Content warning: death

I can’t stop thinking about the photo of the drowned toddler, the Syrian child who lost his life crossing the Mediterranean and who came to rest with his cheek against the sand, his head pointing towards the gently lapping waves. I saw the photo in 2015 at the outset of the European refugee crisis and I don’t think it’s ever far from my thoughts. A few weeks ago I was compelled to draw what I could remember of the image, but I stopped myself before I got too far.

As sad and terrible as I found the picture, what was more distressing to me was that the world didn’t stop when it was published. We didn’t drop everything and fix the world. The photo came out, people saw it, business went on as usual. When I think of this, I lose hope.

In the last three months I’ve seen more images of dead and injured children than I care to count. Some, like the image of the father pressing sweets into his dead child’s hand feel poised to haunt me for the next ten years. There was another photo, though, it was of donuts. The donuts were made in a makeshift bakery in the rubble of a destroyed bakery, in the center of a flattened neighborhood. The donuts were brightly glazed and looked beautiful and delicious. The photo cheered me, briefly, then broke my heart.

Selfishly I thought, “There’s no number of donuts I can draw that would make the world feel better.” I know it’s not my burden, except that it is. There’s a scene at the climax of EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE where Waymond has a breakdown. The world is falling apart around him and he doesn’t know why but he can’t help but feel it is all his fault. I felt that scene in the deepest part of me.

I admire Elise Gravel. She has spoken clearly and consistently about Palestine. Shelley Couvillion made a beautiful comic about a Palestinian child passing into the afterlife and meeting her mother. I’ve read beautiful poetry by Palestian authors living under occupation. I don’t feel I can add anything to their expressions of grief and hope. Or maybe I’m afraid to.

I almost drew a picture of Alan Kurdi, the drowned toddler, back in December but I put my pencil down. I think I was supposed to draw it, but I didn’t. The drawing I didn’t make has hung in the periphery of my thoughts since then. But now it’s creating eddies. Swirling images I don’t know what to do with. Israel’s attacks on Palestine continue and now, suddenly, the US is bombing Yemen. Things have gotten a lot worse very quickly. But if I’m honest, I do feel hope that a ceasefire is coming.

I drew the picture last night. I’m glad I did. It’s not a GUERNICA but it never had to be. I might revisit it, I might recycle it. It doesn’t belong on a pedestal, but all the same, it is valid. As are my feelings of despair. Denying and avoiding them is no way to go through the world, painful as it is. And I think acknowledging them, oddly enough, made space for my imagination to believe the world can be fixed.

Playing now: STORM, Godspeed You Black Emperor