Author Alia Al Shamsi Writes A Love Letter To Her Childhood
In a bid to rescue tradition, Emirati-Italian author Alia Al Shamsi remembers scenes from her childhood through archival imagery from the ’80s and odes to a distant past
For former photojournalist and Emirati-Italian author Alia Al Shamsi, life is one big story. “Perhaps stories are the imprint of our souls onto this world,” she says. On her way to school while growing up in Dubai, Alia would pass by the City Walk area – now filled with modern high-rise buildings but once an old, sandy neighbourhood called Shaabiyat Al Shurta – admiring the quiet surroundings.
When she heard the news of the neighbourhood being torn down, Alia documented the area through her camera, with the hope of freezing time before it was demolished. “Maybe I am a helpless romantic like that, I collect photographs of moments I want to keep forever.”
Dubai, in its old and new form, holds many cherished memories seldom shared. The shores and bookshops in Jumeira, Safa Park and the stationery and grocery store in Satwa that still bakes her favourite bread, will forever remain childhood treasures.
On weekends Alia would indulge in green-frosted cakes with her cousins. Safa Park was where she’d sit on benches with her parents and brother, and long walks on the beach with her Italian grandmother were frequent. Sitting on the floor and eating with her hands during trips to Al Ain to see her paternal grandmother is a flashback etched into her mind, a memory that will never fade.
Nostalgic, she often remembers life in the 1980s, when the rise of globalism brought certain foods, snacks, fashion, music and cartoons dubbed in Arabic to light. The past will never be forgotten, for, as Alia says, “the world exists because we continue to tell stories since the beginning of time, from cave-markings and ancient inscriptions on walls, to pictograms and paintings.”
In an ode to her late grandmother and her childhood, reminiscing of the days where she would eat from the neighbourhood’s bakery van in Jumeira and visit the nearby park with her cousins, she pens a hauntingly beautiful poem:
“Her fingers peel November’s aroma free
Mandarins I eat no more
Orange threads of memories braided with
Sidewalk flowers that led to the heavens above
Higher, higher, push me higher
I want to fly
I want to catch the sky, the clouds and speak the language of the seagulls
The call, the fluttering footsteps
Shining moonlit discs clanking
Enough coins to fulfil a sugary desire
We sat side by side
Us
We
The dreamers of tomorrow”
Above images by Alia AlShamsi, Shaabiyat AlShurta / Citywalk and AlRashediya, 2012
Image of Alia by Efraim Evidor, ITP Images