We are Friends

“She is my friend and we play together.  We are neighbors too.  She and her family are our new neighbors.  We are really good friends too!”  He informed me excitedly as I first walked in the cafeteria last week at lunch time.

He was beaming.  I don’t remember ever seeing him this happy.  He is a beautiful sensitive nine year old boy from Iraq who has been struggling with making friends since he arrived six weeks earlier, more than two weeks after the new school year has started. Because of his almost non-existent English, he was too shy to attempt making friends with students from other nationalities. And for one reason or another he also struggled getting along with the few boys who speak his language all of whom are at least 12 years old or older.  He was in tears most days. 

After several attempts at trying to make peace, I made a suggestion that maybe he would be better off not hanging out the older boys and that he should give his non-Arabic speaking classmates a chance.  He followed only half of my advice and for the next few days, I would often find him having lunch by himself.  Sometimes, I would sit with him and we would make small talk.  At other times, I would invite a couple of other kids to join us.  Not knowing how long this solitary behavior would last, I started to seriously question the validity of the piece of advice I gave and worried even more about him. 

To my relief, as I walked into the cafeteria the following week I saw him with a beautiful girl, about his age, sitting at his table eating her lunch quietly.  The conversation that ensued kind of put my worries to rest.  I could see that he was feeling happier. 

He could barely contain his excitement.  His beaming smile lighting up the whole cafeteria, he introduced me to his new friend.  “She is my friend.  We play together.”  He told me.  “She is in my class,” he added.  “I help her because she is new and I know more English.  And she helps me with math because she is good at math,” he continued cheerfully.   “She is my friend, my neighbor and my classmate.” 

“So everything is OK now?”  I asked.  “Everything is great.  We are friends,” still smiling, he repeated the three beautiful words, “we are friends.”

October 2012

Have a little fun

During the past week, I've had multiple occasions to reflect on this delightful part of being human: having fun and enjoying our capacities!  Maybe a New Year's resolution for myself will be to have more fun.  Do at least 1 fun thing per day that has no goal or end for anything other than just delighting in the act of being alive with infinite capacities and knowing it.  I went sledding and played in the snow with my nephews over Christmas.  It was a blast!  We had so much fun.  I watched the Nutcracker and delighted in the beauty of the ways a human body can move and speak with no words uttered.  I try to take intentional time each day to play with my puppy who is an absolute joy.  I delight in writing (sometimes) when the writing is free and unrestricted and not for a specific end that makes me worry about its goodness or doubt my own brilliance.  Dancing and singing are fun when you just let loose and enjoy it, not trying to impress anyone.

There are so many fun activities we can do!  Find things that make you laugh and laugh every day.  There are always things to complain about, but there are also always things to just delight and wonder in.  The cloud is in the paper, and the grandmother is in the child, and the tree is in me, and all of life is an astounding miracle of interbeing!  We have an incredible capacity as human beings to create, to bring something new into the world.  This is amazing, and we should exercise this creative capacity every chance we get.

So my advice for the new year is have fun, the kind of fun that makes your soul burst open with laughter and pure delight in whatever you just did.  Delight in the miracle of life.  Do something to shake things up; remind yourself you are alive and that is a miracle.  Create something new; learn something new, and not because  you have to, but because you can.  If you don't know how to have fun, or what to do, spend at least 30 min. playing with a child.  Let him or her be in charge.  Follow their lead and loosen up your imagination.  Try to see through their eyes.  Dream.

Some of the most developed and industrial nations are also some of the unhappiest.  I believe there is a connection.  Too much work, too much seriousness and pressure for perfection and competition, and not enough play.  People who spend time with family and friends, engage in meaningful work, rest, and play are much happier.  From my time in Latin America one of the big lessons I learned was to celebrate, and celebrate often.  So, this year I'm going to add some more play time into my days, and I invite you to join me.  We can delight in being human together!

