Encontros e Despedidas

As salaam alaikum,

So, I love this song. I'ma translate it...

But first, random updates:

(1) I just met a woman who reminded me of myself...physically, I mean. She looked like me. We were the same coloring, similar build, everything. Especially her face...we had, like, the same eyes. It was creepy. I always say I've never met someone who looks like me, whereas most people have a physical type that fits them. She was it for me. She was at our book club (in which we actually never read books, we watch documentaries, but whatever) with her husband, and she's about 26 weeks pregnant. Hahaha, it makes me feel like a weird narcissist to say she was gorgeous, but what can I say? I've never met someone who looked so much like me, and if I think I look gorgeous, of course, by the transitive property, she would be, too! Masha'Allah!

And (2) a few months ago, like, back in April when book club was still new, I met this guy, and it's funny when you know that you're eventually going to be involved with a person. It's like, you have this intuition, and you know, but you don't want to believe it in your mind, but you know. Yeah. He's back in the country now after a trip to...Indonesia, I think, and after book club we departed with a rushed, "We should hang out!" And we should. I'll say more about him after we actually hang out, but wow. I was smiling like the Cheshire Cat on the T and was so happy like I haven't been since I was a teen on the campuses of the University of Michigan (by the way, great job with ball so far, babes!). I find when I'm really happy, I get hit on a lot more. Three men shouted out to me from cars yesterday...I haven't gotten that much attention since I was 21 years old!

More about this book club, which I fondly nicknamed "Africa Night," and this guy later.

Okay, enough with the updates...I'm going to have to get up on some Milton Nascimento, who wrote this song. This song was great for Maria Rita...it took me a while to warm up to her, though, easier once I stopped expecting to hear Elis Regina...







Send news about the world outside
Say those who remain
Give me a hug, come hold me
I'm arriving
A thing that I like is being able to leave
Without having plans
Better yet is being able to return
When I want to

Everyday is a bustle
Life repeats itself at the station
There are people who come to stay
There are people who go, never to return
There are people who come who want to go back
There are people who go who want to remain
There are people who I only come to watch
There are people smiling and crying
And like this, arriving and departing

They are just two sides
Of the same trip
The train that arrives
Is the same train that leaves
The arrival time
Is also the time of departure
The platform of this station
Is the life of my world
Is the life of my world
Is life.

Being Woman for Men

As salaam alaikum,

{Currently Listening: Close to You - Carpenters}

I was doing reading for my Gender and Health class (and so it begins!) about the health of LGBT adolescents, indicators of poor health and improvements of health instruments, and the reading took me back to a very important period in my personal development...when my best friend came out to me.

I was just telling my roommate about it the other day, and I realize that it's not something that I really talk about, at all. For one thing, in the early days, when she wasn't out all the way, I didn't want to out her, so I didn't talk about it to anyone but her, and we didn't really discuss certain things. Anyway, I mean, on one hand, that solidified our relationship as best friends because she put that trust in me and I wanted to make sure that I was worthy of that trust. On the other hand...it left me really confused.

Short version...I didn't understand how she differentiated from me as her best friend and women that she was emotionally attracted to. I didn't understand because for me with guys, liking a guy friend was ultimately on a continuum that could end up with me liking them otherwise than friends, so I felt like in the end I was in a position as best female friend that was transitory, and that I was replaceable by an ultimately more desirable girlfriend...

Short version...there was a lot of crap going on with that.

So around that time, and with the advent of college, I began to struggle with the idea of what love was for me. Man, I was so young. Anyway, I don't think I got past the continuum idea. Other people differentiate between being attracted to someone and liking a friend, but I can't separate the two. If I'm friends with a guy but I'm not attracted to him, it's because I find something about him annoying or in general undesirable. Is there a physical aspect? Sure. But it's not insurmountable...

Anyway, so freshman year, I went through all sorts of crap, and then I met MQ, and, man, totally blew my mind!

{Currently Listening: Encontros e Despedidas - Maria Rita}

I wanted to be better for him...not for for him, but so that he would think I was attractive...so I could be an attractive perhaps maybe option for a relationship.

