The Arabic word “‘ajoozah - عجوزة” means old woman. I am an old woman with silver hair.
I mention my hair because it symbolizes old age (and it seems a selling point). The connotations of the word “’ajoozah” in Arabic are unfortunately unflattering (the same type of connotations “old woman” has in English), but I aim to change this perception and to own the label.
My hair has attracted many comments from strangers on the street – almost always positively. When I was teaching at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, abutting the separation/Apartheid wall Israel built to separate several Palestinian suburbs from Jerusalem, children especially were fascinated by my hair, because I didn’t dye it, as is the custom among most older women in Palestine, nor did I cover it.
Recently, when I was in Chicago visiting my grandchildren, I happened to be downtown at the French Market, where my son is chef and owner with his wife of The French Lunchbox. It was during the Women’s March Chicago (Jan 2018), and there were a lot of people milling about. One woman came up to me and said, “You have such lovely hair. Is it natural? Can I touch it?”
That's why I think my hair has selling value.
One thing old women are universally associated with is storytelling. I want to tell lots of stories here.
I am an angry old woman. My Facebook profile and my blog on Medium have the following legend on my profile/title: “Palestinian and righteously angry”. Billy Joel sang, “There's a place in the world for the angry young man.” Well, there is a place in the world for the angry old woman too, as I hope, on steemit.
But the stories I will tell here will not all be angry. I hope to be inspiring, persuasive, humorous and hopeful. I will share my life here and the lives of others who enter my life face-to-face and through books or online. In my life, Palestine is always center stage, and that also means, unfortunately, Israel.
Given I am an old woman, I may not witness Palestinian refugees and exiles like me return to Palestine within my lifetime, but I will certainly visualize that longed-for-return and write about it until I die.
If I have drawn you in and you are curious, you might like to know more about me in this extended essay in Biography made available for free by Project Muse: Life in Abu Dis Continues Quietly [https://muse.jhu.edu/article/576916/pdf].