a moment of no beauty 🥀
& the harsh lessons of genocide
Last week, when internet connection was briefly restored in Gaza, I learned from an Instagram post that my friend Nadia had been forcibly displaced. Again. First from her Gaza City home to Khan Younis, and now to a tent somewhere in the south of Gaza. Winter is rainy season in Palestine. A once beloved time of year is now another cruelty thrust onto the people of Gaza, many of whom, like Nadia, have only tarp as their shelter.
Yesterday, I sat on a chilly bench in the warm sun in Washington, DC and fixated on this thought:
There is no beauty in this moment.
As a person and writer who idealizes beauty, sinking into this thought felt like a rupture from a past self.
We are living in a time of genocide. For one third of a year, the Palestinian people of Gaza have been facing annihilation, erasure, and mass murder at the hands of Israel and America. Each day, the depravity enacted by Israel sinks to horrifying new lows.
For nearly one hundred and twenty straight days, I have tuned into the slaughter because it is our duty to bear witness to the carnage that we Americans are the power source of. As a friend, it is my duty to not look away from the suffering of my loved ones in Gaza.
Four months of witnessing genocide has changed me as a person. It has forced me to grow up in harsh ways, forced me to shed some innocence and replace it with contempt. I am no longer a writer with a mission to create beauty. I exist also to name, reveal, and interrogate the ugliness that juxtaposes it. I exist to tell truth.
I recently relocated to DC, where I previously lived for several years. It is a strange time to return to this city, to attempt to live an ordinary life among the people and power structures that have sentenced Gaza to death. I walked by this garbage bin yesterday, and wrote down in my notes app: the entire city has become a canvas to call for justice. There’s nothing beautiful about ceasefire now!—the most basic, humane demand to stop the violence—being scribbled on a trash can. Nothing beautiful, but so simply true.
Last week, I attended poet-turned-novelist Kaveh Akbar’s book launch. He offered a thought: Beauty alone is not the horizon art must approach. It also includes transmitting data of how the world is. Also last week, I was critiqued by a sometimes stranger-sometimes friend-sometimes lover for having a tendency towards idealization. Over the summer, my writing mentor warned me against a pattern my writing has to shroud pain in silk.
It’s humbling how and when some of life’s realizations come to a head.
There are so many noble and awe-inspiring qualities on display in Gaza currently, things like resilience, grace, dignity, honor, and kindness. I no longer find it beautiful to see my people’s magnanimity in spite of such cruelty. There is nothing beautiful about this moment because there is nothing beautiful about genocide.
As I work on this piece, I keep looking at a vase of cut flowers on my table. At first glance, the flowers seem beautiful, they brighten this room that gets little light. But the more expansive truth is that the flowers, severed from their root system, are dying a slow death. Palestinians in Gaza, systematically deprived of life’s basic necessities, severed from their roots, are dying a slow death. My friends are dying a slow death. There’s nothing beautiful about that. What is beautiful are flowers in a garden or blooming on a tree, rooted in what sustains their vitality, moving naturally through cycles of life and death. In this setting, their beauty flourishes not in spite of death, but because of their aliveness.
I feel uncomfortable writing and sharing this piece in the same way I feel uncomfortable moving through a transformation that four months of witnessing genocide demands. My words, like my soul, feel raw and vulnerable. I am unsure of whether I’m perfectly expressing myself through the overwhelming darkness of this moment. I am unsure of myself in so many frightening ways. At the same time, it feels liberating to allow myself to show up imperfectly, to honor the painful truth of who I am right now, even when the me of today feels so far from beautiful.
Truth over beauty. Honesty over romance. The more tolerance I have to hold and name pain, to sit with what is ugly about life, the more worthy I become as a witness and storyteller for Gaza. That is the only purpose that makes any sense to me.
Four months of witnessing genocide has changed me as a person. The change is ongoing and bewildering, clarifying and liberating. I am crushed by what I am seeing. I am also expanded by what I am seeing. I pray for the courage and patience to withstand this painful process of change so I can offer to this world something beyond beautiful. 🥀
"The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say." Anaïs Nin (Thank you for your vulnerability and talent combined)
Thank you for writing all of the above.