Other People's Words

Tears and disappointment create an opening for a counter-history, a story written against the narrative of progress. […] [T]he compulsion to grieve also indicates that liberal remedy has yet to be a solution to racist domination and inequality.

air guitar, director’s cut, gridlock, high five, one-trick pony

κάλλιστον μὲν ἐγὼ λείπω φάος ἠελίοιο, δεύτερον ἄστρα φαεινὰ σεληναίης τε πρόσωπον ἠδὲ καὶ ὡραίους σικύους καὶ μῆλα καὶ ὄγχνας· - The loveliest thing I leave is the sunlight, second, the shining stars and the moon’s face, and cucumbers in season, too, and apples, and pears.

Little Light:

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, Please come to the gate immediately. Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she Did this. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, Sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used— She stopped crying. She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and Would ride next to her—Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and Found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering Questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag— And was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers— Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands— Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped —has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

Prophetic. Her prophecies all came true although she didn’t mean them to.

And I have so little light and wisdom in me, when it comes to such disaster, that I can see nothing for us but the old earth turning onward and time feasting on our suffering along with the rest. Somewhere at the heart of the gales of grief (and of love too, I’ve been told) already they have blown themselves out.

They’re from the same sessions [as ‘St Vincent] and I love both of the songs. They just didn’t quite fit into what I was trying to say with ‘St Vincent’ unfortunately; they just didn’t fit in the weird puzzle piece that is sequencing an album. I want people to hear them and I love them very dearly. They can sort of represent patrilocal and matrifocal versions of the world; mother father sidey-side.

It was really the world that was one’s brutal mother, the one that nursed and neglected you, and your own mother was only your sibling in that world.