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Mama…you are so close to my heart, yet so far away from me.

Palestine to Jordan, my father’s family fled. 1948 Nakba; the Palestinian exodus.
Palestine to Jordan, my mother’s father fled. 1967, the Six Day War.
Austria to Jordan, my mother’s mother fled. Love.
 
Me.
Born in Jordan. Jordanian Citizenship.
Raised Palestinian.
                                                                 Fact: Over 50% of the population, of Palestinian origin.
Not Jordanian, I was told. Palestinian.
(Find a Palestinian husband too.)
Austrian influences seeped through.
Schnitzel, Krampus and Hoppa Hoppa Reiter.

Never set foot in Palestine. Never felt Jordanian, nor Austrian.
No identity. Dual identity? Triple?
Left my parents’ house at the age of 18.
3 years in the UK. 1 transitory year in Jordan. 4 years in Toronto, and counting.
Quadruple? Quintuple? 
Home, unfound. Illusionary.
A fleeting
place feeling that I cannot seem to grasp.
Felt in fragments. Transient.
Me.
Discombobulated. Displaced. Disoriented.
Where do I belong?


Mama, in you, home exists.
I know. 
I know because I cry out for you when I hurt 
(even when you are not there)

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