swinging to the moon

Grassy hills with a perfect slope for tumbling. Trees with roots wrapped around their bases. A softball field with powdery red sand. Basketball hoops standing back-to-back. Not one, but two playgrounds.

Welcome to heaven — er, the park.

At a picnic yesterday, my sister and I welcomed back a ‘ammu (uncle) who’d just returned from Libya. He told us that you could not find a single park like this in the entire country. So much potential. Little infrastructure.

My sister and I thought about that as we broke off from the predominantly parent-and-young-child party to take a stroll.

I asked my sister, “How do you build infrastructure? I mean, why isn’t there infrastructure? All it takes is a little money and you should be able to make this all happen.”  After all, Libya is, by no stretch of the means, poor.

“Corruption.” My sister replied. The money’s there, but not there. “Still, if people took initiative, they could do whatever they wanted. If one person in every city built a park for her community, using personal or public funds, it would be done.”

As my eyes revisited the green stretch of land that ends where stately houses begin, I imagined a careworn dusty Libya. I thought about how, as the daughter of immigrants, I may very well have been born and raised elsewhere in the world had things turned out differently. I might never, then, have enjoyed this breeze, this view, this grassy seat on a hill.

Later that day, when the sun king had fled and a yellow crescent presided in its place, my sister and I hit the swings. Most of the children had gone, so the playground was vacant. The night gave us a delicious sense of privacy in a public place, and we set off, gliding into a velvet sky.

Then two little boys arrived. Polite little boys, I might add. I moved to let them sit next to each other on the swings, and my sister and I took turns pushing each other, as if we were as little as they. As I prepared to make my “launch” to the moon, the little boys did the countdown.

“If you could plant any flag on the moon, what would it be?” I asked them, in a series of off-the-top-of-my-head questions. “America!” came the answer, faster than I’d expected.

“If you could paint the moon any color, what would it be?” was the next query.

“Black.” One of them said. “Red,” said the other.

Hah. I thought. A grim world that would be that had a black moon lost in a black sky, or a red orb looking down on a planet where red sadly evokes the color of blood. (Why did I not think of red as the color of carnations instead? Perhaps I’ve seen one too many horror movies. Or was it too many episodes of the evening news?)

As I felt myself rise nearer the moon (albeit only inches nearer), I saw skating parks on those craters. Snowboarding on the white slopes. Houses, cars, parks. An unlikely vision.

I realized how alarming it would be to look up at the night sky and see civilization — and corruption — painting itself across the face of that crescent. After all, I hardly look to the moon to see a reflection of my world.

The moon, I realized, is like the park — one of this life’s adornments. Free for everyone or, more accurately, anyone who stands within the U.S.’s borders. Unlike the park, however, the moon is universally accessible. It is operational without the least human maintenance. And it is visually if not actually out of this world.

If Libya’s would-be-parks are as bald as the moon, I shall still think there is goodness in the world so long as we can all look up after a long, tiresome day, and be comforted by a crescent neither black nor red.

of libyandom

I met a couple of Libyan girls the other day. Now let me tell you, when Libyan X meets Libyan Y (four X chromosomes total), here’s what goes down:

First, there’s doubt, skepticism, outright disbelief. Is it humanly possible that Libyan Americans exist whom I do not know? Absolutely not! There must be some mistake in your identity. You must be Lebanese.

Second, there’s jubilation. No freaking way! Where from? During this phase of realization, a circle dance involving gripping the hands of the young lady in front of you often transpires.

Third, there’s the frantic search for common friends and quite possibly common genes. You know L and A? Of course you do, you’re all from the Midwest!

After I ran through these emotions twice upon meeting two Libyan girls consecutively, we got down to more material conversation pieces. Like the Libyan refugee experience. And then, as is wont among womenfolk (and humanfolk, more generally), a fiery debate about a more-or-less insignificant matter.

Is anything worth preserving of Libyan culture? I asked.

