I Talk Too Much

I talk too much about the slightest nuance between women and trees,
about the earth's enchantment, about a country with no passport stamp.
I ask: Is it true, good ladies and gentlemen, that the earth of Man is for all human beings
as you say? In that case, where is my little cottage and where am I?
The conference audiences applaud me for another three minutes,
three minutes of freedom and recognition.
The conference approves our right of return,
like all chickens and horses, to a dream made of stone.
I shake hands with them, one by one. I bow to them. Then I continue my journey to another country and talk about the difference between a mirage and the rain.
I ask: Is it true, good ladies and gentlement, that the earth of Man is for all human beings?

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet

From, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise

This is probably my favorite poem by Darwish. I particularly love the line, "The conference approves our right of return." This has rarely happened to me, but I have been in settings where everyone agrees with me, that yes, the Palestinians have received a bum deal and that yes, we deserve to live in our land in peace. Those words are so powerful and so healing, the very words that I have been longing to hear, like a child who has waited his whole life to hear his father say, "I love you."

I take that back. It is not his father speaking. It is more like his brother speaking, assuring him that his father loves him. The words are comforting, affirming, assuring; they speak the truth and there is release in that. But the reality is that the words stay in that conference room and what is so clear and true in the four walls of that room will never be given credit on the outside of those walls. On the outside, things go on much as they ever did, leaving us wonder--why is everything so clear in the conference and then so muddied outside of these walls?

Persuading

Our high school is all abuzz because we are going to have a renown guest speaker who will be addressing our student body, along with parents, alumni and other guests. We want to model academic debate to our students, so we have picked a topic and a panel and hope to have a lively and stimulating debate.

The topic: Israel. Palestine. Questions related to democracy. And should we, Christians, support Israel?

The panel: The guest speaker, another teacher and me.

Most people would think, what's the problem? You have something to say, a perspective to offer. Certainly reasonable, articulate and mature adults can have a discussion about these political topics. But the reality is that I will not have a level playing field.

First, I am the only woman on the panel. This means that I will have to meet the (much older) men on the panel on their ground, not on my own. I will not be able to use the persuasive techniques that I am best at because they are "feminine" in nature and therefore discredited. I am good at ethos, proofs based upon my experience and personal credibility and pathos, proofs based upon emotional appeals. No matter how legitimate these appeals, I will have to avoid them. Instead, I will have to use logos, logical appeals based upon cold facts and evidence.

Second, I will certainly be the only Palestinian, and the only Arab, and possibly the only person who has travelled in the Arab world (with the exception of my other panelists) in the room.

Third, even though I am a Palestinian, no one there will see me as one. Instead, they will see me as Mrs. M, their teacher for the past five years. Their coworker who graduated from a college in Chicago. If I were a guest speaker, there would be at least a little deference for being the "other" in their midst. There would be a little trepidation that would prevent them from asking the really offensive question. Instead, I am too safe. Would you ask the same questions to a minority person as you would in a room without a single minority? But when I am offended, I am seen as just overly touchy.

Fourth, for everyone else in the room, this will be an intellectual exercise. This is neutral territory. For me, this is my life. This is my identity. This is my family tree, my home, my history, my people. So, while everyone else will be cooly arranging the pieces on the chess board, I will probably be bleeding inside and still need to remain cool and factual on the outside.

Fifth, in order to be persuasive, I have to leave behind my Arabness. Arabs are not persuasive to Americans. Americans are persuasive to Americans.

My first thought when I was asked to be on this panel was: not me! Allow me to suggest someone else. But then, as I ran down the list of all of the people who would be better at advocating for my people than I would be, I realized that every single one of the people that I thought of were white American men. Passionate, intelligent, articulate white American men. They would all be SO much better at this than me.

Why in the world am I doing this? I am still not sure. I said yes, I know, but my heart really sank when I was asked. Then again, how can I turn this down? Isn't my calling to educated American Christians about this topic? Isn't this precisely the call that God has given me?

So, I say yes. But I know that this is going to take so much out of me. I know that I am going to stand up there and say what I need to say, but that the personal emotional cost is going to be very high to me. While everyone else in the room will walk out intrigued or bewildered, persuaded or annoyed, satisfied or thoughtful, I will be the only one who has to limp.

"Showing"

So, I'm pregnant! Horray! 14 weeks today! I have finally gotten over the first trimester slump and feel less zombie-like. For two months, I did not enter the kitchen. I smelled things that I have never smelled before. I reverted to toddler-hood: I ate like a toddler, I napped like a toddler, I whined like a toddler.

I shall resist turning this into a pregnancy blog. At least, I will try. However, there are certain issues that have come up that I am thinking about now that I cannot seem to get away from writing about. So, here we go.

Due to the fact that I started to nap and eat like a fiend, I started to (ahem), "show," pretty early on. I'm not sure what I think about that word, "show." But I will tell you this--nothing could have prepared me for the utterly public spectable, or show case that I have become since I became pregnant.

The last time my body was so publicly scrutinized, I was a twelve year old girl struggling to conceal her training bra. Older women would eye me knowingly and tell me that I was "filling out nicely" or that I was "becoming a beautiful young woman." Then they would pointedly look at my body until I squirmed away. Somehow, though, they conveyed to me that I was the one who was not being polite for graciously undergoing this conversation.

Now, everyone eyes me. I came back to my workplace pregnant after the summer off, and gave a presentation. By the time I sat down, several people had apparently used the time to examine me and draw their own conclusions. Imagine my horror, after I tried to demurely break the news, when I learned that a room full of people were secretly scrutinizing my body!

So, I have decided to take every comment that people make about my body in the best possible light. For example,

"My, but you're starting to show already!"
I read: You look beautiful!

"When are you due? April 15? Wow!"
I read: I'm so sorry that your baby is due on tax day.

Sigh. Gone are my visions of slowly emerging as a pregnant women. All eyes are fixed on my growing body, like the fascinated watching of a Chia pet.

I Belong There

I belong there. I have many memories. I was born as everyone is born.

I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends, and a prison cell with a chilly window! I have a wave snatched by seagulls, a panorama of my own.

I have a saturated meadow. In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon, a bird's sustenance, and an immortal olive tree.

I have lived on the land long before swords turned man into prey.

I belong there. When heaven mourns for her mother, I return heaven to her mother.

And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears.

To break the rules, I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood.

I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a single word: Home.

Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet
From Unfortunately, It Was Paradise