pre-election night insomnia

helpless, but not hopeless

I’ve been sleeping at a healthy 10ish pm most nights. It’s 1:54 am and I can’t sleep. I listened to Mosab Abu Toha recite his own poetry out loud a few hours ago in San Francisco. I heard him speak about how he wishes this country’s administration would just “mind their business” and would have at the very least avoided getting involved in Gaza (through bombs, $, israel support, etc).

It’s election day. Our votes do not matter on a presidential level when our money continues to be spent overseas, oppressing and killing people.

I stood in a room packed with Americans supporting a Palestinian man who escaped death in Gaza. I wanted to speak with him, but there were no words that I could possibly share. I looked at Americans crumpled on the floor, holding their knees together as if to try to become smaller, to disappear, as Mosab shared how he was abducted by the iof. As they heard his voice crack when reading his words for the hundredth time, hoping they’ll sound different and someone will be inspired to stop it all.

They (we, i) feel helpless. But we can’t be hopeless. Mosab continues to write and to travel, sharing his trauma and news from Gaza. He’s pouring his entire soul and body into this work. To try to save them from the outside. To be present, and to physically represent the virtual images and to hear his accent live. To remind us he belongs to another land, that exists, and that is hurting.

I hope we are able to do the same. I hope we don’t surrender our energy after the election results are in. I hope we find a way to make the system work for us, and prevent it from persuading us to accept its artificial limits and symbolic gestures.