Beyond the Wall
The past year has been one of deep personal excavation. Much time spent in the shadowlands, the deep, dark underworld, sifting through what is here, what was inherited, what is mine and what is not. I feel this is so much of the work of life: learning what belongs to us, and what does not. We collect all sorts of things as we wind our way through the world: some literally inherited in our DNA, some infused into our upbringing, some absorbed by our culture and surroundings, and some from our personal experiences. If this were visible, I imagine we would look very much like the junk lady from Labyrinth: covered in trinkets and tchotchkes, some precious, most not. It is painful, rending work to lay all of this out in front of us, see what is actually there—what have we been carrying that we weren’t even aware of?
As social creatures, all of this goes back to relationships. We all operate in life through a network of relationships: chosen and unchosen, necessary and intentional, nourishing and draining. We are always learning and absorbing from these connections both consciously and unconsciously. When forces shake these relationships, creating chasms, opening cracks in the earth for us to see what is beneath, it is inevitably destabilizing. Our guidebooks and roadmaps that we have always relied upon become, in a moment, useless. We search them frantically for instruction, but finding none, must make a choice. It’s terrifying work, charting new paths. It forces us to drag out all of what we thought we knew, everything we’ve collected, and slowly comb through to find what we need, what we’re missing, and indeed—what path we even want to chart and where it goes. It’s winding, wandering, spiraling labor.
I wrote the following piece in February of this year. While it was initially born out of my grief over familial ruptures about what is being perpetrated upon Palestinians, it quickly became a broader expedition into the ways that conditional love, fear, and control inform our closest relationships. The walls are physical: border walls, containments, protections as some may call them, but they are also ephemeral: imposed by thoughts, feelings, and actions. A guiding question for me during this time has been: “Is there another way to get free?” We all have the power of choice; our choices may be limited, they may be infuriating, but we do always have a choice. If we abdicate this power, it will be assigned to someone else. As Motaz Azaiza, Gazan journalist, said earlier this year, “Don’t call yourself a free person if you can’t make changes.”
When I think about why—beyond the surface, obvious reasons—a loved one’s inability to understand and empathize with Palestinians scares and hurts me so deeply: it’s the inability to see another’s humanity as precious, which means that a part of your humanity has been severed, buried, killed, suppressed. If you cannot feel for another—no matter how far away, how different you may feel you are—I do not believe you can fully feel for me, or for yourself. A piece of you is missing. A crucial one. Your love doesn’t feel genuine. There’s an asterisk, an exception. “If you become someone I find too ‘other,’ my love ends there.” It is a cage. For those you claim to love, and for yourself. “Do not stray too far from me, or you journey into a loveless land. Stay inside the borders.”
But—they cannot see how lush and vibrant it is beyond the wall. They cannot imagine it. They do not dream that hands will reach out to hold them as the painful force of love and grief washes over them. They were told it was a wasteland: grey, dusty, barren, lonely. They were told only abandonment waited. They stayed behind the wall, and let the concrete encase their hearts, too. Mothers whispered harsh cautions, warnings of those who left and did not return, could not return. If you go beyond the wall, these comforts will be forever withheld. Fathers used violent hands, believing force could instill a fear of straying, trying to hold us here, where they thought they could keep us safe. They could not see that they only showed us a world of submission, of lack, a shrinking landscape. We knew there was more than this. We made trips to the other side…slipping through hidden doorways under the cover of night at first. Venturing back more and farther as we found the others there—others whose spark recognized our own, who held us, saw us truly for the first time. We returned, we tried to tell of the land we saw, the world that was possible—we saw it with our own eyes! Our beloveds met us with suspicious looks, furrowed brows—no, this cannot be. You have strayed beyond the limits of my love. What could you have possibly found that is more than what I can offer? I have never seen this—no, it cannot be. It must be a trick; do you not remember my warnings? Do you not remember my hands bruising your flesh? There is nothing more than this. You are being deceived. We scream and shake and cry—no, I have seen it—let me show you!
And if they cannot see us, if they refuse to even see the door we have found, we still go. We must. We carry our grief, mourning their calcified hearts. We carry our love, praying for their eyes to open. They do not understand that we leave not only to save ourselves, but to save them too. How can they—they believe our love must be finite, as they understand theirs to be. They do not know. It breaks our hearts to leave. Our grief cracks open our love—we have enough to give.
E-SIMs for Gaza is in desperate need of donated e-SIMs to connect Gazans to loved ones and coordinate aid. If you have the means, please consider supporting this project. If not, consider sharing it to your networks.