In retrospect, I realized this was messed up...if I had issues, I should have wanted to get better for myself, right? Well, in my life's path, it wouldn't be self-motivation that got me out of a dark place, but hope for companionship from this one then-boy that drove me.

I've told this sordid tale before. I won't delve further into the actual and instead will dance on the side of the theoretical, while keeping it still somewhat personal.

I think that an unfortunately large part of my female expression has been shaped over the years by men, or at least what I think men would want from me. There is a small part of me that thinks that I would be, by definition, a failure if I cannot get a worthwhile man to be attracted to me. Heh, I say worthwhile and not just any man precisely because of the phenomenon of street randoms, the random men on the street who will hit on you regardless of how you are dressed or time of day, really.

So currently, I see myself as a little bit of a failure of a human being. Yeah.

I'd be so different if my identity as a woman didn't depend so much on what I thought was attractive to men. I'd carry myself differently. I'd dress differently. I'd probably walk differently. I'd hold my eyes differently, I probably wouldn't smile as much. I'd probably care less about fashion and what other females are doing, because I wouldn't care so much to compare myself to them to figure out what I was doing wrong and what they were doing right. I'd probably not be so keen on losing as much weight as I currently want to lose and I wouldn't worry as much about my hair.

There would be things that didn't change. I'd still be interested in maternal/child health, I'd still love delivering babies, I'd still be into family medicine and love adolescent health and reproductive health. I'd still wear orange in the summer and spring and brown in the fall and winter. I'd still be in love with Brazilian Portuguese music and sing it to myself every chance I got. I'd still frequent the gym and go to my samba class (which is all women, pretty much). I'd still watch novelas...

So I guess it goes to show...I'd look a little bit different on the outside, maybe what I would consider right now to be more sloppy, but on the inside...I'd be the same person. And that's good to know...well, except maybe for the smiling part, the other things are things I don't really need anyway.

I just thought about all of this in the context of my attraction to MQ (trying to figure out why that was such a train wreck in the story of my life), and I think the answer in the end will be...I was young.

I don't know.

A New Center of Awesomeness

As salaam alaikum,

So, after several days of moodiness, I am now dedicated to finding for myself a new center of awesomeness! Awesome!

...I mean, what else can you say to that?

What is going to be the focus of this new center? My writing projects!

So, insha'Allah, I'm finishing RMD. I think for fun as well, I'm going to attempt this campy story idea that I had as a teenager renamed "The Misadventures of Nisa," about a girl, Anisa Taylor (heh) who grows up in the burbs, has this killer crush on a childhood friend who moves away when they're 12 years old to go to music school in the city, dedicates her life to moving to the city after that...but by the time she moves to the city at 22, she doesn't remember why she was so hot to move to the city. Anyway, Nisa has a series of misadventures in the city, ultimately leading to her being evicted from her apartment and having to defend her possessions with a concealed weapon. She then experiences what she at first perceives as random acts of charity from strangers, who later indicate that her benefactor is none other than...very predictable, I know.

I've had this story idea for a while. There's even a song that goes with it.

Oh yeah, and this story is based in the 80s. So the song was an 80s-sounding song. I like it!

I also wanted to write a comedy novel of sorts, called, "Desperate Blackwomen," a play on Desperate Housewives, but these would feature all single black women...desperate for various reasons.

My inspiration? The desperate black women of HSPH (public health school), no less...of which I am one, I guess, though I didn't come to Boston to find a man...just saying...

...now, running into one along the way...always preferred!

So I have ton of story ideas flowing, and I'm more excited to write them than ever...not because they're earth shattering, but because they sound like fun. These two ideas are definitely less serious than RMD. It almost makes me forget the fact that for some reason I've broken out into some kind of rash on my arms and elbows that I'm hoping is contact dermatitis vs. scabies. That's quite a wide differential, but I've never broken out into a rash like this before...it makes me miss my smooth skin! I'll never take smooth, non-itchy skin for granted again!

...well, that's a lie, I probably will, soon after this rash clears! Allah (swt) have mercy on we who forget!

But yeah, Glee has returned! Jane Lynch kills it as Sue Sylvester every week! Oh yeah, and Brittany is probably my favorite of the kids...her one liners are hilarious.

