{"id":36728,"date":"2025-05-02T11:16:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T09:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=36728"},"modified":"2025-05-02T11:16:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T09:16:25","slug":"the-anger-and-sadness-i-brought-back-from-damascus-and-the-urge-to-shave-my-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/the-anger-and-sadness-i-brought-back-from-damascus-and-the-urge-to-shave-my-head\/","title":{"rendered":"The anger and sadness I brought back from Damascus. And the urge to shave my head"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I left Damascus ten years ago, when I was 16 years old and never returned. I spent the majority of those ten years in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia) reconstructing what home is, building and demolishing, remembering and forgetting, looking in mirrors and recognizing new sets of eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Batoul Ahmad<\/span><\/h4>\n

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It has been 65 days since I left Damascus for the second time. I think about shaving my head every single day, and stare at random grocery bags in my kitchen while denying the looming panic attacks. I have been breaking down and bursting in tears since December 8, 2024. The tears might scar at some point, but nothing compares to crying in Damascus. Tears make sense in Damascus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I bought a new visual diary that I have dedicated to \u201cthe return\u201d at the beginning of January 2025 after the fall of the Assad regime and before booking a flight to Damascus. I left Damascus ten years ago, when I was 16 years old and never returned. I spent the majority of those ten years in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia) reconstructing what home is, building and demolishing, remembering and forgetting, looking in mirrors and recognizing new sets of eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was only able to identify that those eyes belonged to my different exiled selves when I started preparing for this return.<\/span><\/p>\n

You don\u2019t return as one. You return as many \u2014 tears, streets, slaps, scars, dreams, screams, and suitcases. I felt nauseated every time I thought of all the places I wanted to visit, and I wanted to disappear before even getting there. I was swallowed by enormous emotional doors, opening and closing so quickly in my head. I felt like I could almost smell the rain or the jasmine. But then \u2014 \u201cI shut my eyes, and all the world drops dead,\u201d \u2014 Sylvia Plath. I have forgotten how it feels to be in Damascus, as if I had never been there at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I started working on my visual diary, I did some research on artists who returned to their home countries after a period of exile. I found an installation entitled <\/span>Where We Come From<\/span><\/i>, 2001-2003<\/span><\/a> by Emily Jacir. A Palestinian artist asked Palestinians in exile: \u201cIf I could do anything for you, anywhere in Palestine, what would it be?\u201d She gathered all the answers and went to Palestine and did everything they asked her to do and documented it through photography. I thought of all the Syrians wishing to return to Syria who are stuck in exile because of travel documents and other restrictions. I remembered friends who mentioned places or names of streets that I\u2019ve never been to in Damascus or that I couldn\u2019t recall.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I\u2019ve carried an imaginary construction site in my head for the past ten years \u2014 constantly building and demolishing homes. The building was never complete, never polished. Just scattered bricks, always shifting, always unfinished.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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John Locke wrote: \u201cA person\u2019s identity only reaches as far as their memory in the past.\u201d Reading that made me feel like a distorted freak. There was always something missing or ambiguous in my memory of Damascus, which later made me feel like I had never really been there. I hadn\u2019t been to Qudsaya* before \u2014 and yet \u201c<\/span>Qudsaya<\/span><\/a>,\u201d the song by <\/span>Kulna Sawa<\/span><\/a>, has always been one of my favorites. I related to friends who lived there through that song. Relating to other Syrians in exile felt so important to me, because I could see how we are deprived of completing our Syrian portraits \u2014 depending on when we left Syria and how old we were. I finally visited Qudsaya when I returned to Damascus, and now I can see it when I close my eyes. Like the way I see Mazbouta caf\u00e9 and <\/span>Dr. Oussama Ghanam<\/span><\/a> sitting there with the biggest heart and warmest smile. I sewed part of the self-portrait.<\/span><\/p>\n