Tammini alek is a phrase in Arabic that I grew up hearing, a phrase so familiar that I never stopped to truly consider the tenderness it carries.You hear it when someone is far away from you, but also in those moments when someone has just walked out the door and you already miss them. In Arabic, it loosely translates to “reassure me of you.” But over time, it became something so much more. It is this request that melts into softness. A way of saying: tell me you are safe, an asking to have amn, iman: safety and faith in the reassurance that you are okay.

Part of my inspiration has been Lebanese author Kahlil Gibran and his words on love in the Prophet (1923):

“To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.”

I return to these words because they remind me that love is not the absence of vulnerability. It is the willingness to extend yourself despite it. 

And that is what tammini alek feels like.

To say it is an extension of your heart. It is to open your heart so that it may be held and reassured. To hear it is to know that the safety of your heart means something, and that its warmth warms another. I created this collection as a way to say tammini alek to home, to those you love, to those who carry your heart with them. I have always associated this phrase with distance, yet it is the thing that unravels distance through love and openness.