“Oh, and just to clarify something:

Perhaps this is just the kinds of people I tend to know, but it seems to me that many, many people who vow never to forget the Amman bombings are also of Palestinian descent. And it’s not as if this has become the issue of “$%#@ Palestine,” but it has rather become the issue of “we already have to deal with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict affecting people we care about, and now THIS???”

It’s not a zero-sum game, is it?

Everyone gets tired of violence. Well, normal people, anyway.”

So you do agree that as long as an issue is personal - it is important, right?

The minute it becomes impersonal, on the other hand…

I mean, how about I show up on this blog and rail about how none of the Ammanites remembered Chernobyl - a catastrophe that still refuses to go away? Does Chernobyl count any less than the pan-Arab or pan-Muslim tragedies of the last decades? I mean, COME ON GUYS, grow a heart! Why do you only care about your own?!… Except it doesn’t work like that, does it?

Now, personally, I was in a hotel restaurant a few months ago, and an entire shelf at the bar just gave way. It crashed with a horrible bang, and for a split second I thought “did I pick the wrong night to eat sushi?”

And it’s moments like that, as much as the anniversary itself, that remind you of how the blasts have woven itself into daily life here in Jordan.

Some errant noise leaves you wondering…

Nostalgia …akh minha…i spent a good part of my day yesterday in a car driving around different parts of the city for work errands, west and east amman, airport road and even the industrial outskirts of marka and Sahab. Avoiding the subject trying to toughen up and not choke while listening to Amenn FM …we have so many Jordanian Flags all over he city. ..i love the sight of them.

i discovered your blog courtesy of the NYTimes, and bookmarked it because I discovered, on your blog, that you are a poet - as am I - and I feel it’s important for me to “know” poets from “across the gulf”. I’ve started to read your poetry posts, but that’s not why I’m writing. I read your Sep 9 post

Your Nov. 9, our Sep. 11, all the Black Septembers, all the other dates that don’t get a commemoration, and all the nostalgia (a mild form of depression) for innocence that was never truly there.

Today I was thinking about the religious training I had as a child. We were taught to answer the question, “Why did God make us?” in this way: God made us to know him, to love him, and to serve him. That was the rote answer. Today I thought: No, God made us in order to break our hearts…

http://www.redroom.com/blog/ellen-r-sheeley/jordans-911

Seriously, Palestinians, Iraqis, Somalis are dying everyday, and we turn a blind eye to these days. Yet our bombings have become reason to wear “the red Kuffiyyeh”? It seems that Jordanians grow a heart only on this date and it’s sad, because it shows how disconnected we are to the rest of the Arab World, and the world itself.

The bombings were terrible and horrible, they should never be forgotten. But other things (that are just as important) should not be forgotten either. A life is a life, no matter where it comes from. I’m not underestimating the bombings in Amman, but I just wanted to provide another perspective.

yazan: thanks for reading.

secratea: i’ve never been a fan of “beloved” but i know for fact that you understand very well where i’m coming from as a graduate student who i’ve seen constantly expressing her nostalgia in the digital form.

Rima: strange how metal detectors have become the new physical scar of a national tragedy. and you’re right: fear is powerful. although i have to admit, that fear has declined rather quickly in the past three years.

Grace: that is a common feeling that i share with you.

Lass: I think the landscape has in fact changed, but I think by now, the changes are less drastic than they used to be. They’re now more targeted towards hotels, as opposed to nearly every place i can remember after 2005. and while i kind of agree with what you’re saying, comparing it to a war zone may be a stretch these days.

I was not there when it happened but every time i visit Amman i remember it in every metal detector i walk through and every time a guard apologetically searches my hand bag in the mall, the cinema or Ahleyyeh Supermarket. All the places i walked into freely before November nine. It changed how i feel and relate to Amman.

Fear is powerful.

But what you are recalling, as articulated in this article, is a moment; a moment that registered vividly in your mind because you were able to witness such a horrific moment happening while being oceans away; not actually being physically part of the collective (actual witness), and share the sense of unity the very next day hurts more…

and nostalgia is a mother F*****, really… especially, at times when you feel like you just have to be there but you are totally impotent and impaired…it really is paralyzing sometimes. (it’s just creeping closer these days)

I feel that remembering specifically such a painful historical moment is involuntary and it just happens; every single detail does come back vividly to remind us that this scar is one we don’t want to happen, ever again….