Walking With Gaddi

One day Gaddi got in trouble
So his kindergarten teacher
Sent him to sit quietly
In our office for a few minutes
To calm down and reflect 
On the hope that he would not    
Repeat the undesirable behavior
That got him in trouble in the first place

So Gaddi sat quietly for a few minutes
With a serious look on his face     
Arms crossed high on his chest
Looking tinier than he was in the big chair
I don't know if he reflected on anything
But Gaddi looked calmed down
And so I offered to take him back to class

As we stepped into the courtyard
Leading up to his building and classroom
And into a gorgeous late summer day
Gaddi put his tiny hand in mine 
And trusting that I would keep him safe  
He closed his eyes and raised his face
To the sun's warm embrace  
Gaddi and I proceeded to walk together
Serene, leaving all our troubles behind
Him trusting me and I loving him

And once again, I was reminded
Why I love working with children
Gaddi sporting a blissful smile now 
Eyes still closed, he seemed to have
No other care in the world
But to let the sun kiss his beautiful face
And as I held his hand and guided him
We walked together, unhurried, back to class
                 

No Words

I have no words to describe
The immense happiness I feel
When I am greeted by a child's
Scream of delight and hug of steel

I have no words, none that come near
To depicting the blissful cheer
At the sound of children playing
Running singing talking or just being

What words are there to define
The moment you magically witness
On the sad face of a crying child
The birth of a smile and forgiveness

Stories

I think I know why I am here.

People come and go. I have experienced the fragile, fickleness of people. Where one moment there is affection and friendship, the next there can be damaging anger and antipathy, causing a sickness of the heart and mind. I have often felt the earth fall into a void, right out from under my feet, and I am left stranded and breathless. I have experienced this from close family. I have experienced this from close friends. Coworkers, acquaintances, people I see on the street. From great distance and also from a hair’s breadth away. They can leave permanent change or temporary ones. But from what I have experienced, all people fade, or leave, or hurt you, or change irrevocably. It’s a losing battle if I lay down my heart and soul within other people. It is not because of them that I know what I am meant for. 

Stories, ideas, legend, fairy tales - the brilliant changing vortex of literature roils around me. I cannot trust people – but I can comfortably let my soul drift, shining beyond the strength of a thousand suns, in the lapping waves of a story. Only there can I trust. Only there am I at peace. I can walk hand in hand with Lucy in Narnia. I can breathe the air of Lothlorien. No door is closed to me. Stories will never die, never fade, never betray or hurt or defame or spite. They can still change me, for better or worse, but with a kind of safety net. They will never let go. Stories will always be there, holding me in place. Stories will always be there – it’s the air I breathe, “stored up on purpose for a life beyond life” (quote from the New York Public Library, on 42^nd and 5^th Ave.)

Stories are infinite. If I can smile in the face of the big bad monster, it’s only because I am holding onto dear life to these stories. These legends, these fairy tales, these everyday comings and goings.

I know why I am here. I am here, whole and beautiful, because of these tales. I am here to keep reading, unearthing the wonder, the impact, the essentialness, of stories. I want to be part of that larger, beautiful growth, that forever timeline, of keeping these stories alive. To partake in the infinite. For me, “that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great” (Willa Cather).

I know why I am here.

***

This is for Dr. Chmiel, who encourages me to share pieces which are hidden away in my journals. This is from a few days ago, which I wrote down in my journal. It is published here in its rough form, no edits. I hope to develop this into a more polished, personal manifesto. For those of you who don't know, I'm an English major and I'm applying to graduate school. I'd been struggling for some time to articulate my reasons for wanting to go to grad school, and out of that struggle came this. Enjoy!

Dear Mom, Dad, Advisors, Essay Readers, and Society in general,

I do not like questions that only carry expectations for answers.

Answers that I do not know.

Answers that I do not want to know.

Answers that are only replaced with more questions.

Which is fine…

Until you demand more answers.

Questions that only solicit answers that can be given in the time to scarf down food at Christmas dinner.

Or answers that can be given in 500 words or less.

Or answers that can be summed up in a 2 page Doctor’s report.

I do not mind your questions

Until you assume I have an answer (your answer)

Don’t tell me I’m wrong or making a mistake

Don’t role your eyes or expect me to have it all together.

I like questions that carry the expectation of nothing more than a few works scribbled on a notebook in pen

I like questions that tell me to listen

To the voice inside my head

the voice telling me to keep going

it will out work itself out in the end

On Ferlinghetti's Americus (Book I)

For Dianne Lee and Lynette D’Amico

When I first read Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Americus,I just before The Book of Mev was published, I was energized by discovering how much it is a mish mash, full of allusions, weaving together autobiography, politics, cultural history, headlines, lit crit, a whole shmear of America! It really is Joycean: Here comes everybody!

