As I offer to share a 250-page novel/collage
(Dear Layla/Welcome to Palestine)
With a friend here and there
A typical question is–
“What’s it about?”
OK
It’s about good mimesis
It’s about memory, resistance and eutopia
It’s about Umm Safi
It’s about breakdown preceding breakthrough
It’s about broken hearts whichever way you look
It’s about contrapuntal compassion
It’s about being almost totally depleted
It’s about el derecho de vivir en paz
It’s about Natasha Laserstein
It’s about pratityasamupada
It’s about sumud
It’s about satyagraha
It’s about Scheherazade
It’s about Sarah Azad
It’s about Joanie French
It’s about Layla Lavasani
It’s about 147 other people I’ve met or dreamed of and transfigured
It’s about epistolary ecstasy
It’s about Walt Whitman saying, “Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years each emerging from that which preceded it”
It’s about Murad saying, “Let’s not waste it”
It’s about the heart-tingling power of sri
It’s about the life-giving power of daydreams
It’s about the temporarily salvific power of a violin
It’s about olives
It’s about getting a little taste
It’s about postcards in the era before Tweets
It’s about the corner of Grand and Lindell
It’s about Jelly Helm’s line: “Everything in here is true, and some of it actually happened”
It’s about the Rolling Stones’ album, Exile on Main Street
It’s about that Zen saying adapted: When the teacher is ready, the student appears
It’s about xin hãy gọi tôi bằng chính tên thật của tôi
It’s about walking together
It’s about Madame Verdurin’s croissants
It’s about being together
It’s about life under military occupation
It’s about breathing together
It’s about life under neurotic preoccupation
It’s about staying human together
It’s about how grades aren’t everything
It’s about letting go, letting go, and letting go
It’s about a certain Spanish word
