August Observations

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Laid out before you are three pages of typewritten text. Although the original letter was handwritten in curvaceous, almost illegible script, I had transcribed it into typewritten format as I planned to write it into my memoir, my work in progress. I wish I could share that letter with you, but it’s in a box in Kuwait, sequestered due to the pandemic, and I’d rather not ask my father to go digging for it. Although maybe it would be a moment of healing for us.

Visually, here’s what the first two pages look like: at the top is the title, August Observations, inspired both by the fact that Grandpa wrote and addressed the letter to me the day after my eleventh birthday, and because the word ‘august’ means a couple of things: “respected and dignified: synonym: grand; of a quality inspiring mingled admiration and reverence; having an aspect of solemn dignity or grandeur; sublime; majestic; having exalted birth, character, state, or authority.”

It just fit.

The first two pages have black lines blocking out portions of text, creating a space in which words and phrases can emerge in a more charged manner. The first page distills Grandpa’s letter into its most august observations, and I use this deletion technique to craft my response to him.

The poems read as follows:

I.

August 19, 1996

My Dear Barrak:
Growing up is not easy. I remember my days years ago
Everything seemed so difficult
but I knew who I was and what I wanted to be.
I made my firm decision that nothing would deter me
I said to myself, “I am a good person”
I can be what I want to be. I knew
what might lie ahead
we face
our horizons and
eruptions.
Outside forces
are only interruptions

It is my hope that as the years go by and I am no longer here for you I
You will look back and say to yourself, “ .”
your grandfather believes
your venture into adulthood will be

With a great deal of love,
Your American Grandfather,
Douglas L. Winokur
PS Feel free to give me your thoughts should you choose to do so.

II.

I enjoyed your
observations
Growing up is
so difficult
but I knew who I was and what I wanted to be.
nothing would deter me
I want to rise
I want to be.

What we face as a youth sometimes
seem to
manage to
erupt
Interrupt

as the years go by I
shall journey into life’s wonders. I know
I am living the day to day
vicissitudes
However, I
will look back and say “ What was that all about.”

I
Wholeheartedly venture into adulthood
Love,
should choose

Postscript:

A few years ago, my mother handed me a letter that my grandfather had written to me a day after my eleventh birthday. He'd passed away a few months prior, and had never delivered the letter himself.

Mama's handover took place during a period of extreme crisis in our relationship, one in which silence, and my effort to overcome silence, had resulted in obstructions to our intimacy and our deep connection.

Despite the "vicissitudes" we'd undergone, the letter crafted a moment of healing for us. It was handwritten in Grandpa's elusive script, and I sat beside Mama attempting to discern letters and words. She dropped in, and we read the letter together.

These poems—a diptych—distill Grandpa's letter, and my response emerges out of a process of deletion.

Voices braid together—aurally and visually.

Barrak Alzaid is a writer of prose, poetry and art criticism whose current project, Fabulous, relates his queer coming of age in Kuwait. His art criticism is published in ArtAsiaPacific Magazine, Ibraaz, Jadaliyya, PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, and Columbia Journal of Gender and Law. His prose is published in Nailed Magazine and two anthologies of writing by Muslim authors, The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human, and New Moons. He is a founding member of the artist collective GCC.