الكاتب: theroccafamily

note # 17: do you miss your bed?

Here are the 34 most common questions asked when we mention that we are on a road trip. Our answers change as we go. Everyday, we hope for a new question, so we think of a new answer, there are no intentions for fixed answers, only interchanging ones. 1- What will happen after the road trip? 2- What is the objective of the road trip? 3- Do you sleep in the car? 4- How do you make money? How can you afford it? 5- Did you really go to the South? 6- What is the most adventurous part of the road trip? 7- What do you eat? 8- Do you miss home? Do you miss your bed? 9- Did you find where you will live after the road trip? 10- Do you fight while driving? 11- What is your favourite part so far? 12- What made you leave San Francisco? 13- Are you following the weather? 14- How can we follow you? 15- Do you camp? 16- What did you do with your stuff? 17- Did you see confederate flags? 18- Who wrote which blog? 19- Did you meet T supporters? 20- How come the crocodiles did not attack you? 21- Did you get bored? 22- What happens if you decide to stop? 23- How long is the road trip? 24- Why didn’t you take an RV or a van? 25- Where do you go after here? 26- What are you following? 27- How much clothes do you carry with you? 28- What music do you listen to? 29- Do you drive at night? 30- How often do you stretch? 31- Do you sleep in motels? 32- What is the most dangerous place you’ve been to? 33- When do you stop? 34- Are you not worried about your relationship?

note #16: in praise of friendships

Randomly i find myself in a concert, the first band playing, people we met last night and they mentioned this gig and there we were. I can see the musician’s friend at the edge of the stage, central first row cheering for her friend and that touches my heart. It makes me think of parents watching their kids on stage performing at a school play or concert and their dedication and love and steadfast support no matter what no matter where. These are our friends. One thing or another brings us together, we meet, strangers we find ourselves attracted to. Chemistry happens, we click, we grow to love each other. We are there for one another for the biggest life moments and for an afternoon beer with a smoke, a walk. Consciously or unaware, we take the time to get to know them and invest in relationships through time and space. My (a) friend(s) was there for my dropping out of school, a late night drive to locate my uncle in hospital after a midnight car crash 3 hours away, my eventual graduation, my silly rantings, my abortion, my favorite tv show, my mother’s sickness, my marriage, my joy, my self doubt, my sadness, my madness. My friend was there to love me, take care of me, forgive me, give me another chance, guide me, entertain me, assure me, push me, challenge me. My friend was there to drive me crazy, sometimes bore me, make me angry, make me dig deeper into myself, challenge my patience, hurt me. Break my heart. Enrich my life. Thank you. Friends/friendships come in all sorts of shapes and forms. Some friends are older, younger and our exact age, some are closer than others, some are for a lifetime, some friendships end for no obvious reason, some are bad friendships and our good friendships help us through them. Some friends are lovers, or x-lovers, maybe future lovers. I think most friendships are romantic, all of them involve love, and some grow with age, and some help us grow. Some get stuck and take us on nostalgic trips of time. Some friends become family. Some family become friends. Nothing beats a good friendship. Interminglers of life.riends can come in one, two, three, ∞Friends do not come easy.A friend can be an animal. Friends are choosing to be friends. a close friend: companion, soul mate, intimate, confidante, confidant, familiar, alter ego, second self, playmate, playfellow, classmate, schoolmate, workmate; ally, associate; sister, brother; best friend, kindred spirit, bosom buddy, bosom friend; informal pal, chum, sidekick, crony, main man, mate, buddy, bud, amigo, compadre, homeboy, homegirl, homie, dawg, gal pal, BF, BFF; informal, plural peeps; Hi! My bbff. The words are not enough مرادفات كلمة صَدِيق: ألِيف، أَثِير، أَلِيف، أَنِيس، إلف، إِلْف، تَحَنَّن، تِرْب، جَلِيس، حَبِيب، حَنَا، حَنّ، خَدِين، خَلِيل، خِدْن، خِلّ، رَفِيق، زَمِيل، سَمِير، شَقِيق، صَاحِب، صَفِيّ، عَزِيز، عَشِير، عَطَف، قَرِين، قُرّة عين، قِتْل، قِرْن، لُدّ، مَحْبُوب، مُؤَانِس، مُؤْنِس، مُخَادِن، مُسَامِر، مُصاحِب، مُصَاحِب، نَجِيّ، نَدِيم، وَلِيّ (NOTE: the synonyms for friend in arabic include loved one, a beloved, a brother/sister, an apple of an eye) My friends (a friend) allow me into their worlds, into their intimate places of their mind, heart, bodies, and homes and relationships and memories and families. They share their lives with me. Share their families and friends. We make our lives together. Sometimes face to face, hand in hand, sometimes over long emails, over skype, over telepathy. Sometimes regularly, sometimes irregularly, each friendship is different and the sweet thing about friendship is that in its definition there is space for each one of us, friendships do not try to merge the bodies and soul and in the absence of curiosity we are allowed to part ways. When my friend’s sister passed away, i lost a part of me. When my friend passed away, i lost my home. When my friend brought a friend along my world got bigger. When my friend came to visit, i wanted to make my best spaghetti sauce. And drink a whole bottle. When my friend brought/will bring a baby into the world, i love her [the baby] just because the baby is hers. I was reading the other day, a random article in a random magazine, and it said: something something “to your friends, colleagues and loved ones.” Fuck this. As a matter of fact, the dictionary says the origin of the word friend is to love. My friends are loved ones. This separation seems common and easy although it does not make sense at all. Friends, good friends, are very much loved ones. Actually it is beautiful when lovers become friends and family members become friends. I am struggling with what feels to me like romantic-couple supremacy. Good friends compare to nothing.Good friends are amazing.Good friends are a treasure. I hate it when a person is described as single when all one has to see is that friend by their side, sharing a pizza (maybe two), watching films, talking about health, helping with the baby, being intimate, physically present, with no money boundaries, their name as the emergency contact. That person is not single. Cheers to all my friends. All the friends that keep me company on the journey of life (and the Rocca Family Road Trip, all the connections to hang out, open homes, recommendations for food, farewell parties, welcome parties, sweet introductions, and check ins.) I LOVE YOU.

