"Birdsong and laughter."
Remembering what matters most.
Over the holidays, a friend paused toward the end of an evening’s talk and jollifications to ask, “Should we be celebrating?” We stood together in front of the decorated Christmas tree and in the course of drinks and dinner had been discussing—the topic is inevitable, it seems—Israel’s inhumanity toward the people of Gaza, the incomprehensible suffering, the radical injustice. I do not think I have sat with friends once since the autumn just passed without this topic weighing heavily on our shoulders.
I responded without hesitation. “Without any question we should,” I replied. I was not immediately sure what I meant and from whence my certainty derived. But there are moments when one understands one’s thoughts in the course of speaking of them. And so I made my case: We owe it to ourselves, to humanity, even and esepcially to the Palestinians, to keep burning the torch of joy, of shared connection, of the sheer delight of being alive. We must show the Palestinians of Gaza, most of all but not only, that the flame of humanity is still alight and that the human spirit lives.
A friend who thought this over said some days later, at another convivial gathering, “Yes, but we must celebrate not mindlessly or forgetfully—rather, fully concscious of the cause, honoring it, observing our responsibilties.” This seemed an astute addition to my thought on the matter.
We publish the lovely piece that follows with this in mind. The cause is the human cause.
—P. L.
5 JANUARY—My heart has never been so heavy as one year ends and another begins. This has been the saddest of years.
I never thought I would see a genocide unfold in real time and that no one, not one nation, would try to stop it—until South Africa stepped forward last week and filed a genocide claim against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Or, worse: that my own country, the United States, would be fully supporting it, providing much of the weaponry, and that those opposed to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza would be accused of being anti-Semites.
I write this looking out of a window onto an unfamiliar landscape, sitting in a chair in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar house.
We found ourselves homeless in the final month of this troublesome year. After a journey of nearly 3,000 miles, driving from central Mexico to Maryland, we arrived in Baltimore to take up residence in a house we had rented based on photos we had seen and discovered, upon entering it for the first time, that it was derelict. The moving truck, which arrived several hours before we did, had already unloaded everything.
I will never forget the telephone call I made to friends in Connecticut. “Sue Ann,” I began when she answered the phone, “we’re in trouble. The house we rented is uninhabitable. Can we stay with you for two weeks?”
“Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “We’ll have dinner ready for you tomorrow. You can tell us about it when you get here.”
That was nearly two months ago. Since then, another friend opened her home to us and we are now in a small village in Massachusetts—still living out of suitcases and a car but with a roof over our heads, a comfortable bed, and a warm home in which we have marked the holiday season.
I am sad beyond reckoning and also aware of my good fortune.
Almost every morning of this year I woke up with a smile on my face listening to the sound of birdsong coming in through our open windows in Mexico. I miss the birds of Mexico. They made me feel at home on this planet and in my own body.
Birdsong and laughter. These are what lift my heart. I have never so fully appreciated the sound of human laughter—how it feels to let go and laugh—as I have this year.
At the end of a year full of so much sadness and confusion, brutality and injustice, it is birdsong and laughter and the kindness of friends that I pay homage to.
These thoughts bring to mind these words of Wendell Berry....
Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.
And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we’re asleep.
When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.
Though not a Christian - thoughts of you and Palestinians (and backgrounded by the story of the infant Jesus and parents) as those seeking refuge from the Herods of our times spring to mind. Something I read a decade or more ago explained that the Egypt to which the Baby Jesus was taken was not the Egypt we think of to-day - rather ALSO including the region we now know as Turkey. And how important that 21st century Erdogan has at last raised his voice against the Zionists. South Africa and the case before the ICJ - so important since it has evolved out of an apartheid state previously supported by the Zionists - it has all the "experience" and authority to identify the Zionists for what they are - a colonialist/settler ethnic-cleansing land-stealing murdering regime. On the other points you outline, Patrick: the importance of Birdsong (I'm thinking a novel of that title by (1993 war novel) English writer Sebastian Faulks - but also, of course, of the tweets and chirps and trills and notes from our feathered companions which do lift the heart and the spirits. And then - the kindness of friends - in your own hour of need (your sudden housing crisis). A friend - a writer friend - one of my oldest students - in Sydney - has just come to such a moment herself - her partner died a year ago - he'd have sorted the matter - but she - overwhelmed with grief in this past year - has at last sought help from friends who have rallied around...And Sydney (Australia, really) in an economically manipulated way and lack of public housing - no fixed mortgage rates - they rise with interest rate rises and rents rise accordingly to fill the pockets of the already wealthy enough class - make it virtually impossible for those on pensions/social welfare - with children/other dependents - to find accommodation - and pay utilities and eat properly. In Australia - one of the richest countries on earth. We are thinking of you Patrick and M - and hoping that a good long term solution is quickly found for you. And grieving for John Pilger - for all Palestinians - for all others being menaced by the US and threats of being attacked. A post earlier to-day seems to be suggesting that here in the state of NSW legislation is to be introduced to make it unlawful to support the Palestinians and to criticise or oppose the murdering Zionists of Israel - the Zionist lobby here not unlike Epstein/Mossad - threatening, blackmailing our politicians into silence (that's how I see it)! I apologise for bringing this away from joy and friends and birdsong - all that is positive we do need to keep hold of - as the human thing - even in the midst of a kind of holocaust madness wrought by some of the very people who themselves suffered and survived or whose family members suffered and lost their lives in back in the 1930s/1940s.