Though I genuinely wish for this newsletter to be focused on fictional stories, I find myself gravitating more towards reflection today. I hope these words find you wherever you need to be <3
First time evils
I have a tough time remembering my firsts. First time riding a bike, first time tasting something that I loved, first time I rode a train. I struggle to remember the first time I experienced joy, the first book I lost myself in, the first time I got on a plane. Actually, that’s a lie, I have a general idea of my first time on a plane, because I know it was a trip my family took to Egypt when I was around 4 years old. But I have no recollection of the plane, only very specific parts of the trip, some traumatic: falling extremely ill, being covered in mosquito bites, the way all the colors of our home and my experience while in Egypt felt as if they were color corrected for a film, shades of green everywhere from the inside of our home to the lemon and lime trees that stood in our front yard, palm trees in the distance.
After eight years of therapy, having spent much of that time trying to understand my core memories and the way those memories have affected my development as an adult, I can say that many of my “first” memories involve trauma of some sort. The first time I fell down and really hurt myself while playing was while skateboarding (also for the first time) with a friend in middle school. I fell in a strange way and landed on the front of my right hand, resulting in what looked like a severe burn, injuring my elbows, knees, and hips as well.
I remember the first time my face was bruised from getting hit. I was a little older than the age where it’s still socially acceptable to hit your kids, around 11 or 12. I pray that we evolve as humanity to learn that it should never be socially acceptable to hit our kids. I told everyone that I got hit with a softball during practice and I don’t think anyone believed me.
I remember the first time a kid called me the N word. I was in middle school and I remember feeling confused because I grew up in a family that didn’t understand how to talk about race until I grew older. And even today, it’s messy and confusing and nobody is quite sure what race we’re supposed to identify with in this country as Egyptians. Ask any Egyptian who grew up here and they’ll probably tell you they’ve had a similar experience.
For the last two months, I’ve tried to live through each day as my brain builds and stores away its first memories of televised genocide. A genocide of people who share many of my primary identities, who have shown me what it means to be a person of deep, loving faith, despite the narratives that are created about us. I know that there hasn’t been a day that’s passed in my life without the systematic and intentional killing of oppressed populations. But thanks to social media and far too easy access to information that I have never experienced in my life, the presence of evil that always existed now exists in my face, in a new way that I’m finding impossible to ignore.
The daily process of experiencing this memory building, is harrowing. It involves a regularly deregulated nervous system, love that has nowhere to go, manic episodes of tears, and embarrassment. I feel embarrassed to share how I’m feeling with people who don’t understand what’s happening, and simultaneously embarrassed to hide how I’m feeling for fear that hiding my feelings will release rage on my organs and cause me to spontaneously combust. Even in spaces where it is safe to crumble to pieces, I find myself holding onto the habit of remaining composed for as long as possible. This is why I break down in tears at random moments where tears may not be warranted. Perhaps this is what it feels like to witness and be swept up in the collective psychosis that we are witnessing.
There are a lot of reasons related to collective pain and punishment around these shared identities that cause me to empathize deeply with the oppression of Palestinians. But beyond that, abuse and oppression is activating to witness on both intimate and global levels. I will never be able to look away for that reason.
First time joys
Grief has been a backdrop for many of my most joyful firsts. The joyful celebration of my marriage was an intimate experience that required me to advocate strongly for why I chose not to invite an actively abusive family member to the celebration, one who some of my other family members are still close with. This experience that was ultimately joyful, was suddenly one where I had to hold many truths at the same time — feelings of abundant love, hope for a different familial future and structure, and deep sadness about how a very important member of my family was not allowed to continue to be part of my family.
I became a DJ in 2018, a couple years after the ending of an abusive relationship and the beginning of my first healthy adult relationship. While learning about all the ways in which I had played an active role in the abusive relationship of my past, I pursued DJing to help me reconnect with my truth. After years of abuse both romantically and domestically, I had no idea how to connect with my intuition, but I knew that music was something that could help reorient me. DJing especially, was something I had learned how to do in 2013, and quickly realized how quality selection and correct beat matching required an uninterrupted connection with my intuition. 2018 was the year I played music for the first time in a room for all of my friends. I played an extremely open format set in a tiny speakeasy. I felt so much love and simultaneous dread about performing for the first time in years for a crowd of people. Prior to that, the only times I performed were during poetry readings in college, and during orchestral performances in middle and high school. I forced myself to be present with the music and ignore the transitions that I might have missed.
Arab music has shown up in all of my sets as a DJ since I started studying this craft, and plays an integral part in how I experience music. Many of the melodies I love most in music originate from Arabic maqam — the system of melodic modes, similar to scales — that I am only just beginning to understand. The harmonies I gravitate towards in Western music appear in Arab music as well. This is a genre of music that has moved me to tears, taught me how to bellydance, and provided a foundation for my work as a cultural community events organizer. It is also one that made me feel immense shame and confusion during my childhood, living with a family member that actively encouraged my family and me to erase our cultural and ethnic identity in the face of a largely Zionist town population.
The first music festival I played happened during the summer I learned about a friend and community member who died by suicide. This person was someone I had a few very strong memories with, someone who I’d known for a short period of time whose presence was a tender gift in more ways than I can put to words. The music festival took place in the middle of the woods, and to get there, I rode in a car with a couple of people who were strangers to me at the time. We spent the car ride engaged in conversation around political climate, death, grief, and love. The people I met in that car ended up becoming part of my community, and are people I have deep love and gratitude for to this day. Two of my besties drove from Rhode Island to meet me at the music festival. The weekend was tender for many reasons, but our time together sitting in chairs outside our tents talking and crying about our losses, endings, and struggles while sharing snacks, are among my fondest, most joyful memories.
This year, I DJ’ed the first full SWANA Boiler Room lineup in the US, and played my first international set in Montreal. During these extremely joyful firsts, I witnessed another family member fall deep into suicidal depression and feared regularly for their life.
First time traumas, encounters with evil, and joy, feel particularly interconnected right now. Depression is defined as a consistently low mood and loss of interest in things that we used to enjoy. Perhaps part of the loss of enjoyment is not just the loss of contentment or feelings of pleasure, but the inability to seek out joyful experiences.
But my propensity for depression is exactly why I feel it’s more important than ever to reflect on my joyful moments of life that are relatively new to memory. So that I can continue to build on those tiny moments of joy alongside the inevitable evil that will continue to occur. To rely heavily on my library of joyful memories to propel me forward so that I may continue to endure. To remind myself, that my joys will continue to be born from moments of deep sadness.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this, feel free to share with someone you love.
I began reading this yesterday with my eyes already swollen from tears, so I honor the grief you convey and wholeheartedly advocate for joy finding. That is what helped me see beyond desensitizing shrouds of depression that used to swallow me whole. It’s impressive to learn more about your perspective, and I wish you peace throughout the process. We’ve crossed infinite thresholds to be here now