Journal – EL MAHBOOB

Larger in the Past

Grateful for so much as my history unfolds in reverse. Summer’s first journey to my birth mother’s home, with a family whom I’m so proud of with me. Upon our return my paternal side manifested. A grandfather in the Jim Crow South. Voice on the line who shared this family’s history of migration to the… Continue reading Larger in the Past

Kenza, for piano

Today is the second birthday of my second child Kenza, firstborn to my wife Nehal El-Hadi. Just before her birth, I wrote a short three-movement work for piano dedicated to her. I have posted the first movement here. Like the work written for her older sister Remi, the music here is diatonic, in the key… Continue reading Kenza, for piano

III. Biology (Linea Nigra)

This year I was reunited over long distance with my biological mother. After 45 years of no contact at all with any birth relatives, no knowledge of their whereabouts or identities, I was able to return from the left-for-dead (tactfully, not on Easter weekend). It has always seemed important to me, since before there was… Continue reading III. Biology (Linea Nigra)

I Am Somewhere

For most of my life, I have been someone who was for the most part visibly, identifiably mixed race black, but lacking any other evidence of my ethnicity — biological relatives, genealogy, language, cultural items or history — beyond an adoption file that listed me as “Negroid.” I had no roots. I knew that my… Continue reading I Am Somewhere

II. Sociology (Negroid)

This is my order, redacted. Me in a page, outlines obscured. I have written before about being inside white culture, and outside black, as a young transracial adoptee. About feelings of isolation leading to a suicidally depressed period. About seeing myself identified on generalized adoption records as “Negroid.” I’ve written about the joy I feel… Continue reading II. Sociology (Negroid)

I. Pathology (Black Mood)

It’s the eve of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and MLK’s “I Have a Dream.” It is a media event but more importantly a reminder and celebration of the prime meridian on the map, so to speak, of our era. In an age of spectacular technological innovations and creative visions, these words… Continue reading I. Pathology (Black Mood)

Up on Garrison Creek

July 2001, early morning. I pass through an intersection in a quiet neighbourhood and walk along a street that appears impossibly green, even for Toronto. As I look in all four directions I see no one else. The light is golden, the air still cool and I have a rare unobstructed view into the distances.… Continue reading Up on Garrison Creek

Dream Scream

I am sitting at the top of a climbing apparatus like the ones in junior school gymnasiums, except it is “adult” size, putting me two stories above the floor without a crash mat. Beside me are two school crushes whom I haven’t seen in real or dream life or thought about since early adolescence. We… Continue reading Dream Scream

Cage Centenary

August 12, 1992 (Journal entry. Transcription by Nehal El-Hadi, September 4, 2012) John Cage died today at 79. I have somehow been expecting this news, as if it were confirmation that a certain era of progressiveness or revolution was truly now over. Cage, more than any other single figure in the arts, was one to… Continue reading Cage Centenary

There is no past, only palimpsest

I once asked Madra, then in her late 80s and living in a retirement home, to tell me stories of her early days. She told me, “I’m too tired.” After she passed away, I cherished the short memoir she had written earlier in her life, and I typed it up. It was about nine pages… Continue reading There is no past, only palimpsest