Where the Smile Never Dies

If you have not heard the song Fix You by Coldplay, you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skUJ-B6oVDQ.  Listen to it before reading.

Basma’s office was empty of life today, save for the sound of my voice singing to the melodies of Relient K, U2, Owl City, and the Decemberists.  In the absence of Basma, the director of Al-Basma, I sat alone at her computer, finishing up a design for the Center’s website.  Whenever I work in her office, I am frequently visited by the beautiful students of the Center who will drop in to show love, whether through sing-song shouts of “habibi!”, never-ending high-fives, all-encompassing embraces, aggressive head rubs, or just smiles.  This place could not have been more appropriately named: Al-Basma, “the smile.”  In this place, the smiles never die.

Yesterday, as I was then too working at Basma’s desk, one of the Center’s students, Rushdi, entered through the doorway behind me.  His short, stout person came waddling through the door with an enormous, love-filled smile.  He walked around to the front of the desk and just stood there with his hands on the table, eyes wide and smile wider.  When you see another human being smile at you in that way, withholding a smile of your own is a near impossibility.  For at least thirty seconds, Rushdi and I smiled joyfully at each other, our eyes locked, the connection cementing.  The Kentuckian farmer and poet Wendell Berry writes that one of the tragedies of modern society is that we have lost the intimacy of looking into each other’s eyes.  We need to look not just into the eyes of the other, but through them, and see into the soul of their humanity.  I feel like I saw Rushdi’s soul in those seconds, and he saw mine.  In all my life, I do not remember ever having someone walk into a room to simply smile at me.  I pray Rushdi’s smile will be forever indelible in my mind.

Today, though… Today, as the folk sounds of the Decemberists came over the small speakers in Basma’s office, Rushdi and his brother Mohammad slowly waddled in to listen.  Not able to resist the invitation of their smiles for one moment, I immediately grabbed two plastic chairs and placed them next to the desk.  They came as an audience but instantly transformed, along with me, into members of an incredibly talented fictitious band.  I took lead vocals and air guitar, while Rushdi quickly claimed air drums, and Mohammad backup air guitar.  Through the likes of The Crane Wife, Part 1 and II by the Decemberists, Rince Dé by Michael W. Smith, and Life in Technicolor ii by Coldplay, the three of us performed in unison.  The excitement was so great for Mohammad that he jumped up from his seat during one of Coldplay’s songs and shuffled speedily away to find one of the female workers.  A few seconds later, he returned enthusiastically to rejoin our music session, with his new recruit hustling close behind.  She looked confused as to she stumbled hurriedly into the room, apparently expecting some kind of emergency.  When all she found was three aspiring musicians, she looked at me questioningly.  I gave her the only answer to her silent question that made sense, “I think he just wanted you to share in the music.”  In that moment, Mohammad reminded me that good music, along with most everything truly good in this world, can really only be fully appreciated and experienced if it is shared.

As the music played, the brothers began to become more immersed in its melodic rhythms.  I watched these two individuals, both developmentally disabled, as they seem to become one with the music.  They had never heard these particular arrangements of notes before, nor did they understand what the words were saying, but the melodies moved them.  Mohammad’s eyes closed as he swayed back and forth in his chair.  Rushdi’s head and neck swung around and around as he shook his hands up and down pretending to play percussion.  I, too, tried to let the music seep into my veins and control my movements.   As I sang the words of the Decemberists to them, Mohammad tried to sing with me, voicing words that, though they did not exist, seem to have a deep meaning simmering beneath them.  Rushdi just smiled, still moving with the music.  Though our different languages do not allow us to communicate much at all, for a few moments in Basma’s office, the three of us connected.  For a brief while, we spoke the same language: the living language of music.  And our smiles never died.

Having witnessed the power the music was having over Rushdi and Mohammad, I decided to play one of my favorite songs, Fix You by Coldplay. This song, particularly the last two and half minutes, has always evoked great emotion for me due to reasons I cannot adequately put into words.  I hoped the same would be true for Rushdi and Mohammad.   As the song began, I began playing on my fake keyboard, singing along with Chris Martin (the lead singer of Coldpay) as our voices recited the opening lyrics in unison:

When you try your best but you don’t succeed,

When you get what you want but not what you need,

When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep,

Stuck in reverse.

As I sang these initial words and then those that followed, I could not help but think that this song could be an anthem of the Palestinian people:

And the tears come streamin’ down your face,

When you lose something you can’t replace,

When love someone but it goes to waste,

Could it be worse?

Then came my favorite part.  The second chorus ended and the instrumental build-up began.  The solo guitar came sounding through the speakers.  I took over on guitar, Mohammad imitating my every motion, and Rushdi held fast to the soft background percussion.  Then, as the moment came for the rest of the band to join in at the climax of the song, I leaned back in my chair and tried again to become one with the music.  At the second all the instruments began playing in unison, I lunged forward in my chair, joining Rushdi on drums, and letting the music pour over me.  Like every other time I have listened to this song, my heart sped up and goose bumps appeared.  But this time, something else happened.

Tears stream down your face,

When you lose something you cannot replace,

Tears stream down your face,

And I…

As I sang these words with Coldplay, Mohammad suddenly let go.  With emotion etched into his face and a smile exploding from his lips, he yelled out in passion with the music.  He lifted his arms and waved them around as he became totally overcome in the melody.  Then, in incredible harmony with the lyrics, tears began to pour from Mohammad’s eyes and stream down his face.  The sound of purely joyful, excited laughter joined the music and Mohammad’s exclamations as both I and Jon, who had become our audience a few songs earlier, reveled in the moment we were witnessing.  I turned up the volume, and in doing so, simultaneously seemed to increase the power of the experience.  Alarmed at the loud cries from Mohammad, others throughout the Center came rushing to the door.  When they too became witnesses to this display of passion and the power of music, they too joined in our joyful laughter.  As I continued singing with the lyrics as the song drew to a close, tears formed in my eyes as well.  When the music finally faded, Mohammad caught his breath and looked at me with eyes full of intense emotion.  His face was damp from the streams of tears.  I looked from him to Jon to Rushdi and back to Muhammad.  We were all smiling.  Never before had I experienced a song like this, and I may never experience music like this again. 

Those moments shared with Rushdi, Mohammad, and Jon today will stay with me for the rest of my life, if I am lucky.  I continue to think of the closing words to that song, “Lights will guide you home, And ignite your bones, And I will try to fix you.”  Today, all of us were guided home, our bones and passion were ignited, and in some indescribable way, I think those two brothers fixed me.  While singing Coldplay with two developmentally disabled young men in a small office in a little town in Palestine, I saw God.  Whatever it means to feel God, I felt that presence in the music and movements of our pretend concert.  And there, in the smiles and tears of the marginalized of the marginalized, God appeared.  At Al-Basma, where the smile never dies, God appeared.  And my smile has still not died…

Salaam aleykum,

Michael