Another Place

I have been reading a lot of books lately based in the Middle East, some in Afghanistan, some in Iran, some in Saudi Arabia. And when I read the words of these Arab writers, recounting their tales of times when life was different, I find myself remembering how much that world meant to me too. Often I find myself remembering what life was like when I was there, the people and the smells, the tastes and the things I saw. I remember the ocean at my feet, the hot humid days that warranted a stay inside. I find myself caught between my world now and the world of my childhood, I find myself feeling much the same as the Arabs to left their own countries in the times of chaos and came to this country. And really, how am I much different from all the rest, how different is it for me and some of these authors I am so respectively reading that left their countries for the freedom of America? I too left at an impressionable age, left a country that had been my home since I was born. It too was my country, my memories, my childhood. It too was all I knew, all I loved.

I find myself so caught in the middle of so much these days. I find myself caught in the middle of this so called "War on Terror," in the middle of ignorant remarks toward that part of the world and I find myself siding more with my childhood home than often with my country now. That place is such a part of me, ingrained within me and it's such a memory of that place that I find so comforting in the words of these talented writers I am reading. It is in their similar memories that I find comfort and remember a time when I too, like them, was a part of another place, another place that will remain with me forever.