Between two Worlds

Born to a Palestinian father and a Slovak mother, the word land has different meanings for me. I was born in former Czechoslovakia, and at the age of eight, immigrated with my parents to my father’s homeland in Haifa, Israel. My connection to Czechoslovakia was lost, as it never had time to set deep roots. For years after coming to Haifa, I couldn’t connect to the new place. There was a world of difference between the East European town I grew up in and this Middle Eastern world with its amalgamation of sensual textures, colors and tastes, intermingling with a vibrant mix of cultures and an edgy political atmosphere.

As a Palestinian, I’m a second-class citizen of Israel. The state is by definition the state of the Jewish people, which on the most superficial level means I can’t relate to any of the state symbols. I am continuously marginalized – politically, socially, culturally, economically. In my homeland, I have to cope with racism on a daily basis: people who don’t want Palestinians in “their” Jewish state, and a government that wants to delete the Arabic names of cities from signs. All this leaves me with a desolate feeling that there will never be a place I can call home. There's a feeling they want to delete me and my history.

My identity will always be intrinsically connected to land. Being an immigrant, I long for a place to call home. Being a Palestinian, I have no such home at the moment.

HIV positive women in Cambodia prohibited to have children

In September, I traveled to the Philippines to deliver a lecture at the Women, Peace and Security: Visions for a New World conference.
Following the conference, a delegation of participants traveled to the conflict-affected area of Mindanao, located in the South of the Philippines.
We held a number of solidarity forums throughout the area, but one impression has stayed in my mind ever since.

In a forum attended by university students, one of the students asked us what we think of the situation of women in Cambodia, where the government has prohibited HIV positive women from having children. Control of population through controlling women’s reproductive rights was one of the main themes of the conference. I answered her by saying that nobody has the right to decide for a woman to have or not to have children, and that I believe women should have the choice to decide for themselves. This is yet another means of controlling our bodies, and it perpetuates the situation where women are perceived as irresponsible and not able to make decisions on their own. My answer was not received positively, but then one of the women from Kenya said that in her country, there is a program that trains HIV positive women who wish to have children on how not to transfer the virus to their babies once they are born. I think that her response made the students think about the issue, and I hope it will be an opening for their questioning authorities and not accepting governmental decisions without criticism.

I am. I am: a woman. A mother. A feminist. A lover. A writer. An activist. An immigrant. A Palestinian. A citizen of Israel. Correction: a second-class citizen of Israel. All these and more compose my identity. Negotiating between these fragments of mine is an ever-demanding task, especially in our intricate reality. A reality where all the parts I just listed are marginalized – each one for different reasons. It can be difficult, but it can also be fun! To make up a new tapestry of identity every day. To invent myself by shuffling and rearranging the pieces in a different way each time. And each time to come up with something new!

Friendship

Recently, I read a post on Susan's blog, one of my blogger-friends from India, where she writes about the importance of her friends in her life. This led me to make a personal comment on her wall about my friends.
Last year, my mother, a very young woman [57 years old], full of live and energy, suffered a stroke. My mother has always been the pillar of our family - taking care of everybody and everything. Being an only child, my own daughter, Michelle, was the joy of her life. She always took Michelle to "fun days" and spoiled her endlessly. I was used to her 10 - 15 phonecalls a day, checking up on me, or calling from the market to see if I needed this or that.

All that was cut short in one moment. In one moment, my family's life had turned upside down. The stroke left half of her body paralyzed, including her ability to speak, read and write. The first few months she was in a wheelchair, and stayed at a rehabilitation center for 4 months. My dad and I took turns to be with her for the whole day, supporting her and helping her emotionally as well as doing physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy exercises with her.

I had to be strong for my mother, but inside I was torn up. I was devastated. I would cry myself to sleep every night. Most of all, I missed the phone ringing and my mom's voice on the other end. Those phonecalls used to be so irritating to me in the past - I would feel that she was getting under my skin with her questions and practical advice. I miss those "irritating" phonecalls the most.

Today, my mom still can't use her right arm, she has trouble walking, and her vocabulary is minimal. But she has made great progress.

