[uncensored]: Whatever Happened to RMD?

As salaam alaikum,

Mo’s so light he feels like flying yet he knows better than to grin wildly at this point. This is no smiling matter, less a laughing matter, and he finds himself another night trekking home with clothing improper for the chill of the evening, his mind fixed on her.

He slipped a while back because they’ve had a freak ice storm and it’s hard to tell the black of the ice from the black of the asphalt and the sidewalks are even worse. He steadies himself and resumes his resolute pace. 

Mo stares at his feet and about four feet before him to ensure that he doesn’t slip on yet another ice patch. He also notices that he swings his left foot out farther than his right when he walks. He forgets the ice and finds himself zeroing in on his left foot and contrasting its swing to that of his right.

Nisreen’s laughing at him. “What is it?” he asks, turning back. It’s one of the warmer days, and she’s wearing a light-weight pink blouse with a neckline low enough that it’s showing her chest a bit whenever the wind blows her scarf. She’s standing near the front door to her apartment building, and he can hear her cackle despite the whirring of the wind that is whipping about them. 

“I’ve grown accustomed to your stride,” she remarks as he returns with her mail in one hand, her mailbox keys in the other.

  

“How’s that funny?” he inquires, as she holds the screen door open for him. She follows closely behind him.

“I don’t know.  It’s just so characteristically you,” she answers, giving him a halfway grin. “You kind of have a clumsy way of going about it, like you’re involuntarily throwing your left foot from beneath you.”

This is an excerpt from RMD that I may or may not have posted before. For my readers who have come along post-RMD mention, RMD, A Rose Much Desired, is the first novel I've actually competed as an adult. I try to get my family members to read it before I do my next round of major edits, but no one seems to get through it, so I've nicknamed it "The Brick."

To give a little bit of background of the story, I first dreamed up the plot for RMD during a creative writing class my senior year of college. I was struggling writing short stories for this course, partly because of a teacher who brought her own personal opinions on the character's motivations dominate during the discussion of the writing. RMD started out as an assignment to practice writing enthralling first-paragraphs of stories. I thought, what if I wrote a first paragraph for a story in which a practicing Muslim wakes up from a one-night-stand.

Thus was born Mo, afraid of the woman that he'd just slept with as he recognizes that she's awaken and is staring up at him.

After reading the paragraph out-loud (which was difficult for me, as a then-hijabi and one who doesn't curse in public, to read aloud the word "shit"), my instructor questioned the motives of the female involved. Why is she angry, she asked? She did it, didn't she?

Seriously, professor? You do not think that anger is a probable emotional outcome of a one-night stand? The character is not you, after all.

I ignored that comment, but began imagining the story more. Who is the woman behind the one-night stand? Who is Mo? What led them there? What is their story?

I began sketching out the short story, which I called, "Agent," as a possible short story for the second half of my semester in creative writing. I didn't get "Agent" done in time enough, so I instead wrote a story called "Drinking Water," a play off of Tom Jobim's "Agua de Beber," but it was a story based in the DR, with a character, Jannah, based on me, trying to figure out where her morals lay, from her mode of dress to whether she dances in public, while on the island of Hispaniola, while being courted by a friendly Dominican man.

It was okay at best.

But, it was the first semi-autobiographical piece I had written. As I'd noticed in my freshman year creative writing class, the story that I wrote in which one of the characters was closer to myself got more of a response (Gloria in "Garota" was both me and my best friend, who had recently come out to me...my depression and my best friends attraction to women). There was something more authentic about the whole piece if at least one of the characters was real, in a sense.

And so I went back to the drawing board on "Agent," after the class was over. I began writing scenes, while flying to medical school second-looks, while taking a trip with my parents to Disney, during the break between lectures...anytime I got. I was beginning to fall in love with the story of Mo and the difficult woman that he made the mistake of sleeping with.

Except, the character I chose to make myself was that woman...

I put myself in that woman's shoes, the woman who awoke angrily to a Muslim man after a one-night stand, and wondered what I would have done. The story blew up after that, took on a life of it's own. "Agent" became a novel and "Agent" was no longer a proper name for a novel, so I brainstormed before I came up with the perfect name: "A Rose Much Desired."

I think I came up with the name only after I began outlining the plot of the story, only after a blogging friend of mine recommended that I do National Novel Writers' Month in November of 2007. Since RMD was growing, I took that as an opportunity to push myself to write my first novel. It grew to three narrations. "Agent," was the story of Mo, "Desirée" was the story of the woman he was sleeping with, and how she became so enamored of Muslim men that she specifically sought Mo out, and "Muslimah" is the story of Nisreen, the Muslim woman who sees Mo's distress and embarks on a journey to help him out of what she feels is a spiritual deficit.

I "won" NaNoWriMo, writing over 50,000 words in one month (while learning anatomy), and added bits and pieces to the novel (I really was in the last quarter of the book and got writers block). I wouldn't finish RMD until November 2010, three years after I began.

I had declared a "Center of Awesomeness," that can be seen in my journal at the time. I was going to finish the story! Around the same time, I met who would become my notorious ex, Ex the Prototype. He was gentle and kind, and passive in his attraction to me, and I think that was why I let him in. He didn't have the underlying voracious sexual energy that other guys who liked me had, so I was less threatened by him. Honestly.

And let me not front, we had a lot of other things in common...besides, of course, religion, which I worried about.

But while that was worrying me, I finished RMD, finally. I printed it out at the medical school, while we still had unlimited printing, I edited it by hand and then edited it on the word-processor. This was not my first of may edits to the text.

I prepared my family to read it, and my best friend...and then Ex the Prototype wanted to read it.

It required a lot of trust to email him that manuscript, but I did.

Meanwhile, my mother declared that she couldn't read it after only getting past the first chapter, that she didn't like Desirée and if it weren't my writing, she wouldn't care any more about her to continue reading. And, she said when she read Desirée, she just saw me, and it was distracting.

Which is effective, because Desirée is me.

And other comments that were marginally constructive criticism. She then pointed me to one of her favorite authors, Eric Jerome Dickey, and I was a little taken aback. She didn't get far enough into the story to realize that that was not the kind of novel I was going for, but okay.

Then none of my cousins and friends could complete the story.

The final sinker was the ex. And this was in a time (while he was still with me) that I really hung on his every word. He said he was distracted because the guy didn't sound like a guy in the first chapter, that it was "weird," but he'd try to keep reading. Then, a few days later, he told me, regrettably, that he wouldn't be able to read it.

I was sad. I didn't really mind that my mother couldn't read it...it is awkward to read a story about a character that seems like your daughter in a sexual situation. Sorry, Mom. But my ex, who usually liked my writing (campy things like my skit for the Second Year Show included), couldn't get through RMD?

Maybe I didn't write Mo realistically. I really needed people to get through half of the story to realize what I was trying to do with the three narrations, the three central characters...but no one ever did. And Ex the Prototype's comments were the most paralyzing.

...even though he also made these comments before getting through the story.

And then he broke up with me about a month later (no, not because RMD was that bad, haha), and I was devastated for a long time, mainly because I had wasted my time on him, had been so ambivalent about him and how being with him would affect my faith, making so many compromises and then he just made the unilateral decision that he was no longer satisfied with the relationship, no longer attracted to me, and bounced.

But for months afterwards, I still took his criticism of RMD seriously.

And I haven't touched it since.

I told myself it was because family members couldn't read it, that I was waiting for someone to finish it, but honestly, none of them ever will. Over a year and a half has passed since I emailed them the manuscript. The beginning of the story is harder to read than the second part because I wrote that part in one month, and while I did the most edits on that part, there are major things that need to change, I recognize.

It's just hard, because the story gets so much more dynamic after that...I really needed people to get to the turning point and tell me what I can do to facilitate the reading of the first part.

I guess I need non-related reviewers, as well.

But if I'm honest with myself, I also didn't touch RMD because I started applying to residency, and since then, I've been busy interviewing, wrapping up medical school, and now moving across the country.

