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(Source: makemestfu, via postmodernismruinedme)
After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used— She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers— And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands— With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. Not everything is lost.
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?
She stopped crying.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.
Questions.
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.
Non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.
—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.
This can still happen anywhere.
— Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.” I think this poem may be making the rounds, this week, but that’s as it should be. (via awelltraveledwoman)
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If we actually started calling bullying what it is and address it as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, fat phobia and classism it would actually give children a better way to deal with the very same power dynamics they will face as adults, while also giving adults more responsibility to challenge the intolerance that is rooted within our society overall.
— - Amanda Levitt at Fat Body Politics (October 5th, 2012)
(via feminisminapapercup)
Nobody really owns anything. We give back our bodies at the end of our lives. We own our thoughts, but everything else is just borrowed. We use it for a while, then pass it on. Everything. We borrow the sun that shines on us today from the people on the other side of the world while they borrow the moon from us. Then we give it back. We can’t keep the sun, no matter how afraid we are of the dark. We borrow our food. What we eat becomes fertilizer that goes back into the earth and gets turned back into food. Everything is borrowed. Once I realized that, I stopped worrying about how I would survive. I didn’t need to have anything, I just needed to borrow.
— No ordinary day, Deborah Ellis (via thatkindofwoman)
(Source: vegan-veins, via awelltraveledwoman)
