The Absurdity Of Hope
Talking about hope seems absurd, even naive.
This past year, I’ve questioned everything—people and circumstances alike. The world speaks out against oppression, yet nothing changes. My last visit to Palestine was in the summer of 2021. Little did I know, it would be a long time before I could return to the place that holds my heart.
My brothers picked me up from the border—by the way, the worst border is between Jordan, Israel, and Palestine.
The border I’m referring to is more than just a line on a map; it’s a series of strict security checks conducted consecutively by Jordanian, Israeli, and Palestinian authorities. On our way to Nablus, we took the usual route near a large checkpoint known as Zaatra. I noticed trucks and bulldozers digging, and my brother explained the Israelis were building roads to connect the settlements. After Zaatra, we had to pass through Huwwara, a well-known checkpoint. It serves as the main southern entrance to Nablus. Back in 2002, As Palestinians, we had to check Huwwara’s status before traveling between Nablus and Ramallah.
This morning, I spoke with my sister on the phone and asked about the roads. She said, “It’s fine, we passed al-Mrabba’a.” I asked, “What’s that?” She replied, “It’s the new checkpoint we must take. It’s near the northern part of the city, so now the road to Ramallah is half an hour longer. We have to drive around the city, bypass Huwwara, and then head to Ramallah.” I asked what would happen to Huwwara, and she said, “They built a bridge for the settlers, and it seems it will never be open again.”
I mention all these details because this was happening in 2021 and even earlier, long before October 7th. It’s part of a plan unrelated to how Palestinians react or what they do. The nearest feeling of confinement that people here can relate to is the lockdown of COVID-19, which didn’t affect me much as a Palestinian as I was used to it, but we call it curfew. Now, that the world passed COVID 19, the confinement feels more specific and individual, targeting certain people. As a consequence of October 7th, my mom had to return to Palestine earlier than planned, leaving my husband and me alone with a three-week-old small being that has lungs and a mouth. We must keep it alive while witnessing other babies being torn apart.
It breaks my heart to think of the children and babies in Palestine, waking up in fear every night. I can’t help but compare our situation to theirs, and it pains me to say “us” and “them”—us, here in safety, and them, under bombs and in tents. During Toronto’s air show, we were outside with Adam, and when the planes thundered overhead, he clung to me, burying his head in my arms. I myself once cried during that same air show.
As long as those machines fill the sky, I can’t find hope. But after the air show, when Adam began playing again with a bright smile, I knew things had to change. There had to be hope.
I was meant to be with my family, and they were supposed to meet my baby, but we couldn’t go, and they couldn’t come. I have the tendency to be fragile and hopeless, but I carry on because babies feel their mother’s emotions, so I pull myself together and fake some strength. Adam won’t wait for me to find hope again. He needs me now, every day. He’s growing fast, learning to say “Dada,” “Mama,” “Nane”—words that mean “I need something; I want something to help me survive.”
Over the past year, I’ve felt disconnected from the world. Even when surrounded by others, the pain and helplessness kept me from looking outward—I turn inward. The process of motherhood has compelled me to focus on my sense of self, what I was becoming, and being denied the ability to be who I was. This dual sense of both loss and gain creates a complex emotional space that didn’t happen naturally because of what is happening in my home country.
The fact that I couldn’t go back was more than just wanting my family to meet my baby. It was about wanting to be in my city. I have nightmares that one day I won’t be able to return, or that the city will change. This fear is valid because we’re witnessing that change now.
I grieve the loss of the landscape and the entrance to Nablus as I once knew it. I can’t pass by there anymore, and I’ll never see Nablus the way I used to from that southern entrance. No wonder I obsessively filmed every trip I took when I was there—those videos are all that remain, footage of a memory. We cling to every photo or video we take there because each time might be the last. I always check my phone based on the hour there; I sleep and wake up based on the hour there, although I am here. Since I left Palestine, I have lived in between two times… I stand between two worlds, caught in the seven-hour difference between Nablus and Toronto.
Is my heart here, where dawn breaks slow and soft, or seven hours ahead, where the sun already fades? I am neither here nor there, lost in the question of where I belong. What is my time? Is it now, where my feet touch the floor in the middle of the night as an immediate response to an immediate need to hold a crying baby, or far beyond, where my soul seems to drift? Where Jasmine falls on the sidewalk of an-Najjah street where my family lives.
Time blurs, stretching across the sky, and I am left wondering which hour holds my truth.