Insha'Allah

As salaam alaikum,

Insha'Allah, I'm going to finish this story I've been writing now for the past three years almost, A Rose Much Desired. I'm going to finish it before the end of October (that includes my final edit), insha'Allah.

Then I just have to figure out who I'm goign to give it to for the first read over.

Why do I say this? Because I just wrote a chapter that was very difficult to write, pretty much has been the chapter that I've been trying yet failing at writing for the last two years at least, and it will get me to the point where I know exactly how everything's going to happen, so it'll be easy to finish.

I hope I can get this published so my family can put it on their bookshelves. It'd be awesome, of course, if there was more interest in it, but judging by my sparse yet loyal readership for this thing...yeah, my family and a couple of friends will read it.

I'm excited, though! Almost done with my first completed work since "Daughter of a Supermodel," which I wrote when I was twelve.

Overjoyed!

Oh yeah, and my roommate, by reading the title and with my not wanting her to read any of the text assumes that it's a Harlequin novella. Haha, I laugh!

"Are there any sex scenes in it?"

"Well...not really." Heh.

And then she goes on about how you can tell Jane Austen never had sex because of the way that her interactions between males and females were without passion. Thanks, roommie, I'll keep that in mind.

She's still convinced it's a romance novel, I'm sure.

The Opposite of Awesomeness

As salaam alaikum,

I must say, though I've grown accustomed to typing on my laptop, ergonomically I much prefer typing on the keyboards of the desktop computers at the medical or public health school. This keyboard here in the MEC types like a dream!

I felt compelled, rather than to read the chapter on discrimination and health in my social epidemiology book, to write an entry that was quintessential awesomeness. I don't know, I hadn't written in a couple of days and after an epically bad Friday evening into Saturday, I felt like a some small epiphany in writing was in order. Unfortunately, here I am, and no such inspiration arises, from the synapses in my brain to the flow of my fingertips over this seductively smooth keyboard.

Okay, I'll stop on the keyboard bit.

So instead of the epitome of awesomeness, I'm stuck with the opposite of awesomeness, I guess. No big revelations. Nothing much to say. I said with my mouth that I'm giving up on the hopes of marriage and will henceforth dedicate my life to my brother who has autism and my aging parents, but I'm not really serious about that anymore.

I mean, no doubt my brother and parents will be a big part of my life and I do still plan to take charge of my brother as my parents age and move my parents into an apartment [with no microwave and no stove] connected to my home [okay, maybe a microwave...] connected to the home where my family lives...but family is still a big goal of mine. A big yet ever more elusive goal of mine...

If I've realized anything, I've realized that I don't really know what's good for me. I know what I want, but I'm not sure, without going into revealing details, if what I want is what I need. For so many things in life, what we want is in fact not what we need. I think that certain qualities I'd previously considered in men really were because of the novelty factor, the desire for "otherness," and I can't actually separate if I'm desiring otherness for otherness' sake or if I'm looking for it as an indirect form of self-validation.

I guess, am I looking to be with someone from a group that I feel traditionally wouldn't find me attractive or worthy of being a mate because I want to prove for myself my own worth? Well, that's no good, if that's the case.

So there's that.

The other thing is...I'm really unsure what I could actually bring to a marriage. I mean, I know the various reasons why I want to get married, but really, how could someone like me enhance the life of a man enough for him to consider marrying me? Or even being in a relationship with me? I honestly do not know.

But alas, human beings are social creatures, so somehow it's supposed to happen. No one knows why I worry so much that I'll end up alone, but they need to understand that they have established precedents to base things off of...people like them who have ended up married, in relationships, or whatever. For some reason, I don't have that. I mean, I realize that this is because of the reality I created for myself, but really, it's the only reality that's true to me and that I'm comfortable living in.

I feel like it just screws me over for relating to others, in particular future mates, in a big way.

So yes, this has been the opposite of awesomeness. At least with the aspiration of dedicating my life to my now-existing family, I have something concrete to look forward to insha'Allah that I'm more certain will be a necessity. The formation of my own family...I don't know.

Stuff Invisible Muslimahs Like?

