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.