December 2020-Amman, Jordan

It is morning again.

The sun is mercifully warm enough, for December, when I sit directly in it.

There are only two times I can feel warm in a day: when sitting in the morning sun, next to my husband who’s wearing his blue pajamas, looking for Palestine sunbirds out the window, drinking tea and reading his kindle. He has his camera standing by for bird photos.

And secondly, when I bring the little red hot water bottle to keep us company on the couch during the long winter evenings.

In winter in Jordan, it only gets down to the 40s usually. But the houses are not well-insulated nor built for the cold. So we make do with blankets, hot water bottles, or a space heater (a last resort since it makes our electricity bill go through the roof).

Soon Raja will go to the print shop to print copies of our I-864 form and accompanying documents for us to sign. We are in the seemingly endless phase of filling and printing and signing immigration forms for Raja’s green card. Each form requires accompanying documents as proof of a million things.

We must prove that we love each other, that we have a real marriage, that we have money, that Raja is not sketchy in any way.

We also have to prove that the US is my permanent home and that I’m temporarily living overseas in Jordan. The temporarily part is important. I think the US government wants to know I’m coming back, before they agree to let in my husband.

We’ve sent so much paper to them already. And so much more still needs to be sent. Letters and affidavits and declarations, bank and credit card statements, the title and registration of my car (I’ve temporarily abandoned my Corolla, on long term loan to a friend in the US).

Proof of car insurance, a record of all the elections I’ve voted in (not which way I’ve voted – just that I’ve voted), a copy of my driver’s license, tax returns, more bank statements. More credit card statements. More tax returns.

It goes on and on.

We probably need to prove some other things – I’m not sure yet. It’s a fun little (unpaid) side job we both have, filling out immigration forms.

So many things in our lives – especially the papers – reflect and signify difference, vastness, separateness. The immigration process, for one. It sorts us into two categories. One of us is a “US citizen petitioner” and the other is a “spouse beneficiary” or even “alien relative”. (Can someone please explain to me why that term is still in use?)

Then there are our two different passports, Egyptian and American. And the sheer size of the Atlantic Ocean (which I’ve written about before).

The distance between our two homes. The time it takes to fly back and forth. The price of a plane ticket, let alone two, let alone more once our little family grows. Not to mention COVID, and how it has made traveling between the US and Jordan a nightmare this year.

None of this matches our lived, daily reality: closeness, the sunbirds, the hot water bottle, the blankets, the kindles, the morning sun on the couch.

Our reality is our tight-knit little family of two. We are united and we are, in so many ways, similar people. It doesn’t come into daily consciousness – though, surely it must affect the bones of our souls – that his dad grew up in Minya, Egypt about 25 years before my dad grew up in Rochelle, Illinois.

Minya is a city of 200,000 (probably less when Raja’s dad was growing up there in the ‘50s) on the banks of the Nile River, south of Cairo.

Rochelle, IL is one of those Midwestern towns, you know the ones, of 9,000 (probably less when my dad was growing up there in the ‘70s). It sits near the junctions of Interstates 39 and 88 and is surrounded by cornfields.

Raja’s mother was born in Irbid, northern Jordan, where her father – such a distinguished architect in his life – and mother lived at the time. Her father was Jordanian, though looking far enough back, he could trace the roots of his lineage to Yemen. Her mother’s roots traced back to Lebanon.

Half a generation after my mother-in-law grew up in Irbid and then Amman, my mother grew up on the East Coast of the US. She and her family constantly moved around, medium-sized Jersey town to medium-sized Jersey town, anchoring each summer at the sea.

Two universes, far apart as could be, created us, and yet the partnership so easy. So logical. So obvious. You might have thought we’d grown up next door to each other, on the same block in the same suburb.

You’ll find us reading our books together (him: climate change, graphic memoirs, history; me: every spy novel ever written by John le Carré).

Or going for long walks, opening a bottle of red wine, or taking turns cooking: goulash, vegetable tarts, squash soups in the winter.

It’s only when we take a deep breath and plunge into the stack of immigration papers we need to deal with that we are reminded – as if the papers are constantly trying to remind us, lest we forget – that we are from different places.

Opposite-hemisphere places.

Far apart places.

It’s a bit confusing. Life outside the papers and life inside the papers make our reality feel like a split screen.

---

An update: in the time since I wrote this piece in late 2020, I’m glad to say that Raja’s green card was approved. The massive stacks of immigration forms are now behind us!