"Thank You For Your Sensation"

I don't think it is very Arab to cry in public, or at least that's what I was told, after I did it. Something about the smell of the hospital, the mothers going into labor, moaning, one after the other, the black enigmas pouring into the waiting room , and staring at my bare collar bones from between the slits in their veils. My stomach twisted into a knot and wrung out tears from eyes. I didn't mean to do it, so conspicuously. I wasn't being loud. I was looking down, trying to hide it, but it didn't matter -- they saw me.

I can sit in my office thousands of miles away and conceptualize and intellectualize repression and analyze maternal mortality statistics, but when it comes down to reality, the position of women in some of these developing countries is harsh, and, please excuse my language, fucking unfair. It can be kinda hard to deal with it. As much as I don't want to admit it, I was probably going through some form of culture shock.

I sat down, breathed deeply, and tried to calm myself. I felt calm, until I saw the six of them -- nurse midwives shrouded in their Niqabs -- rushing from the delivery room to my seat in the hallway. They spoke frantically in Arabic, looking at me in a puzzled way, as a woman in labor moaned from behind the curtain. I heard one of them ask if I was married and then the others all seemed to see the light. "She is not married!" the one who knew a little English said. "You have baby?" she asked. I shook my head. "It's ok, you will get married and have lots of babies!"

Oh lord.

Yes, that must have been why I was crying, because I am a woman alone in this world, without a man, to accompany me. I must feel like nothing without a man, and proof of my fertility. Of course. That must be it. I am dust.

It did make me laugh. To think how ironic the situation was. I was sitting there crying about, in a sense, repression, and they thought I was upset over my mandatory state of independence.

My tears ceased for a little while -- until a nurse midwife came out and thanked me. I'm not sure what she prefaced in Arabic, but I clearly heard: "thank you for your sensation." Was it the sensation of tears, emotion, interaction, recognition? I'm not sure. Maybe she was thanking me for breaking up her day. Maybe some days she wants to cry, just like I did. Maybe by crying, I gave her something to take away from me, what I am always looking for when I travel, the hope that I can offer something valuable, not necessarily material, but valuable, to someone along the way. Because traveling, no matter how harsh the reality, always offers so much to me.

As I left the hospital, more of the staff approached me, asking me about my tears. Why was I crying? This puzzled them. It still puzzles me.