Who am I?
This is a question I've often returned to, especially these days. And I'm not entirely certain that I know the answer yet.
Especially the past few years of my life, I've been experiencing profound changes, challenges, as well as catalysts that are bringing me, constantly, toward new versions of myself. I'm both dreaming more and also feeling more awake.
Sometimes, being awake is an active choice we make to remain engaged and informed. Other times... we are awoken against our will. For me, both of these things are true.
An important part of my identity is that I am Palestinian, but I was born and raised in the diaspora. I lived most of my youth in the heart of the very empire that sought my destruction. I feel both immensely privileged, as well as profoundly deprived. You'll find this feeling echoed across my writings.
In "We, the heartbroken" Gargi Bhattacharyya said: "We are the broken-hearted not only because of loss, but because of knowledge." Especially in the last few years of awakening, I feel this so deeply. Perhaps ignorance really is bliss because the act of knowing bears such an existentially heavy weight on our hearts and souls. But in a time of genocide, I reject the notion of feigning ignorance.
It was Rumi who said: "You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens." What do you think he meant by that? Could it be that our broken hearts grow stronger or more beautiful each time they repair? Like with the art of Japanese kintsugi, our broken hearts are mended with gold, becoming something new, while holding onto the foundational structures.
In the song "Lucky", Tish Hyman said "All my life I'll give my heart away, cause I know it'll come back three times" which supposes that our love is not finite. That actually the more love we give, the more it multiplies. I hope that my heart doesn't harden during this trying period of life.
I am in a state of constant becoming. I'm making sense of my experiences and the world, and dreaming so loudly that I cannot possibly ignore my fantasies anymore.