Other Words for Home

by Jasmine Warga

I am learning how to be sad and happy at the same time.

Americans love labels. They help them know what to expect. Sometimes, though, I think labels stop them from thinking.

I wonder if it is exhausting to be a tree. To lose something, year after year, only to trust that it will someday grow back.

Until then, I am working on being brave in smaller steps, opening my eyes and seeing and learning. Aunt Michelle has started leaving

I search every day for a clue about why I deserve to be here in Aunt Michelle’s kitchen, safe and fed. When so many others just like me are not.

we are lucky to be here when so many others aren’t. But we don’t understand the luck of why or how just the luck.

Hoping, I’m starting to think, might be the bravest thing a person can do.

But I wanted her to understand that we’re happy here, even if we don’t look like what she thinks of as happy.

I have learned Americans love to say you know and then stop talking. They force you to fill in the hard parts, the things they are not brave enough to say.

Layla, I say, and I hardly ever say her name so that catches her attention. I left home, I flew across an ocean. My brother is missing, in the middle of a war zone. What is there left to be afraid of?

But still I say, I’m choosing not to be afraid. I say it more for me, more for Issa, than for Layla. The words are a wish, a prayer.

The way people do when they want to make sure you see them, that you know they’re claiming their space.

She is seeing me differently. She is seeing me.

It is hard to find a monologue, it is hard to find a place where my favorite actresses are allowed to speak without a man interrupting them before their full thought has been spoken.

But I have lived a life that people don’t quite understand in a place that lots of people, I am learning, don’t understand at all.

Every time I practice, I think about how wonderful it feels to speak for two whole minutes, with no fear of being interrupted, with no one saying, Skety.

I have never seen her wear a sweater or pants, and I know Aunt Michelle must’ve bought them for her, and that’s when I realize America has also changed Mama. I just haven’t been paying close enough attention.

I sometimes wish I was like that. That I was happy to blend in, fade into the background. I sometimes worry that there is something wrong with me that I so badly want to know that other people see me.

But then I think about all the other people, all the other people who are in this room right now for the exact same reason, and realize my want, my dream, is as big and real and valid as theirs.

I am going to give her, give everyone, a reason to know how to say my name, my full name. I open my mouth and start to sing.

But Mama held me and told me that I might be growing up but I don’t need to be afraid because even if she has a tiny baby in her stomach I’ll always be her baby too. And when she held me, I could feel that there was still space in her arms for me.

I am looking into the mirror at the image of me that I do not recognize. A stranger who I will get to know. A stranger who I am excited to meet.

Sometimes I feel like you have to say things out loud just to remind the universe that you’re still thinking about them.

No matter how many times I explain to her that of course it is my choice and this is something I have been waiting for, she still casts a look at Mama, like she is a detective who is going to get to the bottom of the case when really there is nothing to solve, only something to be happy about, something that back home, would’ve been greeted like Layla’s mother greeted me, like a celebration, a blessing.

I want women like Aunt Michelle to understand that it is not only women who look like them who are free who think and care about other women.

That it is possible for two things to look similar but be completely different.

That I cover my head like other strong respected women have done before me, like Malala Yousafzai like Ka...

That I cover my head not because I am ashamed forced or hiding. But because I am proud...

There is an Arabic proverb that says: She makes you feel like a loaf of freshly baked bread.

It is said about the nicest kindest people. The type of people who help you rise.

She is asking me to choose between two things without realizing it is her and people like her that think you have to choose.

But then I remember it doesn’t matter, I have a role! I’m in the play! And I have this magical thing called punch. Liters of it.

And then she tells me: About the explosion, about the blood in the streets, and the horror and the death.

Be careful, Jude, she says, and I don’t understand. She tells me that now I will learn what it means to be a Muslim in America.

Go back to where you came from, he says. We don’t want you here.

There is a ringing in my ears and for a moment I freeze, unsure I actually heard what I heard. I want to say something to make this man understand that he has no reason to be afraid of me, to hate me, but all I manage to do is walk away.

I just want to say, and it’s not that I’m saying I understand because I know I don’t, but I do understand what it’s like to not fit in. To have people look at you like you’re different and weird and like that’s somehow a bad thing.

Or maybe sometimes you shrug because you do know the answer, but it is too painful to say.

Don’t they know we hate this too? That we suffer too?

She was not raised in a part of the world where it is no longer shocking to hear about bombs going off in cars markets mosques. Bombs going off while people are praying celebrating loving.

that Americans think it’s normal for there to be violence in places where people like me are from, where people like me and people who look like me live.

That they all see people like me and think violence sadness war.

Too much sunshine makes a desert.

I wonder, though, if it is possible for there to be too much rain. I am starting to feel like I am drowning, like I don’t know how much longer I can stay afloat.

Jude. Her tone is sharp. I straighten my posture. This is not about you. It is about one person’s ignorance and fear. It feels like it’s about me. I feel like it’s about all of us, I say.

Sometimes talking to Mama reminds me of a feather duster brushing dirt away from a mirror. She doesn’t give you anything new, but she helps you better see what is already there.

They are paying someone to scrub off the paint, but I am slowly realizing that no amount of money is enough to scrub away the hate.

No, she says. Her voice has the force of a windstorm. You belong somewhere. I don’t belong anywhere. Not here, not there.