Second, I think I may look cool. People will say, "Look at the American son of Musa. He loves to pick grapes (something very earthy and Falahi). It something that maintains my sense of distance and strangeness as well as makes me relatable.
Grapes have always figured big in my life. When I was young, I lived in Lodi, Calif. There they have the annual Grape Festival in celebration of the grape harvests which were part of California's great wine industry.
They would have all sorts of rides and ferris wheels, haunted houses, etc. I remember winning a huge brown and white teddy bear. I also won a stuffed reindeer.
Before my parent's divorce in 1972, I remember we went to the Grape Festival. It was an eventful fun night. Afterwards, we came home and went to the Evans' house next door. I remember seeing a British commercial about a woman in a car that was very cold and how the heater in the car didn't work. Then there was a program with a newlywed couple and the song "We've only just begun," came on.
When I was a teenager, I remember it was at the Grape Festival that I really began getting closer to Dad. He and I were on one of those short spurts of close fellowship. The rest of my family: Yusara and her kids and Fatima had gone to the Holy Land to live in the new house Dad had built. But I stayed with Dad in Lodi. I was also a Christian by then, as well.
Those days were special as they were among the only days I remember being so close to dad.
The grapes were also important to me as they reminded me of the one-notch-above-us Amo Mahmoud's house across the way. They were always better than us. Their house was better. Their kids were better looking. They were richer and famouser. They had a large vine, of course bigger than ours, and it had larger, plumper grapes.
As I picked the grapes from Dad's vineyard, I felt that I was doing somehting that was reserved for the better-than-us crowd. It was a status thing.
I've heard stories of young men who come back to the Holy Land after being away for a long time. One thing their parents try to do for them is give them some of the foods they loved as children. I remember when Amo Ghannem came back. He wanted "suhber" which is prickly pears. He ate so many that he threw up. I remember hearing it from outside the house.
My picking and eating grapes, I felt was like that. I was the son coming back. But in a sense it wasn't like that. I wasn't originally from here like the others. I was originally from America and I ended up here. Then I came back more often than most and spent more time here than most.
So I wasn't really like those others. I never was. Plus it is well known that I am a Christian, a fact that has caused no small commotion in the village. I'm not sure how much commotion but I remember visiting my uncle Ibrahim with dad during the holiday Eid al Adha many years ago. When we got ready to leave, uncle Ibrahim said, "This makes up for the all the things he did."
When he said that I didn't how much people knew about me and what they knew.
When I was here last time, my sister told me that some people at the store said about me, "Not only is your brother a Christian but he preaches against Islam on TV."
Some people said they wanted to talk to me. One man with a great Taliban like beard who spoke perfect English always came around and tried to talk to me. I wouldn't talk with him.
When Amti Amina, the widow of Amo Mahmoud, died. I came to Deir Debwan even though I wasn't invited by the siblings even though I did more for her than most of them. That day, Amo Hassan and I'm not sure who else were in front of the Amo Mahmoud's house. We started taking dead sticks off of the vine. So many branches were dried and dead. We just, strangely, started taking those dead branches down. I think we all knew that we didn't know what we were doing or why we just needed to do something to distract us so we started pulling down the dead branches of the vine.
That day one man complained about me not being married and Amo Hassan defended me, "Let him do what he wants."
Grapes also figure big in the Biblical history of Israel.
One of the main symbols of Israel was the two men carrying a huge bunch of grapes on sticks on their shoulders.
I watched some videos with Dad -- Feiruz; Sabah Al Batata and Zakfe Zakfe. I shed a few tears with Zakfe. Then Dad started crying I don't know why.
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