I can hear her breathing 🌹

& lessons from the roses, poppies, and bougainvillea of Palestine

Something I loved about Gaza was its bougainvillea, bursts of jewel-toned flowers billowing over concrete walls. I think about them often; they feel like a metaphor for Gaza itself. Life so full, so uncontainable, it spills over cold hard walls, defying imprisonment. Across the street from my office in Gaza, there was a magnificent magenta bougainvillea tree. One day, I asked my photographer friend Asma to take a photo of me in front of it. I wanted to remember it forever.

About a month ago, I experienced a depressive episode that manifested as hours of tears followed by hours of a dissociative, zombie-like state. Over the last few months, I had slowly descended into self-neglect for my physical and mental self, slowly lost my appetite, culminating in a week of unconscious malnourishment. That, along with the compounding stress and anxiety of watching a genocide unfold before my eyes, resulted in a breakdown of my nervous system. With the help of close friends, I decided that day was my rock bottom. I went home to my family in New Jersey for about two weeks, spoke to my therapist about the experience, and began taking antidepressants for the first time in my life. 

In that same visit home, I suddenly lost a childhood friend Sam, a brilliant drummer and skateboarder. Sam suffered from substance abuse and addiction from the age of 19, and eventually lost his life to it. The last contact I had with Sam was through my friend Jeremy whom I visited in Austin, Texas last November. Sam called Jeremy during my visit and after the phone call, Jeremy said, Sam wanted me to tell you that he’s always thought the world of you. 

I extended my stay in New Jersey to attend Sam’s funeral. After the service, we went to his mother’s home and sat in his bedroom with his older brother. We watched videos of Sam drumming and skating, and told stories to his brother, moments that celebrated Sam’s life, his perfections and imperfections. 

The day was sorrowful, marked by a heavy regret that Sam’s life ended the way it did. The day was also cathartic, to be among Sam’s friends and family and send his soul off with love. It made me realize how healing it is to grieve in community, to take the time to sit with and accept loss. 

Sam in his element.

The day also made me realize how we haven’t had a moment to grieve Gaza because the urgency of trying to stop this genocide has taken precedence. I realized how much stagnant emotion had mounted in my body, how I have not given myself the space to truly reflect on and grieve the ongoing magnitude of loss.

A few weeks ago, a friend in Gaza sent me a photo of my former office and apartment building. The building still stands, but it is charred, surrounded by rubble and a cratered street. I studied the photo, and then dissolved into tears. I thought about the version of me that spent five formative years in that building, that worked alongside Palestinians to actively build hope and better futures for the people of Gaza. I thought about how all that work has been deleted—annihilated in the most brutal way. I realize now that this genocide, while not something I am directly enduring, is still something happening to me. I thought about how my past self that operated with a sense of realistic idealism has been extinguished and replaced with a newfound cynicism. That too is a transition that necessitates grief. 

I know that I am not the only person who feels this way, that’s why I feel so compelled to be forthcoming and vulnerable with my words. I write to lessen the distance between humans, and I hope others in the movement find solace and permission to grieve the very many layers of loss we are enduring.

Gaza Sky Geeks, as of July 16th.

Upon prescribing me with medication for my mental health, the psychiatrist diagnosed me with depression, anxious distress, post traumatic stress, and burnout. Labels I never thought would be associated with me, but here we are. In a way, it is relieving to have this diagnosis, to have my anguish neatly captured by language. I asked the psychiatrist: What’s wrong about me that got me here? He said: A rational sensitivity to human suffering, my dear. It’s a beautiful thing to feel another’s pain, but it’s dangerous when you merge with that pain.

The medication thankfully has been relieving for me. The benefits far outweigh the side effects which have been challenging but manageable. Instead of merging with my emotions, I can experience and release them. My tears no longer drain me; they heal me. I feel my body desiring life force energy again through things like exercise, yoga, and breathwork. I’ve replaced late nights out with soulful time with close friends. I walk in nature. I buy fresh produce from the farmer’s market and make myself nourishing meals. I have the energy to continue settling my new apartment, decorating and hanging plants. I take rest when I want to. I have the mental space to read again. 

I am reading a book called Burn Out: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat and it’s giving me mind-expanding perspective of what I am living through. I feel rooted in a history of leftist movements and am reminded that social progress is a process that ebbs and flows. The flows are euphoric and galvanizing, and the ebbs are characterized by deep disillusionment, despair, and depression. The book’s epigraph is a quote from feminist poet Diane Di Prima:

For every revolutionary must at last will his own destruction

rooted as he is in the past he sets out to destroy.