What blasphemy, you speak, Tamatim! The clothes and the food, Y argued, are priceless. They must be passed on to future generations of little Libyan Americans. How ever could they not? The tots would starve without this dish or that!

I agreed in so far as mbattan (the best potato platter on God’s green earth) and the notorious sharba libiya (Libyan soup) were concerned.  I opined, however, that the disturbing, torturous and inedible ‘usban (stuffed intestines) could go to the wolves for all I cared.

A conversation about the charms of the male Libyan outfit commenced. (Women’s wedding gear was deemed beautiful, hands down). Unlike my three Libyan companions who swore they’d swoon upon seeing fellas decked out in Libyan gear, the only garb I admired among Baba’s things was the barnous, a hooded cloak befitting Zorro and other splendid superheroes.

The navy blue wool used to fall heavily from Baba’s shoulders on Eid day, and my siblings and I used to hide behind its curtain, chasing each other around. The barnous housed cheerful memories, so my brain had marked it in its books as a pleasant garment. I should happily wear the barnous any day, I announced — let gender norms go to the devil. To my utter displeasure, however, Y volunteered that the barnous was not even Libyan. “It must be Tunisian or Moroccan.” I threw my hands in the air, exasperated. Okay, then the only thing I shall smile upon is the shannah (the round felt hat).

After exhausting the topics of food and clothing, we unwed lassies debated the general likeability of Libyan husbands. Naturally, every one of us resorted to personal experience — dads, friends’ dads, etc. The pendulum swung from generalizations to qualified generalizations to qualified generalizations with qualifiers and exceptions, until basically nothing could be safely stated that was worth any value.

I felt awful after that conversation. Not because the other girls had said anything to offend, but because I had been so critical of all things Libyan. Whatever criticisms I had shared could hardly be called constructive. Plus, for someone like me, who is of mixed lineage, there is always a resort. If the Libyan in me is under fire, I might comfort myself at night by embracing my Palestinian half or my Chilean half or my Egyptian half — whatever the case may be. For a person of exclusive Libyan ancestry, however, a conversation with a bitter aftertaste is doubly bitter.

Being the irredeemable nerd that I am, I remembered Aunt Gardiner’s admonishment to Lizzy Bennet in the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice:

Lizzy: Believe me. Men are either eaten up with arrogance or stupidity. If they are amiable, they are so easily led they have no minds of their own whatsoever.

Mrs. Gardiner: Take care, my love. That savors strongly of bitterness.

Then, I laughed to myself that, even in my self-censure, I mentally cast myself as Lizzy Bennet, one of the most witty characters in English literature. Apparently, my self resists all humbling.

get out of the car

Baba recited a four-line poem in Arabic. Did I understand a word of it? No. Why? Because it was in a Libyan Bedouin dialect even he doesn’t speak. Did that stop my language-savvy Palestinian mother from decoding it? Absolutely not.

“Oh, it’s about someone shredding his papers after passing.” Well that certainly clears things up! Ten minutes and two parental explanations later, here’s what I found out:

In Libya (we’re talking some 30+ years ago, so this isn’t exactly dependable empirical evidence here), the conductors of driving tests would sometimes have some fun at your expense. For example, it’ll be your right of way and the guy’ll tell you to stop stop stop! If you stop, then that’s a mistake. And if you make one mistake, you’ve failed. No three-strikes out rule. So for those of us (who will go unnamed) who made every possible mistake without failing the test (including driving against traffic), we can thank our heavens that people like us are allowed to keep America’s streets safe.

So the poem was about a lil’ ole’ somebody’s frustration with the system: going through the queues, taking the test, making a mistake, giving the conductor a paper to have him write ‘Failed’ across the top, and stepping out of the car right then and there. (For worst results, repeat steps 1-5). The poet’s persona is so pissed, in fact, that, when he finally passes, he tears the paper to shreds. I would too. That, or I’d drive without a license. According to my brother, who’s been to Libya, everyone seems to be driving under some wacked out non-alcoholic influence anyway.