of my life; you need a strong body to keep up in the world. I keep myself fairly well toned, but I’m not lugging around the bulk I needed on the field. Nevertheless, the old body isn’t getting any younger, and it’s endured more than it should have. It aches to high heaven whether I’m on a treadmill, or sipping a beer on my back porch.
Experience has taught me that the hours leading up to an important shoot can be tense. I have developed a routine of sorts to settle the nerves; beginning with one glass of red wine which I will sip slowly to savor the warm feeling that spreads into my head. After that, I’ll pull out the one thing I refuse to travel without, my heating pad, and lie flat on the floor with the thing wrapped around my knee on high. One 800-milligram ibuprofen later, I will crawl up to the bed where my bones will let go and I’ll collapse into the soft mattress. No matter where my camera now takes me, I’m always just one step off the football field. Forever damaged by my own conceit, my body will never let me forget just how close I came. Sometimes, the memories hurt like a motherfucker with a rotten sense of humor.
I head home to pack up a few things--some jeans, a decent-looking shirt and my favorite pair of Nikes. I bought them for my very first shoot, and wear them only when I’m working. My good luck charms that keep me grounded no matter who is sitting in front of my lens.
Early to bed, and I surprise myself by sliding into sleep easily. Before the sun rises, I am up and in the shower, giving my knee a couple extra minutes under scalding hot water to loosen it up for the flight. I lock up my apartment, check my bag one last time and grab my cell phone and wallet. I glance down at the phone to make sure there are no new messages, then put it on vibrate and tuck it into the pocket of my coat. I switch off the lights and pull the door shut behind me.
Here goes, I think to myself as I turn and walk down the steps to the street. I raise my right arm to hail a cab. As I climb in the driver catches my eye in his rear view mirror, offering no words but silently telling me he needs to know where I’m heading.
“To JFK,” I tell him, but in my head, I’m thinking…to the biggest shoot of my entire career.
We slide through mid-town traffic, starting then slowing again but overall making pretty good time.
L.A. is waiting.
Just a few more hours to go.
Chapter 6: Ahmed
The old stories came to me only because I asked. I wanted to know why I was the only child who didn’t have cousins, or two sets of grandparents. Why didn’t my mother’s family want to meet me? How was I half-Iraqi, but looked anything but? Why did my mother leave her home?
Enough of her culture had seeped into my young brain by then to tell me I was living a very different sort of life. In spite of how my parents were raising me, with love and opportunity and generosity and kindness, I felt like a part of me was missing.
After escaping her childhood home my mother spent only a brief time with the women who welcomed her into their underground world. After a couple days of rest and preparation, they handed her a small cardboard box that held travel documents and enough money to buy food and clothing. The rest, they told her, was up to her.
During yet another dark night, the journey to her new life resumed. The women had arranged for her safe passage out of the country, but she needed to figure out how to get to her final destination. Hitching rides from kind strangers, and sleeping under the stars, she finally made her way to England, where she quickly enrolled in school. At night, she worked at a ground level pub along a quiet one-way street. The family who owned the place allowed her to sleep in the back room that was equipped with a bathroom and a small sink. They were kind and never asked questions my mother was not prepared to answer. They had a good idea that she was on the run from someone or something, but never pressured her to divulge her secrets.
They had a son, who was a few years older than my mother and studying medicine at university. They often spoke of how proud they were of Easton and his brilliant mind. My mother listened politely at first to the glowing stories, but over time began to genuinely look forward to the tales they told of the fine stranger who seemed destined to spend his life saving others.
By the time Christmas rolled around that year, my mother was fully engrossed in Easton and spent many hours dreaming of the moment he would arrive home for holiday break. The family had invited her to spend the holiday with them at their country home a few miles outside of the city. My mother had no car, so the husband decided he would help her close the pub early the evening before, then take her home with him. His friendly ways were unfamiliar to my mother, but she accepted this gracious invitation out of respect and curiosity.
What was this Christmas all about? She wanted nothing more than to learn.
Plans changed, however, when a last minute snowstorm blew in, canceling Easton’s trip home. Through their disappointment, the couple carried on with their plans, giving my mother her first glimpse at a tradition that celebrated light and promise and the sanctity of family. She spent several minutes carefully unwrapping what would be the very first gift ever given to her.
It was a necklace on a gold chain with a tiny bird in flight. Its wings spread out, with sparkling diamonds at their tips. My mother told me she wore it every single day, for years after. In times of great stress, I would see her stroking the bird, as if it gave her enough strength of purpose to press forward.
Although she had still not met their only son, my mother saw the love that had raised him. At times, she would catch herself staring at the handsome couple as they entwined their fingers or laughed together at a private joke. There were never harsh words, no fists ever reached out in anger, and happiness seemed to seep in from every direction. Hands worked together at this business, no one ever shouldered all the labor, and my mother quickly became a valued member of the team. The couple always padded her paycheck with a few extra pounds, saying they had no idea what the future might hold and my mother needed to think about moving on to something more important than the family pub.
They took notice of my mother’s impeccable attention to detail, and the steady hand she used to complete her daily work. They had no knowledge of the nightmare that had chased her from her native home, but they were determined to give this young woman a fighting chance in her new life. They noticed that although she was intelligent and caught on quickly, she seemed to have very little in the way of a formal education.
As the weeks turned into months and my mother breezed through her lessons, the wife decided she needed more of a challenge. For two hours after school each day, my mother would continue her studies at the pub. Having gone to university before settling down with her husband, the wife dug out her old textbooks and designed a lesson plan full of world history, mathematics, and English.
As a young woman, my mother spoke clean English but tended to miss nuance, innuendo and social cues. The wife also knew that she was innocent in the ways of the opposite sex. My mother admitted to even me that she was completely oblivious to the gawking eyes that watched her move along the cobble stone floors inside the pub every night. The couple had an inkling that their sudden spike in business was not due to the foamy beer from the tap, but instead because word had spread throughout the city of their comely new employee.
The wife had found a burka buried deep inside my mother’s tiny room, underneath a load of dirty towels. Because of her long black hair and olive complexion, the wife assumed she was of Middle Eastern descent but she had the most sparkling green eyes the wife had ever seen. Lined by thick black lashes, and as wide as a meadow in the springtime, they forced your own eyes to blink in an effort to clear away what seemed like a mirage along the desert sand. She was a vision, and yet she was entirely unaware of it. As my mother explained to me how the couple