note# 14: little internal conversations on the road

I am trying to find summer only to realise i am following winter. And winter can be beautiful. Breathtaking indeed. Stunning (freezing stunning and pretty stunning sorts of stunning). I learn that i like winter and it is not a simple emotion because i hate it too, hate is the wrong emotion. The cold makes me nervous, that agitation akin to when i feel hungry or misunderstood. . Feel it in my bone yet not run away from it. But seek it. Talk to it. I would do March again in North Carolina by my beloved Roan Mountain. It taught me to see winter. (Not all the south is warm in winter, not all the south is south, the south is made up of many states and each one as big as a country and each country can have mountains and sandy beaches, as well as cold and hot winters. Still learning what it means to live in a really really big country). This place is huge. Mile upon mile and more miles of everything: trees and asphalt and cars and food-that-is-not-food-chains and houses, street signs, radio stations, and churches, and empty factories, haunted towns, full towns, and land. So much land. Space. Upon space. Endless space. More space after space. Behind the trees, until the foothills, behind the mountains, around the lakes. With so much, how does it still feel so deeply poor? I will never understand what america means by poor. [how is it that one human/one family/one constructed-fabricated-citizenry is entitled (literally has a title of) a piece of land, exclusively, while some die drowning, thirsty, naked, sad, searching for a place to lay their head, hold a child, cook a meal, fuck, dream?] (who owns oceans?) I saw with my own eyes space where a million refugees can fit, ten million and all the homeless and undocumented and the wretched of the earth. I cannot help but feel america is a spoiled needy self centered brat who can never be happy. And that is sad. And dangerous. Were you not afraid going through Alabama? In the six years i lived in San Francisco (beautiful healthy clean rich whitening exclusive San Francisco that introduced me to the darker depths of madness and apathy), how many sit-ins and shared videos and tears and anger did we contribute to the war-scene for (our) trans and black and latinx (fellow locals/ourselves) and repeated their names rippling waves in a crowd that will go home more broken. Do not ask me if Alabama was scary, San Francisco was terrifying. Funny, (not funny at all), growing up in a war torn region trying to keep afloat sinking and bobbing at the surface of the Mediterranean (until the boat capsizes–the vocabulary of refugee-nessness)/colonialism, “why can you not find peace over there?” “oh what a violent part of the world that is.” “i wish people there could find peace.” Like where? The streets of america? For whom? The white? The black? Growing up we learned america was the most dangerous place to visit and that exclusively meant usa. But i try harder than to believe all stereotypes and generalising notions of peoples until they insist on proving correct (when i am too tired). Why does the desert make me nostalgic for what may have been of my relationship with my home-desert? Arrested relationship. Interrupted. I want to be back in Wadi Rum. I look for those cool mornings in New Mexico. I am seeking the wild. Wilderness within and without. I am still in the city, on the trails by the Rio Grande, on the freeway looking afar. I want to sleep awake under a star-crazy sky. Will i venture? Will i be invited in? Growing up in a country that is mostly desert (it has several micro climates, including the Jordan Valley), there are many connotations one learns about the desert. My country was a sort of bridge (a gap?/a confused geography born of colonialism, drunkard army-nights, modernity and occupation) between the Mediterranean and the Arabian Desert (including الربع الخالي). In popular chit chat, the desert/its people are often synonymous with poverty, ignorance, ignored, marginality, nothingness, barren, boredom, uninteresting. It took me a while to go like “ah, wait a second!” the desert is awesome you fool. Open them eyes. I love the desert. The power in a plant pushing through offering a deep pink The humbling in knowing every drop of water counts The cuisine which needs no fridges and sweet tea with sage

