May 1999

Shammi's birthday barbeque was held at Laura's in Berkeley. Amahl was there- tall, masculine, feline- and while we have not known each other for long she was affectionate and intimate with me, coming up from behind and embracing me while Vivian and I talked in the kitchen. Amahl gently kissed me on the neck and said she wanted to be a "fag" and steal me away.
"How can I become a fag?" she asked as we swayed.
'Be more feminine,' both Vivian and I chimed.
Wael, the sweet, slender Lebanese I met on New Year's Eve in Mountain View, was there. We talked for some time about life in the Bay Area, how much we love it, and in the end I asked him for his number so that we may get together in the future. His Arab eyes seemed to have been outlined with coal, though they weren't.
Dark, lovely, warm Arab eyes.
A customer called the restaurant and said that I had waited on her the day before, and that I had been the perfect server! She was so pleased and so moved that she had had to call. And although I was deeply touched by the gesture a part of me felt broken, trapped in my life as it stands on nascent feet.
Last night Wael and I talked comfortably again when we met in San Francisco. People asked us how long we'd been together and were shocked to discover that we've met in person only three times! They said we looked good together.
Wael talked about his upbringing, losing his father at the tender age of seven, immigrating to the States at twenty-four, college in Ohio, and his mother- whom he does not call because she is impervious and unable to accept that her son is gay. He has three sisters.
While Wael talked I found myself quietly adoring him. His eyes seem to belong to a five-year-old boy who is constantly in awe of what he sees. They are wide and big. His lashes lunge out. He laughs like a man who is free of his painful past.
It was comical the way we fought over the bill, and insisted the other pass first through doors.
At one point he set down his bottle of beer and reached out to touch my hair. His eyes were alight. He said, "Your curls are so perfect and soft." We talked then about the misconception people have that all Arabs and people of Middle Eastern descent have coarse hair, black eyes, a big nose.
This led to Wael telling me about his cousins growing up in Texas, their struggle as Arab youth. Evidently the light-skinned sister passed effortlessly through every grade, while her darker brother, who was visibly Arab suffered prejudice and constant teasing.
At the end of the night we bid each other farewell, exchanging a small, though slow, kiss.
So, now, here I am- at this end of the world, on this coast, in this town, beneath the whisper of this American neighborhood, in the yard, under a universal sun…
Shammi writes:
I miss you guys already. I had an amazing time at the retreat and have heard from some of you, saying the same thing. Emil and I wrote to each other and found out that we both felt deflated and sad after returning home. I told Emil that I was surrounded by so many loving and interesting people and then it was all over suddenly. I am thinking of the retreat as a renewal and birth rather than something that is now finished and dead. That has been the whole point of us gathering around this Assyrian New Year. I reassured Emil and myself that on this weekend the Assyrian Queer Nation was born. I know some of you don't like that word, Queer, but you'll have to bear with me until a word that says what I want to say works better. Please use this e-mail list to continue communicating with each other and staying close. Our Assyrian and Queer nation exists in the Diaspora. We are dispersed all over the earth because of our situation as Assyrians, but especially as queers. Remember, after all, that we are a people without a country. This is our fate. We must maintain community, close ties, and love without that luxury. We must use whatever means- Internet, phone, fax, anything! Our connection is our power. But remember there is no substitute for being physically close. We are human with human needs. We are not only e-mail addresses and phone numbers. We need to touch each other (any way we want as long as it's consensual,) laugh with each other, hug each other, and sometimes even scream into each others' face if that is what we are feeling. I am hoping we will get together very soon. Please let us all stay focused with love and support for each other and let us remember the young Assyrian who took his life because of the support he didn't get. I love you all and thank you for what you have given me. It is priceless and eternal. Also, a very special thank you to the partners that came to this event. You were and continue to be an integral part of this community.
Love,
Shamiran.

