On Nostalgia in the Diaspora // Oubah Osman

They exist in freeze-frame botanicals and with Casio wrists. They exist in poised ’70s hips and flares and black and white irises. They exist in my own nostalgic reverie of “another time,” where our Somali mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles sat for a photo in images that perplexed us in our childhood. When I see my harbaryars watching me behind large, boxy frames, I can’t help but sit inside the photos with them, thinking, here I am in my baati and my pride and my friendly connection to this world. Won’t you take my photo?2There are sentiments of love and sisterhood here. In one, two sketched and shaded hands rest over each other, while a letter reads in perfect Somali, “Waxaad tahay naftayda, iyo jacaylkayga. Wadnaha ku yaal …” Little stars perforate the grey backdrop of our precious eastern sky. The moon is shy behind a thumbprint. The corners of this photograph, like so many others, smell of uunsi and are so eager that they bend upwards. In another, Hooyo and her sisters lean together in front of a vase of lilies. This one, she says, in perfect Somali, is my favourite. But I knew this already, even before Toronto, Quebec, or Italy.3In a photograph by Malick Sidibé, a beautiful woman sits knowingly on a rusting chair. To sit knowingly is to cross your legs, lean forward with your elbow on your knee, and place your chin in the palm of your hand. Let your fingers hold your jaw. Tap your index finger if you feel the need. Hum to yourself, smiling, your very own special song.4Malaika is a song that makes me think of one photograph in particular of my eight-year-old sister holding a one-year-old version of me on our couch on Markham Road, a little south of Lawrence. Malaika is a Swahili song written by a Tanzanian musician named Adam Salim. When we were kids, my sister would pretend I was her baby. This year, my sister gave birth to a baby boy. In the photograph, I am standing next to my nephew who has grown up to my hip. On the back, in my own handwriting: “myself and my angel.”5In writing a poem about nostalgia, among other things, I begin with the lines:

Communism exists today in France asromantic nostalgic, not as a real political movement.

There’s one other line, the last line, which includes the word “nostalgic”:

One day you will figure it outand even this moment in history willmake you nostalgic.

6I’ve never been to France, but I’ve seen Breathless about five times. I couldn’t tell you what it’s about, but I came very close to cutting off all of my hair.7I’ve also never been to Djibouti City, or Addis Ababa, either. The next photograph is not my favourite of my father, but it is a special one. In it, my father is fixed among tall flowers that stand opaquely ahead of him, cutting off his full frame. A tree materializes over him, but I can see his face and torso—parts of him that rise eagerly out of the green. My father looks just like me, even with his cropped Afro hair. On the back, he’s written in his confident way: Xasuus kooban waa maalin ciidi soon ahayo bishu, and finally the date, 28/5/87. I feel a small burst in my chest as I trace the deep grooves of the lettering. How urgently he’d pressed the pen to the photograph in that moment. Or was it someone else’s hand?8I spend the entire day looking at photos from Contrast at the library. The records are so thorough, but I have to use a strange machine to crank each slide into the next. I’m embarrassed when a librarian leans over me to help fix a jam I had undoubtedly caused. Her breath leaves an uncomfortable print on my shoulder that I feel for days. There is, inevitably, a price to pay when looking back. I print two images of strangers, cut around them, and paste them into a collage I am making. It features black people, strangers to myself and to each other, dancing and standing around. Some are from colourful images, others black and white. I’ve written above it, in block letters, “Sugar Shack, 19—and beyond.” Embarrassed, I cross it out and write, instead, “At Home We Dance.”9The buraanbur begins. Women jump from side to side, stop, turn, and disguise themselves in cloth, disappearing into an ever-turning beat. On the fringes, one could see the earth sway and burst, joining into a sequin coast. Back it goes into movements of jade and canary, winking as it spreads from the center. What does this moment taste like? Dates. Each woman looks like she has posed for a photograph in Mogadishu, Kenya, Djibouti, Dar es Salaam, Minnesota, London, Rome, and Toronto … The solid rhythm carries on. I watch them turn against themselves and back towards the drummer’s hand. This time, I drop into the beat, too, for once, only to disappear inside of it.

Oubah Osman is a writer and poet from Toronto, Ontario. She holds an Honours BA in English Literature from the University of Toronto Scarborough and she is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Guelph. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in Unpublished City Volume II, Room Magazine, The Varsity, and Scarborough Fair.