note #12: goodbye my love

Goodbye my love I bid you farewell We may meet again And we may not. I have come to love you deeply. I feel it, confirmed by the ache of a separation, in my stomach. My throat hurting against the restrained sobs. My heart overflows and i giggle in front of your beauty. I remember when we first met and i was confused in my attraction and in my fear, excited and careful coming closer to you and feeling you. For you, i was almost completely visceral. When i was with you, i surrendered to you, relished in your greatness, wished to be taken as a moment in your timelessness, a member of your congregation. You offered me new horizons, changing landscapes. You redefined breathing for me. I fell in love. We met under the skies, joined by the winds, through freeze, snow, rain, fog, and sun. engulfed in wet. Perfumed by juniper and fir. Witnessed by juncos, robins and ravens. Surrounded by the seen and unseen creatures and offered the platform of untold stories. I was not always open to you, i am aware of that. Sometimes i stayed away, sometimes i came to you fully. There were times when i could not stay very long, when it was painful or uncomfortable or i had other things to do. You were always there. But you were each time different. Sometimes really cold and mysterious, other times open and welcoming, always breathtaking. The more i got to know you, the more there was to find out about you and now i have to leave and our short love affair has only allowed me a glimpse of you. I do not really have to go. I could stay. I do not know how. There will always be other loves. Before during after. Layered tangled independent. Like i am changed by every love, I am changed by you. I have been shaped by you. So is the story of love. Even as I move away from you, where my feet take me, what my eyes tell me, the nature of breath and sun are new. Because of you. At some point i will forget. I will forget how you changed me. I may even forget you. This makes my loss even greater in anticipation. But it is forever, that is my confession, my love for you (dare i say our love, did you love me?) interfered in the chemistry of me, the muscle and blood, there is no going back. The awareness of this emotion maybe fleeting, but the reality of it, even when forgotten, will always be.

note # 11: love is the only thing i know or love is the only thing i want to say i know

in times of sudden life changing events, time stops, everything you planned for seems so small and unnecessary, and to survive our heads and hearts shift. our previous worries about the expected changes have arrived, we thought we knew, that when this will happen i will do this, and when this happens i will do that and when this will happen i will probably feel that we read and read and read and think we know its all bullshit and i will no longer say i know i do not know i don’t know i don’t know with one exception love is the only thing i know or love is the only thing i want to say i know ok, so i am angry at myself, and it’s not cool i am angry at my arrogance, thinking that i knew i am angry at my confidence, thinking that i knew i will carry this with me until i am back and on the road again, with one big difference knowing that i do not know and that love is the only thing i know # notes about the dealings with life changing events during the road trip – Amman/ Jordan

note #10: Trying to Look Fear in the Eye. Again.

