MEMORIES

Every now and then, a melody would stick in our head and we keep repeating it over and over without getting tired of the repetition for hours and hours.  Occasionally, we recall events happened to us during our childhood and we wonder why these events pop up in our mind randomly and without any pattern to them. Many of us hooked on events that happened and drastically changed the course of our lives.  In my case, I noted countless events that was impossible for me to get rid of them no matter how hard I tried as if they are engraved down into my bones.  I recall strips of events happened to me during my childhood and early teenager years as if they were happening an hour ago.  Some of these events are quite sorrowful and heartbreaking.  I recall events of standing by trash dumpsters where discarded hand towels are plentiful and colorful.  These dumpsters were placed in a rectangular courtyard with walls as high as 30 feet or so for the purpose of confining detainees. A thought came to me in one morning about making something with these colorful towels.  I asked my Mother to bring me a needle and a white handkerchief. She smuggled them to me during her next visit, which lasted 15 minutes. I start pulling colorful threat from the towels in a sneaky way such that nobody would notice my action. 

With the needle, handkerchief, colorful threats, and the plentiful time on hand, I start sewing images of animals and birds.  The result was astonishing to the point that I could not believe what I have done.  I showed one of these embroidery artworks to other detainees and each one of them starts begging me to make one for him.   I recall the excitement in their eyes as if they are sitting in front of me now.  I smuggled the first artwork to my older sister when she came to visit me in the early summer of 1970.  The artwork was not complete, but it was composed of two colorful birds looking down at their babies in the nest.  Eventually, this artwork was taken by one of my nieces and clinched to it as if it was the best thing happened to her.  She eventually finished the embroidery by adding the surrounding flowers and leaves to it.  Then she framed it and hung it in her house.   I recall each threat of this image and each needle puncture in the handkerchief.

A story was told to me by a detainee that a lady, who was turned out to be my sister, was fighting with his wife about an artwork.  The wife claimed that the artwork was made by her husband, but my sister confronted her by saying that is not true. “It was made by my brother” my sister insisted.

I have not forgetting this image along with many events happened to me over four decades ago. I do not think the memories of these events will fade away until I die. A few days ago an email message arrived from a young lady who claimed to know me.  I could not believe the message.  I read the message several time before I could digest the shocking and astounding news.  This young lady is my niece’s daughter.  Last time I saw my niece, she had a six month old baby and now she had several sons and daughter who I have never met in person.  Many of them are married and have children on their own.

My niece clinched to the embroidery I made for over forty years.  She knew that having this artwork will remind her of me day and night and year after year.  She knew life is simply moments and everything between these moments are simply padding. She knew the moment of my departure from the rugged place called “Bani Naim” shall not be forgotten. The memories of these moments are engraved deeper than our flesh and bones. These memories are encoded with pain, sorrow, and grief. They are imprinted in the molecules and atoms that make our bodies and soul.  These memories are imprinted even deeper in our bodies down to all types of quarks; the charm, strange, up, down, top, and bottom quarks. These memories are generated by the perpetual vibrational tones of the strings that impeded in the embroidery artwork and by the strings that form the quarks in our bodies. These tones will remain indestructible even after our death.  They will remain preserved and will continue to hum the melody called “Bani Naim” so long as our atoms and molecules are still on this earth.

Omar Manasreh
18 May 2010