S and I visit a sauna in Bundoran, just as Storm Elin kicks off. The sauna is perched on a narrow pier, a wee barrel on wheels with a view of grey sky and choppy sea, into which we dip our flushed bodies. As the sauna sways in the gales coming off the Atlantic, we chat about our respective ancestral traumas, pausing to reflect on the mass graves in the histories of our families and their homelands. I think of how our very existences are their legacies of resilience and endurance beyond the unimaginable.

Gazing at the sea, I also think of Gaza: how its inhabitants cannot sail beyond three nautical miles from the shore. I take for granted too much: not only my safety and health, my access to food and drinkable water, but also my horizons.

Moreover, I take for granted the ordinariness of my days and nights. For shouldn’t it be a human right, not a privilege, to visit cafes, attend concerts, have a garden, keep small animals close, chat with friends in peace, all these activities that make our lives so pleasurable? Imagine a future in which Gazans could sit among kin and friends and discuss this time of terror as if it was history.

“And the sea, this sea, lies/ within my grasp. I will walk/ across it, will mint its silver, will grind/ its salt in my hands. This is not occupied/ by anyone.”—Mahmoud Darwish

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