Fear I feel fear, almost dizzy and nauseous in the presence of natural drama mountain, cliff, wind frozen ice, ancient rock, thick moist earth, barren, full. I feel fear. In front of this power and grandiose and expanse. Raw aggressive and wild. Uninhibited elements. Or is it joy? Or an acute sense of living? Or a serious brush with death? In nature’s overwhelming sense of time, her irrationality, her instinct. I feel it physically heart tightening, stomach squeezing, heart extra beating. Sometimes i hold a fist to my chest only to know what maybe real. To let go sometimes, all i worry about is slipping–zooming in to cope. Fear In the solitude and the silence. The only sound a worn out shoe against the timeless stones, skidding against ice, sloshing into snow, wet in the freezing water. Silently, the new green bursts out of the earth, the new mushroom breaks into the air, the leaves push through. What do i do in all this silence? What do i do in all this solitude? Uncomfortable. Bewitched. Staring into the silent space between death and life. That is inaccurate. The separation by no means is clear. A multi dimensional, eternal rhizome of the stages of life and death intertwined. Rotting intensities of promises and ancestries and possibilities. Life climbing on death. Feeding. Am i finally witnessing/getting a glimpse of the cycle of life? Fear In the sounds that strike in the edges of silence. Trees actually creek like unoiled doors. Old drops of rain finally falling off their temporary leaf homes. Very few birds that come as a surprise every time. The trickling of water collecting engraving river beds into the mountain, dropping from a stone like a miniature waterfall. Monsters breathing in the dark. I cannot tell who is breathing. Me or them. Catching up with my heart. Breath whistling/heart pounding in my ears. A dry leaf catches the breeze and flies crackling against the earth. The wind whispering a temporary hurricane into the tops of trees. And in all of this there is silence. Fear Deep into my fear. Deep breathing. Looking deep into the fallen trees and mossy trunks and winter aftermaths. Destruction. Mayhem. Deeply reexamining my notions of fear. The mythical fear. The unknown. The unfamiliar. The untapped possibilities. No bear can live this high, there is no food, or is there? What if indeed there was not enough food and the bear is really starving and i am its first meal of the season? Stick to the trail. Surrender to the meditation of trail hiking. Deep breathing. Listen to the deep calming voices of reason. I hear voices. Monsters. Oh hello! Stepping aside to allow the grandmother to pass through, and the young parents with their three children maximum age 5. Thank you very much.(One of the little ones was wearing a t-shirt with illustration of mountain beasts on it.)   Fear Sometimes the fear of humans strikes deep into my guts. Flourishes. Overflows. I know it when i avoid eye contact. Fear that bubbles sour. A stranger. Alone. In a small town. Where no one knows my name. Where no one else is brown. Feeling my skin. My short hair. My accent. My licence plate. At night listening for the sounds. Mythical. I do not think it is real. Shaking it off. And every morning i read/or listen to how real it is. I insist throughout the day to go through the day myself. Everyone is nice. Sometimes, oftentimes, real sweet. If i never knew a world outside of this geography, of these mountains, the rain, the sunshine, the snow, the birds, the little town, saluting driving by, would i know to listen to the fear/listen for the fear about a whole group of people? I do not know their names. It is too late.

note #8: the impossibility of words

I can never tell you I can never draw for you I can never even bring you close To seeing what i see now Past Already past That moment existing in the moment Back in the forest Between the trees, a few minutes uphill from the street In the center of nothing but this forest Never before nor after Never under or above I will never be able to know it again In that way i have no words for I want to tell you I want to keep record but it just can never be For it was right then and there a moment all my life I could only just see Listen Touch Taste Feel And be Listening to my breath As it mixes into pure air I could only just try to keep to memory some of that life I lived so fleetingly I cannot tell you how green green was Or how brown or those colors between green and brown how much they were themselves I can never tell you how velvet How damp How rotting How alive And how dead How immediate and how mysterious How basic and how decaying How big (i, so small) How young and eternal and time has new meaning So does pain The burning The break The loss The howling wind blowing The fog offering my eyes a new lense Escaping Moving on I will never be able to tell you how changed i am Touched by the enchanted forest If i may lay on its earth and beg to be taken My skin against dirt Brown to brown Beyond reason Beyond anxiety and heartache Perhaps Just under the creek ice I want to rid my body of its shame And hunger All i have to offer is my own pee river to the earth Take me as you know me Take me you are too big to see me Take me for a moment i feel well Joyful and crystal clear alive Like the sharp chill I can almost forget my heartbreak My heartbreak is only a branch broken to make way For breeze Here i feel myself small My life small The life of my family The life of my people Any people The life of the burning The life of the lost In the cycle of millions of years Stardust To dust As trees Fall And make way To fire And make way To death And make way To life And in between i hope for love.

