As trivial and loaded as a large red heart?

*NOTE: Why am I posting my journal entries? See my inaugural post: Beyond journalism

(*artwork by Incé Husain)

I stare at the concrete ceiling indented with artificial light, crying and convincing myself I must become a war journalist.

I slept over twelve hours. I dreamt of Gaza. I tossed and turned. I am unchanged from the day before. It is hard to eat. It is hard to do many things. But my spine must be straight. No more feeling that there is no ground beneath my feet; I am the ground. Like clockwork, I'll thrive.

Finally, I have written about art and schizophrenia. I have finished transcribing everything for my article on activism and stamina. There was fire in my eyes when I did so. I walked through conviction, ideals, practicality. I plotted how I would write it, where I would begin.

***

I cannot look at photos of newborns or hear the word “child” without dizziness. Today, a prof lectured about developmental child psychology, her powerpoint slide a photo of an incubator. I see Al-Nasr hospital. I put a finger on my pulse; I count my breaths.

I forgot how small a toddler is. I forgot that a toddler’s foot is small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. There was a toddler next to me on the bus today cooing in self-conversation. I wanted to coddle him for being alive, as if it would reach a child in Gaza.  Soon, I’ll write about this properly.

***

I am not allowed to be weak when I wear my keffiyeh. Its patterns, its rhythmicity of black and white, the way it drapes. My shoulders beam with resistance. My heart and mind must follow.

I am glad I rallied with X. She exudes warmth and strength. She will not be battered. Her chants were loud even as she fasted, her conviction inherent as she wove through crowds, planning, plotting, greeting. I should learn from her. I should learn how to shy away from shyness. I never used to be shy.

Locking eyes with keffiyeh-clad youth and tatreez-filled elderly, spoken word about murdered children and sacrificing one’s life for each stone in the homeland, I remembered my quiet frenzy in December, in Fredericton. I was not an individual; my heartbeat and words came from a separate space, some jarred void craving to be a vessel for every single injustice. There was no room for fear or self-consciousness. There was no self. I was a mass of energy functioning within a human form. I sought to avenge every act of oppression. My identity sacrificed itself for this. I carried it into every interaction. People in my life were no longer people, but vessels. I wanted them to bear witness to me and merge with me. My writing grew cold and confused.

I thought of all this, watching X’s hair flutter beneath the Palestinian flag. Slowly, my mind sharpened. I was lulled into a trance. I chanted and marched with the city. I got in the car with X, sun on our faces, and thought of how “dystopia” has no meaning - it is our world, it always has been. Fictionalizing the term creates distance from reality, removes accountability from carnage.

I sleep in a soft bed by the light of a window.

***

I slept four hours. Instagram is flooded with posts like “the final stage of the genocide has started.”

My head is pounding. I came home, snagged another four hours of sleep. I dreamt of code and ceasefire. I have eaten nothing for nearly twelve hours. I made my breakfast - the toasted bread, the bell pepper hummus, the runny yolk and sprinkled cheese. This house is quiet. Outside, there is sunshine and chirping birds.

Hamas accepted the ceasefire agreement. Palestinians in Gaza celebrated. Israel bombs anyway. These are the headlines I woke up to, the series of headlines I screenshotted: Israel strikes targets in eastern Rafah as Netanyahu says deal Hamas accepted is "far from meeting demands" - follow live updates; Israel strikes Rafah, vows to continue operations after Hamas says it accepted Gaza ceasefire proposal - follow live updates.*

My egg tasted good. I will shower, pray, finish writing a paper on eating disorders so I can write about Palestine. I will not punish myself for this normalcy.

Today, as the invasion of Rafah begins, do I send a photo of a tatreez watermelon to a Palestinian who asked me to stitch a resistance motif? I don’t even know what to write.

Y, in Rafah, posts: Is the time to leave again? To find a place again? To find water again? To run looking for the fake safety again? What do I write to her? Do I text her something as trivial and loaded as a large red heart?