Ferlinghetti’s the John Sayles of poetry: Americus is a down-to-earth, populist poesy and retrospective on what and who we’ve been. Obscure, pedantic, unreadable poets, sharpen your knives!

A couple of passages:

Some kind of new woman or man
dreamed up
in our great melting pot
petri dish of creation
A small-scale exhibition
of what mankind could possibly be—
“Demon or bird! (said the boy’s soul)”
Hero or antihero
Man of pure action or Underground Man
Man of “heightened consciousness”
Or psychedelic mystic
Slave master or utopian dreamer
Bowery bohunk or blessed redeemer
Sister of Mercy or serial killer
Poet or panderer on the lamb
Keystone Kop or Chaplin’s little man
or Bush league Presidencies
in totalitarian plutocracies?
O which will it be? [pp. 2-3]

Song of the Open Road sung drunken
with Whitman and Jack London and Thomas Wolfe
still echoing through
a Nineteen Thirties America
a Nineteen Forties America
an America long gone now
Except in broken-down dusty old
Greyhound bus stations
in small lost towns
Ti-Jean’s [Kerouac's] vision of America
Seen from a speeding car window
the same as Wolfe’s lonely sweeping vision
glimpsed from a coach train long ago [pp.64-65]

Over the last decade, Andrew Wimmer has stressed how much we as citizens need to recover our imaginations, to break free from the imprisonment of our spirits and language. Ferlinghetti sees poets as having a crucial role in that recovery:

[Poetry] is the street talk of angels and devils.
It is a subversive raid upon the forgotten language of the collective unconscious.
It is a lawless, insurgent enterprise.
[The poet] must be a gadfly of the state mating with a firefly.
It speaks the unspeakable, utters the unutterable sigh of the heart.
A poem should still be an insurgent knock on the door of the unknown
Poetry a radical presence, always goading us.
For great poetry to be born, there must be hunger and passion.
Poetry is the last refuge of humanity in dark times.

Poetry…
Radical, insurgent, subversive
Raid, refuge, gadfly …
Siempre avanti!

Writing Aspirations for the Next Few (Many?) Months (Years?)

To encourage Ann in her possibly imminent publishing pursuits

To begin in earnest sequel to Dear Layla—I just bought three black Moleskines, first objective, fill them with daydreams of what’s going on with Carla Nguyen

To show up wherever Fatima’s going to be

To send Brittany postcards when she’s at the beach

To begin a serene decade-length project called, The Teachings Are Infinite

To pester Nebu to write a draft of a novel in the spirit of his Kerala elder Arundhati Roy (before he graduates from medical school)

To resume work with Dianne on Hedy's political memoir

To scribble 30 pages in notebooks with Libby, top-floor, South Grand Gelateria

To cheer on Emily & Kelley & Lindsay in their great “Sisters are doing it for themselves” project

To do several writing mini-marathons with Tony, Josh, and Laura in Dogtown environs

To mail out 30 one-page gratitude notes a month to friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your eyes

To revel with Jenn in her multitudes emerging in oral and written forms

To start  a Writing to Wake Up class in spring, if only for people who missed the fall one

To write one response a week to current events and/or books on U.S. policy and circulate to my amigas y compañeros (like Tom Englehardt did in 2001)

To read whatever inner/outer journey essays Tony wants to send me

To host a potluck at 4514 for the fall class and the spring class—no writing, unless someone starts spontaneously to declaim—just good food and drink, a relaxing evening

To accompany Lindsay in her slowness project

To listen to Dianne read me poems the way she did Ferlinghetti's "The Old Italians Dying"

To brainstorm incandescent ideas with Emily while sitting on the bathroom floor of some café

To remind Priya of the jewels in her accumulating notebooks that are worthy of a wide readership

To cheer on Justin to compile and then circulate a chapbook for the benefit of all sentient beings

To write glowing letters of recommendation for Lindsey who’s headed for life outside the United States of Amnesia

To discuss Robert Fisk a few times with Kelley at Central Café, al-Tarboush, and the Vine

To assure Cami that a 35-page collection of Appalachian-story-moments is possible

To publish Dear Layla via Lulu.com, so that it is circulating by May, then promote it by word of mouth

To buy 20 copies of Book of Mev, give them away to people under 30


-- expanded from draft written at 2167 Spring Avenue, Thursday 29 November 2012, last class of Writing to Wake up