Even though I don't care for Ex the Prototype anymore, and have successfully cut him off from all contact, I still took his criticism seriously.

But then, I think about other things he's said.

Although he claims that he respects women and many of his political and activist role models are women (one of the thing that initially endeared him to me, despite my initial lack of attraction for him), he also made gender-divisive comments through the course of the relationship. Things like, "Well, I'd expect you to say/feel that way, because you are a woman."

The sinker was actually after our relationship, when I was, against my will, flying next to him to our mutual friend's wedding in St. Louis. He was reading, for the first time, Chimamanda Adichie. He talked about how he usually doesn't like reading fiction about women or written by women. It doesn't appeal to him, but he was able to read Chimamanda, maybe because she wrote about Nigeria, but she was just...different.

That gave me insight into his being unable to read RMD at the time...because it was written by me, a woman, unapologetically woman with what could be considered stereotypical female tendencies and sensibilities that are also evident in my writing. My characters are introspective. Mo is, yes, minimally introspective and tries to interpret female's faces, but so did the man that Mo was based on, a man who wrote once that he was struck up a conversation with "the girl" sitting next to him in the computer lab, and as she sorted through her album, she had that "crooked smile that girls get when they're looking at pictures of people they love."

(We used to read each other's journals, back in the day...this is how I had access to things like that).

So while he was unable to connect with Mo because he was not introspective, not particularly empathic, all of which allowed him to break up with me so awkwardly...he also was one of those men who insisted that women didn't make sense to them. Men who don't try hard enough to see the humanity in their female counterparts.


He was not my audience. So why did I worry so much about what he thought?

Because I once respected him. And even after he told me mean things about my body, I still held on to that part that I respected. It took me a long time to not internalize his criticism and give up RMD for shelved, lost, still my baby, but maybe not worth the fight to perfect it.

And maybe it isn't worth the fight, but it damn well won't be because of that ex.



I'm still reading this Jennifer Weiner piece about supporting women writers, but as usual for me, I'll read something, get a sudden inspiration, and have to write it immediately. I can't believe that I internalize a feeling of inferiority about the issues that concern me as a woman, and what I write about, in comparison to the writings of men. There are other men, authors, who have, similarly to my ex, proclaimed the superiority of male writing, saying men have more depth than women. As an unabashed writer of chick lit, she speaks out for the right to write as she pleases.

That's right!

Would the world be a better place without chick lit? Only if you consider those who read chick lit dispensable. And though, admittedly, I don't think I've ever read anything that could fit into that genre (probably, as a preteen and teenager, I've read enough young adult novels that would grow up to be chick lit), I'm not mad at it. To express distaste and disdain about someone else's writing as a fellow author is either ugly pretentiousness or just straight hating.

For example, I tend to be a little hipster and I don't like reading the most popular series. I tried Harry Potter, and it was okay to me. Just not my thing. Heard about Twilight. Not into that. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and etc? Not where my interests lie. But I don't go around dissing the authors.

There's something out there for everyone, and nothing is for everyone. RMD may insult male sensibilities because it's driven in parts by introspective monologues. The man that characterizes something as inherently female and thereafter relinquishes all attempts to understand it are not my audience and besides basic cordiality I have nothing to say to them, either. They obviously don't see me.

I'm reading this in the wake of reading the piece in the Atlantic about not being someone's wife but being perceived as such in the workplace (which makes me wonder if some men just have five schema for adult women: slut, wife, mother, grandma) and how that impacts women's ability to be promoted. I also read this piece about how women physician-scientists are paid markedly less than their male counterparts, and it's not all about being wives and mothers, either.

And, after talking to a friend of mine who reminds me of Ex the Prototype in the way he always is sure to define for me what is a female sensibility, and therefore what he doesn't understand.

Some of the things are not that hard. Seriously, like, "I don't understand why females are so into clothes." Really?



So, for reasons other than it needs a lot of work, haha, RMD is going into hibernation. If I have downtime while I'm a resident, I'll revisit it, make some drastic rewrites in the first half of the story, try to get my fam to read it again. Maybe I'll find someone else who'll want to read it, but I really need to fix some of the writing before I send it off. But I shouldn't be ashamed any more that I write female-centered stories, of my "feminine" sensibilities, or anything else. Yes, my blog is kind of pink and only women seem to read it, but so what?

The worst thing that could happen to any of my writing is me changing it up so I'd think a man would want to read it as if seeking validation.

Now! time for me to get ready for my day! I'm going to the mall to buy some new flats and some dress blouses to make up for the ones that FedEx lost.

My Vision

As salaam alaikum,

I woke up from a series of weird dreams with a vision in my head. As I've gone throughout the day, that vision has grown in my mind and it's almost exploding in my chest right now! I had to write it down, but I end up gchatting with a friend about residency and the infamous (at least to us) rank list, and I didn't get to spend as much time with Martin Lings' Muhammad as I wanted to (and as I've wanted to for years, but always forget to pick a copy up when I have free time to read). Instead, I ended up doing a lot of facebook posting about the anthology, looking up details about the residency programs, and also looking up random things, like family medicine in Brazil and information on adopting children in Nigeria...

But my vision for my life from this moment onward is now in place!

I mean, huge disclaimer...I realize that the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a gley. I realize this. Yet, I'm the same 19-year-old girl who mapped out her entire four years at Michigan with about three different combinations of double majors and minors before deciding on my double major, and then stuck pretty closely to the schedule of courses I thought. I am not comfortable unless I plan out my life for a good chunk of time in the future, even knowing that plans are subject to change.

That's why the whole being single thing is so distressing to me. I'm like, what, I can't actually control that? I mean, of course I know I can't...but that really puts a monkey wrench in my emotional time and energy. It always comes when you least expect it, everyone says...thus throwing a monkey wrench into your other plans, too. But when you are looking to a relationship for half of your religion, let alone emotional fulfillment, companionship, partnership in life...and yet you have to keep on living with that being a grand question mark over your head, what do you do? You have to put the emotional energy you would normally put into stressing about that into something else!

Thus, my vision! Or visions, as they may be...

My career is going to be full, insha'Allah. I hope to become a family physician who has a maternal-child health practice and also participates in community health projects in my community, while having my foot occasionally abroad, later hoping to do some more work at the state or national level in terms of public health...but that later part is too far into the future. Like my said, if it were just for my career, my hands will be full, but my career is not enough to "belly-full" me, as my father would say...

I mean, alhamdulillah, it's quite a blessing to go into a career that I love so much and that I can use to serve others and will be part of my worship in the end, but I am more than medicine and public health.

I'm also writing, fiction and non-ficiton, evidenced by the fact that this exists! Alhamdulillah, the anthology is arrasando so far, even before it's available for purchase, but I also do eventually want to publish A Rose Much Desired as well as I want to work on a screenplay or two, one of course being "The Misadventures of Nisa," for which I'm writing music! I know residency will be busy, especially if I try to have community projects (required or not) alongside my work, but I want to keep writing part of my life and I always want to have at least one writing project going at any given time. Insha'Allah, I hope the anthology is just the first of more publications to come!

And of course, I wanted it all! My career, my greatest hobby (not to mention my other hobbies of singing Brazilian music, samba dancing and keeping in shape otherwise...), and a family! And yet, as I said before, while all things are blessings from Allah (swt), this is the thing that I can control the least. So I can't worry about that. So instead, if I feel like I have space still that I would prefer to fill with family life, I will fill with other things.

First of all, I do plan to eventually have a family, insha'Allah. If I am still single in six years (that's three years, insha'Allah, after I'm a practicing physician after residency), I do plan on becoming an adoptive mother. I've started looking up adoption options right now, because I understand it can take some time, just to know a little bit of background and what my future self will be getting into. I might adopt from the US as well as I may consider adopting from abroad. I'm also encouraged by seeing more writing by Muslims about adoption in Islam. God in the Qur'an mentions so often about caring for orphans...so insha'Allah, if I can't have children of my own, this is what I will do. This is my plan, and I pray that it will sustain me in the moments that I despair about being single!

