Issue 30: In between

Dearest reader,

I trust this letter finds you as it leaves me, in good health.

It’s a few minutes after nine in the morning and I’ve pushed both doors behind me closed. The air is wet and thick, smells of bark, dew and leaves, and I notice the weight of the cool atmosphere as it descends upon me. The birds have been awake gossiping for a few hours now and the squirrels are clearly on edge, glaring at me with their suspicious eyes, plotting on the day they’ll be in my shoes and me in theirs. For a moment, I’m convinced they might be onto something. It’s a new day in sleepy St. Louis Park.

The screen in my hand informs me that I have four minutes left, which tends to mean I have around seven. I lay my backpack down on the carpeted concrete slabs outside the front door. I don’t know who decided it was a good idea to put a carpet like this outdoors, and I also don’t have the energy to do anything about it. The thought passes, like it always does. I take a seat at the top step, backpack between my knees.

At this moment, I can usually tell how the day’s going to go. If my head feels light and balanced, thoughts passing through it freely—like clouds in a clear sky—then I know I’ll probably smile to the baristas at the coffee shop, make small talk with people, and get through work and the other things with relative ease. If, however, I realize only later that I never noticed the sounds from before—then I know I’m on the treadmill, my smiles will come at a price I can’t afford, the debts will need to be repaid, and all the small moments will stretch into longer ones.

And then the gray Toyota Corolla usually arrives. The seven minutes have passed. I walk towards the car and notice a dark ambiguous face through the tinted glass. Our shifting silhouettes exchange a slight nod and I open the rear door, bending slightly and entering head-first.

“Good morning—Daoud?”

The face quickly turns towards me and we make eye contact. He contemplates something, furrows his eyebrows for a split second, and then returns to face the street ahead.

“Yes.”

I’ve settled into the rear passenger seat at this point and the car has begun to move. We make it through a few left and right turns before Daoud adjusts his rear-view mirror slightly to get another look.

“Where are you from?”

“My dad was from New York. The state, not the city.”

No acknowledgment or response. I’m aware he’s waiting for me to continue.

“My mom was from Saudi Arabia.”

Whatever distance existed between us before suddenly diminishes and the atmosphere within the car becomes a lot more familiar.

“Ah—now that’s what I was looking for. You said my name right.”

Outside the window the clouds have started to move faster.

“Oh, yeah?” I know I did, but I figure playing naive might be more interesting.

“Yeah. People here—they don’t pronounce my name right. Like ninety percent of people. It’s something rare, you know?”

“What do people usually say?”

“Oh, man. Sometimes da-ohd, sometimes dwaod, sometimes this, sometimes that—but never correctly, never the way you just said it—you know? It’s rare. So you’re Arab. Are you Muslim?”

I usually have a sense of how and where the conversation is going to steer from here. He’s going to ask me if my dad was Muslim, when he converted, if he converted for my mom, and what it was like to grow up in Saudi. He’ll be surprised to learn I’ve completed Hajj. He’ll describe how he’s saving for one of his parents to go. He’ll ask if English is my first language, I’ll say yes, and then he’ll ask why. “Don’t they speak Arabic in Saudi?” I’ll say yes and then proceed to explain how my schooling was in English, and that my dad didn’t speak Arabic fluently so we spoke English at home. He might ask me for my opinion on Saudi politics. I’ll proceed to say a few things that to many might sound confused and paradoxical, but which he will understand.

And then I’ll arrive. We’ll exchange salams, and the day will pass. And then it’ll be a few minutes after nine in the morning…

I hope you have a magnificent weekend ahead of you.

Love,
Reef