To be in a Time of Incommensurability  

To sleep in your childhood bed for 14 hours the first night you get home, drugged with exhaustion. To leave your room at 2 PM. To check the fridge a few times, between trips for coffee. To hear your mother tell you to clean your room – family is coming soon. Family is coming soon. To feel exhausted again. To stay up even later in hopes of sleeping most of the next morning away. To wake up to the sound of shouting aunts and uncles. To wonder why everything has to be so large, so loud, for them. To creep out of your room to the bathroom, knowing you won’t be heard under the sound of their shrieks. 

To come downstairs and laugh barely as they joke about your ability to sleep the day away. To sleep them away. To feel other. To feel like a brat teenager. To hear your mother’s voice change. To roll your eyes when they spew “political facts.” To feel your face warm when they yell about “illegals” and China and who Jesus loves — but mostly who he doesn’t. To wish you even knew where to start. To pull out your laptop and pull up studies on immigration and crime and employment and show the table the graphics. To feel correct. To glare at your mother for not speaking up. To not be heard over the shouting and the wine and the Turkey in the oven. 

“You don’t know what it means to live in this world, little girl. To really live. I don’t need to hear your facts, I’ve got my own facts. I know the truth and I’ve seen it. I see it everyday.”

To feel small. To swallow disgust. To retreat. To sleep late.

To feel less at home at home. To return to your school and feel warmed by a cold city. To forget, soon, about the distance, the disgust, you felt for your aunties and uncles. 

Process Notes

I was most drawn to Adnan’s ability to transition from everyday happenings to dark, weighty topics in a process that seemed so natural and reflective of the way minds work, the way they forget and remember. I tried to emulate this progression from the everyday to the more weighty content. I was trying to be as accurate to my everyday experience of coming home and facing political differences I feel strongly and struggle to communicate with my family. I wasn’t sure whether I was incorporating enough irony in the description, but I wanted to prioritize being as accurate and precise to my experience as possible. I originally titled the piece “To Be in a Time of Political Polarization,” but I was not sure “political polarization” was exactly what I meant. I wanted to also capture more generally the incommensurability of my experience with my extended family’s, and the way that gap prevents us from stepping into each other’s worlds and mental processes. Thus, I changed the title to “To Be in a Time of Incommensurability,” which felt more fitting.