Selma
Appearances
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
It's like this tiny one. It's not even in a part. It's like a studio. So it's this tiny, tiny studio. We're all sitting together on this couch, five of us. And we're all like on our phones. And then the TV's on and we're all checking. And there's like barely any space. I don't know if I would describe it as crashing because we didn't sleep. So none of us were sleeping, actually.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
It felt like we were on duty for some reason, you know, like we were like on call constantly.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
One of them, it's not funny, but he kept fainting. And so he would go into the room and then just like almost pass out. So the first thing I did was I didn't know what to do. So I gave him a tomato with like salt on it and I just shoved it into his mouth. And I was like, OK, I think your blood pressure is dropping.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
They noticed there was a pattern to his fainting. First, he'd start sweating profusely, then go stand in the door to cool off, then head towards the bathroom. By the third time, we kind of got the routine down. We saw him open the door. We're like, he's about to pass out. Someone start doing all the steps. We kept joking. They're like, you can't pass out now. You got to be strong.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
You got to make it till the regime falls.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
I think it was just like our bodies going into shock and like each person was kind of doing it differently. Like for me, I cry a lot and I have like panic attacks and then I throw up, which is kind of gross, but that's what would happen to me. Like I would get really nauseous, really nauseous, really nauseous. Like I would go and throw up.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
Knowing that we would be the last, I was holding it in. And so the first thing I did was I cried. I hugged all my friends. I just, I sat there kind of like staring at the wall, crying, crying, crying, crying.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
I knew I couldn't go back with the regime there. And so I started slowly distancing myself from my memories. Before, I would post a lot of photos saying, I miss Damascus, or I miss this, or I miss my house, and I miss that. And I stopped doing that on purpose. And
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
even like between myself when I'm alone if I would remember something or if I would find myself kind of like daydreaming I would stop myself and I wouldn't let myself kind of go through with it what kind of daydream like sometimes I would daydream about my house and like sorry it's okay Yeah, I don't know. It's a place where I have a lot of good memories.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
And it's the place where me and my siblings did this and did that. And sometimes I would just daydream about walking into my room and going back and sitting in my living room and looking out the window. And I wouldn't let myself do that anymore. And even at times where I would have dreams about being in my house again, I would wake myself up and be like, no, this isn't real.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
So we still have our house. Now I'm like, would I stay at my house or would I want to stay somewhere else? Or what am I going to do? And now I can think of all the plans.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
It was a girl in a karate uniform. And this guy was standing across from her with something on his head. I can't remember, like a water bottle. And she closes her eyes and she like, Karate kicks the water bottle off the top of his head with her eyes closed. And then the camera pans back and everyone's like clapping and cheering. I saw people doing parkour in Damascus.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
They're like doing like backflips in the street in the middle of a celebration.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
In Latakia, someone was lifting weights. Like, in the street? Like, in the street, yeah. Like, in the middle of this. Like, there's, like, fighters kind of passing by on cars, like, waving flowers. And he's, like, right on the side doing all of these moves. In his, like, gym clothes. It's just so, so unserious, so fun.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
You know, like, it's things you could have done before, but it's just the mentality of you're free, you can do anything, and... Syria. Just... It removes you from the equation. So who are you in Assad's Syria? You're nobody. You don't belong. Seeing the people now and seeing their reaction, they're slowly kind of feeling like it is theirs. Like, this is our country.
This American Life
850: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater, Hold This Thread as I Walk Away
We're the ones who are responsible for it now. We're the ones who are going to take care of it.