things i know to be true

BY FARIDA RADY

Prologue: I wrote a poem in an attempt to ground myself through a dissociative night this spring. I only had the energy to lay on the grass at a park as night fell, listen to the sounds around me, and return to a childhood grounding practice.

When I felt overwhelmed as a child, I would recite things I knew to be true in that moment. The truths I reminded myself of then were simple and sure: "I am seven years old. I have brown hair."

The things I know to be true when I wrote this poem are different, perhaps more complex, and this piece is about existing in a murky, unclear, slow, detached headspace while remaining steadfast and confident in my values, convictions, and political commitments.

things i know to be true - may 20, 2021

my foggy brain reminds me:

my grief is still here. i feel its weight on this humid spring night. the grief permeates everything, a thick, inescapable smog. even the last moments of sunlight gently grazing treetops feel like loss.

grief is attention-seeking, demanding to be heard. summer is dissonant: i grieve under bright blue skies, on long days when the world is so visibly alive, lush, extravagant, abundant. i don’t know how, but my heart withstands it.

loneliness is still time spent with the world*

my foggy brain reminds me:

there are only feigned pressures to “arrive”

there is no arrival

no defining end moment when this is complete

there is only continuous exploration: processes, movements, fluidities, fluctuations

multiple truths coexist concurrently, complementarily

attunement and alignment are on-going practices

my foggy brain reminds me:

language is important. call it for what it is: apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide

as my friend T says, even the slightest change is a movement

the Occupation will fall

i repeat this to myself in the language of the oppressed, the rightful, the soon to be

victorious: سيسقط الإحتلال

the tides are shifting

and liberation is within our grasp

my foggy brain reminds me:

the Mediterranean is waiting.

in my childhood summers, the sea was my first and last thought of every day. when i lay awake, restless at night, i would imagine how the waves felt as they washed over me that morning.

tonight, i imagine how the warm waves of the Mediterranean will feel when we inevitably reunite.

my foggy brain reminds me:

everything is transient; i am forever

i am worthy of what i desire

i was born in this particular body, in this set of identities, for reasons i am still exploring

my foggy brain reminds me:

i am surrounded by unyielding, unfaltering, fierce love

profound and unexpected intimacies have been forged in this crisis

one day, we will hold each other again

until then, all my love

*Author’s note: This line is from Ocean Vuong’s poem, “Someday I’ll love Ocean Vuong”

Based between Cairo, Toronto, and Abu Dhabi, Farida Rady is a researcher, writer, and artist. Rady’s interests include cities, the politics of space, memory and identity, documentation, and archiving. She explores these interests across the spectrum of scholarly and creative processes. Find her online at @farida.archives on Instagram, or on a long walk in real life.

Edited by Engy Ibrahim