story about how outsiders knew we were now susceptible to becoming overpowered." My grandmother continued, "The outsiders would send in spies to scope out the environments, and their best means of assessment were markets.” Whether this was a true story or a parable, I was hooked. “One time they entered our Arab markets and began purchasing a variety of products and then asked for a certain item. The salesman said he didn't have it in stock but his neighbor did a few shops down. They told him they'd return when he restocks, to which he said no. He expressed that he was grateful to have received his fair share from them today and would be much obliged to see his neighbor receive some business. The outsiders left and returned after some time had passed and repeated the process in the market. This time however, when the salesman said he was out of stock, he asked them to wait while we went to go obtain the item and sell it to them. That's when they knew priorities of the land had changed. The people were now divisible when they put themselves above their community."

As she wrapped up the story, I felt a shiver run up and down my spine. This story still gives me goose bumps as I write it out now. It speaks volumes, even if only a metaphorical figurative level. It had only been a few hours in the Arab world but I knew, this trip was bound to bring about some very meaningful lessons—ones I was ready to take and learn from after the whirlwind of a year I encountered.

Here’s to my Syrian Summer!