The doors of longing
Five people open the door to a memory. A cooking pot, a copper bowl, a loofah sponge – and a whole life behind each object.
When we seek out the doors of longing and knock on them gently, we are sometimes met by doors that are shut, dusty and eaten by rust. Yet inside them the stories are resting – the fragments of another life. Perhaps the passing of time has hidden them away and made them part of the past, but at the lightest touch they wake and come back to life.
”At the lightest touch they wake and come back to life.”
They came with slow steps, weighed down by decades of exile and by stories that had never left their hearts. We knocked carefully on their doors of longing, and the memories began to flow like a still, clear river – followed sometimes by a warm smile, sometimes by tears that quietly found their way.
Rahil .. still carries with her the handmade objects she brought from Syria forty years ago. Every time she goes to church they go with her – not merely as things to be used, but as living memories of a home she once left behind.
Hasiba .. holds up a plain cooking pot with delight. To her it is priceless. It reminds her of her mother-in-law, who used it to store yoghurt before carrying it to the market to sell. The small income that brought in allowed the family to send their son on to university. The pot therefore holds more than an object: it holds a story of sacrifice, love and hope.
Munira .. smiles as she lays a loofah bath sponge on the table. Her thoughts go straight to her mother, who taught her the craft. With her own hands she made countless sponges, which became gifts for friends and for people she held dear – small objects filled with care and belonging.
Fikri .. proudly holds up a copper bowl. For him it stands for his family and for their trade in Midyat in Turkey – the art of tinning copper vessels, a craft that was kept alive through the dark years of the Seyfo genocide.
Bahiya .. keeps a memento from her engagement in 1963: a piece of cloth embroidered with her own name and her fiancé’s. But when she raises her hand to the necklace at her throat, her expression changes. It was left to her by her late mother. That is when the words fall silent, and a single tear tells what can no longer be said.
Text: Malkon Malkon
