When I was seven years old, I had already seen oppression first hand. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of standing next to my parents in Berlin, Germany. The wind buffeted us as we stood on one of the bridges connecting West Berlin to East Berlin. The Wall stretched out from both sides of us, covered in graffiti and desperation. People hurried by us from the East to the West, and little to no cross-traffic hampered their journeys.

1986 marked the release of one of my all time favorite albums: Graceland by Paul Simon. I had the VHS of their African concert and attended rallies to end Apartheid. When I moved from the Middle East to the States as a teenager, I had little interest in shopping every weekend, I went to “Free Mandela” protests. I had felt the power of racism, and I hated it. In 1992 “The Power of One” was released and instantly became my favorite movie. I bought the soundtrack and sang along to every word. I hoped that my generation could be better and more accepting than our ancestors. I still hope and pray that every new generation strips away the prejudices and ugliness of the generation before them.

Injustice exists in the world, and not the kind we spend time complaining about here in America. Real, raw, life-crushing injustice exists, but so many of us (myself for the last few years included) can comfortably ignore it. I hope that like Paul Simon travelling to Africa and daring to record and film with exiled artists, our family can travel to a land plagued by natural disasters in order to restore hope, love, and the knowledge that ALL humans are connected, we are all brothers and sisters, and we all have a duty to care for each other. This is my life’s mission.

Birthday

The years crash over me like waves
Leaving scars and wrinkles, speckling my skin with sunspots
I am beginning to envy youth:
My bloom is fading into middle age
I look at women slightly younger than me and think that they look old
But not me I am still
Dancing through days, weeks
My life is ahead of me,
Not strapped into car seats behind me

 I wanted to dance on top of the waves,
Yet I find myself buffeted from crest to crest
And lately I find more lows than highs
Old, I am not
I am not old
My skin betrays me
Elasticity stretched too far
Wrinkles on my forehead
Sagging neck
 I think of my mother at my age, so powerful
She knew everything
And nothing
She was old always

The years keep coming keep crashing
I see a wrinkled woman in a car next to me
I will be her one day, old
But not yet, not now
I am not old

Freedom to write

Afghan women risk their lives to write poetry... and yet I stagnate, my heart churning with words, mired in apathy of expression.

I read this news article with shock, with tears. When her books of poetry were taken from her, Zarmina, young Afghan girl in the article, set herself on fire, a horrible way to die. She was shamed into stopping to write, and I suddenly remember, too clearly, what it is watch fire consume life. As a young girl stuck in traffic on a bridge in Cairo, I remember watching a man on distant roof pour clear liquid all over his body. I wondered briefly what he was doing, then he raised his hands to the sky, lit a match and set himself on fire. It happened so quickly, and I was horrified, a helpless observer, trapped by traffic and separated by rooftops, by age, by skin color. He was too far away for this to be possible, but I swear I smelled his flesh burning, melting, his heart pumping blood to fuel the fire. The last I saw of him were little flames licking the rooftop, looking for more substance.

“A poem is a sword,” Saheera Sharif said for this article. I couldn’t agree more. But what good are swords when their adolescent wielders have their bodies and spirits crushed before they are even fully formed, simply because of their gender?

At age eleven I had many Cairo girlfriends being sent away for arranged marriages. Some were only one or two years older than me. I remember one friend, smaller than me due to a lifetime of malnourishment, a sparkle in her dark eyes, sent to be second wife to an older man who took turns raping and beating her. I never saw the sparkle again, and I rarely saw her. I moved on, moved to the States. I grew up and got married to a kind man who cooks and does laundry. I sit in my suburban home, and I think about t-ball, about Disneyland, about redecorating, and about anything except for those friends I shared my early adolescence with. Girls who had all of the same hopes and dreams that I did, who taught me to bellydance and henna my too-light skin. My life has been filled with all the goodness this world has to offer, and theirs was cut short before they had a chance to bloom.

I feel overwhelmingly guilty. I feel terrible that long, happy days can go by without me even remembering them, the sisters of my younger heart. I am angry that nothing can be done, that the childhood home I had such great hopes for is now on the brink of plunging into Islamic rule. I am angry that girls can be born into the world with passion, grace, and beauty, only for their innocent lives to be destroyed at a man’s whim.

I am woman. I will make a difference for those who have no voice. I will make this world a better place for my own daughter to grow up in.

Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/magazine/why-afghan-women-risk-death-to-write-poetry.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&src=ig

Clover growing up
From a crack in the sidewalk,
Crushed under your feet.

I spotted them today. A mom and dad shopping near me with a brand new car seat carefully snapped on the front of their shopping cart. Three designer blankets covered every angle of the brown bubble of babyness, but when the young mom took a peek under one of the blankets I saw them: tiny tiny feet with MATCHING SOCKS. I smiled to myself. Ah, first time parents...