Anyway - I got carried away. I actually wanted to write about friendship. Until about 2 years ago, I didn't have any real friends. I had some friends, but not friends whom I can call in the middle of the night and empty my hearts to. In the summer of 2007 I started working in Isha L'Isha - Haifa Feminist Center, which is a community of feminist activist women. I got to know some amazing women - together we demonstrated against war, against homophobia, we marched on the international day against violence against women. Together we laughed, we cried and we planned projects.

These women became my second family. Without these women, I would have collapsed after my mom's stroke. They are my sisters and my mothers. They offered me their support; they said "You can be weak with us. You can collapse and we will carry you." I could call them in the middle of the night and they would come for a cup of tea. I could call them and cry and they would listen.

I am so grateful to these friends, these sisters of mine for supporting me and helping me get through the most difficult year of my life. Without you, I wouldn't have made it.

Thank you!

Political [Personal] Fragments - Coming Up Soon

For those of you who wish to understand life in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, especially its daily effects, I am working right now on a number of "fragments" from my daily life - incidents that highlight the militarization of Israeli society and how it affects me personally, as a Palestinian [second class] citizen of Israel.

These fragments are difficult to write, so it may take some time... it is not easy to write about these things, because they are made up of so many layers.

This activity is straining my mind. That’s the word – straining. Pulling, trying to expand my mind, but the mind has a mind of its own – it resists till the end. It is like a rock. Well, not really – that is a stupid simile. It feels sticky, uncooperative, unwilling to do what I will it to do.

Petals of this Child's Soul

Petals of this Child’s soul –
Crushed with no mercy at all.
The sparks of this Child’s eyes –
Darkened for the rest of days.
The sacred dance of this Flower’s leafs –
Smothered from now until darkness.

Manacles of this Beast
Fury in the heart

A moment of Rage,
A forever of Hatred.

Mysterious Women in Amsterdam

I found this photograph in an old, musty, dark second-hand movie bookshop in Amsterdam. Mistaking it for a regular second-hand bookshop, Dalia and I walked in. On the left, boxes full of black-and-white photographs from old films – most of them too tacky for my taste. Dalia, however, immersed herself in the box, and started rummaging through, looking for photographs of couples in romantic scenes. The photograph of the two women caught my eye just for a split second before it was again buried among cowboys on horses and scenes of prairies.

Dalia had meanwhile already found some couples she wanted for her apartment. I got a bit bored, so I went further into the shop, asking the bookseller if he had any books in English. “All the books are in English. This is a movie bookshop, and all the books are about movies.” Great, I thought to myself. I looked around, more boxes of photographs, a couple of stands with big tacky posters, some albums with rare photographs, and more boxes of more tacky photographs.

I went back over to Dalia’s box, where she was choosing which of the couples will make it back home with her. Then I remembered the two women. I retrieved the photograph, and was mesmerized by it. At first glance, they are just two ordinary women. But when I began contemplating the relationship between them, I realized how ambiguous and enigmatic it is.

One moment they are mother and daughter, the next moment they are sisters, and yet they tease me as if they were lovers.

A mother consoling her daughter, trying to erase the sadness in her eyes, or an angry daughter turning away from her mother?
A scene of two lovers – is one turning away from the other in sorrow, or is it the initial scene of seduction?

I knew this photograph will have a special place – a place of its own – in my life. As I paid for it, I felt elation mingled with exhilaration. As we walked out of the bookshop, I said to Dalia, “I wonder who these women are, from what movie…” Dalia said, very practically, “You want to go back and ask the bookseller? He should know.” I hesitated a moment, my curiosity trying its best to persuade me, the need for knowledge gnawing at the edge of my mind. At last, I said, “No. I actually like the mystery of them. I don’t want to know who they are. Their mystery is what makes the photograph so unearthly. It’s perfect just like it is. Knowing who they are would make it just too ordinary, sucking away all the magic.”

I have hung the photograph over my computer in my office. I know it will travel between my office and my home in the next few months, depending on my mood and my desire to see it. Every time I look up from the computer, I see it, and I spend a few moments contemplating its mysteries. Life is so much more when we have these small, delightful mysteries.