note #6: the economies of space

Two weeks now and i can count the mealsAnother pair of eggs. Another menu where french fries are the vegetableAnother check Counting the nightsBig beds small beds Nights hosted at friends and friends of friends and friends of friends of friendsIntimacy of/with strangersSharing the quiet of the nightTrustingLove by extensionGoodbye, thank youI will miss all the cats and the dogs and the other magical creatures My home is your home Another cheap expensive motelThat forever will smell of old cigarettes and wet AC air watching our car from the window Another stop at the gas station and watching the gallons in and out Counting the coffees, even the non-coffee coffees$1.125-$5.50 X 2 X 2/Everyday This t-shirt will not fit2 skirts, 5 t-shirts, 11 underpants, 2 trousers, a vibrator, toothbrush, toothpaste, cream, and face cream and sunblock and anti mosquito and scratch cream and contact lenses and contact lense solution and box and a sweater, two sweaters, socks and every single item counts for a lot, for precious space. A book, two books. My notebook. Two.Lay the winter stuff below and squeeze. Every single object counts (and is heavy)Every single bite countsEvery single nightEvery single bathroom needAll the fruitsThe water bottles I can see how much i useHow much i am The road feels infiniteSome areas of no serviceEEE The crocodile is a witness of time way beyond human cognition both past and futureAnd the birds do speak a language (s) i will never learn Friends are manyLove is big and does not need roomSmaller space for my legs but more space for my noseAnd earAnd my skinGradually learning to receive the elementsHeat and cold and wet and mosquitoesMore space to feelMore space to be More space for magic

Thank you شكرا

Our first hosts, Anan Ameri, Noel Saleh and Noura , Ann Arbor – Michigan (November 2016 – February 2017) تودّ العائلة شكر الأصحاب والصاحبات على كلّ أشكال الحب لتحقيق هذه الرحلة وتخصّ بالشكر عنان العامري على العنانة العنّانة وألمى خصاونه على حضن الروكا The Rocca Family 2017 USA Road Trip is made further possible with the generous support of friends and family, a spectacular thank you goes to, Anan Ameri for the Rocca Family vessel 3ananeh & Alma Khasawnih for giving the feline member of the Family a home. AND Shadi Kabajah . host in San Francisco, CA & map monitoring & online consultant Alma Khasawnih . Rocca aunt & host in Seattle, WA & storage Anan Ameri . host in Ann Arbor, MI & storage Noel Saleh . legal advisor & host in Ann Arbor, MI & storage Stijn Schiffeleers . documenter & editor & supporter Adrienne Maree Brown . miniature collection host & supporter & inspirer Ghalib El-Khalidi . Zizi consultant & animal advisor Lily Haskell . accommodation connector & advisor & solar eclipse watching glasses magician Oraib Toukan . connector Dani Leventhal . host in Ohio & Ohio State University Sheilah Wilson . host in Ohio Kathy Zarur . supporter Jumana Nabti . camping consultant Linda Mcmath Salley . camping gear sponsor Kristina Lee Podesva . mentor & host in Bellingham, WA Ani Orfali . host in Amman, Jordan & animal consultant Razan Khatib . supporter & tech advisor Joni Butler . host in Birmingham, AL Lahib Jaddo . host in St. Augustine, FL Tobias Packer . host in Miami, FL & Everglades advisor Suad Amiry and Salim Tamari . hosts in New York, NY Ala Diab and Eve Tulbert . hosts in Chicago, IL Hind Abdel Shafi and Nabil Al Sharif . hosts in Marion, Illinois Laura Farha . host in Wichita, KS Nadia Shihab . connector for Albuquerque, NM Szu-Han Ho . connector in Albuquerque, NM & divine paletas Nancy Zastudil . host as Central Features Contemporary Art in Albuquerque, NM Herekeke Arts Center, artist residency, Lama, NM Liliana Mejia . Lama, NM in house healer & food inspirationist Nat Wilson . the music Peggy Chung . holding space at Lama Mountain, NM Sherene Seikaly . connector for Santa Barbara, CA Adam Davis . host in Los Angeles, CA and boogie board mentor Irene Girgis . host in San Francisco, CA Manal Alsharif-Hanna . Seattle, WA hospitality Carissa Williams . Portland, OR warmth Sarah Farahat . Portland, OR connector & figs C3:initiative: Shir Ly Camin Grisanti, Alexis Roberto, Ashley Stull Meyers and Freddy, artist residency in Portland, OR Mona Huneidi . the stories and the gender-fuck doll Bruna Press + Archives & Localgroup Studio artist residency in Bellingham, WA Alan McConchie’s parents . Bellingham hospitality Orcas Island Chamber of Commerce for face to face information Zumi the cat . Orcas, WA Cecilia Mandrile . New York host Rocca Family 167 Instagram followers for not allowing the tree to fall without witness. AND thank you for our dear mothers, Laila Hijazi and Arwa Aamiry for their unconditional non conformist love.

