Metaphors & Medicine

I wish this post meant that I was home. I dream for the day when I can blog from my home in Palestine and tell you all about the beauty in it, tell you about how amazing it feels to breathe the fresh Arabian air, listen to the Arabic tongues speak their language wherever I turn my ears, and smell the scent of....I've been trying to find a word but all I can think of is the scent of Palestine. Here I am supposed to be working on a project for a class, which I've decided to do about Palestine. It's turned out to be a bad idea, or maybe not bad, but difficult. I pulled out old pictures, and then found myself playing old music, and that was all it took for me to crash. All of a sudden I can't imagine looking out my window and seeing the snow that lies on my front yard, and I can't stand the flatness of my street, or the fact that I can't see my aunt who was my best friend, or my uncle who was the older brother I never had, or the cousin who I was so close with tha...

" Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. " -Maya Angelou I have a lot of places I could start with this. A lot. But I'm going to start by telling a little story about something that happened with me today. I was out eating lunch and when I stood up to toss my trash away, there stood a 12 or 13 year old girl next to me with her mother. As I waited in the line for the dispenser, the young girl just stared at me. People stare all the time, but usually when you look at them, telling them you notice them looking and they shouldn't, they turn away and leave you alone. But this girl kept staring even when I looked at her. And do you know what her mother did? Nothing. This reminds me of another story that happened with my mother's friend. A little boy once pointed at her and cried and his mother looked...

I don't know if every person in the world has this moment in their life where they finally feel like they're doing what they were meant to do, if there's that one moment where they finally feel like they've found themselves after those frustrating years of trying to desperately discover yourself, and failing miserably. Because if there is that moment, then I feel like I'm getting close to it. Earlier this week I made the decision to go to one of many open mics that happen locally, and it had been a while since I'd gone to one. By a while, I mean the last time I went to one was last summer. And let me tell you something. It's not easy to go up and read some of your work, not because it can be an intimidating experience to make the decision to go up and read (which is a reason), but more because it's hard to write something that you look at and say, THIS! THIS I AM READING IN FRONT OF A CROWD! I'm fine with reading in front of people. I feel lucky ...