Her Only Weakness

A few drags of hasheesh tonight – not marijuana like always – and I feel as my heavy body slips out of me and – in thin slices – slides in slow motion towards the sheets, detaching itself in the process from me. The body falls away voluptuously, into the dim, clinging fragrance of white desire.

My body drops down, surrendering to the weakness in my bones, giving up the possession over my body to Ziyad, knowing he will be gentle as he takes me into the blackened abyss of my un-conscious mind. He is enraptured by my passivity, by my inability to defend the secret folds of my longing to his uncontrollable fizzing flames. Flames that will embrace me with their heat, protecting me from myself...

The transition to this sublevel of elusive being is smooth, with its seductivity brushing against me, lightly breathing into me...

And only when I completely abandon myself, the moment the silky waters of my orgasm leave my body, spilling out in a wild outburst – only then does he start taking in the pleasure. He waits, holding on to his pleasure, not releasing it until he feels my whole body un-tensing. He then enters me with such explosive force – when even my brain becomes submissive, unable to form thoughts consciously...

Later he tells me, "thank God for the invention of marijuana and hasheesh. For only when you are under their influence you become weak."

"Security" everywhere

You can’t go anywhere in Israel without being searched – your bag, your car, your body. Security guards lurk everywhere – coffee shops, shopping malls, schools, buses, businesses. Their metal detecting machines are ready to slide down your body ever so slowly, revealing those hidden secrets in the folds of your dress.

I try to avoid shopping malls as much as possible. But today I had an errand – Ziyad’s phone was dead and the cell-phone company’s service center is located in the Haifa shopping mall. So I had no choice.

We passed the first security guard – he was sitting on a chair, looking decidedly bored. He thought we were not worth a second glance. A young woman behind the wheel with an unshaved man sitting next to her. Ziyad’s unshaven beard has become his unequivocal stamp: his statement to the world. Not that he needs it, with his dark complexion he undoubtedly looks the part. Now if he were driving, the security guard wouldn’t let us pass so easily. But I guess he only saw me, it was already getting dark, and it was probably the end of his shift and all he wanted was to get the hell out of there – out of his security guard role for the day.

The second security guard stopped us. He opened the back door, making small talk. The “good evening how are you” is meant to identify the distinctive Arabic accent. We had some papers strewn on the back seat, and the guard asked if they were business papers. He then asked me to open the trunk of the car. And that’s where it all began. For some reason, I couldn’t open the trunk. Ziyad came out of the car, tried to open it, but still it wouldn’t budge. Ziyad’s irritation began to surface as he talked to me in Arabic. The guard studied us, still calm. But when Ziyad told him “the trunk won’t open, what’s the problem just let us go,” he began showing signs of distress. He got on his communication radio and reported to a more senior guard “come quickly, there’s a man here who won’t open the trunk for inspection.” I knew that was what Ziyad needed to hear to lose control. “Why did you lie?! Can’t you see I’m trying to open the trunk?! What do you want me to do, it won’t open!!” They exchanged some words, all the while ignoring me. I said to the guard, “listen, friend, the car is mine; I’m responsible for opening the trunk, so you deal with me. And you, Ziyad, get in the car and be quiet.” Ziyad shot me a dark look, telling me “get inside the car and shut up!”

Then another guard appeared, the one summoned. He was calm, I could even see a trace of a smile on his face. “What’s the problem?” “The problem is that your guard here is a liar. The trunk won’t open, and he says that I refuse to open it for inspection.” I tried to make myself visible again, “the car is mine, I’m responsible for it being opened for inspection. The trunk won’t open.” “Shut up,” Ziyad shot at me, this time with a wicked smile. “See how he talks to her? She is so polite, and look how he is behaving,” the first guard tells the second guard. The second guard smiled at me and asked to see my ID card. I handed him my driver’s license instead. “Have a good day,” and he let us go.


