We celebrate, we grieve, we protest, we unite, we challenge, we love, we revolutionize, we pray… eight attributes all ignited by one feeling: determination.

Sunday, July 28th, the city of Kitchener was calm. It was a sunny day, and its streets were quiet. However, in a corner along the outskirts of King St. West, a compass of people wearing keffiyehs led the way to where diasporic puzzle pieces of Palestine were rooted… for a limited eight hours. Eight hours and eight descriptive attributes, and one feeling: determination.

Songs of the Indigenous people of this land, giving them tribute and a stage of solidarity.

Palestinian thobes persisting in the flying wind, hung in booths existing to remain.

And symphonies of poetry in the distance speaking your name.

People lined up buying representations of what is justice, engaging in acts of resistance.

A tent of displaced Gaza depicting parts of us who resiliently remained there.

Dabke dance of turath, photographs capturing portraits of smiles,

Ground thuds as legs leap and stomp in rhythm.

Passersby around stand attentive.

Palestine was, is, and remains, roaming in the streets, quivering between the lips, stomping through the legs, lumping in the throats, thudding in the heart, and hurled in the hand.

Palestine takes nearly six hours to drive from its northern edge by the borders of Lebanon to its southern edge bordered by Egypt.

Palestine, rooted in King St. for eight hours on July 28th, bordered its north, south, east, and west. It encompassed its shadowed cities and their fabricated names, its woundedness and all its beauty, its past and present, spoke unequivocally about its future.

The before and after of Gaza’s map exhibit left any disdained passerby consumed with shivers down their spine and left those with an intent look, precisely, gulp.

It was the 297th day of genocide on Gaza.

Booths representing the cities of Palestine immersed those in diaspora, unable to be in the motherland, feel whiffs of a home so far, a reality so dimmed, and a life so out of reach. 

Roaming in their thoughts were words that the heart fears to feel:

“Areeha, Jenin, Yaffa, Bethlehem, Al Quds, you feel so fond and I yearn for you.

I fear I will feel out of place when I reach you.

When will I reach you?

We are the people of your land.

I learned my blood is embedded from you. How do I prove that to you?”

Solidarity Day for Palestine took place in Kitchener on July 28th, to remind, to charge, and to mobilize for days that commence in between the next annual date.

While we await the next date, we continue to celebrate, grieve, protest, unite, challenge, love, revolutionize, pray… eight attributes to live by, and one feeling to fuel: determination.