But the main thing that I realized that I could do, through writing, through blogging, whatever, that I can help out other burgeoning Muslims or Muslims on the fringes. I realize that in MSAs, in a lot of the popular blogs that we read and other places, the Muslims we see are Super Muslims. At least that was my perception of it. At my MSA, the leaders were mainly people who were majoring in AAPTIS (Arabic, Armenian, Persian, Turkish and Islamic Studies) and were all planning to become scholars in their own right. Even if they weren't on the Islamic scholarship road, they were people who were well-read in scholarship and were taking advanced courses in Arabic, all things that I was miles away from doing as a Spanish and Cellular and Molecular Biology major. I didn't even have space in my schedule for introductory Arabic courses, something that I lamented.

But now, I'm finally okay with that.

I was surrounded by future Islamic scholars in college, yes, and people who were on their game in terms of their deen, but that didn't mean I had to be there, or that's what (or all) that I should aspire to.

No. I was an aspiring physician, and insha'Allah I'll be graduating from medical school this May. There are other worthy ways I can strive as a Muslim in this world without acquiring fluency in Arabic, without being able to read large sections of the Qur'an in Arabic, without becoming a scholar. And then some, but I don't think many of us who are striving in the beginning or reverting early on know that it's okay to strive for "less."

The fact is, we need people to be physicians, dentists, and lawyers...businesspeople, nurses, authors and actors...many other occupations that will not allow us to be mini-scholars and many worthy occupations that will require a lot of our time and energy during training. And these are worthy forms of worship as well. Yes, worship...ones career can be made an act of worship just like having sex with one's spouse can be an act of worship. Yes, sex. We pronounce bismillah before salat and bismillah before so much else in life, and especially if we have service careers and especially if we work in our career for the good of not only our ummah, but humankind in general...this is worship. This is greatness.

So, I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing now. I am going to blog. I am no scholar nor will I ever be, insha'Allah, but I am a regular, everyday Muslim who is striving in my own way, taking my own steps, realizing my own dreams, hopefully in accordance with what God wants from me. I believe I am realizing just one way to be Muslim that we have been blessed with the freedom (by God) to realize, and I want to be there with others who are along a similar path as me...I want to learn with others who are on a path similar as me.

For now, I'll do this through blogging. Insha'Allah, I could expand this...who knows better than God?

So, these are just some of my visions...things to keep myself busy in ways that I alhamdulillah have more in my control and insha'Allah will have more in my control for time to come. If I do end up marrying, then alhamdulillah, but I can't count on that or hope for that anymore without despairing too much for it to be helpful. It's time for me to move on...

New Center of Awesomeness continues!

MQ

As salaam alaikum,

Hah! After I try to invite more men to read my site, I launch into an altogether more girly topic. Oh well.

I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday, and somehow, we got on the topic of my college crush, MQ. As if I haven't exhausted the subject of that then-boy now-man for my entire lifetime, what with the hundreds of pages of journal entries I've written about him, the obsessive thinking about him my sophomore year fading to the daily praying for him during Ramadan 2005. MQ, also known as MTQ, is the basis for the character Mo in my story, A Rose Much Desired, and is renamed Sadiq in my essay in Love, InshAllah. How I felt about him was so adeptly characterized by Djavan in "Doidice" that I listened to that song over and over again the spring of my first year of medical school.

Me apaixonei? Talvez, pode ser...

I wrote a poem in one sitting the first time I got a whiff that we would never be. I still remember most of it. "I wish I would not melt into you, my oblivious haunter, as you whisper to me of Some Enchanted Evening that exists not in reality but it's alternate..."

I didn't memorize it. I lived it. It was so real for so long it went without saying.

But my friend had never heard the whole story. At the time I met her, I was still embarrassed by the details. I was embarrassed that a big girl like me could have fallen so hard for someone who in real life did not completely exist as I'd imagined them. But time has passed and he's been married for some time and I've since been in a relationship of my own and I finally felt at liberty to describe him.

And it was amazing, I think one of the most beautiful experiences of the year for me of many more.

I usually do year retrospectives, but doing a retrospective of a year that began happily and then ended in a confusing and terribly disappointing breakup, a year that was unfortunately stained by that incident although everything else in the year was excellent...just seemed a bit depressing. I ended up thinking of B and crying really hard the other day as I thought of all I had hoped we would be, what we were, what we realistically could have been, my loneliness.

But I told my friend, I didn't even love B as much as I loved MQ. And, as she is wont to do, she asked why.

I hadn't thought about it in a while. In fact, my editors for "The Hybrid Dance" asked me to expand on what it was about Sadiq that I liked, and I felt embarrassed because, at the time, it didn't seem like enough...

But then I described MQ to her, and what it was about him...and it all seemed plain to me.

We were talking about B.

Her: "It's good that you didn't get swallowed in because some can't see through the pain, sadness, disappointment..."

Me: "No, did that once when I wasn't even in a relationship. Didn't even touch the man. Took me three years to get over him. A 280-page novel with a character based on him... For as much as I came to love B, I dind't love anyone like MQ, for whatever reason."

Her: "Hmm...do you ever wonder why?"

Me: "No. I know why. I loved the idea of MQ, perhaps who he wasn't. I knew B...I never idealized him."

Her: "Why did you love the idea of him? Could it have been anyone? Or was there something about him in particular?" (My friend asks a lot of questions)

Me: "No, just him... I liked him because he seemed to like me. And it seemed so unlikely that this guy liked me, and he was so unlike anyone I'd met before...I was fascinated by him. I mean, now, I know tons of Indian guys who like hip hop and R&B, so it's no longer a novelty."

Her: "Hahahaha."

Me: "Haha, but I read so much into it at the time. I mean, he was also Muslim, funny...he was different."

Her: "What do you mean by different?"

Me: "He was unlike any guy I met at the time. He was loud and boisterous, had a great sense of humor, he was like, over 6 feet but he was a teddy bear. He loved kids... But at the same time, he cursed a lot and had a quick temper... He was loud and awkward. He was a cutester, although his face was not that attractive to me... I liked how he talked to me, related to me... He told me that I amazed him... How awesome I was, how smart I was..."

Her: "Awwwww."

Me: "He always assured me that everything was going to be alright... [I] wasn't as happy as I was with him until B."

Her: "Were you two pretty close?"

Me: "Umm, after the summer after my freshman year, not really. I once went 5 months without seeing him. But I thought about him every day, almost every 10 minutes my sophomore year after that summer. Cried many nights to sleep, and cried myself awake on the last day of the semester when I realized we would never be. I wanted to be everything he wanted, and I sought to find out what he wanted. It became an obsession, for sure."

Her: "Did you tell anyone?"

Me: "I talked to no one about it. I didn't have a friend close enough to talk to about it..."

Her: "What about [your best friend]?"

Me: "A little bit. She knew the most about it, for sure...but after the first semester of sophomore year, I didn't tell her anything else. I never told anyone the depth of it. I was afraid."

Her: "Afraid of what?"

Me: "I was afraid they'd tell me I was crazy, that he never really liked me, that I needed to get over it."

Her: "Did you ever consider telling him your feelings?"

Me: "I did tell him...halfway. I told him I liked him back that summer after my freshman year...by email...after I graduated. He told me he had no idea I liked him, and nothing more...that he was flattered. And every year thereafter, he's told me happy birthday on facebook. Probably this was the last year, since he's doing residency."

Her: "Did you think about doing it earlier and in person?"

Me: "No, I never wanted to do it in person...I didn't want to if it were possible he didn't like me.

Her: "Oh...I can understand that."

Me: "Yeah, the thing was...at one point, I was convinced that we were going to get married. Like, as sure as I am that I will graduate from med school right now."

Her: "Wow!"

Me: "I didn't want to tell anyone because I was afraid they'd tell me it was impossible, improbably, or just plain crazy."

Her: "You really liked this guy!"

Me: "Told ya! I really held back with B, and every other man. I've never really liked anyone like him since...and I really don't want to."

