Somebody
DO SOMETHING!!
When I was small, maybe 7, I’m not sure we lived across the road from a house where a Russian orthodox priest and his wife lived for period of time. Can that be correct? Are they allowed wives? The house belonged to Ampleforth College and Monastery I believe. Either way I remember the priest in his long gowns and funny hat. I don’t remember his wife, or house keeper, or whatever. But there were two boys, grandchildren I think, who stayed a while. They were brothers, Igor and Dimitri, and would all play together. Dimitri and I were cast as a ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’ and would exchange shy little kisses and then punch each other as we sat at the base of the conker trees that lined up at the top of our garden, where it met the road.
Just below the row of trees was a stone wall, the boundary to our property. One of my brothers had tied a rope onto one of the branches of one of the trees to make a swing, the idea being that you reached the rope by standing on the wall. We all played more or less successfully on the swing, swinging out and back, using the wall as a landing pad. Until one day I swung out and forgot to hold on to swing back. I fell heavily on the hard standing, where my Dad would park the car when he got home from work. I bashed my head hard and split the skin on my forehead, creating vast amounts of blood and drama.
Everyone stood around in shock for what felt like a lifetime, and then Igor yelled
Don’t just stand there, somebody
DO SOMETHING!!
I don’t remember much after that except that I had stitches in my head at the doctor’s because this was a time when doctor’s actually doctored, and I was given a lollipop. I thought the stitches looked like little spiders. I’m not afraid of spiders so that was ok.
About an hour ago I accidentally watched a few seconds of video of little boy in Gaza, about 4 I’d say, being doctored having just had his arm blown off. It was very graphic. It was upsetting in ways I cannot begin to describe and that image will not leave me. My brain tried to block it. I went back to painting the skirting boards which are in dire need of it. I stood on a roll of tape and hurt the soft underside of my foot. I sat down and cried. Sniffed and got up again to glue some paper back on the ceiling where it had been soaked in a flood. As I came back down the ladder I hit my head on the top of the door frame and it hurt like hell, I could feel an egg coming up in the spot where skull hit wood. I sat down and wept. I couldn’t stop. I have carried on with my painting work, bodging it like I bodge all diy, but giving an effect of freshness and care. The image is still there and I suspect will never leave. The tears keep coming, and I suspect they will for some time. Every now and then I just stand and stare, and then like Igor I yell, silently, somebody
DO SOMETHING!!
A few stitches are not going to help that little boy and and nor will he get a lollipop, or probably anything to eat or drink at all. I couldn’t watch the whole video so I don’t who the doctors were or when or where this happened exactly. But it’s Gaza today, and every day. I don’t know if Renad the chef is ok.
I am going to try and make bread the Gazan famine way, as she showed in a recent video, using pasta instead of normal wheat flour. I can’t cook my way out of these feelings but despair doesn't help anyone. But, what the fuck has happened to this world that this kind of genocide can happen in front of our eyes, literally, and no one does anything. Please, somebody,
DO SOMETHING.
I’m glad my parents are dead. I am particularly glad my mother is dead. Is she saw the beginning of this horrific war, and having lived through the Second World War she witnessed the Nazi genocide. Some of her final words were about the babies in Gaza and her worry for them. If she could see how bad it has become I don’t know how she would have coped.
My friend Rosie and I are going to cook some Palestinian recipes together on Monday. What will it achieve? I have no idea. They will be on our instagram feeds, mine and hers, anyway, with all the tags and hash tags and links and whatever we feel in our own impotent ways may add to the clamour of the right minded people in the world and stop this fucking war. It’s not much, it’s not big and important, but it’s something.
Children of Peace is a non-partisan charity organization for Israeli and Palestinian children, aged 4 – 17, and their communities. Our aim is a shared spirit and well-being through arts, education, health and sports. Working for peace, building trust, friendship and reconciliation. So future generations might live peacefully side-by-side. We don’t take sides.
Dear Liz I believe that your ability to feel tears, to grieve and mourn what is happening in Gaza , to this little boy for the tragedy of it is a prayer. That will sound sentimental and nonsensical but maintaining this capacity is vital I feel sharing the pain. Another kind of prayer is cooking pasta bread. It seems to me this is being human, no answer but also an answer and a kind of prayer xx
Thank you Liz for so clearly expressing your truthful and heart-felt human response.
I share your feelings and think that writing and cooking ARE both DOING something. Altho it may feel small, you don’t know what ripples spread from this.
And ripples become waves and then a tide.
There needs to be a tide from all around the world that like your writing as recognises this terrible ongoing wrong and says NO in every way there is (that is not further violence).