speak bird
make your marks
After a long, unplanned break, I’m writing again. Not really about the seasons, or this part of the world, but also all about the seasons and all about the world because what else is there?
I have been in a deep sort of winter. I’ve given myself over to the darkness, maybe a bit too readily. Stress and deadlines before Christmas gave way to a creative retreat on the north coast over solstice with the wonderful Kerri ní Dochartaigh. It was pure draíocht - magic, a soul tonic. It felt radical to be nourished, slowly and intentionally at what capitalism tells us is the busiest time of the year. I know I returned to my loved ones more deeply myself then I was when I left.
And then my body fell apart a bit. Mysterious, minor ailments took hold and held fast. I stayed in pyjamas for two whole weeks and barely left the house for three. What does your body dream of? Mine ached for rest, for hibernation and stillness. I am still in that cave of my own making, but this week on the cusp of imbolc I spent time with old friends. We are all holding grief and fear in us, rubbing along side craic, love and tenderness.
At the retreat I said I was bringing tenderness, meaning I was feeling tender. Speaking with one of the other attendees the following day, they commented that they thought I meant I was bringing tenderness as a verb. As a gift maybe, as something to offer. And to me, that small misunderstanding has been such a gift. Because of course it is both. Of course, it always is.
My notebook tells me I wrote this next piece in September 2024, in response to this1:
In diaspora, Palestinians are a fragmented people, hoping to maintain Palestinian culture together across the globe in innovative ways. Many Palestinian children do not speak Arabic or know their history and culture. Colonialism has become the new hungry ghoulah in the real story of Palestine, and that must be negotiated and transcended in the imagination and in reality.
When the tale moves from the “oral” tradition to the “written” tradition, this is a daring action. It signifies entry into a more deliberate world, and a more permanent record.
It got me thinking about the power of words and especially the power of the oral, indigenous traditions. The surprising beauty of stories that are made and remade over and over again with each new telling.
In my mind's eye she is laughing at me, incredulous: "Sure the whole point of a tale is in the telling of it!" The force of these words, real or imagined, pushes my pen aside. I am aghast. What does it mean to fix the sounds we make to a surface? My ancestors formed words from stone, theirs understood the difference between what is spoken aloud and what is confined to mere words. We make these marks, I make these marks, and they are not for her. Her incantation was a spell, meant only for me, each sound a whole universe with no possible translation.
From the new foreword by Ibtisam Barakat of Speak, Bird, Speak Again, Palestinian Arab Folktales compiled by Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana
Tenderness and gifts. Beautiful reflection