note # 3: Michigan–Ann Arbor–Detroit

daily exercises to live with the snow – daytime 1- fall and get up, fall and get up, fall and get up 2- hug the tree to feel warm in different positions 3- take the dog to scream for help 4- wear one bright color 5- stretch one and two and three (one time) 6- sleep on top of one another, anything you find 7- contemplate with dog Snow Is snow always this white?I have never known white so white The canine racing throughSkipping fluff I can see my breathingI can hear my breathing I can feel the elementsThe cold wind on my little backThe freeze carried by the airThrough my nostrilsSharpLike glassOnly gentle And soft But for real, for realIs snow always this white? Makes me thinkOf classmates who have never seen snowWho wore purple dresses and saidThis color is snow-white It made me smile thenAnd it makes me wonder nowAbout the white of the snow I want to focus and for hours seeContemplate and learnAbout the white of the snowAnd nothing more and nothing lessBut to be so aware of somethingSoWhite. Is that still white?

note #2: the deer came to the apple tree

النص رقم ٢ : أكل الغزال التفاحة The rocca family extends itself to many others, it is not just diala, ola and rocca. Many friends made along the way, over the years, across spaces and continents. They are friends and friends of friends, making the family bigger until it is untraceable. san francisco – mount shasta – ashland – bellingham – medford – san francisco 15 – 24 August 2016 kristina and allan in the woods with the cat i p o h we ate their greens and picked their berries [we ate their thoughts and picked their brains] we slept at the parents’ and cooked with their untouched pots we met their friends and swam in their lakes we drove to them and back heritage, narcissism, healing, shamans, queer aesthetics, deers, language, yemen, fears, breakfast, korean rice. [the deer came to the apple tree] I am touched by a sunset. Consumed with oohs and aahs and other such obscene expressions. Walking in reverse up the hill to see more of the bleeding horizon. Exploding. Imploring. I feel taken by the beauty and deeply sad for being away from home. I think of the faraway city of hills cleansed by a sunset, the shadows of pain darkened disappear for a moment. If a horizon is present, the pigeons seem free, a breeze almost gentle, it can be really good. fleeting. The sun sets behind the hills protecting the mission from carl and taking away the last bits of an overwhelming crimson. Flashing gold. Unnamable colors changing too fast for a code. I climb up and up. I stop by the terrace of a small public park and I stare until I am made uncomfortable by a man creeping his way closer. He may have wanted to share the sunset joys. I will never know? I will never ask him. But I am programed to relinquish the space to him and leave. A lonely figure. Abandoned. I walk up and take out the music from my ears so I can both surrender to the transformed/transforming skies and to my fears. Every man is suspect. Every dark corner is a crime. But very few are and only a few times. الغول I remember reading one of Rebecca Solnit’s articles where i think she describes violence against women as an international plague but also saying that women are safer traveling and walking than in their own homes, if numbers were talking. But the fear is focused on the stranger and the other and is quickly fed into a phobia size monster. And the phobia size monster is accommodated and given so much space that it grows and grows and takes over and we are too scared to live. Do not go out at night or the ghoul will eat you. if you do not eat your rice to the last grain, the rice will eat you. if you count the stars, you will get as many zits as you count stars. a gas station. bored young men. drugs. our station is protected by loaded rifles usa roads, here we come: queers, born females, brown, born muslim, arabs. pleasantly surprise me اللي بيخاف من البعبع بيطلعله The normalization of sickness. Today, people are phobic. The phobia monster lives in every home. That is not cool. That is not ok. Fear is a natural instinct to help us survive, to support our wellbeing, a tool to use to live. Phobia is paralyzing, demonizing, isolating and an obstacle to living. Literally used for the killing. THE INDUSTRY OF FEAR I walk the streets of a new city and this city has dogs and the dogs are taken for walks and they poop and the kaka is left behind. What is the name of the city? You ask. I do not remember, but it sure had lots of dog kaka on its pavements and I successfully managed to avoid it all. I can assure you, dog poop, like human shit comes in many shapes and forms. Sky? What sky? What is the name of the life lived in search of shit? What is the name of life controlled by fear?

