Perspectives and Tipsy Tomato
I got to walk around inside the mill beside my old neighborhood a few weeks ago. This may not seem like a big event, but I had spent my entire life (34 years) looking at that mill from afar, wondering what it was like inside.
It was different than I expected, much larger than it had looked from the park on the other side of the dam, or from the car window when we drove by. What was most surprising, though, was the perspective. It was fascinating to see the water, almost level with the floor of the mill, before it spilled over to the section of river I was more familiar with. I had seen that spot many times, but I had never seen from it, and from it, the entire area had a different feel.
That's how I felt about Etaf Rum's book, A Woman Is No Man. It chronicles the lives of three generations of Palistinian-American women in New York. I was curious about it because it was written in my hometown, but I wasn't super eager to read it at first. Being a mom of three kids, books with heavy themes and stories of heartbreak are not necessarily appealing at the end of a long day. Despite that, I decided to pick it up. Once I got it, I still wasn't itching to jump in. Finally, I opened to the first page and decided just to check out the beginning. That was all it took. The first, masterfully crafted sentence sucked me in and I could barely put it down after that.
It is a story of hope, possibility, difficulty, disappointment, heartache, and resilience. Rum shows the complexity of Arab-American life, the struggles of first generation Americans, and the tension between individualism and respecting one's culture and community. She effortlessly weaves in explanations of Arabic words and foods without losing the flow of the narrative. Most of all, she lifts the veil on a subset of Americans with whom many of us have no real, meaningful contact. The women she writes about are relatable, unique, and strong. In the end, Rum finally gives her main character a voice. In the process, she humanizes all of her characters, even those who are easy to misjudge at the outset.
That day, when I saw Rocky Mount Mills from the inside for the first time, I happened to run into Etaf Rum. She was cleaning out Tipsy Tomato, and I was at the mini-baseball field beside it playing with my family. I told her I had read her book, and she asked what we were up to. Out of that meeting, came the opportunity for me to do a painting of the building for her. I have wanted to have a painting on the mill campus for a long time, but it is that much more special to have done it for someone whose art I have so enjoyed.
