Play Ali Jihad Racy, Um Kalthoum, Marcel Khalife, Hamza El Din, Matoub Lounes.any melodious Middle Eastern music to counteract the terrible sorrow of this time! With so many precious people and lands grieving and no way that we, simple citizens, can solve it or get our full minds around it, what shall we do with our souls? I am simply an Arab-American in deep need of cultural uplift to balance the ugliness that has cast a deep shadow over our days. 'Mom! Are you all right? You are so weird!' I place my head on the steering wheel, tears clouding my eyes. I raise the volume our car fills up with grace.
I know immediately it's Simon Shaheen, the Arab-American virtuoso violinist, an elegant man who wears starched white shirts and black suits and plays like an angel.Ī calm washes over me that I haven't felt in days. I'm idling in the drive-through line at a fast-food franchise in Texas, the kind of place I usually avoid, because my hungry teenager needs a hamburger, when a curling strand of delicate violin rises from National Public Radio. Seeking consolation in a shaky world, Arab-American writer Naomi Shihab Nye finds wisdom in the melodies and memories of the people she loves.