Looking back at the incident, I see at least three levels of interaction:
(1) The most obvious one is the “security” issue. Ziyad looks the “terrorist” part: his heavily-accented Hebrew, his agitated mood, unshaven beard and dark skin. He fits the profile security guards are trained to immediately identify. An all too familiar scenario must have run through the guard’s mind: Ziyad was using a “clean-looking” woman as a distraction; the bomb was hidden in the trunk. At a certain point I could see the flash of horror in the guard’s eyes – the bomb would go off, killing us all on the spot. A scenario he got drilled about during his training period, but he never actually imagined he would have to cope with it in real life. Until this moment, it was just theoretical matter he had to study in order to get his gun.
(2) The second level has to do with the politics of identities and ethnicities. The security guard was an Ethiopian immigrant. Ethiopians have been placed by Israeli society at the bottom of the social ladder, even below Arabs. So this was a contest between the two men, each making an effort to make himself look superior by crushing the other into that low inferiority.
(3) The raw, primitive form of male dominance. Each of them tried to prove that he is the “man” and has the final word. I don’t need to go into this – it’s the same old battle of men since the beginning of history.

I’m sure this list is incomplete, and upon deeper examination, additional layers can be revealed. But this was my own personal-political experience, yet again proving that the personal is indeed political.

Memories of Bombing [Second Lebanon War] August 2006

“Moments of Despair”

Sitting in the shelter of our building, I hear one, two, three, four missiles hit Haifa. This time I did not take my cell-phone down with me, and my partner has gone out to a job interview. I am sure one of the missiles has hit just 500 meters from our building – the sound of explosion was so loud. A few minutes go by; all I can hear is my heart beating somewhere close to the surface of my body. It has left its place – I can feel it in my brain…

Fifteen minutes go by and I rush upstairs. I panic. My partner’s phone rings, but no answer. I dial again, with trembling hands, and his phone is dead. I want to run outside into the silent streets and shout his name.

On the news, they are showing the neighborhood where one of the missiles hit. A flash of fear passes in front of my eyes – I immediately recognize the street as the one next to my grandmother’s home. This is exactly where my father parks his car when he goes to visit her. I grab the phone again – and for a moment cannot remember my parents’ number. I have to rake my memory for it before I dial. No answer. I dial three more times, but still no answer. His cell-phone is dead. I rush to the news again and search the faces, the cars, but cannot find him or his car among the images. Where is father???

I don’t know what to do, so I just stand still, waiting for the calamity.

Has my world disappeared in one, single moment? Has it crumbled upon itself?

I sit down on the sofa and wait. For what, I do not know. My brain is empty. I listen for the sounds of sirens, screams, anything, but all I can hear is the silence after death.

I try my parents’ house again, and my father picks up the phone. “You are alive!!!” my father was at home, trying to get in touch with his older brother, who had been at my grandmother’s house at the time of the bombing. Nobody from my family was hurt – at least for the time being.
My partner returns home half an hour later.

Haifa has turned into a ghost town. We wake up to the sounds of missiles and go to sleep with the sounds of Israeli airplanes over our heads and reverberations from Israeli tanks firing into the night, across the border. For my family, life has come to a stop. We stay home all day, shuffling tiredly back and forth between the shelter and the apartment. My body feels stiff from lack of movement. I feel exhaustion – my body is just a hollow container, my mind wanders about, unfocused. During the day, I am afraid to leave the house, and in the evenings, I rush out to buy just the bare necessities.

I have a small bag ready by the door – my passport, documents, money, all my important documents on the tiny disk-on-key, my novel-in-progress, a notebook, and some clothes – in case of an emergency. Then I open the newspaper and I see a Lebanese mother of five carrying some pillows from the wreckage that was her home.

We live in a region where much blood has been shed. But I have never actually felt the fear as I do now. Never before was my life interrupted – or controlled – by war. Never before was my very existence in danger. This war has changed my priorities in life. Things that only yesterday seemed so important to me lose all meaning. When have we become monsters that care nothing for human lives?

I try to focus my mind and think clearly – with no success. There is something deep down within the folds of my soul that is moving ever so violently, trying to escape and make its appearance on the page. I try to put this something into words – but what? Words just fail me. I – master of words – can come up with nothing to write. For no words can convey these feelings of devastation, feelings of the utmost despair.

My MA thesis on sale at Amazon

You can obtain a copy of my thesis, A Space of her Own: Sexuality, Silence, and Negotiating Spaces in Homer's Odyssey and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale at the following link.
If you read it, 'd love to know what you think about it.

