Yamo

“My sieve-like memory can dredge up only a few hazy or imagined images. I grew up far from myself. Where are the first 16 years of my life? I awake with no past. My imagination becomes memory and reality becomes imagination, as in a dream in which I swim anxious and weary. I film my mother Nawal, my sister Rima and my brother Rayan in our “hotel” home. Each person lives within boundaries which they defend. My family is so much like this country of ours, Lebanon. Silences, things left unsaid, explosions, negotiations. Nawal says nothing. Her days are consumed inexorably, from dawn to dusk, in ceaseless work. My memory gets into gear. I recompose ‘postcard’ memories with Nawal, and I write of our relationship in a kind of secret diary. (...)  I dream that at least she speaks to me. Her past, her life, her disappointments, the war. My father, the love lost in the chaos of the days. Then I try to learn to live again in this dialogue with my mother, for you could say that Nawal has gone a long way on her journey and has taken us with her.”

Rami Nihawi

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