Emil,
I think it's a great idea! You're an amazing writer and I think if you're willing to share your work, "All Out There" and our community is very lucky to have your writings. As far as changing people's names, that's not a bad idea. I would probably do the same. I don't see any drawbacks at this point. Just know that your life will be out there for people and be ready for all that this will involve. I would love to have had the opportunity as a teenager to read the writings of another queer Assyrian. It would have given me such a sense of pride and of not being alone. Not only did I not know there were other queer Assyrians in the world, I didn't even know Assyrians wrote things that would be considered art. That's another boundary and stereotype you will be challenging- Assyrians as artists. Emil, I'm very happy you're doing this.
On a strange note, I just remembered that one of my closest friends when I first moved to the U.S. from Iraq was a boy named Emil. I had forgotten about him but we were very close, played sports together. It all ended when he took his penis out in front of my sisters, myself, and the neighborhood kids. He had probably just discovered the little thing for the first time in his prepubescent life! I was afraid my sisters would tell my parents, which they did, and that put a dark, suspicious cloud over my relationship with Emil as far as my Assyrian parents were concerned. Never mind that Anglo Kay of the neighborhood never refrained from showing her pussy to all of us sexually curious kids whenever she damn well pleased. Kay also impressed us all by lighting a match on the bare heel of her foot. She was from the Midwest. Why I'm sharing all this with you I'm not sure. I actually just wanted to say I love you. I miss you. And I'm glad you're my new Emil friend.
Love,
Shamiran.

I send the following e-mail to an old childhood friend from Iran:
Dearest Hoda,
Great to hear from you. It's been years.
I had the privilege of seeing your mother a couple of years ago in Modesto, where she came to stay with us for a few days. I remember how profound her visit was for me. She reconnected me to a life I had been long out of touch with.
My years in Chicago with my father were strictly American and frivolous. I feel I'm just getting back in touch with my Middle Eastern roots.
Occasionally I pick up an Iranian magazine and attempt to read Farsi, which I have forgotten. How strange that an entire culture can be so easily lost within a person who has been displaced.
I miss Iran and I will always cherish my wonderful memories of growing up there. Your father Mansouranni always comes up in our conversations. We will always love and miss him. I want you to know that.
My own father isn't doing well. The years here in America seem to have exhausted him. He drank more and more and retreated into a place of great regrets and solitude. It has been heartbreaking to witness. Sometimes I wonder why we left Iran in the first place.
From Shiraz to San Francisco… Life is crazy isn't' it?
There's so much I never got to say to you. Congratulations on getting married!
I'm so thrilled to have you back in my life.
We love you deeply,
Emil.

Dear Emil,
I'm so glad that you answered my e-mail. I really enjoyed reading it. I was so impressed. I would love to have a recent picture of you. After all these years I still picture you as the beautiful little boy who loved to be a bride! Do you remember those times that you wanted me to dress you like a girl and put a bridal veil on your hair? I love to remember those memories.
How are you doing? Violet tells me you're working and going to college. I always wish you the best no matter what you do. You and your family are one of our best friends that we'll never forget.
Send me a picture of you and your mom.
Love,
Hoda.

Dearest Ahimsa,
I need to burden you even though I know you've got a lot going on. So please don't feel pressed to respond.
Years after coming out I find that I am still trying to accept my sexual self, my sexual drive. It is after all natural to possess a sexuality. But something holds me back, down. I carry within me a kind of guilt that forces me to do things that are clandestine and physically risky. And yet I do not want to continue living so precariously and dangerously. I want to respect myself. But I end up rebelling against the cautious life, drinking, and doing unsafe things. I find it so discouraging to only start living so haphazardly in my twenties when in my teens I was always "safe".
Last night I had "unsafe" sex. I allowed a man to penetrate me without "protection". And although the sensation would have been beautiful and erotic in another realm, in this one it was nothing but alarming. Lust vied with sobriety. I allowed him to return inside me, rest there, then rejected him again and again. And this is how I live on the undecided brink of self-destruction and self-preservation.
I feel helpless. I do not trust myself. I remember when you and I first met you said that you'd had to calculate your departure from San Francisco because you felt a responsibility to protect yourself. That has stuck with me. I struggle the same. But will I survive it as you have?
What am I to do?
I know that drinking is an unhealthy outlet and that I must give it up! Ahimsa, you are the first to hear this. You are a well by which I sit and contemplate. Thank you for being so deep, so dark, so mysterious, and so giving. From you I draw water, nourishment, fluid revelations.
I want freedom! But first I have to admit that it was I who welded the locks shut, frosted the windows, and chained myself to the wall in the first place.
I want freedom!
Love,
Em.