Deleting me

I know these things are not new. I know this has been going on for years, I have just chosen to be blind for all these years. Or maybe it was his doing.
Being exposed for the last few months to the escalating political events - especially concerning racism, the Nakba bill, the Arabic city names deleted - and more.
All of a sudden, I was struck with a desolate feeling that there will never be a place on this earth where I can call home.
There's a feeling they want to delete me - to delete all the signs of memory. Of me ever being here.

Where can I go? I am not wanted here, the place I most desire to be. I have a deep, basic need of feeling connected to the earth - and I have this feeling with this place, and now I am set to be deleted - just like that. By pressing "ctrl-alt-delete."
Do they want to erase my whole history? My language? The memory of my footprints? Even that.

It is difficult to write about this in a cohesive way - all is chaos in my mind.

A Space of her Own: Sexuality, Silence, and Negotiating Spaces in Homer’s Odyssey and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale

A Feminist Reading

This is my MA thesis abstract. If you have nothing to do and want to spend a long night under a blanket, let me know and I will send you a copy of the whole thesis.

The present research examines themes of women’s sexuality, silence, power and negotiation of spaces in Homer’s The Odyssey and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. The study employs an open reading of the texts alongside feminist perspectives to offer new, alternative meanings that are hidden within the folds of the dominant, patriarchal discourse. As meaning depends mainly on the lens through which a text is read, the strategies utilized in this research enable fluid shifts in meaning because they open up the texts to alternative possible interpretations. Maneuvering within the dominant discourse and reading between the lines uncovers a space within which women have to struggle in order to find their own private spheres and modes of being.
No research—to my knowledge—has engaged in a comparative study of the two literary works under consideration, despite a number of common elements. The thread connecting these works, and on which the arguments in this study are built, is the image of stone that is prominent in both works. In The Odyssey, Penelope is presented pausing near a pillar of stone a number of times, whereas in The Winter’s Tale, the queen Hermione is turned into a statue of stone at the end of the play. These two images are closely analyzed in relation to these women’s silence and marginalization, and they constitute a central point of reference in exploring the other themes.
A unique element of the present research is that it combines two contrasting approaches often utilized by feminist literary research. The first seeks to uncover the oppressive patriarchal mechanisms which act to marginalize and constrain women, while the second searches for openings in the text which enable an alternative, celebratory reading. In my research, I harness both of these strategies to offer broader possibilities of reading The Odyssey and The Winter’s Tale, paying attention to the possible ways in which these two varying readings can interact to offer broader and richer understandings of the themes dealt with.

(c) All rights reserved to Khulud Khamis.

A typical class in civil studies

Teacher: Today is Independence Day. What are we celebrating?
Student A: The Jewish victory!
Teacher: Good. What else?
Student B: The expulsion of Palestinians from this land.
Student A: Yes, I heard of them. Palestinians.
Teacher: We used to be part of that people, but not anymore.
Student B: So who are we?
Teacher: To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure. Some claim we are Israelis. Others say we are traitors.
Student C: What about the Nakba?
Teacher: Shut your mouth! Can you find anything about it in our books?
Student C: No, but not everything is written in history books.
Teacher: Everything you need to know, everything the Master wants you to know, is written down for you in these books. You must not know anything else!
Student B: So was there a Nakba?
Teacher: I thought I made it clear to you! Repeat after me: There was no Nakba. There was no Nakba!
Class: There was no Nakba.
Teacher: We suffer from an inherent social inferiority.
Class: We suffer from an inherent social inferiority.
Teacher: Only our Master has the right to educate us. We are not able to write our own history books, because we have no history. We have to learn the history of the Master, because we live under his mercy. Tomorrow we will continue and we will read some of the poems of the great national poet.
Student A: Wow! Will we really be studying national poets?
Teacher: Of course, it’s in the curriculum.
Student A: I hope it will be Gassan Kanafany.
Teacher: What did you say?! I told you, a national poet!
Student A: I thought Kanafany was a national poet.
Teacher: He was a traitor! For tomorrow, please read the first two poems by Hayyim Nahman Bialik in your literature books, and we will discuss the historical events related to his poems so you have a better understanding of the history of the Master.
Student C to student A: Kanafany, what a weird name. Bialik sound much more poetic.
Student A: Yeah, I guess so… I hope he is at least as good as Kanafany.