As salaam alaikum,

Before I make the rest of this post...I'd like to state a retraction. To all my brothers out there...Muslim brothers, that is, not race brothers. Black men, I've actually succeeded in not saying anything negative about you...well, nor have I really mentioned you here, come to think of it. Anyway. To the brothers...no, I do not believe that you are all doomed to be my downfall. I am my own downfall sometimes. And for the example I used...paradoxically, as he made me doubt my beauty, he did at one time make me really comfortable in my identity, more than I had been.

So I think the lesson in that is that...with any such relationship, there's the potential for goodness, and there's the potential for badness. I guess it was all part of a necessary learning process to make me who I am today.



But who am I today, and what's the merit in that? That's a question that lies somewhere at the base of my chest...rides on my diaphragm with each breath. [Wow, I need to go back to reading medical literature...I feel myself fast forgetting the world of medicine for the world of...dun dun dun! Public health. I need my med student jeito back!] I got into all six of the colleges I applied to and decided to go to my "safety" school instead of my favorite school, Wash U...or Yale, which had the second best package to Michigan...before I got the scholarship. I would have been a very different person if I'd gone to Yale...not in terms of academics, but people.

I live wondering what my life would have been if I'd never met MQ...I may still be shunning hip hop and R&B. What if there weren't as many black women on campus who went natural? Would I have not stopped straightening my hair? I probably wouldn't have started hijab, may have not become as practicing as I wanted to because of the presence/paucity of Muslims on campus...lots of things, dude!

I like my trajectory. Sometimes I wonder if coming to Harvard was a mistake, but it's too late, because it's part of who I am now and I'm indivisible from it.

But it makes me a very weird person.



So my roommate, who is mixed, just found out that she's exactly like the list of stuff white people like. She's angry because it says white people, when she thinks it's just college culture. But it's like, I hate to break it to you, but I went to college and while I did a few of the things on the list (frisbee), I always acknowledged those things to be...of someone else's culture.

Acutally, ultimate was more my Asian friends in high school. Stuff Asian people like that I ended up participating in...ultimate frisbee, DDR (c. 2002-03), Bubble Tea, math competitions...

Before college, I was a tag-along to the dominant culture amongst the brainiacs, I guess you could call us, in my high school, and we were mostly Asian. The black people were two half-Nigerians and one half-black, half-Asian dude. Very telling. So most of my friends were Asian, particularly Chinese and Korean. Where are we now? We're all engineers, in medical school, in computers or business. Hahaha, I love how those of us in medical school still are in school. I didn't feel the length until I've entered School of Public Health. Man, time has sloowwweeddd doowwwnnn...

So, I digress a lot.

So I don't fit in with stuff white people like. I looked at the various stuff black people like...while I agree with the list and I can identify it with people I know, that's not really me, either. Stuff educated black people like...that was my other roommate. Oh yeah, and it was really funny how characteristic the complaints that black people levered against it were...characteristic, predictable. I know my black people! Not meaning to channel the Dave Chappelle skit with that one...Chappelle, who I wouldn't have known about if MQ hadn't told me about him freshman year...

Stuff Muslim people like? Erm...I'm kind of scared to look that up, before I find something phobic with like, a drawing of the Prophet (saw) or something...

My culture is 100% unique, with various elements. To fit me, you'd have to have a list, like..."Stuff that Black Muslim Nigerian American Hispanophilic People Like."

It's easier to say the Invisible Muslimah, no?

Yep, and that would be me!

I actually have a classmate who has a lot of the same interests as I do...taste in movies, music, travel, languages...he fits the Black Hispanophilic People profile, so that's my closest proxy.

And you're like, oooh, similar interests, huh? And I'm like, ehh, been there, done that. Bought the shirt, bought the hat. My conclusion...he's muito chato.

So what are things that I like? I guess that this journal serves as an example of everything I like. Ramadan...I miss the nur of that month already! Umm...injecting words for multiple languages into my speech when no one understands them but me. I mean, for some reason, as a Muslim when talking about religious things, I feel the need to write/say it in Arabic...then I add Spanish and Portuguese to the mix...

