578 days. My mind can’t quite wrap that number inside itself; how have we let this go on for 18 months?
I had COVID for the third time on October 7th, 2023, and was tucked away in my bedroom waiting to rejoin the world. When I woke in isolation on October 8th, my phone swarmed me with screams of hostages and the wave of violence I knew would follow.
I remember when I first heard of Palestine in my suburban bubble of Littleton, Colorado. The long and short was it was complicated, best ignored. Years trickled by and I landed comfortably at the pass that told me there was too much history there to make sense of, and I blanketed myself in the lack of pressure to know the truth.
As a part of my Masters focused on Social Justice, I studied Indigenous policy and rights. In 2016, that included an Indigenous Policy class with Glenn Morris, who took on all the ‘complicated’ history that colonialism requires we not see or understand. When we got to Palestine, I was overrun by guilt; my failure to understand contributed to the violence that had been in motion for generations.
That same year, I met my first Palestinian friend, Nadeen. I was organizing an event on campus, “Violence Doesn’t Discriminate,” looking at gender based violence and intersectionality. As I walked into the office dedicated to Indigenous students at CU Denver, we were introduced. I was immediately captured by Nadeen’s warmth, brightness, and fierce spirit.
I continued to deepen my understanding of how colonization and propaganda warped my reality. I noticed when I tried to have conversations about Palestine, there was often a blank trance that greeted me on the other side - either that, or rage that I dare challenge or question Israel. At the same time, I remember watching Nadeen post stories on Instagram from her homelands; how the wildly violent, oppressive regime terrorized her uncle and their family.
The United States is a crumbling empire built on propaganda. It doesn’t do much of what it claims well, aside from it’s weaving a web of lies that keeps its’ citizens trapped in the story that it is, in fact, a place of democracy, justice, and freedom. I assume that’s why 82 weeks and 4 days have gone by, while many of my fellow citizens go about their lives unbothered that each of us has and continues to fund starving, maiming, and eliminating entire bloodlines in Gaza.
I continue to struggle with how to be in this time; in October, once I had a negative COVID test, I was out in the streets, praying with my feet that the bombs would stop. I called, posted, emailed; most of my waking life was dominated by what was required and needed to end the violence.
Now, these many months later, I dedicate snippets of my day. I start my mo(u)rning with Gaza, taking in the horrors of assassinated medics, massacred children, the destruction of hospitals, and the spectre of famine. I end my days twisting inside myself as we witness yet another day gone by with aid rotting going on 3 months.
As I walk the world, I wonder who else feels it. Some days, I’ll admit, I’m numb to the lead & suffering. My mind holds the truth & my body refuses to let more of it in. When I slow myself enough, the anguish is there, bubbling at the crest of my throat. What would be different if we all could feel it, the horrors?
I pray and remember the displaced, the starving, the targeted, the martyred. Some days, I’m swallowed by the fact that we collectively have failed to uphold “Never Again.” The world I believed I lived in dies each day that this genocide continues. Before I could yell, and now it’s more of a whispered dream:
Let. Gaza. Live.