On the onset of the genocide, every Palestinian I knew repeated the line: we will never be the same. I felt that sentiment deep in my bones, but it took me ten months to fully understand it. This experience of self-destruction is inherent to the process of my life being forever altered. Change is always uncomfortable, painful even, but as Octavia Butler says: All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change. God Is Change.

I am changing. I am also healing. I am learning profound lessons on what it means to be resilient, steadfast, and committed to a cause. I look to the people of Gaza, how they put one foot in front of another in the most unimaginable circumstances, and I derive strength to keep going.

I feel like I am learning to walk again. For the first time in my life, I am truly learning what it means to care for and love myself. I am noticing ways I care for the world around me and I am practicing applying those acts to myself. I’ve started with how I care for my plants, making sure they have water, light, and air. I start my mornings sitting in my patio surrounded by trees and flowers, away from the noise of the city. I drink a big glass of water, feel the sunlight on my skin, and take deep breaths. I put my hand on my heart and feel its ache, and breathe deeply. I think of my friends in Gaza and I send them love and strength, and then I take a moment to receive love and strength that I know emanates for me from Gaza. I do this ritual every morning before I start my day. I end my days in the same fashion on the patio. I slowly drink a cup of tea and reflect on the micro-moments of my day, the decisions I made that are slowly rebuilding my vitality. I send and receive love to Gaza before I retire to sleep.

A field of poppies in Palestine.

Yesterday, I heard someone say that a cloud never dies. It returns to earth as rain, and then through the water cycle, the cloud returns again. The Palestinian resistance named this era the flood. I deeply resonate with that metaphor. It reminds me to move like water in this life, to flow with the universe’s rhythms, even when those rhythms are deeply painful. Water is sometimes serene, sometimes a potent, life-altering force. In all instances, water moves righteously and in accordance with the flow of life.  

I think about the staggering amount of death in Gaza and how a martyr, like a cloud, never dies. In Palestine, it’s said that where a martyr’s blood is spilled, a poppy blooms. I am committed to living a life where Palestinian pain is sacred and not in vain. I am committed to embodying a blooming poppy.

This is a time where my activism doesn’t manifest in saying, doing, and organizing. This is a time where my activism manifests as quietly being. More specifically, learning to be whole again, to build back my strength and resilience so that I can be ready to help pick up the pieces of Gaza when the time comes. Rebuilding Gaza one day starts with rebuilding myself today. My friend Ghada, who has been displaced from Gaza and is now a refugee in Germany, shared these words: Rebuilding goes beyond the physical aspects. It involves reconstructing our souls, skills, and professions, shaping our identities from who we were to who we aspire to be. This moment in time is invaluable. It is ugly, harsh, yet it reveals truths. Embrace it, leverage it to the fullest. For the time will come when we all embark on a rebuilding journey. 

Last week, I shared time with my friend Vern. I told her: When I am well again, I’ll return to the work of supporting Gaza. She replied: Getting well again is the work. You are still in the movement. 

Vern is about to give birth to her second son. I have loved being in DC and back in her and her husband Rich’s life. It’s given me joy to build a relationship with their two-year-old son River, who sometimes calls me Nama, a nickname I was given in Palestine. I think about how being a poppy in this world means living beyond the confines of capitalist family units into the realm of chosen family. In Gaza, communal care and love flows abundantly. I honor Gaza by allowing my friendships to deepen beyond surface level hedonism to true community and family. By giving my love to new, little souls that will grace this earth and to be a source of care and guidance as they make their way through this harsh world. Living a life of love, moving against the grain of capitalism, is how I do my part in ensuring the losses of Gaza are not in vain.

Me and River.

Gazan poet Mosab Abu Toha wrote: Don't ever be surprised to see a rose shoulder up among the ruins of the house: This is how we survived.

This is a time of great loss, but we have not lost. I am sure that we are moving towards a free, liberated Palestine. A freer, liberated world. More than ever, Israel has revealed itself to be a pariah state with Netanyahu, one of the chief architects of this genocide, coming to Congress to lobby for American taxpayer money to sustain his illegitimate colonial project. While the ruling class stands and applauds for this warmonger who openly wishes to finish the job, the people gather on the streets of America’s capitol and raise the Palestinian flag. As Arundathi Roy said, Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

Again and again, my mind returns to the emblematic imagery of roses, poppies, and bougainvillea. I think about how flowers are alive—they breathe. I fill my lungs with air and practice trusting that I am on the path of blooming once again.