Asma Darwish
– Stand As My Witness Campaign Lead and SWANA Advocacy Lead at CIVICUS
(This article was originally written for and published by AAWE Paris as part of a four-part series appearing quarterly in its newsletter)
Leaving Forever
Bahrain, my home, had become so small to me that I was almost suffocating there. I once heard that no one leaves their home until their home becomes the mouth of a shark. One only leaves home when home won’t let them stay, when it does everything it can to kick them out, when home paves the way for them to leave; everything in it shouts at them to go away and never look back.
Home was screaming in my ears: Leave, and rest assured that I am going to make you lose everything you ever knew and everyone you ever loved. They will let you go, one by one, one after another. You will go so far that they will no longer recognise your face, and your voice will become unfamiliar. They will forget you, whether intentionally or unintentionally. They will, in fact, search for reasons to do so.
Everyone was wrong. You change so much that everyone back home starts detaching themselves from you, for you are no longer one of them. But I always had home in my heart. They were wrong. I didn’t have to be in Bahrain to feel at home. I had brought Bahrain with me to France.
I didn’t just escape home; I escaped a million memories, hoping they would leave me in peace. Home was harsh. Everyone was harsh. I wondered if they had been breastfed harshness since birth.
I escaped home, and it wasn’t a simple journey. My new home was cold at first, strange. People spoke a language I couldn’t understand. Everything seemed unfamiliar, even something as simple as distinguishing salt from sugar in a supermarket. It took me so much time to adapt to my new environment. I had to hold on to my name, for no one here knew who I was. I had to remain ONE and not just another someone. If I had given in to the chaos of the new city, I would have vanished long ago.
I have put so much energy into being recognised here and feeling that my feet are firmly planted on this ground. This new soil changed me; I would be foolish to say otherwise. But why do we avoid change? I always feel as though I am carrying a backpack, all the time, literally all the time. In that backpack is everything I learned, or was made to learn, since I was a baby. It has been six years now, and the backpack has begun to feel heavy. My shoulders are bruised.
Agony on a Spring Day
I am writing this on a spring day. The rain here pours as though someone is sobbing, and I feel a little blue. I am bloated with a zillion words that I cannot afford to write or speak. As a refugee, I turn to writing stories and listening to stories, for nothing remains of us but our stories. With time, even those stories lose their meaning and intensity. We become tired of repeating them over and over again, as though we were some sort of case study.
Whenever I feel a chill coming over my soul out here in the world, whenever I grow nostalgic and begin missing home, I dive deeper into those memories. I remember everything I learned, good and bad, and all the moments of laughter and agony. I think of my mom and dad.
I told my parents the night I left: “Go nowhere. It won’t last long. I will come back.”
Six years have passed since that night, and I have not been able to go back, nor have I seen them again. Many things have happened in these six years. I gave birth to my daughter, and I got divorced.
During these six years, my mother died, and a few weeks ago, my father died, for death could not wait any longer. I prayed; God knows I prayed. But death was inevitable, stronger than any prayer.
My parents passed away and left me in exile, thousands of miles away, without ever having seen my children. They left too soon. I had only hoped they would stay a bit longer, just a bit longer, until I could perhaps make it back home.
What is home now without them, anyway…?
New Home, New Love, New Nest
I yearned for home until I met him on an autumn day, when leaves were falling, and the ground was damp and cold. The food tasted bland, and nothing seemed like fun. Then, when I met him, everything changed. He brought a ray of sunshine into my day and painted a new smile on my face. And then this place became our home.
Now I realise a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, and where I have come from is disappearing. I don’t know which shores life is taking me to, but wherever it takes me, I will get on board, for it will be a hell of a journey.
I love my new home because it is all right to be imperfect here. I will never be completely at home again, because part of my heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price I pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.
…The End…
First Part: https://womenchapterenglish.com/did-i-really-grow-into-this-woman-part-1/
Second Part: https://womenchapterenglish.com/did-i-really-grow-into-this-woman-part-2/
Third Part: https://womenchapterenglish.com/did-i-really-grow-into-this-woman-part-3/
Asma Darwish
Campaigns Officer – Freedom of Peaceful Assembly
FoPA WeRise! Campaign Lead
Stand As My Witness Campaign Coordinator
Southwest Asia & North Africa (SWANA) Advocacy Lead