I like going to Brazil. I like the African Diaspora. I like going to Brazil specifically because of the African Diaspora. I like talking about Nigerian men (something I think I avoid here?). I like foo foo and soup. I like Indian food. I like Brazilian music. I like writing. I like writing about black people. I like documentaries. I like documentaries on race and religion. I like history. I like the history of race relations...

I like giving Nollywood a chance.

I like telenovelas. I like being a telenovela snob.

I like Glee!

I like the Daily Show. I like the Boondocks. I like MST3K.

I like talking about how things were better when I was a kid in the late 80s and the 90s.

I like those countdown shows on VH1.

I like talking about marriage ad nauseum.

I like hating reality shows.

The like procrastinating!

The list goes on of things I like. Nothing quite captures my culture. I guess on the stuff white people like list, I fit with studying abroad, obscure films on Netflix and...having gay friends. On the stuff educated black people like, I'm the whole, natural hair, grown and sexy thing. All of the stuff black people like lists are gone...one of them was kind of black nationalist/militant! It took too long to read, and I was all like, calm down!

I like talking about my family's black nationalist history while not ever having been part of it.

So yeah, I'm glad to prove that, once again, I am not boxable.

I do, however, think I need to calm down...on several levels. I'll explain later.

La mal amada / The Unloved Woman

As salaam alaikum,

I wrote the following (in italics) while I was on the bus to class this morning. But first, two quotes that I feel go a bit along with this:

"Consider the bright morning hours, and the night when it grows still and dark. Thy Sustainer has not forsaken thee, nor does He scorn thee. For indeed, the life to come will be better for thee than this earlier part [of thy life]! And, indeed, in time will thy Sustainer grant thee [what thy heart desires], and thou shalt be well-pleased." (93:1-5)

"Dark skinned women can sometimes turn rejection into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a woman assumes she won't be heard, she will shout when perhaps she could whisper. If she fears she won't be loved, love will become impossible. If she fears she is not beautiful, she can never see her own worth in her eyes or the vision of anyone else." - Marita Golden, Don't Play in the Sun

Consider these two things, and now..."La mal amada." Written from a theoretical dude's perspective...the Spanish isn't that great because I didn't have a dictionary.

La mal amada. Todos la conocen. Ella puede ser visto en cualquier lugar, público o privado, no importa. Ella viaja en el autobús por las mañanas, por el fondo del vehículo con audífonos, tentando de leer un período, quizás el período del día, pero se da cuenta del hecho de que ella sigue leyendo la misma página, momento tras momento, y que, en realidad, ella está mirando por fuera, afuera, por la ventana. Ella viaja por carro, solita, por supuesto, por las tardes, quizás para almorzar en su restuarante predilecta, otra vez solita. Ella está escuchando la misma estación de radio de siempre, de jazz, el tipo de que ella burlaba mucho como adolescente pero de que, en esta época, ella está encontrando algo de inspiración inexplicable. Y ella sigue cantando las palabras de una canción, una rendición que no tiene palabras y uno se da cuenta de que esta es una canción de su juventud, convertida en Musak, como se dicen. Puede verla por las noches, en los trenes, con su cuaderno de papeles, del trabajo, de la universidad, de ambos quizás, en un orden impecable que sólo puede ser de una mujer solterona que no tiene nada que hacer menos poner en orden todo en su vida, entre papeles y cepillas y fotos y toallas y melancolias y lágrimas particulares, personales...todas las cosas de vida, de su vida, de la vida de una mal amada. Pero sí, se sienta ella allí, en el carro del tren, otra vez y predictablemente solita, ojos fijos pero mente afuera, pensamientos por fuera del tren, del tunél en que viajamos, de la ciudad, del país, de la misma realidad. Ella sigue solita y se convience que ella está encima de esto, mejor que eso, mejor que todos. ¿Todos quienes? Todos los hombres que no la miren, todas las amigas que no puedan entenderla, toda la familia que ya resigasen al hecho de que quizás ella nunca se case...todos de todos. Ella es, por hecho, la mal amada, y ella no puede entender el por qué.