Note #1: Hundreds of Miles Marked By Pee

النص رقم ١: مئات الأميال تسجلها وقفات البيبي The memory of the road trip, the registry of every mark of time and place, starts to fade as soon as it happens. New seconds are born as those deemed old die. Pictures, videos, notes register interpretations of the experience and just as we step away from the event at the speed of 80 miles per hour it is past, retold, deformed, inaccurate and archival. addiction highlighted: coffee القهوة Taken pictures and recorded videos, seated, behind the car glass. Opening the window would have caused a typhoon in the car, or a hurricane: loud and strong winds. The computer is out of memory. Are the pictures really saved? They are already dying, or maybe dead. Slowly becoming obsolete. The moment is really alive only at its exact birth, and as a matter of fact, it is hard to really ever live the moment for by the time one is aware of it, it is already gone. The highway goes on and on. Hundreds of miles marked by cow production channels from shit perfumed to grease consumed. Hundreds of miles marked by miles. Hundreds of miles marked by time. Hundreds of miles marked by hunger. Hundreds of miles marked by pee. sing along abdulhalim hafez قارئة الفنجان Endless desert space across the new mexico landscapes meeting a dome like sky gave me butterflies. Space. Emptiness. Fullness. Airconditioned box separation. Sometimes it is so beautiful that we giggle. Rocca Family abstract adventure. Green. Red. Blue. Dust. Breeze. Large trucks. is this a gay arab bar? بار للأحرار nothing competes with fresh popcorn In search of new/other ways of being البحث عن طرق أخرى وجديدة للوجود خلص جلي بيكفّي. مين قال الكنباية بالصالون والصالون بنصّ البيت. ومين قال ما بيسوى ما يكون عندي بيت. تكرار. جلي. بالليل والنهار. بيتوتيّة. ترويض. ملّيت. والحزين رح يموت. عم بيموت عشان كنباية بالصالون. عشان يحط راسه ع المخدة وينام. بيت. استحيت. يا ريتني اعطيك البيت بس مش هيك مش هيك. وما فيني، ومش كرمال عيونك أصلا مش شايفني، إلّا إنّي أترك البيت Ooppss! Forgot to queer our home. Our couch is in the living room where the living room is designed to be. It is so dangerous that in our struggle to be queer we joined the structures that designed us as queer to start with. Too lazy to push the boundary of queer, escaping the tsunami of normalisation. Lazy. Mundanity. Domestication. Suffocation. (boring). (I am not about to deny the sweet and the cozy and the comfortable and warm, especially not when many of this human population can only dream of a couch in a living room with a roof on their head. Stuck. Between blessed and committed to changing the world. Fuck my couch. I know you want it. Somehow I cannot give it to you, rent control, the rule, the law. But I want to piss on it.) The Rocca Family wants to try to be without a living room for a while. Or maybe a-fifteen-minute-living-room-in-the-rest-area-on-highway I-10, every once in a while. To queer our home. (oxymoronic?) The Rocca Family shall take to a relative road. We want to catch up with family members, stay with friends, and bond with strangers. We want to work. Take pictures, make videos, write and perform. We want to eat, walk, sleep and drive in new places. I want to play. I want to take a path alone. Beautiful spaces. Strange residencies. Awkward silences. Imperfect coffees. Tired. Afraid. smoked salmon. veggie burgers. chicken burgers. boiled corn ears. chewing gum. labaneh. cheese. soda water. green peas (did not really work). edamame pods. carrots. vitamin c. cucumbers. tomatoes. strawberries. nuts. energy bars. crackers. rice crackers. sugar free lozenges. baked tofu slabs. dried fruit. green salad leaves. stir fry beef-meat chunks. boiled potatoes. avocado. bananas. pears. apples. small milk bottle. blue corn tortilla. hummus Put my head on a fluffy new pillow, white sheets, deep sleep with a friend. A rest stop. Dinner in the kitchen and beer. In investigating Family, the Rocca Family looks at domesticity, at couplehood, at friends mixing up our names, at home ways. A road trip might clear the mind, take away the clutter, provide the space, the lack of space, the un-coziness of space, to shake off some of the obsession with cleaning and discussing dinner plans. The diaspora to the surface. The Rocca Family are immigrants, refugees, Palestinians in the diaspora, a cat from the shelter. Home is always fickle. Is always momentary. Even with the artwork is on the walls. Even with a family doctor that knows our std history. Even with a library card. In search of home is my home. Fuck home. Friends are home. Home is where the cast iron skillet is.