Lean On

We are each other's medicine and hope.

Today, I reflect on October 7th and how the world has shifted for so many of us over this past year. Nothing is, or ever will be, the same—and that's how it should be. When the veil lifts and truth stands exposed, reality becomes unbearable, sharp in its pain. The world we inhabit is twisted and cruel. To continue living, surviving, working, creating, and mothering while the genocide of Palestinians rages on feels almost impossible to bear. And yet, we persist. But this—this is just a glimpse of awakening, a sliver of discomfort mingled with grief and rage as we watch, as we witness genocide through the screens in our hands. October 7th is not the beginning. Palestinian lives were already held within blockades and open-air prisons, daily terrorized by drones, and treated as less than human. Generations growing up steeped in trauma and violence. It's unfathomable to think that, just a short flight away, while we brunch in comfort, another child's body is charred, dismembered, or beheaded. Another family erased. Land desecrated. And what we see on our screens is only a fraction of the horror. As Saul Williams said, "To imagine hell is such a privilege."

I know what it is to live through war. To see people murdered. I know what it's like to go months without food, to stand in lines for water while snipers take aim. I know the sound of air raid sirens ringing for years, wondering if the next bomb will hit—if my family and I will survive another day. I know the fear, the darkness, the hunger, and the endless questions: Why us? Why me? I know what it means to be displaced, to be a refugee, torn from your homeland, your people, your sense of belonging. I know the haunting. And I also know what it means to hold privilege as a white woman in a patriarchal world.

As a child in school, I learned the names of many machine guns and grenades by heart. This was our education—to protect ourselves and identify landmines in case we stumbled upon one. I know what it feels like to crave something sweet as a child, cutting out images of chocolates and cakes from old magazines and imagining how they would taste. I know what it means to walk through towns, day and night to escape massacres, relying on the kindness of strangers for survival.

What stood out to me most as a child surviving war was how friends, neighbors, and complete strangers naturally leaned on each other. In the darkest grip of war, we became each other's lifeline. There was no hesitation—sharing food, offering shelter, and giving what we could was instinct. We were all bound by the same stark reality—the love for life, the instinct to survive. In those moments, none of us were strangers anymore. We understood, with no words, that without one another, survival would have been impossible.

The extreme dehumanization of Arab and Muslim people has been happening for generations—in my homeland and beyond. The entire world should be deeply alarmed by the normalization of genocidal violence. It is something none of us can afford to ignore.

This is why, without one another, the survival of our humanity will be impossible. This is why we must advocate for justice, liberation, and the human rights of Palestinians and all oppressed people—everywhere. As our world heaves under the weight of unrest and poly-crisis, one thing remains certain: we must show up for each other. At first, we may be strangers, but spend a few hours together—share our stories, embrace, break bread. Ground ourselves in mutual aid. Collaborate, protest, divest, boycott, disrupt, make art, and love with such fierceness that it shakes the oppressor to their core and erodes their control. 

This begins in our circles, in our neighborhoods, in our town, in our village, and in our homes. It took the oppressor years to sever our personal relationships, to instill individualism and profit over people. It will take us time to dismantle the isolation, exhaustion, and injustice imposed by capitalism and to reclaim our connections from the systems that fragment and deplete us. We can only do this together. Today, take a bold step—show yourself kindness, reach out to your neighbor, and surprise them with your care. Stand in solidarity with Palestine, Sudan, and Congo—commit to ongoing action. When built upon one another, the actions of good people will obliterate the machinery of violence.

Cultivating communities of care is our highest priority, our medicine, our salve for the suffering inflicted by a fractured and misguided world.

With love, 

Vanja

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Thank you for reading.

100% of proceeds from all Free Palestine posters and apparel on my website go directly to humanitarian aid on the ground in Gaza.