roots.

Speaking yesterday to a girl at work that grew up in the middle east, I realized just how much I miss it. How much I miss being the only pale skinned girl in the crowd, how I missed the uniqueness of the culture, how the sand felt when it blew against my skin, how endless the ocean seemed at my feet, how real it all felt, how it felt like home. I miss the sensation of religion calling to the masses, the way the sweet bread would melt on your tongue and the way, the sun felt in those early morning hours rising over the gulf. I miss the travel, the palm trees lining every road, the endless expanse of sand, the way the falcon soared over the earth and the way religion conquered all. I miss the traditions, the culture, the unique ways of the Arab world. I miss Saudi and I will never think of myself as a normal American girl, I never have been, I never grew up the way the rest of you grew up. I was imprinted with the print of the arab world more than I was of an American childhood. And even though I left at an impressionable age, I still wonder what it would be like to go back. I had forgotten a lot of the things I remember because no one that I know can relate to what I lived, how I grew up, until I met this girl at work the other day from Somalia, an arab country in Africa.

It dawned on me then, speaking to her of all the places I used to know so well. And I suddenly was drawn back to all the places, the memories, the culture, the traditions, the smells, the food, the way the sun would set over the desert in the late evening. I suddenly remembered the way the streets smelled, the way the desert looked at first light, the way the ocean felt so warm on your bare feet, the way the world seemed to stop turning when you looked out over the ocean that in just a short distance took you to the sands of Kuwait.

It's a beautiful world there, one that is often misunderstood, one that many seem ignorant about, one that people make judgement too quickly without understanding. It's a world of tradition, a place where life is lived the same it's been lived for thousands of years and in a world that is so rapidly changing, maybe we need more of that, maybe we need more of a world in which traditions forms a basis. It's sad how westernized the world has become, it's sad how tradition is being swept aside to become like us americans. In the end, I guess I realized that I had been pushing this huge part of myself aside, when I needed to embrace it and realize how much a part of me it truly is. I feel in my heart as I am part Arab, less American than Arab. For half my life I was Arab, then suddenly forced into America as a teenager, and now finally I am figuring out that I don't have to be either or, I can be both. I can be the American girl that grew up in Saudi Arabia and the Arab girl that moved to America. I can be both, because both are who I am, I am neither one without the other, both make up my soul, both make me who I am. And so until I can see the sands beneath the setting sun, and taste that sweet bread melting my mouth on the Saudi streets in the early evening when the sun is setting and suddenly there is relief from the heat, I will continue to go back to my Arab roots, regardless of what those around me think I am.