Some solitude

I got to spend a lot of time with people this weekend--it was incredible. I had the opportunity to celebrate the Virgin Mary in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem, I got to eat real Palestinian Barbecue on the roof of a 120 year-old building, and I got to play with a seven month old baby. a lot. It was strange though, as I went about my day today I felt this deep sense of loneliness, of emptiness.

I had known this would happen eventually, that at some point of this journey it would hit me that I am alone here. Yes, sure, I am being housed by an incredibly kind and caring family; I have a good number of people to visit and meet with; and I have some international colleagues who occasionally invite me out for argilla or beers; but none of those people are the people who know me most intimately--and they won't be, because I am only here for seven weeks and seven weeks is still an arm's length away.

It was hard that it hit, though, because it made me realize something bigger about the work I hope to do with my life: this is probably how it is going to always be. Yes, I will make friends. Yes, I will find stronger community than this. Yes, all those things and those buts and ors and ands. But, from here on out, there is very little being rewarded for the work I'm doing. Gold stars ran out when I started public school. People will only be impressed with me for so long. And in the real world there is no diversity awards banquet that gives me a free alarm clock just for showing up to meetings.

I think the above paragraph can be read as a mourning, but I intend it more as an honest realization. This trip is showing me more and more that I WANT to be doing this work. It has me thinking the future in a way I never have before. Yes, the goal is STILL Palestine, the call is STILL to live in this place and to be with these people. But what is changing is how I see myself doing that.

Will I get a master's in urban development? Or tourism? Or education? Or business? Or management? Or economics?

Will I stay in Chicago after graduation with hopes of getting an Americorps scholarship to work in an industry or to do work with entrepreneurs?
Will I go to Europe, to South Africa, to Portland, to Ohio, to Nortre Dame? Maybe. At this point, the idea of what opportunities lie one year away from me make me more nervous than trying to figure out what to do HERE. And here is BIG.

But guys, there is this new anticipation, this new strategy, this new need to learn something so I have something to GIVE, something tangible.

Palestine doesn't need more NGOs, it doesn't need more international peacemakers coming in and asking for a room to stay in and for shoddy Arabic lessons. It doesn't need more international schools, or summer camps, or storytelling sessions. It doesn't need more documentaries. It doesn't need better hashtags. What Palestine needs is itself. It needs to be invigorated.

And in a lot of ways, maybe the reason I am so drawn to this place, so hopeful of what it can be for me and what I can be for it; is because I need that too.

Inshallah, filisteen, someday.