(c) All rights reserved for Khulud Khamis (2008)

She said my language needs more variety. That my writing is lacking. That it's flat. It lacks volume. It needs innovative use of words.
But the words are right here, beside me… stacked all neatly. According to parts of speech: unused adjectives, effective and uncommon adverbs, difficult verbs. Others are classified according to the alphabet. All I have to do is dip into them and take my pick. Choose from among the words the most powerful and momentous, the least expected word.

But what she doesn't get is that sometimes—most times—it feels more like me just to be softly gliding along the page, listening to the whisper of the pencil as it draws the letters and adds the dots. It fills me up with energy. I no longer feel empty when I see the page being colored in black on a white landscape. It is a sketch of words. And it doesn't have to be perfect. Like when an artist makes a sketch of a face—the face has its wrinkles and creases. Life lines… and so does my writing. I want to keep my writing imperfect, maybe even un-perfect. Let it be true to me and true to itself. I don't want to be a commander of metaphors. I don't want to be in total control of my paragraphs. My sentences may be awkward, but I faithfully surrender to the offbeat, syncopated rhythm of my own words… and let them dance their own dance across the page. I let my metaphors be a bit slippery and unpolished. Let them be lacking in precision. Let them be somewhat dissonant. After all, my writing is not about accuracy. It's about fluidity, my words fall onto the page like soft drops of rain on a dry summer ground. There is no order to the rain drops… they just fall…

(c) All rights reserved to Khulud Khamis (2008)

It was not love then.
And it is not love now.
Tayseer used to walk in me.
Now I walk inside Ziyad's body.
I don't know how I walk his body.
But I do remember the way Tayseer used to walk my body.
I would feel him in there, pacing slowly back and forth, up and down, never for a moment resting. The worst of it would come at night, when he would stealthily move into my brain and walk there, not letting me sleep.

I was his well of sadness his secret place - his only place - where he could cry. But he could never really be with me, not Tayseer. He said I made him think too much.
I made him dip into his deepest desires. I made him yearn to be something more than he was. I made him want to break from his prison. The prison of his own being. It took me two years to realize that I was only a body for him. A body he could spend himself inside of... a body to empty his anger inside of...
With me, he could not pretend to be himself. He was forced to be somebody other than himself. With me, he became his real, hidden self. The self he dared not admit to anyone else... not even to himself.

Love is a strange being. It is pure, it is wicked, it is dark and it is voluptous. It is seductive and it is deadly. It makes you scream and it makes you cry. It makes you sad, sometimes mad. It never makes you happy. It leaves you forever thirsty and hungry.
It leaves you spent. It leaves you exhausted. It leaves you dry. And it leaves you empty, never full.

And when love has said her last words, her words of nighttime dreams, you are left with memories alone. Memories that gnaw at your mind... your sanity. Adding in to your sanity, making it insanity. Twisting your soul, wringing it from its breath. But the memories remain, screaming at night, waking you into a dream and then back to another dream and reality and dream again... was it real was it a dream is it night is it time to wake up yet from reality into dream... into sanity into insanity... can I erase time or will time erase time or will memories erase time or will time erase memories... or will he just come and knock on my door and demand his erased memories back...

I was willing to give up my freedom for your love, Tayseer, but now I am left with no love, and still I am a prisoner. A prisoner of time of memories of the desire to erase... to erase what... to erase you... to erase time to erase memories to erase love I don't know anymore...

I was too much for you yet not enough.
Did that scare you? Is that why you attacked me and demanded everything to be back the way it used to be before my madness? Do you know you can never demand of a river to flow in the same place it did the year before? It is against nature! You cannot go back as if there were no madness. This is against nature.

Your love was a prison, so why did I embrace it as if it were freedom? I lost myself inside you, Tayseer. give meb back my time my memories my love my pain my tears my body my power my strength give me back my weakness my sparkle my passion give me back my fire... it is against nature. You cannot give back fire that was raging and raving so ravenously so savagely... with your body tangled inside my body my mind thinking your thoughts my body feeling your heat your fire your weakness your pain the desert of your emotions. Cold!