Her: "Why?"

Me: "I have great potential to be a crazy woman and drive myself crazy. No one has compared to what I saw in him... I'm not sure anyone ever will. But that's okay. Because it may not have been real. I thought that he was transcending cultural norms to like someone like me. I thought he understood a bit about the history of black plight in this country with his love of socially conscious hip hop. I thought he looked thorugh my short, kinky hair and brown skin (we were the same brown) and saw me...and liked me... And that may have never been true.

[...]

"Gosh, I talk about him and I feel 19 again...crazy."

(Yes, this was a texting conversation...and yes, I write grammatically correct texts. I cannot but write everything as if I were writing a composition! I've done that since the days of AIM."

I go on to talk about why nothing happened between MQ and I...I think we may have liked each other at some point, but I didn't go forward because I was just beginning my quest to Islam my freshman year of college, and I didn't know how to not make the whole thing haram...and I didn't know what his standards were, and I was afraid of getting to close to him because I was afraid I wasn't Muslim enough...

And I told my friend that he probably did like me at that point, told his sister about it, and after our first "not-date," that's where the "You should meet Pakistani girls" comment came from, and we may have failed because neither of us thought that we really liked each other...

Which was...meant to be.

As I learned later on, if something doesn't work, it doesn't work. Neither of us would have been mature enough to carry forward, and I had to work on discovering what it meant for me to be a Muslimah, and getting a boy mixed up in that would have resulted in great confusion.

My friend also remarked how much I've grown since then. And I said, yes, it was almost 8 years ago that this all came to pass.

I also called to her attention how the attraction was not sexual at all...I told her that a lot of the physical attractiveness was secondary to my liking who he was. And that is what happened with B...besides the base attraction things, I liked and came to love the person, and any physical attraction was secondary. That's the way I operated, so to think of doing things any differently down the road didn't make sense to me.

But the remarkable thing was...after I talked about MQ, years after the last time I pined for him, years after the last time I prayed that one day, we'd be married...I forgot the pain of being alone, the pain of the dumping, which is now 10 months ago, the pain of the remembrance of B. It was irrelevant. I had a greater love, although it was a love for someone who ultimately was not really real, who effectively did not exist...

And I toyed with the thought that I'd feel this way about someone again, but in an actual relationship...I don't know, but even if not...I've felt more strongly about someone than B, and got over it completely. It took years, but I did. Ten months out and I almost have to be reminded of B's last name. I loved him not nearly as much. I'll be fine.

So, instead of a year in review, because a lot has happened but it's been stained by the memory of a man whose actions do not deserve to be remembered, I will do this incident in review, this love in review, the love of an imagined man that I modeled off of a friend, a love unparalleled whose aftermath I never want to live again, a love that was so hard to get over and give up for never again, but a love that I've thrived so well without time and time again.

And so shall be every other love I live in this life.



So many people like to say we are born alone and we die alone. I don't like that. We are born surrounded by our mother, literally, at the very least, and without the early love of that mother or a caregiver to feed us at the very least when we could not feed ourselves, we wouldn't live to die. And many do not die alone. It just doesn't feel right. We are born by the grace of God and surrounded by God, and we die by His leave and return even closer to Him. I have felt lonely without the physical or emotional presence of another but I've never been alone.

God was with me as I was a silly 20-year-old girl crying over a man who would never love me, a love that would never be. God saw me through to be the 26-year-old woman I am now, who never cried herself to sleep over a love that was not to be again.

God is with me now, and will be with me this new Gregorian calendar year, 2012.

Happy New Year.

Looking for Muslim Men

As salaam alaikum,

You know what I've realized? Over time, at this blog and the last, I've had a preponderance of female readers, like, always. Maybe it's just the segregated nature of the Muslim community in general, or maybe (and I suspect this is it) it's that my writing is only interesting to female readers...a possible fact that didn't bother me until this year.

It happened when B read RMD and commented first how Mo didn't sound like he thought like a guy (which was good feedback). Okay. Then, he said that he usually doesn't like to read books written by women or about women.

And I was like, waaaahhhhttt? and was all prepared to get all feminist on him, but it's useless for a man who has mostly female friends and who really admires female role models.

And off and on, even after that fiasco relationship ended, I wondered about that...

He wasn't interested in reading books about women or books written by women. I know he is not alone. It's the same thing that keeps many men out of women-themed movies, or chick flicks as they call them (although I also despise most chick flicks) and makes men not understand that works like For Colored Girls was not about them...

Over time, I think InvisibleMuslim (the first version) had one or two male readers, and this blog has some male followers who likely do not follow anymore. I'm not sure if it's the pink that turned them off or the content...or the fact that my entries tend to be really long (that's what one of my male readers said in the past...he liked reading my stuff, but it was too long).

To which I generally thought, well, this is a forum for me to express myself, I'll do what I want, if you don't have a long enough attention span to read a few more paragraphs or don't have the time, then that's your business...

But, I mean, it kind of goes counter to what I'm always talking about here...about how we need to learn from each other, create safe places where we can get to know each other, so maleness and femaleness won't be so foreign to us sisters and brothers, respectively, when we seek marriage. And all interactions between us should not just be with marriage in mind! It's like, we're all human beings, the way this society is set up, we interact with members of the opposite sex on a daily basis, professionally at the very least. Why can't we do that within our own Muslim communities? I think it would make gender relations a lot healthier...

And yet, I guess I write in a way that only caters to a female audience.

This is of special interest for me as I rewrite RMD, because while it may still be a story that more women will want to read, I don't want my male characters to be completely unbelievable or completely negative, just agents to the female characters.

This is also of interest to me, as an invisible Muslimah, because there are many more invisible Muslims, brothers who exist on the fringes of Islam on their way in, brothers who do not appear outwardly Muslim and disappear into the masses...and I feel like a lot of us are singing the same songs and have similar concerns and it would make for wonderful conversation, conversation that I've never had with Muslim men.

So I'm reaching out. My readership is circumscribed, I know, but I'd be interested to know if there's anything that I could blog about, maybe, that would bridge the gender divide with Muslim men so that maybe we could discuss some things, I don't know.

You know, in a way that would not be haram, haha!

...just a thought...

Single Invisible Muslimah, Part I

As salaam alaikum,

I don't know how I missed this article at AltMuslimah...it's totally what I needed to read, always.

"[...] as a community, we are so focused on grooming our women to be wives and mothers that we lose sight of the fact that this is not even our number one role.

"Servitude to Allah (swt) is our number one role. We need to use what He has given us, the means that we have at the moment we have, to worship Him in the best of ways."

Preach it, Sister! See the full article here: Wifehood and Motherhood not only ways to paradise.

This paragraph was also encouraging:

"God, in His Wisdom, has created each one of us differently and in different circumstances. Some recognize this, love any stage they are in, and develop their abilities to the fullest. Let us, too, use the time and abilities God has given us to maximize our worship to Him and work for the betterment of society and humanity as a whole. If wifehood or motherhood comes in the process, then at least we were using all of our ability to worship Him before it came and can continue to use the training and stamina we gained before marriage to worship Him with excellence once it comes along."

Ameen, sis!

The article starts out with a Muslimah aimlessly making her way through college, really just buying time until she finds a husband and marries so she can have children. In my heart of hearts, I felt like this was me.

No one else sees me this way, and when I talk this way, it seems incongruous with who I actually am.

I am the 12-year-old girl who helped her mother copy articles for her Auntie Florence's dissertation in Nigeria and aspired someday to attend graduate school. I am the 12-year-old girl that, in researching careers, was choosing not only between medicine and architecture, but considered specifically the specialty of OB/GYN. I am the 13-year-old girl who took two math classes in middle school so she could be in the advanced science-math track. I am the 15-year-old girl who participated in a conference and initiative to try to address the achievement gap with black American students. I am the 18-year-old girl who graduated in the top 5% of her high school class after taking 7 AP tests, all 4s and 5s, and had gotten into all of the colleges she applied to with a full tuition scholarship to the one she would eventually attend. I am the 17-year-old girl who definitively embraced Islam and decided to become more practicing once in college.

