After a dear friend based in Sheikh Jarrah recommended it to me, I’d grown increasingly curious about a very special bookshop and decided one lazy morning to seek it out. And I was not to be disappointed.

Stepping inside The Educational Bookshop, leaving the hustle and bustle of Salah ad-Din Street behind, feels like entering a story of its own.

There is a difference between loneliness and solitude, and it’s one I’ve always been able to distinguish clearly. I don’t feel lonely when I’m alone; on the contrary, I feel more in tune with myself. And in that lies a kind of freedom that many people, over the years, have told me they wish they could experience as well.

My cousins and I bonded over stacking hay, pulling weeds, setting up beanstalks, and racing go-karts down the quiet road by our house, back when hardly any cars passed through. Looking back, it almost feels like it never really existed.