Salaam,
The other day, I was sitting with my SO and we were reflecting on our relationship (1.5 years now), and I can't remember how it came up, but I think I mentioned that I'd grown since the time I'd known him, and that I'm still growing, and I realize the things that I used to want in a relationship I don't actually want and things that I didn't think I wanted I really appreciate having.
He asked me who my ideal SO would be.
And I couldn't answer him. I know he's conscious of the differences in our spirituality and probably wonders if one day I'll wake up and decide I'd rather be with a more-practicing man and leave him on his way, especially when I get to talking about religion (even if I'm bemoaning certain elements). I feel like the answer I gave him would have only upset him.
Because, really, I've never thought long enough to formulate an ideal. My ideal man was always someone who would fit well with me. Someone who would make sense in my life, my practice, with my belief, and that was it. It takes actually being in a relationship to realize how selfish that view is and realize that it's never that simple with another, complex, whole human being at your side that you're relating to.
And just because I've waited and was prayerful and feel like I'm a really good person, doesn't mean I'm going to be the perfect SO. In fact, I spent so many years by myself, I still find myself being self-centered and forcing myself to put myself aside for a little bit to really hear my SO's point of view, his hangups, his problems.
Not that I'm usually a selfish person. Of course I know how to be a good friend and I do this for friends all the time. It's just...I guess I always imagined a relationship while being alone and relatively self-sufficient, so spending time with someone in the flesh who is filling that role after imagining it alone for a while makes it hard to get outside of myself and those imaginings and relate to the person on the other side of the dream.
So I feel like whatever I imagined as the ideal man or the ideal relationship before was fairly one-sided, as if there were a human man out there whose sole purpose in life was to be my eventual husband or something. And of course I never expected someone to be like that, but when one creates an imaginary man in their brains, he doesn't tend to have aspirations unique to your own.
What would be a better soul mate then one who also believed in care for the underserved, here and abroad? Maybe...
The fact is, the possible "ideal" combinations with me as a person are endless, but they are, regardless, combinations that I do not find often in nature. And implicit in my SO's question is his wondering if I'm settling or not, if I can do better or not.
And I guess I could imagine a lot of different types of men. Of late, I think it would be cool to travel to Brazil, specifically to Salvador, and meet some guy at the faculdade who was really into Nigeria, specifically Igbo culture, and therefore be fascinated with me, my family's history, my religion, and things go from there...
But I don't think about those things anymore. I don't construct ideals anymore because I have something real that is good, that works, that is better than I could have imagined in the package that it came in. I have before me a real man who has lived 6 years before me, has lived 33 years independent of me, has dreams and goals that do not involve me, and yet is now intimately interwoven in my life and it just seems silly to prefer to be with an imaginary man of my own making.
Whether or not I could "do better" is I guess up for debate, but I don't think I can fabricate an ideal. Not right now, not while things are so real.
Showing posts with label américa latina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label américa latina. Show all posts
Monday, March 3, 2014
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
And if God doesn't provide?
Salaam,
This title is an allusion to yet another song, this one in Portuguese. It is the pop version of a type of samba called partido alto by Chico Buarque, so titled.
Partido alto is witty, provocative and involves plays on words, as I understand. The song "Partido Alto" taps into this, and its chorus is an elaborate word play that, upon hearing it, I found brazen but could not help singing it.
The actual lyrics are as follows:
Diz que Deus dará,
Não vou duvidar,ô nega
E se Deus não dá,
Como é que vai ficar, ô nega?
Diz que deu, diz que dá,
E se Deus negar, ô nega
Eu vou me indignar e chega,
Deus dará, Deus dará
Works a lot better than the English translation; I'm not even sure how you would make this as fun in English, actually (a small amount of poetic license taken in the translation here):
They say that God will provide
I'm not going to doubt that, my dear
And if God doesn't give
How are we going to end up, my dear?
They say he gave, they say he gives
And if God denies us, my dear,
I'll become outraged and that's it
God will give, God will give
First of all, I've always found it hilarious that variations on the word "black" are used as a term of endearment in Latin America. Light skin children were called "negrito/a" when I was in the DR, and "nega" in Brazil is a term of endearment for one's wife, girlfriend or close female friend, regardless of race, but very commonly used among white people, and it definitely comes from "negra." So, essentially, it'd be like everyone in America said "nigga" as a term of endearment...or at least in a similar way that black people do.
Talk about how language shapes one's view of the world!
