Returning to rubble isn’t going home. It’s a start, though.
Streets filled with skulls, many with sniper holes in the foreheads, aren’t streets for children. It’s a start, though.
Flattened schools, bombed-out hospitals, dust that chokes the lungs, turning the world gray; this isn’t victory. It’s a start, though.
Here in the “first world” – so named for our self-regard rather than our advancement – we bear the guilt, the blood, the shattered lives of millions. This ceasefire will not repay that debt. It’s a start, though.
Listen to Ray Bryant (Prestige 7098) while the kitten sleeps on his high perch in the sun between two Palestinian flags we’re using as curtains because fuck landlords that’s why.
Ray’s piano is clearly audible over the sound of no bombs. Ike Isaacs’ bass is right there, too, unobscured by drones or gunfire. Nobody’s screaming interferes with Specs Wright’s brushwork.
Every note of John Lewis’s “Django” floats over the comfortable silence like birdsong.
I’ll be honest, when my schedule shifted to hosting the morning show and I could no longer do the vigil, I was quietly relieved. Ten months of standing on that street corner every day had taken it out of me. It wasn’t the people yelling obscenities or “Go Israel!” or “Get a job!” or any of the other inanities. It was the daily parade of apathy. People driving by, glancing in our direction or keeping their eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead. The half-smiles, the “it’s all so sad” eyebrows. Ten months of that just … got to me.
So, when my job schedule changed and I had to stop, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders and a pressure ease in my chest. But in the months since August 9, my last day at the vigil, a different weight has settled on me. A different pressure. Both stem from disconnection. From leaving a fight long before it was won. From not seeing those people who made me feel sane and hopeful every day, even in the face of apathy.
Last Monday I went back to the corner of Rugby Ave and Rugby Rd by myself at 3 PM to stand there for an hour and to see what it was like. I made a double-sided sign using two of my old signs – FREE GAZA NOW and YOUR APATHY KILLS KIDS. I realized that from one direction it wasn’t clear what I was talking about, so on Monday night I went and bought new supplies and made a new double-sided sign that said FREE GAZA NOW on both sides. And on Election Day I went back to the corner and tried again. Then on Friday I went to lunch with a friend I’d met at the morning vigil and told her what I was doing. She and her husband joined me that afternoon, along with a passerby who used to occasionally stand with us and just happened to be walking down the road when we were there.
I’m not ready to commit to every day. But Monday and Friday feels manageable. More than that, it feels necessary. It’s not the only thing to do, but it’s a thing to do. It’s a way to force people to look, even for a second. And to force myself to remember, even when it’s so much easier not to. If you want to join me, I’ll be standing on the corner of Rugby Ave and Rugby Rd on Mondays and Fridays from 3-4 PM. Bring a sign. Feel like yourself. Join me. It’s a small thing, but it’s something.
The monster toppled under its own weight, taking many of those it had terrified with it. As the creature decomposed, returning to soil, crops sprang up in its place: ripe fruits shining in the sun; nourishing greens covering the earth. Where once had been screams there were songs, knitting the past to the newborn future. This is the way of monsters and of what follows: Fear will lose to flowers.
I worked as a reporter and editor and broadcaster for NPR and Bloomberg and Nikkei and Kyodo News World Service and a number of other outlets in both the US and Japan. I loved that work because it felt important. Even sacred. I know there are tons of problems with the way news is owned and reported, but back then I knew less about that, and in any case from the inside it felt different.
Nothing I was ever involved with can compare in any way with what we see journalists going through on the ground in Gaza. Elsewhere, too, of course, but my attention is focused on Gaza right now. I think about how much I felt connected to the mission of reporting, and I imagine how much more connected they must feel to be reporting about the attempted destruction of their own land and people.
I listen to Al Jazeera every day. Part of many of their broadcasts involves their journalists reporting on the deaths of their colleagues and their colleagues’ families, and even on the deaths of their own families. It’s more than anyone should have to endure. The fact that they keep doing it speaks to a strength I can barely comprehend.
