Alice In Palestine Magazine: Maysa Yousef Jul 2021

Alice in Palestine: It is the fantasy life which I live in; it is an exciting character who desires to know everything and tries to change her life into something beautiful as she has always wanted to live in her dreams, in her imaginative world running after the rabbit, getting younger and older, talking to flowers and coloring them. Alice has always wanted to change everything in her life, especially the mold that her family put her in. She does not want to be shaped within a specific mold. It is not only a journey where she seeks to have fun, but it is also a journey towards soul\self- searching, truth, hope and happiness. Despite the constraints in her world, she was able to face the truth and defeat Black against White. Alice is not only a worried, heartbroken character that runs, walks, draws, dances, flies and falls, but lives in an unknown world, a far cry from reality.

This little girl, who fell into the rabbit hole, has inspired me to better know this weird, fantasy world that is different from ours, yet similar to our dreams. It is our life in Gaza. It is how we dream of the magic drink, how we get younger and older and how we fly without wings. The hole we fall into invites us to rebuild a new, better life.

It is our world, the world of illogical dreams. It is time to defy this mold surrounding us, the small suffocating box through which we can't breathe.

Our dreams are greater than falling, rising up, and flying high, looking forward to a quiet life filled with peace and stability.

The journey of self- search\discovery has begun and will not end. It is a very long journey. Do not be afraid. Fight for your dreams, for your own world, for your ideas and beliefs, for the sake of your humanity, and for yourself. You deserve all the best of the best.

Alice, in her journey towards soul-searching, wishes to change all reality and move through dreams, into the real life that every person lives on earth. The journey is very hard, full of heavy burdens that may stop her from moving forward, yet she keeps pushing, dancing, coloring flowers, and thinking of this imaginative world as the real world, a world in which she gets younger and older, flies without wings all over the world towards the light, finds freedom, breathes hope and breaks the wall of the suffocating box in which she lives.