A peaceful Evening (or Morning)

No shopping list to mind
No last minute errand to run
In my favorite armchair
Feet up on the coffee table
A good book in my hands
A content cat sleeping on my lap
Loved ones are far yet nearer
To my heart now more than ever
Sitting in my favorite chair
I'm grateful for the slow pace
And counting my blessings
For the peace and quiet
For the here and now

December 23

Dear Ones

While you're out shopping
Get me a gift certificate
With no expiration date
And unlimited access
To the brand name Compassion
At Life Department Store
In the section called Humanity

Yours truly,
Fatima

We Have Failed the Children

We have failed the children
We have failed to protect them
We have failed to keep them safe
We have failed and who is to blame?

We have failed and who is to blame
But ourselves, the children are dead
We have strayed, put our interests ahead
Where is our promise to keep them safe?

This is not about politics or ideology
We have failed - where is our humanity?
We have failed, the children are dead
No MORE excuses! We ALL have failed

We make promises and we deceive
We shed crocodile tears and we cheat
We wave the flag of peace and hope
While waging war abroad and at home

And once in a while, there is outrage
And every time more tears are shed
But soon enough, we will forget
Until we fail the children again

What the fuck is so hard about committing
Above all else to the welfare of the children?
And if we can't protect the most vulnerable
And innocent among us, aren't we doomed?

As we grieve today, can we find it in our heart
To weep for ALL the dead children everywhere?
Can our outrage be outrageous enough
To put a stop to this absurd carnage?

Should we continue to feed our greed?
To what end?  And at what price?
What good is freedom, the mother weeps
What good is freedom to my dead child?

December 16, 2012

On Confession

Words leave tracks of mud

A mess of entanglement

Should be-Supposed to-Should have

            Colliding with

                        I

Makes a mess.

Bound by deformed chains,

Words unhinge our soul

Free us to own, acknowledge, make peace with

            God, me, you

Power unleashed

Spark sent forth

Spread, splattered, spilled

In a chaotic wind

of tears

of sighs

of pauses

of breath

Words transform,

They build a new story

Where tracks of mud have a place

Offer hope, consolation, wisdom

A new story, a good story

One to be told

The Evening News Hour

In the midst of the ugliness
Of what's on the evening news hour,
I often find myself reverting back to the images
And the sounds that filled my day,
Warmed up my heart and healed my soul.
The images of beautiful children
With the most amazing smiles
And the sounds of the musical chatter
Of more than a dozen different languages
Heard in the school's cafeteria and hallways.
The images of children helping, comforting and
Protecting each other, standing up for what is right;
And the sounds of whispers and giggles,
Laughter, singing and happy screams of children
At play in the courtyard during recess
On a hot summer day or a breezy fall afternoon.
Under the deluge of all the bad news,
And in the absence of humanity and decency
If we were to believe all the reports,
I find myself seeking and finding comfort
In the memory of the warm hug of a grateful mother
Too overwhelmed with emotions to speak;
And in the strong handshake of a proud father
Who only wants the best for his young daughters.
And as I soak in all these beautiful images,
The broadcast gloomy account of the day,
Duly acknowledged, starts to loose its grip
To slowly fade away.  My faith in humanity, slightly
Bruised, fights back demanding full restoration
To impose itself once again against all odds.
I take a deep breath feeling calmer,
More grounded and a little bit stronger;
I am grateful for today, for each day,
And full of hope for tomorrow.

Free

Today I'm free
To take a chance
To reject the fake
False sense of security

Today I'm free
Less is more I see
Today I'm free
Oh sweet ecstasy!

Today I'm free
I open my mind
My spirit, my heart
At last I'm free

Free to break the rules
Ruffle a few feathers
Today I'm free
Fuck sensibility!

Today I'm free
To live in the present
The future will NOT
Scare or worry me

Today I'm free
Every day is a gift
To love, to give
To breathe and to be

Today I'm free
There is no going back
Today I'm free
To be ME!