Ziyad... Ziyad is weak. Ziyad is strong. Ziyad is weak is strong.
Ziyad is my angel. He carries my weaknesses for me so I can be strong. He contains all my pain within his being, emracing it lest it fainlty drains out... he creates unknown dimensions of sadness for me to walk through. He takes away my madness and hides it, then gives it back, drop by drop.

Tayseer let me carry my pain and my sadness, and out of the pain and sadness my writing was born.

Ziyad carries my pain and my sadness so I can be free to write.

I can write out of pain and sadness and I can write without pain and sadness. When is my writing better, calmer, richer? Was it better with Tayseer or is it better, richer in its texture and taste with Ziyad? Sometimes I long for Tayseer so I can write out of pain out of sadness out of the violet violent fury the rage the madness. But writing with Ziyad is calmer is soothing is warm is like the sea in the summer is full of passion devotion is on fire...

Tayseer filled my world my body Ziyad turned my body into an olive tree. A dry ancient olive tree. But this dry ancient olive tree bears dark green big round rich olives. Olives that are bitter to the mouth, but this is home! Ziyad is my home my sacred temple my land my earth my home, my home! It is good to be a dry ancient olive tree, because you know you will live to be two hundred three hundred a thousand years old, and you will bear olives every year and be a mother every time. all over again, be a mother every time for the first time. The mother of all olive children. Make dark thick rich olive oil that is almost black green that is life green that is my writing - life.

Planted four thousand years ago before Him and then two thousand more. Older than in any other land, with more knots decorating my trunk than in Ancient Greece.

Tayseer was the Haifa bay I was a drop of water a grain of dry sand longing to be saturated to be filled with his water his tide his power his force I was helpless unresisting longing desiring. Ziyad is my field my land under which my roots grow tangled up with mud. I stand stable resisting the winds of the winter my branches ancient dry my leaves tiny my fruit the bitter olive. I bear fruit without being watered. A strong olive tree. An ancient olive tree. Mother.

In Tayseer I was lost with Ziyad I am the origin of all angels of all mothers. Of love. Tayseer was my beginning my birth was my creatin was my morning. Ziyad is my warm evening my life my growth.

Ziyad will make a goddess of me worship my oil my sacred fruit.

(c) all rights reserved to Khulud Khamis (2008)

A Heart from Jenin

Ahmad El Khatib was only 12 years old when shot dead by the Israeli "Defence Forces." He was playing with a plastic gun and they thought he was a "terrorist."

His parents, Abla and Ismael El Khatib, decided to fight back with the most human weapon there could ever be - to donate little Ahmad's organs (including his heart) to children citizens of Israel.

Six children received Ahmad's organs. One didn't make it out of the operation room, and two decided to remain anonymous. The rest are a Bedouin boy from the Negev desert, a Druze girl from the Galilee, and a religious Jewish girl from Jerusalem. Ismael regularly visits the two Arab families, and he sees in these young children the life of Ahmad. To him, part of Ahmad is still alive.

The emotional story is told in the documentary film A Heart from Jenin, which was screened in Haifa in May. After the screening of the film, there was an opportunity for the audience to engage in a discussion with the Ismael and the film director, Marcus.

A man got up, introduced himself as a physician, and began his colonial monologue:
"We - the Arabs of the 'inside' - have great power. We can help you. We have a lot of influence in hospitals. If you just come to us, and ask us for help, we will help you."

This discourse of power, the strong 'us' coming to save the weak 'you' is an emulation of the very colonial discourse we are trying so hard to eradicate. It was difficult to sit there and listen to this complete blindness to reality, the ignorance of the mechanisms at work.

Every day, there are Palestinians passing through checkpoints from the West Bank to Israeli hospitals for medical procedures. Every day, there are women (some men, but mainly women), who give up hours of sleep, fill up their car tanks, and head to these checkpoints to drive children, women, men, and the elderly to the hospitals, stay there with them, and then back to the checkpoint.

The physician’s speech only showed how some of the Palestinians living inside Israel are ignorant of the reality. They prefer to watch the news and say “oh, poor Palestinians. I wish there was something I could do to help them.” And then, when the news is over, they continue on with their bourgeois lives. They make no effort whatsoever to get up, open the door and take some active steps.

