Are You Listening: Weaving a Tapestry from Pain into Beauty
Zaynab Mohammed
Pownal Street Press, 2024
The buckets of fear I had to swim through to get to where I am today would make you think I can breathe underwater. I can’t. What I can do is hold my breath for a long time and hope to come above water before it’s too late. Fear of owning my story, who I am, who I come from, what makes me who I am is what I have been fighting against from a young age.
Brown bodies are new to the media. I didn’t grow up seeing anyone who looks like me or my family while developing into the person I am today until the past few years. If I did, we were always the bad guys, the terrorists, the ones laughed at. Do you know what that does to a human being who is wired for belonging and connection?
It made me fight with myself. It made me hate who I am, who I come from and who I was avoiding to become. Until I mustered enough courage to face my demons. I didn’t learn how to swim. I learned how to keep my eyes open underwater, how to hold my breath.
I am a writer, a poet, a performer, a creative. I did what I know how to do best. I wrote my story. I filled notebooks, Word documents, notes on my phone app and typed pages on my typewriter. Then I edited hundreds of pages into 6,000 words. This became my first one-woman show.
It was the first time I spoke about who I am, about my Palestinian grandmother, about the racism my family endured on stage. My show moved people to tears. I was thanked, embraced and appreciated for the courage I showed the people who witnessed me telling my story. All the while, I watched and continue to watch all the countries I come from be bombed. The timing gave me purpose. My voice was meaningful and timely. Just under a year later, a day before my 34th birthday, my show became a book.
I lay my heart bare in Are You Listening? Now, I am thrilled and forever thankful to be an Arab woman. I love who I am. I love who I come from. I love my homelands. I feel whole and relaxed when I am in Lebanon, despite how hard it is to exist in the conditions there.
My book is how I weave the tapestry of my life from pain into beauty.
