As Writers We Must Look
As humans we must see
Thank you so much to everyone who has become a paying supporter of this newsletter!
Become a paying subscriber before October 20th and get 15% off of a yearly membership or get 10% off of a monthly membership for a year (hint: the yearly membership is a better deal!)
Paying members keep me from burning out, and they keep this newsletter afloat.
This morning I awoke to my cat leaping at the window, trying to catch one of the cardinals who loves to peck around in the leaf litter. Already the sky was light, and muted soft tones shone throughout my bedroom.
Usually I am up earlier, when it’s still dark, but I gave myself a break today.
Yesterday I finally let myself look at what I had not wanted to look at. Images and videos of children in Gaza. I will not describe them here. Thinking of these children; seeing these children; feeling the hearts of these children; I sobbed. I cannot remember the last time I sobbed. I saw myself reflected in the children— the signs of my own traumas magnified and amplified. I wanted to save them; to rescue them. I prayed to God to save them.
This isn’t what I intended to write about, but here it is. Right on the surface.
I had not been looking because I told myself: I can’t bear it.
I looked, and I realized I will never have to endure what Palestinians are enduring. Have endured. Will endure.
I realized that by not looking I was basking in my privilege, my riches, and everything I take for granted in my daily life. The peace of my daily life.
People in my daily life use the word violence to refer to things that cannot truly harm them.
We forget that waking up in silence is a privilege. A gift.
We construe conflict for violence.
To fight with one another without consequence is a privilege. To sleep through the night. To have a home that will not be taken from us.
I looked, and I saw humanity’s uglyness. And its beauty.
I will describe what I saw, now, and you can decide if you want to keep reading.
I saw a little boy with brown eyes like orbs, standing against a wall, arms by his side, his little palms turned agaist the wall as if clinging. A disembodied voice asks him in in Arabic if he is okay and the little boy’s legs tremble, his arms tremble. He is not older than five. His legs tremble and the voice asks, are you okay? The voice says, it’s okay. The boys face, his eyes so wide as if they are trying to see everything, trembles as he tries to speak.
I think, as I am watching, of all the children I have cared for. I can see on this child’s face that he’s holding so much inside, like a structure holding himself together, but what he holds inside is bigger and more frightening than what any child should ever have to hold, and as the man speaks his face trembles, his lips tremble, betraying his agony.
He cannot look directly at the doctor.
He has what was called, during WWII, a thousand-yard stare.
No, it’s not that. He is not looking off into the distance in a detached way.
He is looking away from the doctor, eyes so wide, so brown, and he is still witnessing whatever it is that has caused his entire body to tremble. His eyes are filled with terror, as if it still happening.
For him, it is still happening.
This boy wears a light green shirt with a dark green collar. It looks the a pajama shirt. I imagine a mother or father slipping the shirt over his head; helping him put his hands through the arm holes.
“Another child waiting for no one at the hospital” is the title of the video.
I remember all the times I have slipped shirts over the heads of children and helped guide their small, limp hands through the arm holes. Eyes wide, I’d surprise them as their heads popped through the top.
I remember all the times I have held children as they cried or comforted them when they were scared.
This boy is not crying.
As the man, a doctor, speaks, the boy nods once. After struggling to control the spasms of his body and face the child speaks, answering a question. Finally he looks up at the doctor. The doctor’s hand reaches into the eye of the camera, and as the hand comes closer to the boy his eyes widen in fear until the hand touches him and pulls him gently into an embrace. The camera’s eye follows as the boy is pulled into the doctor’s arms. They are both on the floor, and we are gazing down at them.
The doctor, kneeling and clad in blue scrubs, his hands sheathed in rubber gloves, cradles the boy like an infant, and the boy’s eyes search the room, glancing at the camera, the doctor, and whatever exists beyond there, never settling. Gently the doctor places his hand on the boy’s chest— oh, the soft, soft chest of a child, and the boy’s face melts and loses all composure as he begins to cry, the corners of his lips pulled wide. First he makes no sound and then he wails.
Unintelligibly the doctor speaks to him, reassuringly, questioningly; stroking the boy’s face and shoulders and pulling him closer. the doctor kisses the boy’s forehead as a parent would. The boy’s forehead
The boy sobs so grateful for this doctor who has unlocked something in this boy, something he should never have to hold inside himself. Something so many Palestinian children will have to hold inside themselves.
As a writer I have promised myself that I will not live in delusion. Therefore, I must look. And I must look with presence. I must look and see what is there, both inside me and inside what I am looking at.
In my sadness and grief I pray.
I know that feeling my sadness and grief, knowing they are here, is in itself a privilege.
I will not internalize this into guilt or fear. I will spend my privileged quiet moments praying for our children and wrapping them in love and peace.
I will do everything I can, even if all I can do is pray and write. Even if that’s all, I will do that. It’s something. It’s better than looking away.
Here is what I wish for us. For the world. For today and tomorrow.
That the cardinals and the whales and the tender children and the clouds and the oceans are free in their movements and atoms meet atoms on their own terms, each allowed to exist peacefully. There is nothing else for me to say.
I saw that boy too. I wish I could wrap up every shaking child in Gaza in my arms. I will never un-see what I’ve seen in the past week. Thanks for always putting into words all the stuff my brain can’t untangle 💔❤️