Corrie - Let me stand alone the journals of Rachel Corrie

To those lost

loved

and remembered

And to Butch

who brought the sushi

Acknowledgments

Numerous people have taken steps that ultimately led to the publication of Let Me Stand Alone. Many more supported Rachel in her journey as writer, artist, and human being. We thank all who contributed in any way to make this book possible.

We extend our love and gratitude to all our family who have generously and thoughtfully supported our efforts and who continue to provide respite when needed. Special thanks to Kelly Simpson for pretending that plastic tubs and boxes of paper make good chairs and tables when left for months in your living roomand for providing food, coffee, and forgiveness on long nights when the work would not end; to Cheryl Brodersen, for your proofreading help and for opening your heart and home when we ran out of steam on your doorstep; and to our accommodating readersGina Patnaik, Emily Robbins, and Linda Young, for offering your encouragement and valuable advice, whether or not we were wise enough to heed it.

Thank you to Jen Marlowe. We could not have made it through this project without you. You are our devoted friend, reader, editor, mediator, and source of comic relief. Thank you for your tireless energy and support and for your renditions of catchy show tunes as well!

Thank you to those who contributed directly to the book: to the friends and family who generously stepped forward with writing to share; to Denny Sternstein for allowing us to use your beautiful photograph of Rachel for the cover; to Ann Petter, for sensitively and creatively designing the cover; and to Bill Clegg, our agent, for believing passionately in the power of Rachels writing and never faltering in your encouragement and empathy. Thank you to all at W. W. Norton & Company who believed in the importance of this book, especially our editor, Jill Bialosky, for your patient and steady guidance through a demanding and emotional process, and to Paul Whitlatch for your valiant, if often futile, efforts to keep us on track.

The Guardian in London first published Rachels e-mails from Gaza in 2003. Rima Horton, Alan Rickman, Katharine Viner, Megan Dodds, and all at the Royal Court Theatre provided vision, talent, passion, and care in bringing the words to the stage in My Name Is Rachel Corrie. When others faltered, the remarkable group that became Rachels Words, along with David Johnson, Virginia Buckley, Dena Hammerstein, Pam Pariseau, John OBoyle, and others, had the courage and determination to bring the words and the play forward. To all of you, we are immensely grateful.

Thank you to the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists around the world who never forget and who continue to do nonviolent work so needed in the world. Loving thanks to Will, Joe, Greg, Alice, Tom, Richard, and Nick, who were with Rachel when she died and have remained in our lives and hearts since.

We extend love and support to Brian Avery, to the families of Tom Hurndall and James Miller, and to the Palestinian and Israeli families of the Parents CircleFamily Forum. We are grateful for your friendship, comfort, inspiration, and strength.

Thank you to the Palestinian people who have embraced Rachel and our family as your own and to our Israeli friends who have done so as well. Thank you to all those around the world who look at Rachel and see a symbol of what the world can bea place where the path to peace and resistance to oppression and injustice go hand in hand, and where for both individuals and nations, nonviolence becomes the mode for achieving them.

A special thank you to the family, teachers, friends, coworkers, clients, and community members who supported the author in her life journey and support us in ours.

And finally, thank you to Rachel, our daughter and sisterfor the love, for the laughter, for the insight, for the experience and gift of having you in our lives. And for the words. We will always be grateful. We will always remember. We will always love youwith all our hearts.

The Corrie Family

19951997

If the words I use buzz away from my lips meaninglessly, then well let them hang in the air for a while. Well let those silly words sit and make fools of themselves until other words come and crowd around them.

I need to flutter and hover and look at the diamond ripples through six swirled insect eyes. Just dont touch me for a moment. Let me sit and stare at everything through my own eyes for a while. Let me dance in the lily petals and skim the trembling water and buzz like useless words in the air.

Do you understand? Let me lie alone on my back in tall grass and see the sun and the water droplets on the branches and the red tree trunks through my own eyes. Let me color them and build them with my own words. Lonely, strong words. Let me stand alone at the edge of the earth and look at it honestly, alone.

19891990

I must walk with care

as I wander in the wood

that I may crush no flower below my shoes.

19891990

leaves

lie down on your back

gaze up to the sky

ignore prickly grass

the ant passing by

look up to the branches

with sun glinting through

see the sparkle of leaves

they are whispering to you

19891990

There are few things which have

the pride and the shyness of a soft, wet trillium.

Summer 1998

The question is always where to start the story. Thats the first question. This is why writers are destined to be crazy people. This is why Sylvia Plath offed herself quietly beneath her suction cup Bell Jar and why Hemingway wrote every morning until 11:00 and took his first drink at 11:05. Trying to find a beginning is the first pitiful backward step at trying to impose order on the great psychotic fast-forward merry-go-round, and trying to impose order is the first step toward ending up in a park somewhere, painted blue, singing Row, row, row your boat to an audience of saggy-lipped junkies and businesspeople munching oat bran muffins.

And thats how this story ends, good buddy, so if you are concerned with the logic and sequence of things and the crescendo of suspense up to a good shocker of an ending, you best be getting back to your video game and your amassing wealth. Leave the meaningless details to the poets and the photographers.

And theyre all meaningless details, my friend.

April 14, 1991

My name is Rachel Corrie. I was born on April 10th, 1979, in Olympia, Washington, to my mother and father, Craig and Cindy Corrie, a brother, Chris, who was about seven, a sister, Sarah, who was two years younger, and a really old cat named Phoebe.

I went to preschool. It was a little house down the hill from a swing set and up the hill from the beach, with multicolored bells on the windowsill, eagles, a green carpet in the library, and what seemed like millions of windows with leafy light falling through them.

I grew. I learned to spell cat, to read little books. I continued to draw and I started to watercolor. When I was five I discovered boys, which made my life a little more difficult. Just a little. And a lot more interesting. In first grade I started my five years in the Options Program. Options was a place to truly learn, to learn how to feel, how to be, and how to be the kind of person I want to be.