echolalia echolalia week 2 reflections
Hi everyone. This week I read "Words as Borders, Weapons, Traps: Sarah Aziza on Being a Palestinian Writer Today" and the pieces from the "griefcase" section of echolalia echolalia, and I wanted to write out some reflections to get start thinking about our chat tomorrow.
If you haven't bought it yet, please consider placing the order here. We'll be reading for the next few weeks, so there's still time to join us.
reflections
I had some bittersweet feelings about "back in a nanosec", reflecting on old friends I haven't spoken with in ages, who may not even remember me at this point (or care to hear from me, for that matter).
I almost felt like time was passing in parallel as I read her recognize that it's 4:21am, and her overwrought thoughts about the timeliness or untimeliness of those messages in the middle of the night. Maybe because I've been up at 3 or 4 in the morning, sending messages to friends before realizing how out of place it was.
I felt my heart sink as I returned in my mind to relationships with people that I no longer talked to, but with whom I vividly remembered spending time. The stupid shenanigans we got up to, and the very distant, confusing, wistful memory of what were objectively worse times for me.
Maybe this is what aging does to you, but now as I look back I get these confusing nostalgic feelings.
video chat details
Tomorrow at 12pm ET let's get together1 and chat about whatever we've read this week. The link to join is here (if that doesn't work, the url is below)
https://al2.in/ReadingGroupRoom
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supporting The Sameer Project
If you can't buy from the bookstore, please consider making a donation directly to one of the Sameer Project's campaigns, or consider sharing a fundraiser with friends. If you can't do any of that, consider sharing the reading group with some friends; if some of them can buy the book from Open Books, or even make direct donations to The Sameer Project, then that would help enormously.
