This feels like the start to a life long love letter to these Semitic lands, Athro d’shom. 

I read how those in love unmask one another, this is how I feel about you. I could spend my life exploring you because I’d like to spend a lifetime exploring myself. I want nothing more than to give you room to breathe, so I’ve followed this feeling when taking pictures of you.

Since I was a child, I’ve asked questions where there were no answers. Research has become my most productive coping mechanism. Grieve, research, pray, make something, keep moving.

I grew up meeting you through family’s living rooms and gardens, visiting your ruins and  mountains. Years later, I came back to you and couldn’t bring myself to leave. Time led several ages of me back to you, this time moving as I want, reaching for the deeper cuts of you. I am home, as mom planned for us, walking in places she used to go and places she never go to see.

My trips to Palestine in 2013 and 2015 left me with more questions, an unresolved feeling in my bones. At that time I did not know the name of the land I was standing on. I saw you from the opposite side of the fence and remember wanting to run straight to you. Stories for another time. So, I spent the last ten years uncovering you, our rich and hidden collective history. 

I hear what they say about you. What they think shouldn’t matter, yet somehow matters in the course of your existence. I wish the world could see you in all of your beauty. I pray you will be protected and those trains will run again.

Now, a slow uncovering of our erasure for the sake of remembering and reclamation. Many have pillaged our history, resources, artifacts. Tried to separate us, get us to flea; yet we are still here. 

Pieces of our history, agriculture, and art have spread around this earth like seeds with no say in the matter, just like the millions of us. I am one of them. Hot blooded, persistent, proud of you. 

Tears involuntarily run down my face. English can’t hold this feeling, it feels like ܝܩܕܢܐ ܕܪܘܚܐ (yakhdana deruha or قهر (qahr). 

I’ll spend my life uncovering you, I had no idea they worked so hard to hide you. You have my endless attention. Thank you for reaching me. I hope to make you proud & make up for lost time.

July 2026

Deanna Ansara

(Adapted from the NY and Beirut iterations)