The Ocean is Calling

“Momma, what does my name mean?” I asked. She sat me on her lap and began to play with my hair, winding it effortlessly between her thin fingers. She loved playing with my curls. It was the best feeling in the world.  

We were sitting on the old couch in the living room that somehow still looked new with all of Momma’s excessive cleaning. It was winter and the hard wood floor was cold on my feet, I buried them in-between leather couch cushions to try and warm them. Momma was sitting watching Anastasia with me, all I remember were pretty girls in dresses that danced and sang as they crossed the screen. We listened to the sound of fluttering voices that were high, happy, and light. I played with my hands, looking at Momma’s beautiful face. Smooth, tan skin like my own and shining eyes that remind me of melted chocolate. Sweet and soft. This is what I remember from before. 

“Yara in Arabic means the goddess of water and the moon,” Momma told me. 

I was born into a Palestinian family and baptized in the waters of the Greek Orthodox church. I grew up knowing only the smooth, melodic sound of Arabic falling from the lips of the people around me. I belly danced in the living room to the beat of Nancy Ajram – classic, graceful, quick. My taita always told me I danced like my momma, the best dancer in the family. I ate mansef with my sister, always fighting over the last piece of juicy, tender lamb and begging Amo Samer for a slice of warm, gooey, and sweet Kanafeh. It feels like a lifetime ago.

I was baptized again but in unfamiliar waters at eight years old. Placed in a school where nobody looked like me. Shoved in a uniform to try and fit in with everyone else, but it was clear that me and my bushy hair and tanned skin would never belong there. 

I always loved the ocean and its steady waves. It’s been twenty years and I still find myself mesmerized by the way that the current is so consistent, like a heartbeat. It’s predictable, but at the same time it’s inconsistent.

“Momma why do I go to school here now? I like my old school better,” I told her after the first day. “They don’t make fun of me there.” 

“This is better for your future and your education, Mom. You will learn to like it,” she told me. She felt guilty. She only called me Mom when she felt guilty about a choice she made for me. 

The ocean can be steady and calm, but always wild. It crashes against the earth, creates storms and toppling waves. It has no mercy as it swallows up boats and pushes them deep down under its current. The water is such a powerful being, maybe the most powerful on this planet. It commands respect and can be controlled by nothing and no one.  

Coming home from school, salty tears streaming down my cheeks, I ran through the house and into the living room, shoving my face into Momma’s warm and welcoming stomach. After she realized that I was crying, my tears soaking into her shirt, she began to pet my head.

“What happened?” Momma asked softly. My body shook as I sobbed, attempting to breathe because air won’t enter my lungs. Momma held me tighter. 

“This is all your fault, you made me go.” I did not understand how guilty she felt for those first few years. “They hate me so much. I didn’t even do anything wrong.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Momma tried to comfort me. “They’re just upset because you are different.” 

“In art class today, they took white paint and started painting my hand. They said it would make me look more normal,” I yell into her stomach. I was so angry with her, but I couldn't help turning to her for comfort despite the burning anger. She did this to me; this was her fault. I needed something, someone to blame and the only person I could think of is her. 

The most beautiful, everyday thing is also the most powerful and terrifying. I am not afraid of the water now; it welcomes me into its arms. Ready, because it knows that I belong there, this is my place in the world – with the powerfully steady waves.

School didn’t start to get better until I started to learn to blend in. To pretend I watched the TV shows that my peers watched even though I found them ridiculously stupid. I stopped speaking my language and tried to imitate their American accents until it flowed across my lips perfectly. I reached twelve and began to straighten my hair every day, just to try and blend in even further. Momma hated it. My family hated it. I tried to be the Arab girl at home, but it felt fake. It felt like I split my life down the middle and neither of them were real to me.

I fall into the waves, letting the water consume me. The ice cold somehow feels warm in my lungs as I slowly run out of air. I take one last look at the sun shining above the water, the last sliver of light ending the day. I remember what it was like to feel the warm sun on my face and be genuinely content. It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way.

I got to high school, a new start with new people in a new place. I felt almost relief at leaving the school that tormented me for seven years. It didn’t take me long to figure out that high school would only be worse. Students spoke of the Middle East with ignorant and uneducated disgust. I held my tongue for two long years and pretended it didn’t matter. I didn’t want people to look at me differently, to let go of the façade I had created. Not knowing who I was without my mask, I didn’t know what would lie underneath and whether it would isolate me or worse. I clung on desperately, tried to keep my feet on the land, the steady land that doesn’t seem to want to hold underneath me. 

I hold onto that memory as I close my eyes and finally let go. I let go of everything from before this turning point. The words, people, and experiences that made me think I could never drift away, to swim above the pain and through the misery. I’m not scared of death; it always seemed like real freedom for whoever experienced it.

“What’s that?” Momma asks me when I got home from class. I was clutching a set of papers, stained with dried tears. My eyes were itchy and dry as I stared at the floor with a blank expression. I don’t think there was any emotion left in me to express. 

“A gift from the guy that sits next to me in math class.” Momma smiled unknowingly and took the three pages. They had lists on them, front and back. Words etched out in terrible handwriting, condemning me with every black-inked letter. “What is this?” 

