A bruised hijabi
unfinished letter #6
I am looking at my face in the bathroom mirror at 5:45 on Wednesday morning. The bruise on my right cheekbone is more pronounced than the night before. It gives the impression of contouring, of those fake Kardashian cheekbones I don’t have.
I press on it gingerly, waiting for the feedback of the pain. Will my Nars tinted lotion be enough to cover this? My other hand comes up to the red-brown on my chin. This one whines like a high-frequency radio station, the feedback sharp and sudden. No Nars will cover it.
Riding my bike home from work last week, I miscalculate the height of the curb and go down hard.
My right side takes most of the impact - cheek, chin, knee, both palms for good measure. By the time I untangle myself from the bike, there’s a crowd of 7 or 8 around me. Water bottles are offered, pupils checked. What day is it? Where are you?
Thankfully, I know the answers — there is no concussion. My phone and my glasses, by some miracle, aren’t broken. I call M, who comes to retrieve me and the bike.
The ringing in my opposite ear doesn’t stop for ten minutes. When it does, the sound waves are replaced by waves of pain and pressure. The right side of my jaw may have taken the impact, but the left side is suffering the after-effects, silent but screaming.
At home we apply ice and Advil. Call my mom-in-law for a virtual consult, take down instructions to rest. No chewing, no stretching or yawning. “Think of this like an ankle sprain for your jaw.”
The emergency having passed, I am on to the next worry.
What do you think of when you see a bruised hijabi? Is her husband beating her? Did her dad trap her in a room for refusing to marry a man 20 years her senior?
My mind is filled with snatches of scenes from the procedurals I’ve flipped away from on TV. Brown women with light eyes, poorly wrapped hijabs, and thick accents. Bruises painted on their cheeks at exactly the spot mine sits.
“I fell down the stairs,” the woman on the tv says, unconvincingly. The white detective raises an eyebrow. He cares so much that he stays after her terrorist husband/brother/father until the bad guy slips. By the end of the episode, the woman’s face will have healed. She’ll stop by the precinct to thank her white saviour. She is free. She is in America. What more could she ask?
What do you think of when you see a bruised hijabi? Do you think she might have fallen cycling? Do you ever picture a hijabi cycling? Swimming? Paddling along down a river?
Exhibit one of why I assume the worst:
My father has four daughters. He is a tall Arab man with a beard1. Because he has been happily married for 50 years, and he’s a girl dad four times over, he is often surrounded by women.
It has happened more times than I care to admit that we’ll be out and a stranger will say something about my dad and his wives, looking over to me and my sisters.
I have no broken bones, no open wounds. I have no need for a hospital, and if I did I’d have an embarrassing number from which to choose. I stay home and ice my face and rest in the air conditioning. I take multiple paid sick days.
M goes to the grocery store and calls me (perfect reception on our functioning cell phones.) Do I want corn chowder soup? Minestrone? Chicken noodle? I turn down each one — I’m not in the mood, and I have cupboards full of food I can slurp right here at home.
I start with the cherries I love so much - bite through them with my front teeth and gum them up by pressing down on them with the roof of my mouth. I imagine I am woman who’s teeth are gone, and who can’t find her dentures. The juices release. I can swallow the cherries down, nearly whole.
The red skid marks on my cheek fade in 3 days, but my chin takes longer. I search longingly in the mirror. Is my jaw tilted to the right? If that was the case, wouldn’t I feel it? Or is the bruise under my chin swelling on one side, making me lopsided? In the grand scheme of things, my jaw is fine, and yet I can’t look away from the slight asymmetry.
I saw a picture last week of a little girl in Gaza whose jaw had been blown off one side of her face. Two days later, I saw another picture of her, post stitches, a bandage holding things together, and I thought of Picasso. I read an article about doctors performing surgery in rooms so hot, their sweat drips into their open patients. Flies buzz around the operating theater. There is no electricity. There is no anesthetic.
I wonder about our capacity to care. I wonder if I’ve lost you, my reader. If your sympathy is blunted. If you feel as though I’ve taken advantage of your concern for me, a woman on a bike (personal, relatable) to instead give you a lecture about tens of thousands of dead Palestinians (political, not what you signed up for).
Do we still have room in our hearts for this? Are we too tired to hear and read about it? Do we all just want it to go away?
I’m continuing to share resources about Gaza and the West Bank. This week, I’m sharing an article from the Lancet, one of the world’s foremost medical journals, providing analysis on the death toll in Gaza. The Lancet conservatively estimates that at least 186,000 deaths could be attributable to this conflict. That number accounts for 7-9% of the population of Gaza. Here’s a second article about the Lancet’s analysis.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this, about this unfathomable number, about the fact that it could be so much higher. The news cycle has mostly moved on from Gaza. Even before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump a couple of days ago, there’s been a general fatigue about this war. Coverage is fading. Instead, there is talk of the Presidential Election. Of elections in England and France. All of these are important events. But this is too. This is life and death, for millions of human beings.
As Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have intensified, seeing the way the media covers the news vs. the way they cover the news of Israel’s attacks on Gaza is quite something. Below are only two examples. Note the passive vs. active voice. Note the way horror is expressed for the deaths of Ukrainians, and the way it’s clear who’s committed the attacks.
I won’t relent to the dehumanization of Palestinians. One of my favourite accounts to follow out of Gaza is Mohammed Subeh’s. Subeh is a Palestinian American ER doctor who’s been volunteering in Gaza. His accounts are full of empathy and detail. Please watch him discuss his day to day below.
Let’s chat in the comments:
This whole essay felt very navel-gazing to me, the point where I thought about not sharing it. The reason is that I know it shows just how much I care what other people think. Do you care what other people think? Do you worry that someone will see something in you and jump to conclusions?
What do you do with your feelings of privilege? Do you express gratitude and leave it at that? Or does your privilege lead you to a sort of survivor’s guilt? I’m trying to find the balance between these two points for myself and would love to hear how others manage it.
My dad had a hipster beard before hipster beards were a thing. Thick, luxurious, covering his whole jaw. I don’t think anyone thought he was a hipster though. My dad has the softest voice - sometimes I have to lean in to hear him talk.
I think I can honestly say I am no more likely to think a woman wearing a hijabi has been hurt by a spouse than I would any other woman. But I confess when I see a bruised woman of any nationality/ethnicity that is one of my first thoughts.
Glad you are okay. I just had my own accident and know how fast something like that can happen and how scary it can be.
I am so sickened by the violence against babies, children, women, men, and humans of all persuasions. We have lost ourselves. As for a bruised woman, either in a hijab or not, I have to admit that my first thought is, 'What man?' Because it is men who perpetrate the violence in almost every case. We have failed as a society (Western, Eastern, everywhere) to educate men on the ways of civilization: respect and care for others, talking, not shooting, protection, not exploitation, and love, not hate. Our politicians are seduced by power to the extent that they embrace the one who promises it despite everything from minor misgivings to outright horror at the moral morass he embodies. I'm sorry to go off but, your story is multi-fold, and it lives in a world that presents itself as self-destructing. I hardly know where to spend my tears or at what to fling my words. There is so much pain and the inevitability of much, much more should we continue to ignore the path we are on and hope for respite without the work needed to change. First, we must educate our sons on ways of peace. Then, we must not judge before we know. Finally, we must act in whatever way we can to be the future we hope to live. Meanwhile, I hope you and all the daughters keep riding bikes, but please do not fall and bruise yourself again.