But I share that lyric to share actually something quite serious, at least for me. I open it with a jovial note. Tell me, how would a Muslim interpret this lyric? Would a Muslim even let these lyrics cross their lips?
On my playlist on my iPod, I skip over (but interestingly have not yet deleted) the song that ends with "A vezes tento creer mas não consigo. E todo um total insensatez..." Which translates, "Sometimes I try to believe, but I'm not able to. It's all complete nonsense."
Muslims, am I right? We are, by definition, believers. Not only are we believers, but we are submitters. I cannot let such words of disbelief pass into my psyche, not in the form of song, of verse, of speech, of thought, of image, nothing. I reject those lyrics. This is why some people consider music haram. Where do you draw the line between beautiful instrumentation and harmless lyrics to the very harmful. It will sneak up on you. And see how I've memorized that Portuguese lyric against my will! It is in my mind and undermining my faith and I would have been better off never having heard that lyric, astaghfirullah...
...or would I be?
I admit, I do intend to remove that song from my iPod, but I rarely listen to my iPod anymore and haven't changed songs on it for the last 3 years or so. I am a little tongue-in-cheek up there but I'm serious about taking care about the forms of media I ingest and how it can have an impact on our person. Disbelief is not my modus operandi, so I don't consume it.
However, songs like "Partido Alto" walk that line of inappropriateness. If I were my former self, actually, I would stop listening to this song, too, and try to purge it from my memory. To imply, ever, that God doesn't provide? Haram in the making, right there.
The song's protagonist is a person living in poverty, lamenting their position and poking fun at themselves. Their faith is fickle at best. God will provide...but what if He doesn't? What are we going to do? Well, if he doesn't provide, I'm going to be pissed...
But I still listen to this song. Why?
Because God has provided amply for me, more than I ever ask for and above what I've ever wanted. But there are so many in this world who are struggling, good people who are constant in prayer, better than I, people all around the world, burying children that they aren't able to feed, watched them die...
My upbringing and faith-base taught me that God provides amply for them, too. But having experienced individuals and families in desperation as I have as a physician now, you definitely feel like there are times when God isn't providing.
In a witty way, a silly song captures fleeting desperation, the lack of understanding of the world we all have and are at varying levels of wanting to admit it. We do not know why we were put here, don't and will not understand the master plan.
As long as God continues to provide me with all that he does, I'll continue to realize the purpose of my life...to help others through life. I believe that's why we're all here...to help each other out through this maze. And if God were "no longer to provide?" I hope someone would do the same for me...help me, whatever is left of me.
Because there is enough resource, wealth and plenty that have been provided to some of us, that nobody's baby has to starve.
This title is an allusion to yet another song, this one in Portuguese. It is the pop version of a type of samba called partido alto by Chico Buarque, so titled.
Partido alto is witty, provocative and involves plays on words, as I understand. The song "Partido Alto" taps into this, and its chorus is an elaborate word play that, upon hearing it, I found brazen but could not help singing it.
The actual lyrics are as follows:
Diz que Deus dará,
Não vou duvidar,ô nega
E se Deus não dá,
Como é que vai ficar, ô nega?
Diz que deu, diz que dá,
E se Deus negar, ô nega
Eu vou me indignar e chega,
Deus dará, Deus dará
Works a lot better than the English translation; I'm not even sure how you would make this as fun in English, actually (a small amount of poetic license taken in the translation here):
They say that God will provide
I'm not going to doubt that, my dear
And if God doesn't give
How are we going to end up, my dear?
They say he gave, they say he gives
And if God denies us, my dear,
I'll become outraged and that's it
God will give, God will give
First of all, I've always found it hilarious that variations on the word "black" are used as a term of endearment in Latin America. Light skin children were called "negrito/a" when I was in the DR, and "nega" in Brazil is a term of endearment for one's wife, girlfriend or close female friend, regardless of race, but very commonly used among white people, and it definitely comes from "negra." So, essentially, it'd be like everyone in America said "nigga" as a term of endearment...or at least in a similar way that black people do.
Talk about how language shapes one's view of the world!
But I share that lyric to share actually something quite serious, at least for me. I open it with a jovial note. Tell me, how would a Muslim interpret this lyric? Would a Muslim even let these lyrics cross their lips?
On my playlist on my iPod, I skip over (but interestingly have not yet deleted) the song that ends with "A vezes tento creer mas não consigo. E todo um total insensatez..." Which translates, "Sometimes I try to believe, but I'm not able to. It's all complete nonsense."
