We are the World

Nobody speaks English at the play park, almost nobody. As I walk towards the merry-go-round, a modern version of one, I catch a glimpse of the only blonde hair in view and determine that they must be the only ones here whose native language is English. As I get closer to them, I hear their mother call out to them in Arabic. Maybe, they are Lebanese, I think. She speaks more, and I realise that they probably Russian or of some Eastern European descent. We could easily be on a set for the song ‘We are the world’. Besides my own fluffy hair, all else is long black, and flowy when not covered. A secret agent must have landed here last Sunday. His email read, The worker bees behind the Tech World Order are pigmented and gather here. Thanks to this, an hundred thousand dollar block was slapped against more migration.

© amk

Transplanted

Brook Street is a picture; static and silent that even the trees that line the smooth grey lane seem to hold their breath. The houses, are symmetrical, in rows directly opposite each other, bushy round shrubs along the designated concrete pathways that lead to the front doors. The roofs are identical in matte black and brick pattern. The hiking trail in the valley behind, is a neon green lean-forest backdrop and the sky above the houses, is high, bright and deep blue, sometimes with not even a cloud in view. The small stack of post office boxes at the top of the slope actually brings the post.

Children do not run outside, naked or screaming, except mine sometimes. I have seen our neighbour to the left, twice the past year. Once I heard the bang of a door and a young woman of approved colour, stealthily climbing out of her house under the cover of dawn, with a big black dog beside her. The second time, I saw the silhouette of her workout clothes disappear behind the car. I have seen the packages brought to her door, Amazon, food but I have not see how they get inside.

The neighbours to the right side are different. Their compound is a riot against the backyard of the house on their right. Overgrown pumpkins, chillis, luffa gourds and colourful Punjabis drying in the sun opposing the cool pool, hanging lights and matching plants of a lounge area. Sometimes I see a small old man at a sewing machine making or repairing clothes. Every time I stand by the window in the children’s room, I see a new adult or child. They are the only people on the street sometimes, in the evenings, carrying children back and forth from their house to another house on the street with a family of people just like them. With this web of true community and their reverent dedication to frugality, it will probably take them five years to own all the houses on the street, including the one with the pool.

Lost

“You mentioned that he is taking a medication called N. I. L??”

I’m at the dentist with three children, the six year old reclining on the patient chair. Getting here took three phone calls, some redirected and connected to another, on hold for minutes, questions about in-network and out of network and finally an appointment. Seven pages of documents to fill and sign online, we were to arrive at least fifteen minutes before to fill more paperwork. If we were late, and they had to cancel, we would be charged a fee.

The nurse asks me more questions about the forms, about this medication called n. i. l. “en i l?” I ask, a laugh stuck in my throat. “No. I meant, no.” I want to explain that nil means no and that we were taught to write nil in formal written documents and I have been doing this for years but I don’t think she’ll understand so I keep quiet. I ask her about x-rays. Does he need four more x-rays just to take out his tooth? She can’t answer. “Oh sorry, the doctor will tell you about that, I’m just the hygienist.”

The dentist says that, the radiation from an x-ray is about the same as a flight from here to New York, or even eating a banana. How many bananas do people from where I come from eat? He has a Southern twang. I tell him that growing up I thought one should have few than three ex-rays in their life. The technology has changed. X-rays are now digital, he adds. I nod and attempt a smile. He turns towards me and stares deeply into my eyes, the way gentlemanly Texans do, the way the Pastor at our church did, and in a firm calming way says, If I ever have questions about x-rays or anything else, I should never be afraid to ask him.

“What did you do for the summer? You guys travel?” He had asked enthusiastically at the beginning of the consultation.

“No.” I try to relax my face.

His beach blonde hair, the brownish tint to his pink skin and the lines on the side of his eyes, he had probably spent summer at the ocean somewhere. He probably came from a long line of dentists and doctors, ones for whom Texas has been home for generations. Domestic flights have been a hot spot for nationalist rules this summer. I’m usually unprepared for small talk. I’m exceptionally unprepared for small talk on domestic migration for international migrants. The media is awash with stories. The laws are changing. He shows me a chart of the bone structure of the child’s teeth. They are fine, developing properly. It will take maybe six months for them to get out. If we would like, he can do a teeth cleaning. Oh no, next time. Thank you so much. It’s been ten minutes.

© amk

Being here somehow reminded me of the series LOST. So at first, I asked everyone their background story. What did they do before they came here? I wanted to know how they got here. The real equation I wanted to answer was, who they were. One plus one equals two, two plus two equals who. I asked less and less over time and now, I know not to.

Yet somehow, I have found the answers to my intrusive inquiries, not because of the vague, loose adventurous stories of how we escaped the previous world, but in the way appear at gatherings and disappear in between and the exceptionally unsophisticated way, the symbols of power and longstanding, the OGs isolate, destroying by tongue or by craft, those who uncover the veil, those whose vulnerabilities cause them to seek anything other than an abstract idea of friendship.

Power

Is love stronger than power? Is love stronger than pride – Sade? I find myself, once again in a chaotic pattern of confusing dissonance and open doors with questions that have no conclusions, an ever changing battle between true and false. There are giants behind the doors. I have not taken my offerings to the gods of this place. They are never enough.

© amk

There used to be a line drawn between those who stayed and those who left. Each one the antagonist in the other one’s story. One, a partaker of the fallen system, a beneficiary of the fallen meritocracy and therefore corrupt, the other an escapist, a coward, an overworked pilgrim of underground work with felled dignity. My background disqualifies me to many, of pride and waning allegiance to a past where old wounds would rather be forgotten by those who came. Now there are green cards, mortgages and electric cars- level ground and, most of all, there are no tribal montages here, here we all are the same.

************

My almost one year old demands that I actually spend time with her these days and not hide in virtual spaces. Nothing I give her is enough to keep her attention- not my milk, not smiles, not kisses, not clapping. She noticed that I hold something in my hand most of the time, so she cries for it, eats it and holds it and looks at it the same way I do. Sometimes she grunts as she stares at me staring at the phone when I’m feeding her and I turn to her and wonder how long she’s been there. She demands that we sleep at the same, next to each other, effortlessly, my scent on her nose her hand on my ear or her head on my head.

Happy Birthday Zaza.

© amk

******

I turned a year older too.

His mercies are new every morning, His faithfulness every night.

Love never fails.

© amk