“Would you ever visit Palestine?”

Trigger warning: diasporic grief and loss

“Would you ever visit Palestine?”

For some reason, when someone other than the voice in my head asks me this question, it’s as if the thought never truly crossed my mind. I feel profoundly struck, almost caught off guard by an unexpected truth — a truth buried beneath rubble of untapped emotions that once again feel as though they never existed.

Yet, in truth and reality, I think, breathe and see Palestine in all that I do — each and every day. When I’m at my desk, praying, walking, eating, pondering, contemplating and speaking. I have an image of an old Palestinian home on my bedroom wall, because that is how I envision it to be.

I imagine walking through the old heritage streets of Ramallah, feeling the stone-built homes where flowers grow through cracked walls; rich wooden doors as hard as steel; sharp-edged, cornered stairs; and soaring olive trees welcoming you in.

I think about Palestine as if I’m already there — because my heart is already there.

So when someone asks me, ‘Would you ever visit Palestine?’, it isn’t the truth that hits me hardest, but the crooked, unconsented reminder of reality.

What do you mean I’ve never been to Palestine?
What do you mean that visiting my homeland is tethered to the existence of a rogue state?
What do you mean that setting foot on my own land requires checkpoints and ‘luck’?
What do you mean?

What do you mean that we have to realise this reality each and every single day?

What do you mean that I have to ‘wait until my thirties’, or be in a better ‘mental and emotional state’, to prepare myself for the brutal reality of what I will see?
What do you mean that this is reality?

Because in my mind, the only thing that keeps me alive is that one image of a house — so beautiful that the light hitting its windows, the shadows framing the entire home, feels like the light of nour protecting it. And what do you mean that this house may not even exist anymore?

It is this reality check that forces me to constantly reset my lifeline — my capacity to endure this lifetime. I think I have developed a way of surviving by envisioning what once was.

I see Palestine in my mind as it once was.

And while we are exposed to the harsh reality and witness the truth every day, I still hold onto what once was — because otherwise, I don’t think I could truly go on.