Category: Road Notes

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 #7: a letter from moose (aka stijn)

i received this email (below images) from my friend Stijn Schiffeleers on 1/11/2017, i kept trying to reply but nothing came through. when i encountered the alligators in the everglades some days ago, i thought of him. he’s very tall, everything in him is very tall, even his ….. moose, alligators apparently do not care for humans, and i saw that with my own eyes. they really don’t give a damn about us. they are self contained in their own pleasures, they move slowly with their eyes closed, they are cozy and their gazes are ancient, they reminded me of your softness and your sensitivity when you move, i am looking forward to your four eyes. hello you.hello Frank.hello my friend that i miss seeing on a regular basis.hello.hello Ola. [i will address your beautiful email soon, but first this] i feel so happy and lucky to know you.being in Nevada City really triggered some strong emotions and very clear memories of our very first interactions.i took a mental note of it.as i try to further understand the importance of intimacy in my life.intimacy in every way. and while looking at some films by Ben Rivers last night,i also strongly remember the excitement i felt at the Latin American bar,in the middle of the major shifts that took place last year. i have been refraining from naming it immediately, pinpointing what that excitement was, suppressing this urge to explain things.this morning it seems obvious in some way though.in its simplest form i think it is a place where your voice/brain and my eye/ear meet.you talk and explain your thoughts.you ask questions and you challenge my comments.and i see what it looks like and hear the surrounding noises. i can smell the water surrounding the gay boys in the Dead Sea.feel the vibrancy of the region around it.the tension between their bodies.the body of water underneath their own floating bodies.the shore line right next to it.the horizon line too.the closeness of Amman, Gaza, Jerusalem, …the distance of those very same places. and then … i think of you and Diala in the Subaru [correctly pronounced].and i want to be there.want to sit in the back and listen.observe.be invisible. the next day i put down my camera.and we talk listen talk listen …i do not film.resist every nerve to pick it up.fight the urge to document anything visually. then at night we drink too much good tequila.[btw Mary and I finished that nice bottle the other night]and when we wake up,i start filming again.all day long.i am there with that lens looking at you two.but you ignore me.don’t see me,do not address the camera directly.you are moving through a landscape,moving through time.moving through me [you >> lens >> me >> SD card]moving through history even. i see you.you do not see me. i follow every step.make no decisions around where we are heading, when we eat or stop to pee.i probably don’t even know where we are. at the end of the day i crawl exhausted into bed.excited to wake up tomorrow, drink a lot of coffeeand meet you over breakfast, look you in the eyes,and start chatting away as if we haven’t seen each other for months. ….. so I guess this is my project proposal to you.a video project and means to travel together through this world. and life. love.Stijn.

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.