I am the 18-year-old girl who entered college toying with the idea of becoming an MD/PhD, focusing on genetics. I am the 18-year-old girl who fasted Ramadan for the first time. I am the 19-year-old girl that started to develop her social consciousness and the idea of entering medicine as a service career, serving Allah (swt) through serving fellow human being. I am the 19-year-old girl who found a dream medical school and began to develop myself in college to be able to gain admission there. I am the 19-year-old girl who decided to double major in Cellular and Molecular biology and Spanish. I am the 20-year-old girl who juggled her double major, working in the lab, volunteering in the Children's hospital, tutoring students in Spanish and helping Latino children and adults increase their literacy all the while delving into Islam head-first. I am the 21-year-old girl who began wearing the khimar, traveled abroad for the first time and applied to medical school all in the same year. I am the 22-year-old girl who graduated with a 3.9 and accepted admission at Harvard Medical School with aspirations to attain her MPH.

I am the 22-year-old woman who made the very hard decision to shed the khimar and find alternative ways to assume her Muslim identity.

I am the 22-year-old girl who thrived upon entering medical school. I am the 22-year-old girl who started writing her first novel, A Rose Much Desired, during anatomy class, where she sawed off a human leg. I am the 22-year-old girl who aspired to publish at least one work while in medical school. I am the 23-year-old girl who wrote her first story to be published, insha'Allah, which was renamed "The Hybrid Dance." I am the 23-year-old girl who co-directed a cultural show with her classmates that celebrated the African Diaspora and was musical director for her second year show, realizing the dreams of performance that she never allowed herself while studying through college. I am the 24-year-old woman who studied for and conquered USMLE Step 1. I am the 24-year-old woman who decided not to miss Ramadan because of tough coursework and fasted successfully through her OB/GYN rotation and still got her desired grade. I am the 25-year-old woman who survived third year of medical school. I am the 25-year-old woman who fell in love with family medicine. I am the 25-year-old woman who realized her aspiration and matriculated into the school of public health, studying family and community health and maternal child health. I am the 26-year-old woman who was an intern for a project to find solutions for homelessness of transition-age youth in Massachusetts. I am the 26-year-old woman who is applying to residency and interviewing across the country as I type this.

I am the 26-year-old woman who has made mistakes in the course of life but always has her home in Islam, alhamdulillah.

None of this is the mark of a woman who has been ambling through life, aimlessly waiting for her husband to come along. No. I don't know why I though that.

I don't generally like to lay out my life in this way, but for my own purposes, I had to. I had to slap myself in the face and see, in fact, that I've made some very purposeful decisions in my life, academic and leisure and otherwise, to achieve my goals.

As the quote above says so nicely, we are created differently and we are born into different circumstances. Some of us recognize this and love the stage we are in and develop our capabilities to the fullest. I think I recognize that we are born into different circumstances and I have developed my capabilities. What has not happened is that I have not loved the stage I am in.

I was constantly trying to be something else, be somewhere else. Thus the movement of I am more myself now than I have ever been.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

New Center of Awesomeness, Part II

As salaam alaikum,

Ahem.

So, after a year-long detour, I am resuming the construction of my Center of Awesomeness. A little over a year ago, I had given up on the chase (the chase for men) and I decided to focus on my writing projects while in public health school as the thing that I did and who I was outside of medicine.

And then, there was B.

And then, B did me wrong.

And for months, I suffered the consequences of that...

Well, no more! I'm going back to my Center of Awesomeness as my thing outside of medicine. I still have a feeling that my life is going to change sooner than I'm ready for, actually, in the relationship department, but in the meantime, I must be productive.

...because sometime earlier this year I felt light, like I knew that soon the person was coming. I had that feeling that I couldn't deny...

But I don't know when. So I'm hanging tight.

In the meantime, the Center of Awesomeness continues! I'm composing music and writing songs for my next story idea, "The Misadventures of Nisa." Insha'Allah I'll finally get to do more final edits on RMD. I'm waiting for family to read it and give me feedback...it is 280 pages long in manuscript form. I mean, it's a novel, not a short story...I don't know what they're expecting.

But yes, my writing projects will be my Center outside of medicine while I wait for God to provide me with who will be my husband so I can start my family. I don't know how long it will be, but I was told that it won't be too long.

There are a few songs I'm working on right now. They're all 80s-style songs (I Love the 80s!). The first one is the theme song, called "Anisa Taylor." It's by this recording artist who moved to the City (I think I'll make it New York) to go to performing arts school and left behind his childhood friend, Anisa. He's forming his career as a recording artist after a little while behind the scenes doing songwriting (one of the songs whose working title is "I Make Love through the Night" that I'm writing right now) and then he spots Anisa in the city. And he writes a song about what it's like to see her after 10 years. And it becomes his first hit single.

Oh yeah, it's set in the 80s. Thus the 80s theme. That'll be the hardest part to write...setting it in the 80s.

I wish there was a website or something that characterized people's diction at the time. I'll just watch 80s movies, haha.

Yeah, I'm writing a campy musical. But it's fun! Composing music is a lot of fun! I love listening to what I have so far of "Anisa Taylor," the theme song. It's great to listen to in headphones.

So yes, this is, again, my new Center of Awesomeness. And I'll be doggone if, within days of writing this, someone else comes along...because that's what happened last time. But I doubt it. I don't feel it in the air like last time. My goal is to compose these songs by the end of the year...

...while studying and going on interviews for residency, of course. :-D

So on the block for the upcoming year...The Misadventures of Nisa, RMD (hopefully), the publication of "The Hybrid Dance," and maybe a new story idea.

As for a preview, all I have to say is...

Nisa, Na-na-na-na-nisa, Na-na-na-na-nisa! :)

RMD / Ninth Juz

As salaam alaikum,

I've been giving my story, A Rose Much Desired, a long rest while I patiently await one of my family members/designated readers to get halfway through it. But the plan for me is to add quotes and otherwise spiff it up before I try to find a publisher or attempt to self-publish. With two of my characters, I was going to write a little epilogue with an allusion to this ayah.

"And whenever thy Sustainer brings forth their offspring from the loins of the children of Adam, He [thus] calls upon them to bear witness about themselves: "Am I not your Sustainer?" - to which they answer: "Yea, indeed, we do ear witness thereto!" (7:172).

It goes on, but I really like that...that before we are born, we bear witness to God...before we forget...

This one is for my mother! And me, because we can both be fuss cats...

"Make due allowance for man's nature, and enjoin the doing of what is right; and leave alone all those who choose to remain ignorant. And if it should happen that a prompting from Satan stirs thee up [to blind anger], seek refuge with God: behold, He is all-hearing, all-knowing." (7:199-200)

So while we make allowances for human nature, we need to enjoin what is right! No sitting idly by and muttering, "that's just the way it is." Do I have to pull out some Bruce Horsby on this piece?

That's just the way it is...but don't you believe that...

I'm Mad I Missed This!

As salaam alaikum,

That's right, black Muslims represent!

I'm soooo angry that no one on HLM-list posted about this when it was in Boston in February! I'm going to see if I can find it online, bootleg now...probably not, but anyway.




Yes!

It gives me courage to revise RMD into something better, to better tell the story I want to tell...

I'm feeling better today than yesterday. I will take care to never live for the whims of a man who is mere creation and at best just a submitter like I am!

I'm metamorphosing. We'll see where I am at the end of it all. Alhamdulillah, I think it's for the best...

26 / It's a Thin Line

As salaam alaikum,

Happy birthday to me! I'm twweeeennttty-three...plus three. :)

Okay, so yes, I'm 26. Twenty-six. Veinte seis. Vinte seis.

When I turned 25, for about three months leading up to it, I lamented the meaning of the year for me, my becoming older, more adult, exiting the 15-24 youth demographic for good (yes). But so many good things happened to me during this past year, I mean, alhamdulillah!