¿Soy yo bastante interesante? ella pregunta a si misma, sin duda, en su cabeza, una pregunta mudada por el ruido del tren y sus pensamientos, siempre competiendo. ¿Soy yo bastante interesante para conversación, para comedia, para romance? ¿Soy yo bastante? ella se pregunta. ¿Soy yo bastante por un hombre, por casamiento, por amor en general? ¿Soy yo? ella pregunta. ¿Soy yo humana misma, mujer misma, hermosa quizás? Quizás, ella resuelve. Ella es más cómoda con la noción que ella no merece lo que otras, tantas otras, merecen, simplemente por ser la mal amada, esta característica intrinsica, con que ella fue nacida, en la barriga de su madre, en sus genes, sólo puede ser, ella resuelve, no razona, sólo resuelve.

Dios no quiere que todos sus servientes se casen, ella se convience, a pesar de todo lo que su religión la enseñó, o a pesar de que ella no tiene su propia religión, de verdad, asumiendo así un fatalismo en que ella nunca creyó.

La mal amada encapsula muchas, muchas mujeres de varias edades, de multiples fondos, pero yo la veo. La veo triste, distraída, destruída, disilusionada, pero sí, amada. Amada por mí. ¿Quién soy yo? Ud. quizás pregunte. No importa. ¿Por qué? Porque ella no me ve. Ella no me mira, porque ella sigue existiendo por fuera, y entonces yo soy siempre afuera por ser mismo dentro de su realidad actual.

Y yo sigo esperando que ella regresa para ser amada por mí.

For my non-Spanish speakers:

The Unloved Woman. Everyone knows her. She can be seen anywhere, public or private, it doesn't matter. She travels by bus in the mornings, in the back of the vehicle with headphones on, trying to read a newspaper, maybe the day's paper, but one realizes the fact that she keeps reading the same page, moment after moment, and that, in reality, she is looking out, looking outside, out of the window. She travels by car, alone, of course, maybe to eat at her favorite restaurant, again, alone. She's listening to the same radio station as always, a jazz station, the type that she made fun of as a teenager but now, at her age, she's finding some sort of inexplicable inspiration in it. And she's just singing the words of a song, a version that doesn't have words and one realizes that this is a song from her youth, converted into Musak, as they call it. You can see her at night, in the subway, with her notebook of papers, from work, from college, from both, maybe, all in an impeccable order that must only be from a single woman that has nothing else to do but put everything in her life in order, between papers and brushes and pictures and towels and melancholy and specific, personal tears...all of the things of life, her life, of the life of the Unloved Woman. But yes, she sits there, in the car of the subway, once again predictably alone, her eyes fixed but her mind outside, her thoughts out of the train, of the tunnel that we're traveling in, out of the city, out of the country, out of reality itself. She's still alone and convinces herself that she's above this, better than this, better than everyone. Better than who all? All the men that don't look at her, all of the female friends that don't understand her, all of the family members that have already resigned themselves to the fact that she'll maybe never get married...all of them. She is, in fact, the Unloved Woman, and she can't understand why.

Am I interesting enough? she asked herself, without doubt in her head, a question muted by the noise of the train and her always competing thoughts.  Am I interesting enough for conversation, for comedy, for romance? Am I enough? she asked herself. Am I enough for a man, for marriage, for love in general? Am I? she asked. Am I actually human, actually woman, maybe attractive? Maybe, she resolves. She's more comfortable with the notion that she doesn't deserve what others, so many others, deserve, simply by being the Unloved Woman, this intrinsic characteristic in which she was born, in her mother's womb, in her genes, it must be, she resolves, not reasons, just resolves.

God doesn't want all of His servants to marry, she convinces herself, in spite of all that her religion taught her, or in spite of the fact that she doesn't have her own religion, actually, assuming this way a fatalism that she never believed in.

The  Unloved Woman encapsulates many, many women of various ages, of multiple backgrounds, but I see her. I see her sad, distracted, destroyed, disillusioned, but yes, loved. Loved by me. Who am I? you may ask. It doesn't matter. Why? Because she doesn't see me. She doesn't look at me, because she's still existing on the outside, and so I am always outside because I exist in her actual reality.
And I keep hoping that she comes back to be loved by me.