In the Company of Strangers – Sunset Observer #41

November 7, 2016 Victor El-Khouri 1 Comment

…By Whitney Farmer

@farmer_whitney (Twitter/FLICKR) or farmerwhitney (Instagram) and whitney.farmer.146 (Facebook)

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Un Pop Culture

Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a surgery.

After the surgery, the girl had a cerebral hemorage.

Hemmorhage.

Hemorrhage.

But her life was saved by a band of Egyptians, and a ukulele…

I had had a migraine for three days around St. Patrick’s Day when I couldn’t figure out how to say ‘corned beef’ while we planned for a family party. As a precaution, my new neurologist sent me for an MRI and found a hole in my brain near my left ear. It made sense, because I had gone deaf for awhile when I was first hit with the pain.

After the storm of assessments followed by forecasts, I was wrecked. I would forget how to pronounce names. Not forget people. Their names. If I could imagine in my mind’s eye how the spelling looked – and then read it out loud – the sound of my own voice would remind me.

I have a memory of being able to remember things. I remember sitting in grad school and not taking lecture notes because it would distract me. I remember feeling my mind chewing through one idea for days and feeling pleasure. I remember old movie stars, but the names of new friends dissolve on my tongue like salt.

None of the former ways of intellect anchored me and kept me from floating away and being lost…

I have a brother-in-law who has a dream to start the world’s worst garage band. So far, he has lead guitar, harmonica, and triangle. No singer. But he decided that first, he needed a ukulele. And he decided that I was the girl for the job.

All that was needed was for my holey brain to learn how to play the ukulele. And for me to have a ukulele. And it happened to be my birthday. Hence? Ukulele.

As I began strumming, using the soft pad of my thumb instead of my nail so that no one could hear me, something happened to me. I lost track of time. My heart beat slower, but I felt warmer. I was beginning to learn again.

The uke went with me to France. One day while it rained, one of the Gypsy girls who has grown into a woman and is now married came to my tent with her guitar and we had a jam session. For me, the marvel was that I had a jam session. What I didn’t know yet is that women aren’t supposed to play instruments by themselves there. So, I learned that it was a marvel for her, too, as she sat in the tent with me trying to strum to YouTube videos.

When I came home, I dreaded losing more to my brain hole. Then at a meeting for groups that help refugees, I met a pastor from Egypt.

He told me that his group had been praying for two years to start English classes for those from his homeland who have come to the United States for asylum, but that they had no teacher. And I had just finished teaching the Gypsy kids in France and my brain didn’t want to rest. So, as they say in rock-n-roll, “YIPPE KAI YEA.”

I told God that if anyone could tell that I have a brain hole that I would quit. He told me that I have the power to say yes and no, and that there is power in the tongue.

One class for one group has led to more. One Coptic church has given me a key to make myself at home. We all try to formally shake hands when we greet each other. But we end up in each other’s arms and kissing both cheeks like Egyptians before embracing one last time like Americans. Mixing together both cultures has reminded each of us what was intended when the customs began: We are meant to love whom the Almighty One has put in our paths.

As I stand in front of the class and discuss Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize or Emma Lazarus’ poem “New Colossus”, or Johnny Cash and Abraham Lincoln, my uke waits on the side table. My agreement is that I will make myself learn, too. Each week, I am required to demonstrate what I have learned in my practicing before I hold them to the same fire. To my ear, I sound awful with my uneven strumming and unborn chords that can’t be heard because my pinky overlaps the critical string.

To their ears, their Arabic accents of Spanish-like rolling Rs and French-like gargled Ks sound awful. But for my American ear, these sounds were brought to me as gifts from across vast waters. They are sounds that could not have been made without hope that carried these newcomers from a land which once sheltered Jesus when Herod wanted His slaughter, and where now new slaughter has been unleashed.

You become what you submerge yourself in. I bathe in hope, and as it soaks into my skin and fills my brain hole, all of my burdens are lifted from me. And I swim.

Shukraan.

Quote of the Blog, from Dad, while driving him past two young men carrying coffees: “Are those…millennials?”

Picture of a gift to me – painted on papyrus and brought back from the land of the pharaohs – to be hung on the wall of a condo in Surf City, U.S.A.

For the archive of my previous Un Pop Culture blogs, click here:

https://mdwp.malibulist.com/category/un-pop-culture/