No more doom and gloom, I can look at 26 with a lot more optimism. In spite of myself and what experience I now have under my belt, arguably I have become more idealistic than I have been in past years. I have a better vision of what I want for my life and all I want to achieve. Whereas I said with my lips or in my head, maybe, before that anything is possible in God's world, I now believe it to be true. With one more year marking one more year of experience, of knowledge of the evil that is rampant in the world, perpetuated by the beings that God created to inhabit it, with a greater awareness of atrocity and injustice...I look back in the mirror at myself, alive, bright eyed and invigorated.

The implicit loss of innocence with age and experience does not weigh on my soul as I thought it would. Instead, it makes more real, more alive to possibilities to make right what is wrong and is in my power, to work together with others who I'm discovering share my ever-developing vision and fulfill the purpose of my life. It's made me more adventurous, more gutsy, more willing to err in order to learn, in order to consider myself, as I always was before, among the truly repentant.

Except now, everything is more real to me, because I understand more its nature, and I understand more the actual process of life.

So, in summary...(wry smile)...26 is like I've aged back a little bit. It's like I turned 24 from 25 and will be going backwards. It is enlightened, it is innocent and starkly aware even more of this innocence, the persistence of this innocence always, if protected. Twenty-six is like my first birthday as a real adult, if I hijack that 15-24 youth demographic designation and launch into 25-44. I feel like I'm new again, it's my first birthday again, and as someone no longer clinging to a emotionally turbulent but necessary adolescence, I can move forward to be actually who I've always wanted to be.

Insha'Allah.



But it's a thin line. What's a thin line? Sigh.

I logged on to FB to see all of the people who left me birthday wishes on my wall. A lot of people have. And I know, as someone who scans to see who's had a birthday on facebook and sends out messages based on that (albeit personal messages), this is no big issue.

However, and unfortunately so, I was softened when I saw that MTQ had left me a happy birthday wish.

I had to step back like, errrkkk, what's going on with this? I have B now (though he has yet to tell me happy birthday...not that I'm keeping track, but my dentist office told me happy birthday before he did...they sent a cute e-card and everything! It made me want to set up a dentist appointment when I go home in a month...but I digress). I am happy. MTQ is history, only to be revived as the character Sadiq in "A Man's Hands," and as the basis of Mo in A Rose Much Desired. Heh.

So why did I soften? Why was I happy that he has kept up the annual tradition since I told him that I liked him by email after I had graduated college and was sure I was never going to see him again? Because it's true...he didn't tell me happy birthday on facebook (though we've been facebook friends for the same period that we've been friend friends) before I told him that I used to like him...back in the day...

And the answer is...it's a thin line. What, between love and hate? No...a thin line between forgetting and not forgetting, between importance and insignificance. Misguided as it was, and as much as I realize what real love and an actual relationship is now, and as much as he is sho-nuff married now...he's still going to make me smile. He's still going to be somehow special to me. That's it, flat out, end of story, boom.

And I think the more and the sooner I realize that, the sooner I'll desist with the self-floggings.

Seriously. Yes, I'm with B, and he's awesome and here. He fits more into my life, we're both grown folks so we know more what we're doing and what we want. That's excellent. But a first love(-ish...if I don't count, you know, the loves of childhood) is always going to be that. The memories of good times, the memories of imagined significance, and the overall good person that MTQ actually is.

It made me smile that he still made an effort to wish me a happy birthday, and that he has for the past three years, even when belated.

Es tan corto el amor, y tan largo el olvido.

Because you'll never forget. And old habits (of thought) die hard.

Bite

As salaam alaikum,

Let me take a few moments to reflect on the (to me) fast paced events of the last few months. Maybe that will help increase the illusion that I have two feet on solid ground.

Back in September, B, who is now my intended, told me that we should "hang out." I agreed, only because I knew he was interested in me, and this piqued my interest. He knew I am Muslim, he knew details of that story because I told it during book club (which was weird...can't remember how we got on the subject), and I was amazed that this Igbo Nigerian guy was still interested in me, even though he knew I was Muslim.

I accepted to "hang out" just to see what he was all about. I've "hung out" with other guys...in the time since I'd met him, there had been three or four, if you count the Muslim guy that I talked to for a bit. So there was nothing novel here. I would feel him out, see how Christian he was (because I was certain that all Igbos were Christian), and see where the relationship went.

We talked more and more, and I got the feeling he wasn't Christian. Every time I mentioned that I was Muslim, he took it in stride, listened attentively, didn't change the subject as many guys do and didn't seem perturbed. Come to find out, he believes in God but follows no organized religion. He has great respect for Muslims as one of his best friends is Muslim.

This man was a bold one! He knows about Muslims to a level that we went out to eat and he asked if I ate halal (I have to tell most people what that means), and expected me to follow some code of modesty...and he still asked me out?

At this point, I had convinced myself that he was a fool.

We went out for a month and a half, and come November, a few days after his birthday, I wondered what we were. It was awkward talking about it in public, where we'd go to a concert or a movie and he'd return me to my place, standing chastely outside of my apartment, wishing me goodbye (no kissing)...so I figured I'd invite him over while my roommates were home (seemed innocuous) so they could meet him and so we could talk more privately so we could decide where we were...

And, as often happens, our intentions lined up and he had the same question of me. I found myself suddenly and startlingly in a relationship with B, a God-fearing yet non-Muslim man.


Those of you who have read since then have read through me processing the hell out of this! That day in November (which was, in fact, Wednesday, November 17)...I felt in over my head. There have been a couple of missteps, a couple of poor decisions along the way, things I wasn't ready for, like our first kiss, frankly, even though for that month and a half I was confused why he hadn't tried to kiss me...haha, I was a big talker but when the time actually came, I was confused and a bit scared.

I handled things totally not how I thought I would handle them...how I've always imagined things in my head. And I realized, to a point, I've never really imagined myself in a relationship with a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Once I got myself there, I had no idea how I would drive it, what things we would do together to hold it together, when the turning points would be...meeting the parents, talking about marriage...how we would handle engagement, etc. So now I find myself with someone, and much unlike what has been my style so far in my adolescence and adulthood...I've had to make things up as I go. I haven't had time to ruminate and wax philosophical about what I think should be done...

But I'd been thinking about it. Both of my parents are happy. My mother is happy that I've found a God-fearing man so I can finally stop being so lonely and believing there was no one out there for me. My father is happy because I'm not only with a Nigerian, but an Igbo...he has a schema for this and not for anyone else, probably not even a black man, that I'd bring home. He's so content with that, he hasn't yet asked about B's religion...which I think will come later. B's concerned about that...I am less so. So, on the home front, B's like, pretty much best case scenario.

I knew I'd cross this road when I got here, but I often worried, abstractly, about whoever I would end up with asking my father's permission to marry me. I could imagine that ending badly if he were Muslim, especially if he weren't Nigerian or at least black. This man would have to really be invested in me/love me and have great diplomatic skills to win over my father.

I once considered arranging my own marriage, but I would feel no way comfortable doing that with the situation with my father.

I was between a rock and hard place because I do want the blessing from both of my parents when I do marry, and I feel like me starting out a marriage in opposition to my father would just amplify Daddy issues and introduce tensions into my married life that might be hard to overcome. My nuclear family is my rock, and though my father is Christian, he loves me (though you can't get a Nigerian man to say that), protects me, supports me...has raised me, with my mother, to be the woman that I am. He cares for my brother. His relationship with my mother hinges on their religious coexistence and harmony that is upset whenever I mark my religious territory, so I stopped.

B seemed like the best fit, but I do not love him for that.

I was determined not to "settle" for that. I mean, there were other reasons why I grew to like him, but there were two reasons that I would not let factor majorly in my feelings for him and decision to go forward with him along the marriage trajectory. One of those was my relationship with my father. Being with B has made the relationship with my father feel smoother, because with B, I'm more Nigerian, and I feel like he can know on a level higher than my lip service that my being Muslim is not forsaking my Nigerianness. However, there is no way in hell I would use B just to square things with my father, so I put this off to the side in considering our relationship.