Muslims, am I right? We are, by definition, believers. Not only are we believers, but we are submitters. I cannot let such words of disbelief pass into my psyche, not in the form of song, of verse, of speech, of thought, of image, nothing. I reject those lyrics. This is why some people consider music haram. Where do you draw the line between beautiful instrumentation and harmless lyrics to the very harmful. It will sneak up on you. And see how I've memorized that Portuguese lyric against my will! It is in my mind and undermining my faith and I would have been better off never having heard that lyric, astaghfirullah...
...or would I be?
I admit, I do intend to remove that song from my iPod, but I rarely listen to my iPod anymore and haven't changed songs on it for the last 3 years or so. I am a little tongue-in-cheek up there but I'm serious about taking care about the forms of media I ingest and how it can have an impact on our person. Disbelief is not my modus operandi, so I don't consume it.
However, songs like "Partido Alto" walk that line of inappropriateness. If I were my former self, actually, I would stop listening to this song, too, and try to purge it from my memory. To imply, ever, that God doesn't provide? Haram in the making, right there.
The song's protagonist is a person living in poverty, lamenting their position and poking fun at themselves. Their faith is fickle at best. God will provide...but what if He doesn't? What are we going to do? Well, if he doesn't provide, I'm going to be pissed...
But I still listen to this song. Why?
Because God has provided amply for me, more than I ever ask for and above what I've ever wanted. But there are so many in this world who are struggling, good people who are constant in prayer, better than I, people all around the world, burying children that they aren't able to feed, watched them die...
My upbringing and faith-base taught me that God provides amply for them, too. But having experienced individuals and families in desperation as I have as a physician now, you definitely feel like there are times when God isn't providing.
In a witty way, a silly song captures fleeting desperation, the lack of understanding of the world we all have and are at varying levels of wanting to admit it. We do not know why we were put here, don't and will not understand the master plan.
As long as God continues to provide me with all that he does, I'll continue to realize the purpose of my life...to help others through life. I believe that's why we're all here...to help each other out through this maze. And if God were "no longer to provide?" I hope someone would do the same for me...help me, whatever is left of me.
Because there is enough resource, wealth and plenty that have been provided to some of us, that nobody's baby has to starve.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Beauty's Soundtrack
As salaam alaikum,
Beauty's soundtrack would have to include this song. Always love it!
Beautiful is my brother, eternally my baby brother, not because of his autism, but mostly because for the first few years of his life, I could not pronounce his name, and that's what his name was. Baby Brother. Or, as I pronounced it, Baby Bwodda.
And this song reminds me of the times when he's revealed himself, when he's recalled things we shared before he could speak, before he made eye contact, before he could sit still in a chair. It reminds me of all those times I've cried. Such a beautiful cry and such a beautiful feeling to recall.
And the beauty of the music of this song, and hearing the verse about Sa Marina making everyone cry after entertaining them, making everyone sing...just the catharsis of a day of enjoyment closed with tears of joy...
Beauty's soundtrack, I'm telling you...
Beauty's soundtrack would have to include this song. Always love it!
Beautiful is my brother, eternally my baby brother, not because of his autism, but mostly because for the first few years of his life, I could not pronounce his name, and that's what his name was. Baby Brother. Or, as I pronounced it, Baby Bwodda.
And this song reminds me of the times when he's revealed himself, when he's recalled things we shared before he could speak, before he made eye contact, before he could sit still in a chair. It reminds me of all those times I've cried. Such a beautiful cry and such a beautiful feeling to recall.
And the beauty of the music of this song, and hearing the verse about Sa Marina making everyone cry after entertaining them, making everyone sing...just the catharsis of a day of enjoyment closed with tears of joy...
Beauty's soundtrack, I'm telling you...
Saturday, March 3, 2012
My Love
As salaam alaikum,
For a brief interlude...this song is awesome. I really thought it was from one of Stevie's 80s albums, like In Square Circle or something, from the way it sounds. It's more than the fact that he's using a synthesizer...it's also the way the music is written to make it sound really 80s, one of my favorite decades for music despite its gaudiness.
Anyway, this song is from 2007, with Julio Iglesias. If you go to the YouTube page, all of the comments are in Portuguese because of the novela. Little things like this make me love life that much more. Globalization is awesome, and so is the internet!
My love is greater than to limit it for a future partner in life. I had a moment of fraqueza. I will move on, and I will be fine, and I will be all the beautiful I've ever been.