There are things I need to do. I need to hold on to clarity. The numbness in me is extreme. It is beyond dissociation. It is dread and nausea. It is a faint buzzing. Do I hear the drones in my skin? The silence of this house is comforting and oppressive; it is a safe haven and claustrophobic. I need to make lists again, move one foot at a time. There is heaviness and difficulty; not hopelessness, but a sense that I cannot cover enough ground.

It will be cleansing for me to transcribe the encampment speeches for my article.

My eyes are sore but less sore than they were. I’ll be fine; I’ll be strong. I must be. My sleep was a prayer. My nausea-racked body is a prayer. The silence of this house makes me feel safe. The silence of this house makes me feel nonexistent.

My head still pounds. Prayers have been hard for me; I feel unfocused and fraudulent; I feel the clock ticking.

I’ll drink my tea. Outside, it is evening, 7:30pm, but the birds still sing and the sunshine is vibrant. I don’t hear any cars; I can pretend that I am in the countryside. I’ll shower, pray, work. I’ll remember my lists. I shut my eyes and wait for them to stop stinging.

I write articles in my head and try to lull my voice out of weakness. I use every weapon available to me - guilt, fear, urgency, mortality. I cannot capture everything going on with me. Is this part of witnessing a live-streamed genocide - the inability to capture everything? It feels weak and self-centred to write about my life.

What do I convey? Here I brush my teeth and brush my hair; here I do my laundry and do the dishes; here my life routines are unchanged, slotted into the banality of evil?

***

I am thinking of the Palestinian child, Abod, who does not have time to deliberate on his journalism so it might manifest “perfectly”. The words and framings spill from him unbridled. Any act of deliberation is a luxury he does not have like I do.

Here I am, waiting for interview material to incubate within me for days so that I can do it “justice” in its momentum and framing. It is true that if one has the time, then an unjust story is unforgivable. But to deliberate as I do is inherently privileged. There is decadence. There is the act of becoming comfortable, of balancing a story with other things, of striving to make it a clear, powerful, idealistic, stalled-till-perfection piece of art.

Was journalism ever meant to be a work of art? Did that concept enter the minds of those who truly strive to report the truth? There is always an artistry to storytelling, but that is different from actively approaching a story, wholly or partly, through the lens of artistic deliberation.

I don’t believe Abod thinks of his reporting as “art”. Neither do Motaz, or Plestia, or Bisan. They are trying to survive, to bear witness, to force the world to bear witness. They are not separate from their reporting. Can I even begin to conceptualize what that means?

Rage fuels my journalism. Rage, desperation, and dignity. I can think of nothing else. There is tunnel-vision, near-blindness. I have no ego, no pain, no fear. Only adrenaline and lucidity - the origins of concentration. I let the morning die; I woke up early, white sunshine pouring through the blinds. I tried to bury my morning rituals of vacillating anxiety. I wrote the tatreez article in one sitting. All I need is a title.

***

Here I am: self-soothing in my erratic way. I am yawning: that’s good, maybe it means I’ll sleep tonight.

I have transcribed the recordings from the vigil.

I think of Francesca Albanese. How did she write “Anatomy of a Genocide”? From what depths did she reel the first sentence - After five months of military operations, Israel has destroyed Gaza? What was the scenery before her - an office, a café, a kitchen, a meadow? Where does one go to write a legal report on genocide while it unfolds and the statistics keep changing? Did the sun shine and the birds sing? Did she cry and take breaks?

I wrote the article at around 3 a.m. My smoke alarm was broken. It wailed in five beeps per minute. A fire hazard, but I couldn’t reach the button even when I tiptoed on a rickety stool. It kept me awake, but I couldn’t bring myself to be distressed anymore. I thought it was fitting to bear its noise while I wrote about the vigil: I thought about the permanent drones that hover over Gaza with their loud buzzing, robbing Palestinians even of sleep.

I down a mug of cherry herbal tea. ♦

*The following two news titles appeared as iPhone notifications from Al Jazeera and BBC apps while news was being reported live. The news links cited are not those corresponding to the live news, but contain equivalent information.