The other reason I would not factor in is his kiss, let's say. We are obviously physically attracted to each other, and that's enough for me to know. I was concerned with other things, and my decision to marry him ultimately will be based on other compatibilities...spiritual compatibility, our friendship, confidence, trust...I had to know if this guy who does not call himself Muslim was worthy of me fulfilling half of my religion with him.

And that was the toughest part to reconcile. He doesn't call himself Muslim. Why do I say it like that? Hah, I feel like I'm setting myself up to be an apologist, but so be it.

I think about this guy who I met out in Cambridge when I went to a salsa club with my friends. He was Muslim. He drinks socially, regularly, and accidentally switched my drinks such that I almost consumed alcohol, which I've never done. He fasts alcohol for Ramadan. I mean, I'm not one to judge, because here I am, in a salsa club, something that I wouldn't have done years back. But he was Muslim, and he seemed absently interested in me, as he cursed, as he described his drunken debauchery, all of this.

Then, about a month later, B asked me out, and I discovered that he believes in God. He volunteers in the city and I've seen him give charity with his right hand, discreetly. He says grace over his food. He's abstained and is a virgin. He avoids alcohol and drugs. He doesn't curse.

And as I've discovered over the last couple of months, we're so very compatible in so many ways...in our interest in Africa and the African diaspora, current events, news, our tastes in documentaries and comedies and the way we watch these, the meticulous way we wash dishes to the things we find funny, the way we speak. At first I felt like it wouldn't be so but we've evolved such that we can talk about anything, everything...I can tell him what's on my mind, down to my trying to figure myself out as a Muslimah and what my relationship with him means for that. I mean, everything.

I'm more comfortable talking to him about these things than I have been comfortable talking to any Muslim besides my mother.

Given what I knew about B at baseline, the charity, the no alcohol, his ethics...add Muslim to that, and I would have had no question. But I realize that I'd been operating in such a way that being Muslim was enough on so many levels with no real thought to the brother's personal ethics and his possible compatibility with me.



To some, this will seem like a cop-out, my ending up with a non-Muslim, being a Muslimah, especially since I've intended to end up with a Muslim for so long, that which inspired me to become more practicing in college...so I could form myself into what would be a good Muslim wife. But in this experience I'm learning (because the lesson isn't over yet) about God and I'm learning...He knows what's best for us. I'm still struggling with the possibility that Allah (swt) could possibly intend for me a man who is not a practicing Muslim...struggling not in the sense that I'm losing sleep, but struggling because, against everything I once believed, it seems to be so.

But from that time, in March, my second time seeing B, getting that sudden and overwhelming feeling that I was "going to end up with him," not knowing what that meant, denying it for a wihle, and still not knowing anything about this man, until now, I know...I know in a way no one outside of my body can know, this is what Allah (swt) intends for me. It is with this man that I intend to grow and realize my purpose in this life, as a Muslim and as a citizen of this world.



I didn't write for a while because I felt like my entries and this very journal lacked the bite that it used to. So much of my persona here was fueled by righteous indignation, despair and hope. Faith in the face of doubt, and my primary doubt was if I was ever going to marry, if it were even possible for someone to love me. I know it to now be true. That doubt is gone, but in the process of living this doubt, living this despair, living this loneliness, I've learned so many things about my relationship with God, and I continue to.

I'm also learning what it really means to be Muslim. Because, as we all know, people who call themselves Muslim are not the only ones who submit themselves to God. And while I'll always identify as Muslim, and it's always my goal to become a better Muslim...I think I previously limited myself in what ways I could be Muslim because I thought I had to...but now I'm learning other ways to be...I'm making mistakes along the way, astaghfirullah, but at the end, I think I'll be where I need to be...

Allah (swt) doesn't lead astray those who come to Him, so I'm not afraid as long as I pray.

Yeah, some of the bite of Invisible Muslimah is gone, because I'll likely gripe about gender relations between Muslims less, I'll no longer speculate about relationships and what paradigm I'll work through because I'm in one, making it up as we go along, because B and I, we're in this together...

...but Invisible Muslimah will not cease to exist. I'll probably focus more on humanism and humanitarian issues, current events...and relationship/marriage issues will probably be more concrete.

Anyway, that's all...well, that's not all, but that's a lot of what I've been thinking through over the past couple of months.

Oh yeah, and it's clear to me now...if I ever publish RMD, I'm going to dedicate it to my mother. She has to read it first and help me fix it. B will help Mo sound more like a guy for me, and yeah. Though, he's already weirded out by the first two pages...I'm concerned, haha!

RMD and Reflections

As salaam alaikum,

So, when I give excerpts from RMD, I've pretty much been only giving excerpts from the "Agent" chapters. I've explained it before, but the story has three narrations. The first one that appears is "Agent," in which the story opens up with this troublesome relationship between Mo and his lover, Desirée. The second chapter begins the second narration, which is "Desirée." There, we learn that Desirée's interest in Mo started when she was a freshman and he was a sophomore in the same class. We learn that Des is smart and can hold her own, but is somehow attracted to Mo...but before him, she had begun to notice the Muslim boys in her high school. So it goes to high school.

Then, "Agent," returns, and we learn that Mo is having some issues in life, some depression and stress that leave him vomiting in the bathroom of his lab building several days. During the spring break, not wanting to return to be alone in his apartment or talk with his usual friends, he wanders over the apartment of a friend, a Muslim sister who he hasn't spoken to in a while. This is Nisreen. Nisreen, who calls him by his common name, Mahmud, receives him tentatively, not feeling it was proper for him to be there, not only in his state but because he was a brother. Mo tells Nisreen that he's stressed out about not getting into medical school and worries about his fast-approaching future. He ends up throwing up and crashing on Nisreen's sofa in her apartment for a few hours.

The last narration to appear, "Muslimah," is a POV-style narration with Nisreen talking about Islam and framing her disquiet for Mo appearing at her place, not only because he was male but because she always thought he was better put together. She believes that there's more than just his future in medicine in question, but question of his future spouse and his life as a engaged and later married man that has him despairing.

And there is A Rose Much Desired. Heh.

How did a Muslim boy like Mo end up with a girl like Desirée, who, by all indications, was just a normal, geeky high schooler just before they met...who just happened to notice the workings of the Muslim boys at her high school as her best friend, a Muslim girl named Ameerah, decried their behavior and character on the regular? Nisreen wants to help Mo, although she feels uncomfortable and ill-equipped to help out a brother friend. What will come of Nisreen and Mo? Why is Mo so reluctant to tell about his girl problems, and why is he specifically wary of the word "marriage?" ...haha, well, of course, I know all the answers, I wrote it. Then there are questions that come up in the later half that are never answered...muahaha!

I'm having family read it first, but I think they got bored or confused and stopped. To be fair, I gave it to my cousins to read...then my best friend at med school and my intended (I refuse to call him the B word...any of them, actually, haha, even though his abbreviation on here is B). My mother has not read it yet, which is discouraging when you can't even get family to read it, haha, but I decided I'm not going to care too much. To me, it's great, it gets into a lot of themes that were relevant as I was a college-age Muslimah, and...it'll always be my baby.

So, to mix it up, I'll give you an excerpt this time from a "Desirée" chapter. This takes place Des's sophomore year of high school. She's eating lunch with her two best friends, Ameerah and Divya. This chapter is aptly called, "Muslim Boys:"

      “I’m telling you, Desirée, I’ve got slim pickings. Slim pickings,” Ameerah declared one day at lunch, pointing a fry in front of Desirée’s face. Desirée wondered if her eye crossed slightly as she focused on the ketchup on the tip of the fry. It was barely warm outside, but she, Ameerah and Divya had decided to eat on the patio outside of the administrative hallway. The bench was cold to Desirée but the springtime sun made up for it. She watched as Ameerah squeezed more ketchup onto the individual fry before actually eating it. Desirée was amused that Ameerah could eat whatever she wanted and seemingly never gained a pound. Let me eat fries every day at lunch and I’ll have to be rolled from class to class with a stick, she thought.