For a brief interlude...this song is awesome. I really thought it was from one of Stevie's 80s albums, like In Square Circle or something, from the way it sounds. It's more than the fact that he's using a synthesizer...it's also the way the music is written to make it sound really 80s, one of my favorite decades for music despite its gaudiness.
Anyway, this song is from 2007, with Julio Iglesias. If you go to the YouTube page, all of the comments are in Portuguese because of the novela. Little things like this make me love life that much more. Globalization is awesome, and so is the internet!
My love is greater than to limit it for a future partner in life. I had a moment of fraqueza. I will move on, and I will be fine, and I will be all the beautiful I've ever been.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
My Music Babes
As salaam alaikum,
There are a few artists, some singers/songwriters, some vocalists, whose songs or renditions of standards have functioned like the soundtrack for my life at certain times. These are my Music Babes. The lyrical loves of my life, my vocal aspirations. These artists are (or were) prolific, soulful, genius, amazing. A unique, full, gorgeous expression of the human experience. I love them!
This is minha homenagem to them.
(1) Stevland Hardaway Morris - Mr. Stevie Wonder! He is my favorite artist of all time, and always will be. Where do I begin? Probably the first song I remember of his was my mother's favorite when I was about three years old, "Part Time Lover." Did not understand a word of it, but I can still see my mother dancing around the family room of my childhood house...especially since that moment was captured on VHS, now transferred to DVD. The next song that stands out in my memory was, "Another Star," which began with a cadence that reminded me of my brother's head. For my mother, my brother's song was "All I Do." I remember her saying how beautiful "As" was when I was in high school, but I wouldn't fully appreciate Stevie until college, when I fell in love for the first time. The theme song for that love will always and forever be "Overjoyed," a song that I faintly remembered from an 80s or R&B CD collection commercial from the 90s, such that when I hear one part of the song, I think of that blue screen that they would show at the end of the commercials. Where else do I go with Stevie Wonder? "I Believe When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever?" "Pastime Paradise?" "For Once in My Life," to go a little older? "Moon Blue," to go a little bit more contemporary? The timeless "Isn't She Lovely?" Masha'Allah! What a beautiful man!
Favorite lyrics: "We all know sometimes life's hates and troubles/ can make you wish you were born in another time and space./ But you can bet your life times that and twice its double/ that God knew exactly where He wanted you to be placed./ So next time when you say you're in it but not of it/ you're not helping to make this a place sometimes called Hell./ Change your words into Truth and then change that Truth into Love/ and maybe our children's grandchildren and their great-grandchildren will tell." - "As" (see above)
(2) Djavan Caetano Viana - Djavan! When did I first discover this musical genius, my Brazilian, seeing Stevie Wonder? I think I met him while touring Pandora sometime after I took my Brazilian history course in college. In that course, I was exposed to the song, "Haiti" by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil from Tropicália 2. I made a station out of that, and I think songs by Djavan came up from that. The first song I really remember from him has to be "Doidice" (my upload onto youtube, gente! It wasn't there before...). I just listened to it quietly while studying during my first year of medical school, until the last verses of the song, which I recognized were in Spanish. From then commenced my absolute obsession with this song. I looked up the lyrics, translated them the best I could with my Portuguese for Spanish Speakers knowledge, ordered Bird of Paradise on CD Universe so I could own the song (since it was not available for download), opened the cover, and found the lyrics that floored me: "After I discovered that there is you, I never existed again." Damn. That was me and MTQ! I thereafter discovered that I loved Djavan as an artist in general. My favorite songs of his to sing include "Meu Bem Querer," and "Pétala." My favorite song to samba and sing to will always be "Flor de Lis," as I did many a time in my samba course. And while "Doidice" will always be my favorite, "Oceano" is I think one of his most beautiful. I'm not done learning his standards, as there are others, but this man is brilliant...Stevie Wonder agrees. They did "Samurai" together! Beautiful man in his 60s with his beautiful son, Max Viana, by his side at both concerts I went to.
Favorite lyrics: "Me apaixonei?/ Talvez, pode ser./ Enloqueci?/ Não sei, nunca vi./ Preciso sair/ depois que eu descobri que há você,/ nunca mais existi." - "Doidice" (see above)
Translated: I fell in love? Maybe, it could be. I went crazy? Don't know, I've never seen it. I need to get out. After I discovered that there is you, I never existed again.)