In the parking lot I struggled with my loaded cart and felt the urgency of having only 10 minutes until I needed to pick up my kids from school and daycare. I frantically raced to my blue car bumper when I noticed, I was parked next to them. As I pushed my cart up and unlocked my trunk, the wind nudged their grocery cart and the mom grabbed it, tensions high! Her husband looked at her with round eyes and they shared a nervous laugh. I could see their thoughts, "What if the wind blows Junior into the path of an oncoming car? He could have just died!" 

"First baby?" I asked. They nodded proudly, gripping their precious cargo cart to keep it safe from the homicidal breeze. "It gets easier," I decided to share with them. They had aged at least a year in the short time I had known them. "I have three kids now, and if the cart blows away with one of them in it, I tell them to find their own way home!" 

They smiled politely at me, probably wondering if I was either crazy or truly negligent. Tensions seemed a little eased, perhaps they were realizing that, at the least, they were already better parents than I am. I loaded my groceries, watched them struggle with unhooking the car seat from the cart without waking their sleeping bundle. It really was adorable, the care they exuded for each other and for the new life they are suddenly in complete charge of. Without any prompting I waxed nostalgic, "I remember how hard it is to go out with your first baby. I remember not ever letting go of my shopping cart because I was so worried someone would steal my baby." It's true. I did used to do that. I also probably freaked out if the wind dared budge my sleeping baby. They laughed at me, I guess deciding that I am not a child abuser. 

"It's a big change," the mom said, flashing to me a tired smile full of around the clock feedings and endless crying. I shared a look with her, a look that only mothers can share. I finished loading my groceries into my car, waved and backed out of my parking spot. I saw her get into the back seat of the car. I had spent a few desperate years wondering if I would ever be able to sit up front in my own car again. I had forgotten about that. I have already forgotten so much about the miniscule endless sacrifices that becoming a mother had demanded of me.

I drove home and kissed my kids until they pushed me away… “Mo’om!” I don’t want another baby, but I would like one more chance to fit tiny matching socks onto toes smaller than a row of peas.

"Perhaps it is better to wake up after all,
even to suffer;

than to remain a dupe to illusions all one's life."

Kate Chopin

Earthquake: a short story

Earthquake 

I find myself awake at night, the sideways red eyes of my clock blinking at me. Mocking me. Sometimes I awake with a start, my body trembling with fear. Earthquake. I wait for the shaking to get worse, for the walls to cave in on me, drywall and timber pieces snapping my bones. I envision my children’s sleeping bodies, their skulls suddenly crushed, their arms reaching out to me. Should I run to them, could I save them? The shaking subsides and I realize it is only me, my heart now pounding its own earthquake into my chest.

00:00

In the bleary mornings after these nights, I can’t wake up. I can’t smile and say, “Have a nice day kids!” I can’t kiss my husband goodbye. I’ve been awake all night, afraid that if I sleep the earthquake will come and I won’t be able to save them. I turn my head away from my husband’s goodbye kiss. I wipe the moisture from the ridge of my cheek. Did he notice? He says nothing and takes the kids to school.

00:00

I sit in the garden and count drops of glittering dew. They fall from leaves, from arches, from stubby branches. They are beautiful as they twist, throwing tiny rainbows out as they fall, fall, and splat onto the ground. The few drops that remain clinging to their perches are slowly sucked dry by the sun. I think how much better it is to have a few seconds of rainbows then to hold on until you dissolve into nothing. I wonder which kind of dewdrop I would be.

00:00

I think about napping. Or cleaning. I’m too tired. A snail streaks across the dirt, I trace its trail to under my bougainvillea, the crimson flowers blooming life and death. Did the snail’s passage feel like an earthquake to the worms below? Were they awoken from their beds of earth to wonder what giants roamed above them? Am I an earthworm, with great snails leaving their tracks across the skies above me? Am I awake or still asleep?

00:00

That night in my dreams I walk slowly across fields of snails, crushing their delicate shells under my bare feet, feeling the cold ooze of their insides seeping up through my toes, covering my feet. I keep walking, keep crushing and crushing. I wake up exhausted. My husband breathes calmly from the pillow beside me. The red clock eyes are trained on me, condemning. I unplug the clock and throw it from my window, imagining its perfect arc across my yard, listening for the shattering, the end. I wait until pale light creeps over my bougainvilleas and the dew drops begin to gather for the day. I take my coffee outside and I see them. Piles of broken shells pooled with slime. But my feet are clean. I start shaking and I think, this is it: earthquake. Or is it me? The shaking does not stop. I look around at the trees, they are unwavering. Surely they wouldn’t lie, their roots so deeply entwined with the earth, surely they would bow their branches and shake their leaves to the earth’s restlessness. I try to tell myself that this isn’t real. There are no earthquakes. But the shaking still doesn’t stop. I look over at my children’s swing set. The chains are covered in eager dew drops, the seats sit motionless over the ground. The treacherous ground that shakes only for me. It is just me. It is me. I can’t accept it. I pick up my coffee cup. It shatters. Did I drop it? I held the handle, I can still feel the smoothness of the porcelain on the inside curl of my fingers. I don’t want to be outside any more. It is too terrible. The dew drops start falling falling falling falling falling. Crushed shells and cups, everything shattered and no earthquake, except for me.