Emil,
I don't know where to begin. First, let me thank you for putting yourself so out there. I feel honored by your honesty and vulnerability. It is courageous. I'm sorry that pain has been so familiar to you, to us. I'm sorry for every ounce of hurt and self-hate you have experienced. I wish you healing, transformation, and explosive self-love. I hope that when you find yourself in that rawest place of self-truth, you see an Emil who is unique, loved, admired, powerful, and tremendously talented. You are, Emil. You are! Please value and appreciate your beautiful body. Take care of it. It houses an amazing individual who has so much to share with this world. You have many gifts to give yet. Emil, I want you to be a part of my family for life. Take care of yourself for Vivian, for me, for all the others who love you now and who will come to love you later in life. Thank you for trusting me enough to let me in.
Tremendous love,
Shamiran.

Sham,
Driving home in the dark last night I had a sudden urge to take off for Chicago and arrive days later at my father's doorstep, to hold him, tell him once again how much I love him despite the drinking, the fights, the cursing, and name-calling. I have a feeling this new fantasy is inspired by revisiting the past through my early diary pages, which I continue to copy into the computer at a pace that is steady, but slow and painful.
I have a constant fear that my brother will call one day soon and say, "We have lost dad." I hope my intuition is off this time.
What can we do to prove to our parents that we love them when we have not met their expectations? In what way can we arrive at the doorstep of their tough love safely?
Emil

Emil,
Today I printed out two of your e-mails. The one about driving to see your dad in Chicago will be 3-hole punched and incorporated into my personal binder because it's really relevant to a script idea I'm working on.
What you wrote is so heavy. "What can we do to prove to our parents that we love them when we have not met their expectations?" you ask. There is so much pain and longing in that question for me. In this world, meeting our parents' expectations is the way that we are supposed to express our love for them. That's a really twisted kind of love, though.
I don't have any answers or advice for you. All I can say is that I relate to that deep desire to express our love, especially to a parent, which I think is some deep, heavy shit. I love you and wish you peace in your relationship with your father.
Khata Shammi.

I prayed for you, Sham. I prayed for you for so many years, and you came. It makes me want to get on my knees and beg God's forgiveness even though I know He does not exist!

Do you ever wonder what it might be like to be surrounded only by folk who speak your language everywhere you go, in any state, at any given moment?

After a few hours in the sun, on a blanket under the apple tree in our yard, and after finishing "The Passion", which left me wistful and mute, mother joined me on the blanket where we drank Turkish coffee, then napped. I flipped on my belly with my head turned to one side and watched the delicate flowers dance in the breeze. Mother fell immediately asleep by my side. I thought of the nature of my relationship with her and how far we have come, and how much I love her… again. I think of her, her smallest gestures, and most trivial habits. I think of all mothers- women who give life to us and take so much from us in return. I get up from our makeshift bed in the grass and move away from her slumbering figure with a sense of loss, as if I am abandoning her. And yet, I am thankful that we are together, in one place, in one country, in one home.
To see the word Queer next to my full name online was the most jarring thing ever. I felt great shame and fear, but resolved not to be deterred from my path, and I lend my name to the cause, though I am more than this…
I don't regret life. I never will!
Ahimsa calls at noon and invites me to read with him at an upcoming event in San Francisco, appealing to my sense of purpose by telling me that our work, though different in so many technical ways, is equally powerful in themes of gender, culture, and sexuality. He says that he has read my diary excerpts as they appear on "All Out There" and adds, "You are revolutionary and courageous. You are creating the edge that others are just beginning to cut."