“Everything I need to fix in order for people to actually like me,” Momma frowns at the papers and I know it will only worsen when she reads the first line: 

1. Stop being a terrorist

The word screamed at me, popping out from the page amongst all the poorly written words in thick black ink. Terrorist. That’s what I had become. That’s what I was to them. A violent, unwanted being that brought about destruction and despair. I stared at the word. Terrorist. Was this the only thing that would define me? Did the color of my skin and the food that I ate condemn me to this one thing?

2. Fix your nose 

I thought we were all made in God’s image. I thought we were all beautiful because of that. He made me the way He wanted to, is that not enough? I couldn't change my face. I couln't just walk up to a plastic surgeon and tell them to fix my nose. Maybe if I could, I would have asked them to change my almond shaped eyes while they were at it. They hated me for something I cannot change. These people in a Catholic school that I was supposed to call my friends, the ones I spent every day with in a classroom and on a playground were making edits to my body like it’s an essay they can delete and re-type. I will never be normal to them, let alone beautiful. I never wished so badly that I could erase my face and draw it in their image instead of God’s. 

3. Change your name

I always loved my name. It made me feel powerful, sometimes even magical. Goddess of the water and the moon. I thought I was graceful. Beautiful. Was I wrong? I wonder if it was too hard for them to pronounce at school or if they didn't understand what it meant. I muttered my name over and over under my breath. First, with an Arab accent. The way my family said my name. The one that felt like home. Second, I did it in an American accent. It was harsher, uglier. It felt foreign and weird coming off of my tongue. What if they said it the Arab way? Would they like it better if they knew what it meant? Reality sank in. It would do nothing but add more fuel to the fire. My peers wanted me to change so they didn't have to. It was easier to force me to change than it was for all forty eight of them to learn to say my name right. They’d find new ways to tease me, to force me to hate another thing I once loved about myself. I couldn't change my name. I can’t change who I was. 

Realization hit me. They wanted me to change the things I could not. My classmates wanted me to become someone I could never be. I would never be the person they wanted me to be. The person they wanted to play with at recess or bring home for a sleepover. I would never be picked first, I would never be noticed. I was destined to be nothing but a designated punching bag. A way for people to pour their creativity into creating new insults, fresh problems, and more hate. 

Water gushes into my lungs and I keep my body from fighting it. I release my inhibitions. I’m just a part of the water now, becoming the calm rolling waves as I win the battle underneath the surface and the storm finally passes.

I kept that list tucked away in the back of my closet, slipped underneath the plastic bin that holds all my stuffed animals. It’s been four years and I couldn’t get myself to throw it away. I spent nights staring at the white closet door, knowing what lay inside. My stomach would turn, hands shaking, my mind spinning. I’ve memorized every line, every spelling mistake, every punctuation mark that was inked onto that notebook paper. It’s stained from my tears, worn from being clenched in-between my hands. I read the words over and over, letting each one punch me in the gut. There’s no room for a breath. There’s no room for peace. 

I’m finally free of everything and everyone that has torn away at my soul; until it’s just a pile of broken, sharp pieces that no one but God could possibly fix. If there even is a God above, He hasn’t been there for me; if He had been then I wouldn’t be standing here ready to fall into the sea and let it take me far away from this place; from this life. What is the point in having faith in something, having hope, when everyone takes it away? Hope is a thing of pain, a luxury for people with better luck.

I am eighteen years old, and I have finally let go of the American girl I had been pretending to be. I can no longer stay silent and bite my tongue, my blood burns in anger as people make fun of my culture. I have stopped caring what people think of my curly black hair, of my language, and food. Throwing everything I spent so long creating and maintaining away at last. I am left with a weird feeling of freedom and emptiness. Not much was left of me after this, starting from the beginning, creating yet another new version of myself. An authentic one. It felt like a new start, terrifying and incredibly invigorating all at the same time. 

When looking out at the ocean and a sky full of warm reds, soft pinks, and deep purples I know there is a God that created this, not even a camera could capture its immortal beauty. I, on the other hand, will have it embedded in my memory forever. I am comforted by the scene in front of me. Even if God didn’t love me enough to save me, I know I can save myself now.

“So, what does your name mean?” A girl in my English class asks with a grin. 

“Goddess of the water and the moon in Arabic,” I tell her. I immediately brace myself for the insults to come out of her mouth, for the familiar racist hate. 

“That’s really cool, do you speak Arabic? Where are you from?” Question after question falls from her lips. I tell her stories of my childhood, the history of my family, with a bright smile on my face.

After everything, I finally find peace of mind. The warm summer breeze dances through my hair, carrying the scent of the Dominican sea; I can finally breathe again. My bare and worn-out feet sink into the hot sand as I walk away from the only life I’ve come to know. Somehow nothing and no one seems to matter. I never mattered to them, after all. My feet get swallowed by the chilling waves as they wash up against the sand with each movement the water makes. As I go further into the ocean, it crashes against the rocks wildly and sprays my once warm skin. With every step I take, I feel everything being washed away by the salty water. The sun is setting in front of me, touching the water as far as I can see. The sky is reflected in the constant waves. I can feel my skin become numb under the waters weight, but I couldn’t care.