eating the moon in gaza & the joy of toys
I’ve always thought doorbell cameras were carceral symbols of neighborly distrust—a tool of policing that leaked into the home. But when I installed one, my life tilted toward more joy and connection, rather than less.
My choice to get a door camera was inspired by nothing special. We had a storm with baseball-sized hail, then tides of men came to my door hawking roof repair services. Two or three men a day, knocking, calling out, and pretending to know that my roof needed a full replacement. I finally got a doorbell camera so I could see who was on the porch and say No, thank you without leaving my desk or putting a bra on.
I’m grateful to those men now: little did I know, when I screwed the camera into the door jamb, that I would also tap into a raw portal of belonging, a pagan symphony, a nervous system medicine.
I was tending to crisis, traveling for protests and highly ungrounded. I couldn’t stop taking in videos and emotions of the assault on Palestinians. One morning in the airport, I accidentally opened the live video feed of my front yard. Wind chimes shifted and sounded tones. Cars puttered by. The sun claimed a certain angle. Soil enriched its tilth. Nothing was going on. Look—my cat! I felt immediately present, more resourced, more well. I was coming back into sensation.
I saw the Magnolia tree and the Chinquapin oak, the flamboyant Pride of Barbados bush with its green ferny fronds, orange vulvar petals and butter-yellow frill. Gutturally, I heard the yard pulsing with sounds; cicadas, crickets, doves warbling. My body relaxed to this audio even in the airport line. I heard my little spot, weeds and insects breathing.
My friend Amer lives in North Gaza, Palestine. He’s a photojournalist, filmmaker, and prolific late-night text correspondent. His wife Nour is a drop-dead gorgeous dentist who loves cats. She sends voice notes in a gentle waterfall alto.
The shell of their apartment building is shattered now. It used to smell like lavender and vanilla. Now they have no candles, power, water or furnishings. But they’re still there. They catch rain in buckets to drink and bathe. Their angle of the sun is their angle of sun. Their plot of dirt is their plot of dirt. Amer and Nour sleep without a roof.
The 17th century Japanese poet Mizuta Masahide writes:
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In May I started raising funds to support their intergenerational family~ 10 adults and 3 children. I was nervous to promise any hope to them. But over 100 people have donated almost $8500. The goal, to protect their lives and allow evacuation from the genocide zone, is $30,000. The donation link is here, should you have extra and want to help them stay alive another day.
When a Rabbi and several Jewish leaders donated to Amer’s campaign, I cried with relief because some of my Jewish community stopped talking with me. These leaders asked me to send Amer and Nour messages. The gist: that they send love and support, that violence is not a Jewish value, they believe in full self-determination for Palestinians, and they are sorry about the terrible things Israel is doing. They are in solidarity. They care.
Amer wrote back variations of this message, “It means a great deal to us to know that there are people who stand with us, recognizing the injustices we face and advocating for the true values of compassion and morality. Your support, as well as the belief in the self-determination of both peoples, gives us hope for a more just and peaceful future. My prayers are for peace to prevail and for our hearts to remain ever open to goodness and love. 🙏🏼🙏🏼”
Amer is eloquent; you would not guess he has no food to eat. No morsel of food, no cup of flour, no nuts, no grains, no greens, no fruits, no cans, no beans, no candy. No food in Gaza, no food on the plate. Day after day.
How could this be? There is abundant food just on the other side of the apartheid wall. There is no shortage of food in the region. The famine is simply forced starvation; sport. History not only repeats but rhymes.
Still: beauty and courage flourish. This week was the major Islamic holiday of Eid-al-Adha, when children are celebrated. There was still no food to buy but various goods were still sold in an open-air market. Amer biked there over dusty roads shouldered with rubble, singing, to buy toys to give to hungry neighbor children hurting from the losses of parents and homes. Their laughter is manna from heaven. These are my grainy screenshots of his cell phone video.
Such a small thing, toys to play with. Seemingly unnecessary, compared to food. But the power of gifts is in their meaning. “We are people of sharing, generosity, delight, connection, fun and love. No one can take those things away from us.“
When people have open hearts in the midst of disaster, they make meaning. I asked Amer if he was conserving his energy, with no way to get calories. He sent back pictures of a rag-tag group of kids grinning in rain. “Literally this is the conservation of energy :)”
I know Amer and Nour will sit in their own garden listening to the cicadas and windchimes again, feeling safe again. Palestine will be free. I know this because children and young people around the world refuse these terrible rhyming histories. They (we) are capable of boundless love, repair, respect, creativity and connection, and they (we) know it. The time for anything different is over.
As I was writing, my doorbell camera alerted me to a visitor. Hit play to see her sweet moves.
Anywhere we are on Earth, there is a friend to make, a moon to behold together. Thanks for reading my letter. I hope you experience wonder today. I’ll talk to you again when the moon is getting full.
Love, Abriel (Abe Louise)
P.S. — Amer’s link is bit.ly/help-amer. All support is welcome, even lighting a candle.
P.P.S. — I write another newsletter called your daily open door. It’s a palate cleanser for your inbox with a poem, a piece of art, a blessing & a creativity prompt. Feel free to sign up.
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