00:00

My husband sits me down one night. “I miss you,” he starts crying. “The kids miss you. We need you.” I cringe as his tears gather themselves up, rushing toward a frantic end, a certain death on the floor. Falling. I look away. Up on the wall a picture hangs. It was us, all of us, before the earthquakes. We smiled from happy faces, another family maybe? No, it was us, high on the bluffs, a day at the beach. I can’t feel anything, except my feet wanting to move. I get up and go upstairs, go to bed. No red eyes, no earthquakes, I sleep.

00:00

He takes me back to the doctor. The car reminds me of a snail shell, fragile casing for a soft inside. I remember the snails from the garden… or was it my dream… I remember they way they felt when I crushed them under my feet. I look up, expecting giant feet to descend and crush me, to finally stop the earthquakes. Am I afraid? I don’t feel anything. 

00:00

So many words that I don’t want to hear. Degenerative. Full time care. Insurance policy. Neurological. More medication. I won’t take it. What if I sleep through an earthquake? Who would protect my children? I stop listening when the shaking starts. I want to duck and cover. I want to run screaming into the streets. My eyes scan frantically for a doorway, a safe place. I imagine pillars of marble, and I want to brace myself in between them. The pillars turn to salt. The salt crystals run through my fingers and across the floor, a wave of tiny glistening tears.

00:00

At home I lie in my bed. I don’t want to touch anything. I don’t want to break anything. The earthquake rocks my body, but the house stands, untouched. My children. Who will keep them safe? What if I am the only cause of earthquakes? What if without me, the earth’s plates would put aside their ancient tectonic grudges and finally make peace? My husband sleeps beside me, one hand reaching out of the covers toward me. I am afraid to touch him. What if he shatters, or turns into the salt that runs through my fingers? He is slipping, slipping away. The giant’s feet grow closer. I hear his footsteps in my yard and feel my house begin to shake. No, no, no, it is me. It is me. It is me. My pillow is wet with broken tears and I think, “I can feel! I can still feel!”

00:00

I get in the car. I can’t remember the last time I drove. Small earthquake, but I can still hold the wheel, can still keep the car hurtling forward. I make it to the beach, I find the bluffs that I used to love. I look down over the edge to the rocks below. I know which kind of dewdrop I am. I don’t even have to jump, I stand and wait for the next earthquake.

(This is a very dark short story that I wrote two years ago. I loved writing it, and though it is short, I spent hours researching it and tying all the metaphors and symbols together. I hope you enjoyed it!)

Top 10 "Chicky Things" that I suck at, and 10 useless things that I Totally Rock at!

A running list of things that I just can't seem to get a handle on, yet other women don't even think twice about!

1. Finding lost items.
2. Finding items that are directly in front of me but obscured by, say, a jug of milk.
3. Tying bows. I tend to over correct to the point of extreme floppiness.
4. Remembering to cut my children's fingernails.
5. Walking in heels. (actually walking without tripping in general)
6. Charging my phone. Or finding my phone. Please refer to item #1 for more details.
7. Buying any kind of personal items, even toilet paper.
8. Correctly applying fingernail polish.
9. Getting my hair to do anything other than au natural.
10.While I don't think I suck at housecleaning, it happens so rarely for me that I can't be sure...

and yet, I Totally Rock at:

1. Multiplication. Sometimes I multiply numbers for fun. I also like percents, fractions, basically all numerical operations. They are so rational. (Or irrational, teehee.)
2. Speed reading.
3. Seeing the forest instead of the trees. Trees being dirty dishes in my sink. See # 10 of my previous list.
4.  Finishing other people's sentences. Sometimes stranger's sentences. Usually with the wrong words.
5. Mixing drinks.
6.  Short bursts of creativity that litter my house with half-finished projects. See # 10 of my previous list.
7. Teaching my kids creative alternatives to "bad" words. "Great Snakes!"
8. Filling endless notepads with quotes, ideas, short stories, and poems.
9. Stepping over toys instead of picking them up. Again, please see # 10 of my previous list.
10. Finding the perfect, most tickly spot on my children.