      Divya was shaking her head, ready to disagree. These days, Divya began letting down her hair, and it covered her shoulders and wavered as she shook her head. “Ameerah, at least they’re cute. I’m the one who has slim pickings.” She swung her legs to the other side of the bench, crossed her legs and smirked. “The cutest ones in our class haven’t gone through puberty yet.” Ameerah clapped and laughed raucously, which she usually did when things weren’t that funny. “I wish I could have my choice of the Muslim boys, but that’s only if I want to be disowned—”

      Ameerah waved her hand at Divya. “You and all this talk about how your parents would flip out if you ended up with a Muslim. What’s so bad about Muslims, anyway?” Desirée sipped on her Code Red and glanced from face to face as her friends spoke.

      “I’m Hindu!” Divya sputtered before choking on a mouth-full of the wrap she was eating.

      “And?” Ameerah was obviously not impressed. She had on her scowling, scrunched-nose disdain face. Desirée recognized it well. She was about to break it down. “You know Amjad who used to go here? His mother was Hindu and his father was Muslim, and they seemed to work out.”

      Divya gurgled between a gulp of water from her water bottle. “They seemed to. That’s key. You don’t know what went on with either side of his parents’ families. It probably was hell. Both sets of parents probably flipped the hell out.”

      “First, dude, eat your food before you like, die.” Ameerah squeezed her last ketchup packet on top of her fries. “Second, you say probably, but you can’t know that for certain. Maybe their parents were more understanding about them getting together. And look, Amjad was brilliant! He was a cool kid, like really, down to earth, balanced, better than the bunch of excuses for Muslims we got going on here.”  Ameerah pointed the fry this time at Divya, raising an eyebrow and nodding before flicking it into her mouth.

      Divya rolled her eyes. “Okay, so I guess I can’t say for sure. All I know is my parents outright told me that I could be ‘little friends’ with whoever I wanted now, but for marriage, no Muslims and no blacks.” Divya caught herself and shrugged, glancing at Desirée briefly before returning her attention to her wrap. “No offense, Desirée.”

     Desirée hated that. No offense. If a person really didn’t mean to be offensive, they wouldn’t have said it at all. And if they slipped and said it accidentally, the more appropriate thing would have been to apologize. “No offense” was defensive. Desirée opened her mouth to answer Divya but was interrupted by Ameerah. “Oh, but you don’t say ‘no offense’ to me, huh? So I’m supposed to sit here while you’re doing your Muslim bashing—”

       “I am not Muslim bashing, I just said—this isn’t even what we were really

talking about, Ameerah, I just said that at least the Muslim boys are cute. I 

don’t think you have slim pickings at all.”

The Desirée chapters definitely have a different vibe from the Agent chapters, which is usually what the excerpts are from. And then, there are the Muslimah chapters...let me see if I can find something good...okay, this is from the chapter, "The Mohammed Mahmud Ghazali Project:"

     It’s kind of hard sometimes to see someone you admire break down. It wasn’t that I followed Mahmud’s life story or anything, but even when he was more in the background of my life, he was like a pillar. I know that sounds weird, a little intense, maybe, but there always seem to be those people in your life that you can count on for constancy, stability. I knew that any time I was freaking out about something, all I had to do was cross his path on campus or wherever and he would always tell me that everything was going to be all right. Then, with that certainty, and I don’t know why it was certainty, just because he said it, I was able to do whatever it was. Nisreen bit her thumb nail as she spoke, And here he was, obviously perturbed about something, to the point that he’s wandering around town and alhamudulillah he at least came to my place and didn’t end up ambling to the other side of town.

      She nodded, glancing up to the ceiling at times. I mean, I know it was foolish of me to look to him for stability those times, or think of him as a rock at all. My rock should always be Allah ta’ala, and not any human being, and him breaking down at my place was proof of that, right? It was hard because I guess for a while I thought of him as stronger than that, above that, more independent than that, but at the same time it’s nice to identify. Someone else is human like you are and someone else is going through the same things as you are. I mean, not to say that I was glad to see him suffering, but—it just humanized him that much more for me, she said, pressing her hands to her chest. She scratched her lower left eyelid, we started reaching a level of understanding, I kind of understood what was going wrong with him, and I knew I could help.

      Nisreen chuckled abruptly, Yeah, I could help him. At the root of it all was a spiritual problem that he needed to realize, I thought. The man was not impoverished in the least. I mean, astaghfirullah ... not that I’m covetous or anything, but I wouldn’t mind some of what he had. In addition to his family he had tons of friends looking out for him and supporting him, and this woman, I can’t be sure but I think I know who she is, who must love him and want to be with him. I mean, I don’t know her or that she feels that way, but if she’s anything like—it’s like, the way we are, the way females are. Nisreen inhaled deeply and glanced and her feet before looking up again. In reality, I guess one could argue that all he was experiencing was normal at this juncture of his life. In the next few weeks, he was going to find out whether or not he had gotten into medical school, and he’s nervous about the not possibility. And after he gets into medical school insha’Allah and starts working to become a doctor and gets closer to the  man he’s going to be—he just kind of freaked out, I guess.

So yes, very different narration styles. There may be too much going on with the story for people to get, but I'm really really interested in what people have to say. Hahaha, people who know me too well (as well as some of my readers over the years) will able to find me in the narrative and pieces of my life story in the story line (haha, one of the narrations more than the other...I won't say which). But yeah, it was awesome writing this and good that I got it done before I enter this new chapter in my life, right before I lost inspiration to write the last couple of chapters as I did. I'll end this with a later excerpt from an Agent chapter. This is from my favorite chapter of the entire story, "Right Left Foot."

    Mo’s so light he feels like flying yet he knows better than to grin wildly at this point. This is no smiling matter, less a laughing matter, and he finds himself another night trekking home with clothing improper for the chill of the evening, his mind fixed on her.

He slipped a while back because they’ve had a freak ice storm and it’s hard to tell the black of the ice from the black of the asphalt and the sidewalks are even worse. He steadies himself and resumes his resolute pace.

Mo stares at his feet and about four feet before him to ensure that he doesn’t slip on yet another ice patch. He also notices that he swings his left foot out farther than his right when he walks. He forgets the ice and finds himself zeroing in on his left foot and contrasting its swing to that of his right.

      Nisreen’s laughing at him. “What is it?” he asks, turning back. It’s one of the warmer days, and she’s wearing a light-weight pink blouse with a neckline low enough that it’s showing her chest a bit whenever the wind blows her scarf. She’s standing near the front door to her apartment building, and he can hear her cackle despite the whirring of the wind that is whipping about them.

      “I’ve grown accustomed to your stride,” she remarks as he returns with her mail in one hand, her mailbox keys in the other.

      “How’s that funny?” he inquires, as she holds the screen door open for him. She follows closely behind him.

      “I don’t know.  It’s just so characteristically you,” she answers, giving him a halfway grin. “You kind of have a clumsy way of going about it, like you’re involuntarily throwing your left foot from beneath you.”

It's been great writing this, whatever comes of this project, whether it's actually published or if I just edit it, with the help of family and friends, bind it and put it on my shelf. This April or so will make this story idea 4 years old. It's the first story I've finished entirely since this campy piece that I wrote as a 13-year-old called "Daughter of a Supermodel," haha, and probably my most ambitious since the story I never finished when I was 15-years-old, "Sisters: Body and Soul." Writing is one of my loves of life...right up there with speaking Spanish and Portuguese, Brazil, the African Diaspora, and other random things, and I'm so happy that at almost 26 years old, 22 years after the first story I ever wrote, which was about P.J. Sparkles' magic powers, that I still can make writing part of my life. And though everyone who's read excerpts throughout the years aren't here to read this journal, thank you all for your encouragement over the years, patience, even though I was really only drawing from the first 100 pages of work.

Alhamudillah for the life of this world in which we have the opportunity to explore so much about our condition and our fellow humanity, to learn from each other and learn to know each other and express all that we've learned through such diverse media!