Drifting

Boys here (shebab) always ask me about drifting; do you like speed? How fast have you gone in a car? Have you ever drifted? Drifting, as in, I don't even know how to describe it... driving fast and slamming on the breaks so your car moves as your tires are still struggling to stop.



I say no, no, this scares me. They say Aww, c'mon, and show me some scars- probably from something innocent like a dog bite or falling off their bike. But they claim the scars are from car accidents,never with details on how exactly they happened.

Once I was sitting on the balcony of a restaurant off Rafidia Street with two Palestinian friends, smoking shisha and eating ice cream- I could hear tires squealing somewhere below on the street. I looked down and saw one of the old, beaten up Fiat's that crowd the streets of Nablus zooming around the empty side streets below us. It would drive up the street, accelerating as fast as it could, then slam on the brakes, jolting the wheel so it the car "drifted" even just a minuscule amount. Then it would begin back down the street the same way and repeat the action. From so high above the car looked tiny and desperate, like it was searching for a way out of the street but couldn't find one.

What is drifting? Acceleration, then speed, abrupt deceleration, a strange and halting attempt to shift direction as the car attempts to stop. It seems stuck, ineffective, dangerous. Where does the impulse for such an implosive movement come from? Maybe it's simple: from any young boy's impulse for speed and danger, from popular movies, like *The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift*. Or maybe its some symptom of the feeling of isolation here in Palestine, isolation from the world that mostly ignores the situation here. From the physical entrapment of the occupation that doesn't allow free travel, barely allows access to Al Quds (Jerusalem).

Nablus is quiet and calm now, so it's easy to forget that in the near past it was subject to years of attacks, curfews, isolation from checkpoints. The the Old City, which I experience as a busy and beautiful market, was not that long ago systematically bombed and demolished. Not long ago, a trip to a nearby village would require passing through some fifteen checkpoints, endless waiting, being berated by soldiers. In 2002, a curfew imposed on the city lasted for 104 days- what comes from this experience of imprisonment? This isn't the Nablus I know but this is the Nablus that the shebab grew up in. What come from such an extreme lack of control?

Drifting isn't just recklessly driving- I mean sure, it's reckless and dangerous, but it's something more too. It's searching for a unique feeling, something akin to moving while standing still. Changing directions while the forces of deceleration work against you. Starting again, reckless speed, an abrupt and forced stop that you struggle against. Starting again.

But again, maybe I'm reading too much into it- maybe it's just boys wanting to drive fast.