Sharing our stories is important because it helps each of us to believe we have innate value just by virtue of existing. We live in a time where sharing vulnerability and authentic truth is not encouraged. It is better to avoid pain or suffering and to keep it inside in a hidden place. Many of the individuals…
Tag: music
Music is the way forward
It’s been almost a year since my husband and I moved from France back to the small town in central Arizona where we had been living before moving to Belgium five years earlier. Sound confusing? Welcome to my life. I have been moving every two months to two years since I left my parents’ house…
If a tree falls
Note: The identities of participants in a songwriting workshop I describe in this piece have been made anonymous. It’s been a long time since Sarah and I have been able to work together in person to offer poetry and songwriting from stories. The other day, I realized that it has now been more than two…
It’s a long story
Sarah and I are very excited that our project, “On the Move: Poems and Songs of Migration” has been chosen as one of five finalists for the 2021 Amateo Award for arts participation projects across Europe. Even with the added stress of travel during the continuing Covid-19 pandemic, we are planning (in shallah) to travel…
Mondays On the Move: Habibi, Habibi
Since our last “Mondays on the Move” post, movement has become something of a distant memory and luxury. Since meeting for our Laugh at Life performance in Brussels center by the pissing dog statue, movement came to a standstill with the implementation of a second lockdown in both Belgium and France and across the EU….
Mondays On the Move: Laugh at life
I met Sarah at our poetry wall at Petit-Château this morning. We had not been to the center or seen our wall since the beginning of the lockdown in the middle of March. I was filled with such hope and joy, seeing the center again. Together, we posted the new poems, which Sarah had printed…
Mondays On the Move: Soyons unis
Today, Sarah and I met in Ypres, Belgium to visit The Menin Gate. Read on to hear about each of our accounts. From Marieke So far for our “Mondays On the Move” project, Sarah and I have been able to meet and discover hidden places in and around Brussels. Now that I am living just…
Mondays On the Move: Let me be free
It’s Monday and time for another “Mondays On the Move!” This week, Sarah and I quite literally on the move in different corners of the same country. Sarah is on holiday in the south of France with her family. I have been driving around the northern Nord-Pas-de-Calais region with my husband and our big white…
Mondays On the Move: I am the change
For our fourth installment of our new “Mondays On the Move” project to promote freedom of movement for all people, Sarah and I share a song we wrote with an asylum seeker from Gaza, who we met at the Fedasil Arrival Centre in 2017. With him, we wrote many songs. This song is called “I…
Mondays On the Move: I could be you
It’s the third week of our new “Mondays On the Move” series to promote freedom of movement for all people. Sarah and I have been choosing a different spot around Brussels, Belgium each Monday, where we share one of our migration songs with you. The first Monday, we talked about the project and sang…
Marieke is Guiding Song 