I am positive that the physician who spoke at the film screening has done nothing since then.

When will we stop using the colonialist discourse? When will we start seeing that we have a responsibility towards ourselves?

(c) All rights reserved to Khulud Khamis (2008)

Holding Back the Words... Holding Back on Writing

Holding back the words... holding back on writing. Waiting for as long as the heavy, humid, sticky air hovers over the Carmel.
Like holding back on smoking. Going out on the balcony with my kahwa, dropping into my chair, facing the Haifa bay, slowly dragging a menthol cigarette out of its green-white box, studying the filter, sipping from the finjan, putting the white thin cigarette between my dry lips, taking the yellow lighter, lighting it, watching the flame for a while as it flickers in the soft breeze, bringing it close to my lips, closer, until it almost kisses the cigarette... then the flame goes out. I put back the cigarette into its box, its home, but upside down, so that a brown eye stares out into the world, among all-white eyes... sipping again from the finjan, the kahwa is dark, thick like the air... Ziyad forgot to put sugar in the kahwa... no matter. It always tastes bitter, no matter how much sugar you add... getting up from the chair, heavily dragging my feet back to my study... waiting... waiting another hour until I light that brown-eyed cigarette... and then... and then... inhaling the sublime smoke into my lungs. Letting the drug spread inside my body, slowly... feeling the cool sensation spreading in my lungs, and into my mind... then comes the dizziness. The dizziness of a first cigarette the body has been longing for...

Holding back on words, holding back on writing, feeling the dizziness when I finally write, the words spilling out at a fascinating speed, racing the mind for the words, chasing the thoughts word... by word...

Holding back on words... is like - is like - a forgotten, lidded pot on the stove... the water starts boiling, slowly making the lid dance at first, and then, with a volcanic outburst, it spill over, putting out the flame, making a mess underneath... dancing bubbles of water... dancing words on the page...

Holding back on writing, holding back the words... dancing words, unearthly dizziness in the mind...

(c) all rights reserved to Khulud Khamis (2008)

Uganda pictures

For those who are just begging for pictures of my trip to Uganda, here's a little taste at http://picasaweb.google.com/khulud.kh/Uganda2007

One must have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. Nietzsche

Do psychological motivation, rational causality, unity, integrity, and high purpose give way to postmodern fragment, play, deflation, and parody?

I'd really love to read what YOU think about this.

The Mask

A mask on my face - a mud mask.

To make me - who?

Someone new?

Or maybe just a new... me?

I will find out when I wash it off.

Or maybe I will wash off a part of my self...

Terrifying thought...

I left the mask on for twelve minutes - the instructions said five to ten - just to be on the safe side.

I felt my face all shrivelled up.

Then I washed it off with lukewarm water - just like the instructions said.

And when I looked in the mirror,

It was still ME staring back at myself...

(c) all rights reserved to Khulud Khamis (2008)

Memories from Africa

Africa, the forgotten continent, the black continent, the one which we - Muzungus - have taken advantage of since the early days of civilization. We stole Africa's Majesty, stripped it to the bone and beyond, didn't leave a grain of sand untouched.

We just took, like hungry vultures, like the sea crashing upon the craggy shores on a stormy night - angry, wanting, conquering, never satisfied, not even when Africa is bleeding.

Africa has always been a mystery to me - a dream land of past and of colorful people, rich cultures, connected by an invisible thread to Mother Earth.

(to be continued...)

Petals of this child's soul -

Crushed with no mercy at all.

The sparks of this Child's eyes -

Darkened for the rest of days.

The sacred dance of this Flower's leaves -

Smothered from now until darkness.

Manacles of this Beast

Fury in the heart.

A moment of Rage,

A forever of Hatred.

(c) all rights reserved to Khulud Khamis (2008)

Chains of thoughts - on a heavy string of rusty, hollowed metal - dragging on to no visible end...

(c) all rights reserved to Khulud Khamis (2008)

Words

Words are but utterances...

Like the crispy falling leaves of a tree in autumn

Once they leave their boughs,

They lose all life, all essense, falling apart,

And they cease to exist...

(c) all rights reserved to Khulud Khamis