#26 - change
In the early months of 2021, in a lonesome hotel room in Dubai, I got accepted into a PhD program in New York the day before I started my first project at my first job out of college. I had not yet processed, nor experienced, the big change in my life before I’d started thinking about the next one. I spent a lot of time listening to the first track on this playlist, A Lot’s Gonna Change by Weyes Blood.
Somehow I am in my final year of that PhD, the best decision I have ever made, and I am once again confronted by the reality that regardless how the job market goes, how my visa applications go, how my disciplinary identity crisis goes, a lot is going to change. I spend my time gently oscillating between hypothesizing about all the different scenarios - what country to live in, what kind of job to work, what field to pivot to - versus letting go of the hypotheticals in exchange for what’s actually in front of me: not much, yet. I tell people who ask what I am doing next that I have decided not to hypothesize too much unless I have real scenarios and real dilemmas (read: a job offer). And then I quietly tell myself maybe it would still be helpful to know where I stand and what I want regardless, so I can make a more informed decision later on.
I told a mentor of mine that I am really struggling with the decision of whether to remain in the heart of the empire, for example. He texted back, “I can only hope you find peace with the degree of “decision” (as opposed to bizarre circumstance) afforded to you.” I think of these words often, I remember how much is beyond my control anyway, I say inshallah.
All around me, my city is brimming with talk of change, of hope, of opportunity. Last night, voters in New York City elected Zohran Mamdani as our next mayor. I think back to those early months of 2021, in another lonesome hotel room in Manama. The daily reality of the past two years of genocide, the grief, darkness, and helpless rage, were settling in as the Zionist occupation carpet bombed Gaza. Between COVID lockdown and authoritarian oppression, I came across a video of a young local politician, Zohran Mamdani, giving remarks and leading chants at a Palestine protest in New York City, my upcoming home.
It is beyond surreal to now think of the guy from that video I played over and over, eager for protest, yearning a voice, as the next mayor of the city of New York. On the day of Zohran’s campaign launch last year, two strangers complimented my kuffiyeh outside a Chris Cohen show at Baby’s All Right, and excitedly asked if they can tell me about their day. I immediately clocked that they wanted to talk about the mayoral run, and we hopped to the J bouncing off each other’s energies and exclamations about how exciting it is that we will have something to rally around, to look forward to. Yes, yes, even though he’s unlikely to win. Yes, yes, even if to move Brad Lander to the left.
Somehow Zohran won and the excitement escaped me. I’ve been thinking of the Sudanese film You Will Die at 20, which tells the story of a boy whose family believed in a false prophecy that he would die at 20, thus living the next twenty years in preemptive grief, premature tragedy. In one scene, a woman asks the boy’s mother - donning black clothing his entire life - whether sadness had become a habit. My disenchantment was sparked by the rhetorical concessions Zohran made about Palestine and Zionism, primarily. But I try to figure out where that ends and where the political defeatism the film was an analogy for begins, and I don’t know how. To remain between the legitimate critiques of electoral politics and the need for material, systemic wins for the working class. To question the possibility of democracy in a settler colony turned imperial core but still need to figure out where to go from here, today, tomorrow. I see New Yorkers talk about the first great political victory of their lives, an unfamiliar, incomprehensible sense of hope, and I remember mine, once upon a time.
I oscillate between the macro and the micro. A Muslim democratic socialist with a history of Palestine organizing was elected Mayor in the financial and cultural capital of the world last night. A paper I worked really hard on all summer got rejected. I am about to spend three weeks travelling between my favorite cities, seeing so many people I love, and I can barely climb out of bed. In the early darkness my friend points out the full moon, I remember my own words and pause to put my glasses on.
And as I look towards graduation, I know this period of my life will be marked by change, and I remember my last graduation. On my undergrad graduation day in May 2020, my younger self wrote: “May we always change but only for the better, grow but not too far from our roots, and look forward without losing sight of our past.” I wish it for myself, once again, bracing for change but not knowing of what kind. I wish it for New York, a city that has already proven time and again, particularly last night, that we can dream of bigger change, but we must fight for it. A city that will be my home even when its ballot boxes and borders claim otherwise.
I don’t know if I’ll stay or leave, I told a friend mere moments before a show a couple weeks ago. “Lots of changes coming up.” Big Thief walked onto stage and started with the closing track on this playlist:
Change, like the wind
Like the water, like skin
Change, like the sky
Like the leaves, like a butterfly
I felt the tears build up and I remembered that indeed, this period of my life will be marked by change, just like every other. Like the wind, like the water, like skin. I found solace in that, too. This playlist is of 10 songs about change: desiring and fearing it, welcoming and rejecting it. And like I paused to look at the moon, I now pause to remember: Cuomo is over, and Cheney is no longer.
10 songs
A Lot’s Gonna Change - Weyes Blood
I’m Scared I’ll Disappear - Water From Your Eyes
I’m Not Ready for the Change - Nation of Language
It’s Time - Nourished by Time
And Everything Changed (But I Feel Alright) - William Doyle
I Can Change - Brandon Flowers
Change - The War on Drugs
Change - Evan Wright
Change - Alex G
Change - Big Thief