Six Months in Latin America

If I could afford to spend six months in any country, it would be somewhere in Latin America.  I have lived in North and Sub-Saharan Africa, in Europe and in the Middle East - I would love to live anywhere in Asia but since I’m in my first semester of learning Spanish, I would love to live in a Spanish-speaking culture.  I have recently started to familiarize myself with the music, the poetry and current events of this part of the world.  I love watching foreign films and had the opportunity on occasions to watch several Spanish language films and documentaries. These internationally produced powerful films depict past and current political conflicts and human right issues in many countries in Latin America.  If I could spend six months in any of these countries, I would choose to live among the people who struggle in life to make a decent living; people whom otherwise I would have unlikely met, talked to, have a meal with, laughed or cried with under ordinary circumstances.  I would make every effort to learn their language, their culture, their history, their everyday struggles and achievements, their hopes and dreams for the future.  I would share with them my experiences growing up in Morocco, coming to America, and becoming a mother of two beautiful, intelligent, strong willed kind daughters as well as my experiences learning English, continuing my education, becoming a US citizen and a teacher.  We would have so much to talk about even with my limited Spanish.  They’ll tell me about their daily lives which would probably have a lot in common with the lives of people I have known and lived with in West Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Palestine and Yemen; and even right here in St. Louis.  Their stories will be in Spanish but no different from the stories I heard before in Arabic, French or English.  They would proudly introduce me to their musical heritage, their revered poets and artists, their homeland heroes who struggled, fought and lost their lives so their countrymen and women could live in liberty, dignity and justice.  We’ll share meals and exchange recipes and we would realize that we use some of the same spices here as we do in Africa or in the Middle East.  Their children’s beautiful eyes and  innocent smiles will remind me of the Palestinian children from Nablus with whom I used to sing French children songs on weekday afternoons in the Balata and Askar refugees camp in the Occupied West Bank.  Or they would remind me of the Senegalese neighbors’ children, my daughters’ first playmates, from my Point E quiet neighborhood in Dakar where we used to live more than twenty years ago.  My new friends from Latin America will help me learn Spanish and if they’re interested, I’ll teach them some French or English or maybe some Arabic.  A few weeks of having been acquainted, we would feel as if we had known each other all our lives - and maybe we have.  I mean, I’ve lost count of the number of times when after meeting new friends for the first time, I’d have this gnawing feeling that we have met before.  And after six months, I would say goodbye, my heart heavy with sadness to leave my new friends - sad but grateful for having met them, known them and shared their lives for a few brief months.  I would forever be indebted to them for making my life richer and more meaningful and for the memories I would always carry with me for the rest of my life.

March 2012

Little Miracles

(This is a piece in progress.  More of a draft, a partial list I jotted down this Sunday morning.  My inspiration come from the children I work with at my school. I'm sure anyone of us is capable of witnessing more of these everyday life's little miracles. 
Love & Peace,
Fatima)

Little Miracles

To have little hands slipping in my hands or pulling down my shirt, my sleeve to get my attention

To crouch on my knees to be at face level, eye to eye to listen, to comfort and to hug

To have two little hands frame my face to be able to speak directly in my ear

To show up in the cafeteria, in a classroom or in a hallway and be swarmed by children not competing for hugs but offering them generously and freely

To witness a smile, a happy, sad, tired or a hesitant smile but a smile nonetheless on a child's beautiful face any minute of the hour for six, seven or more hours a day, ten or more months a year and to believe that maybe, just maybe I had something to do with it

To see, never expecting it would ever happen, little Monica run to me offering a first hug merely three months after the beginning of the school year

To be called habibti by children who don't even speak Arabic but know the full meaning of this term of endearment

To happily shed the cloak of authority figure and be me, an adult sure, but just plain old me

To be greeted every morning by assalamu alaikum and a handshake by young Somali male students

To sit in the lunchroom at a table with students from all four corners of the world and not even notice that little fact

To wake up every morning and know for every story of struggle, heartache and pain, they'll be many more stories of resilience, hope and healing

To wake up every morning and be guaranteed a most beautiful gift that day, the gift of laughter

To be invited to a soccer game, to a game of tag during recess on a beautiful autumn day and be able to say the heck with paperwork, I'm joining in the fun

To walk the halls of the school holding a trusting little hand in mine and feel the love and beauty of life

To hear from young children I love you, ana bahebek, te amo, je t'aime and to say it back meaning every ounce of it

To hear from older children neither I love you, nor ana bahebek, te amo, je t'aime in words but still feel the love nonetheless

To know that I can love that much that many and still have room to love so many more that much and more ...