AND
"Assim que o dia amanheceu lá no mar alto da paixão/ dava pra ver o tempo ruir." - "Oceano" (see above)
Translated: Now that the day has dawned there in the high tides of passion, one is able to see time ruin. (So poetic!)
(3) Elis Regina Carvalho Costa - Elis Regina. Before I heard this woman's voice and knew who she was, all of my music babes had been mainly men. For this reason, my alto is the most developed, although I think I touch the range of a mezzo-soprano. Then, I hear the Portuguese version of "Corcovado" by my one of my standards, my original babes, Tom Jobim (to the point I'd consider naming one of my kids Antônio Carlos). I didn't know at the time who the female vocalist was of this song I'd heard the smokey voice of Astrud Gilberto sing in English, but I liked learning to sing along with it. She enunciated so clearly, so uniquely...it was gorgeous. I discovered later it was Elis. I wouldn't know about her until I traveled to Brazil, coming back from the public health center in São Paulo, turning on the small television in the pousada to the novela, "Ciranda da Pedra," and hearing Elis belt out "Redescobrir," which was the theme of the novela. I still get saudades when I see that opening...that was my first taste of Brazil, as I barely ate in those first few days, nervous as I was that I was in a country where I didn't really speak the language. And in a way, my finding Elis was really a rediscovery, because she died in 1982, before I was born and 26 years before I would know any of her music. But her vocal interpretations of Brazilian standards, which got her credited as creating Música Popular Brasileira, inspired me in ways that a female singer never had. I found myself aspiring to her range, her passion, her soul. I laughed with her in "Vou Deitar e Rolar," and "Canto de Ossanha." I danced gently over her enunciation in "Só Tinha de Ser Com Você," which I have vowed will be a lullaby for my children. I fell in love forever after uniquely with her interpretation of "Aguas de Março," my favorite song of all time, as well as Brazil's. And I will always be blown away and forever grateful for her rendition of a song I had known for years from Pandora, but never like this: "O Trem Azul." There are so much more of Elis I've yet to learn and hear, but with "O Trem Azul," I get a little taste of what it means for there to be life after death.
Favorite Vocals: "O Trem Azul," when she sings along with the electric guitar. Or, just listen to the song A Capella.
These are three artists whose music I have a lot of and never tire of, the songwriters and singers of the soundtracks of my life. I fell in love with MTQ over "Overjoyed," and it faded away with "Doidice." And B went away with "O Trem Azul." Just a few examples. Beautiful people with a most beautiful gift from God! Masha'Allah!
There are a few artists, some singers/songwriters, some vocalists, whose songs or renditions of standards have functioned like the soundtrack for my life at certain times. These are my Music Babes. The lyrical loves of my life, my vocal aspirations. These artists are (or were) prolific, soulful, genius, amazing. A unique, full, gorgeous expression of the human experience. I love them!
This is minha homenagem to them.
(1) Stevland Hardaway Morris - Mr. Stevie Wonder! He is my favorite artist of all time, and always will be. Where do I begin? Probably the first song I remember of his was my mother's favorite when I was about three years old, "Part Time Lover." Did not understand a word of it, but I can still see my mother dancing around the family room of my childhood house...especially since that moment was captured on VHS, now transferred to DVD. The next song that stands out in my memory was, "Another Star," which began with a cadence that reminded me of my brother's head. For my mother, my brother's song was "All I Do." I remember her saying how beautiful "As" was when I was in high school, but I wouldn't fully appreciate Stevie until college, when I fell in love for the first time. The theme song for that love will always and forever be "Overjoyed," a song that I faintly remembered from an 80s or R&B CD collection commercial from the 90s, such that when I hear one part of the song, I think of that blue screen that they would show at the end of the commercials. Where else do I go with Stevie Wonder? "I Believe When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever?" "Pastime Paradise?" "For Once in My Life," to go a little older? "Moon Blue," to go a little bit more contemporary? The timeless "Isn't She Lovely?" Masha'Allah! What a beautiful man!
Favorite lyrics: "We all know sometimes life's hates and troubles/ can make you wish you were born in another time and space./ But you can bet your life times that and twice its double/ that God knew exactly where He wanted you to be placed./ So next time when you say you're in it but not of it/ you're not helping to make this a place sometimes called Hell./ Change your words into Truth and then change that Truth into Love/ and maybe our children's grandchildren and their great-grandchildren will tell." - "As" (see above)
(2) Djavan Caetano Viana - Djavan! When did I first discover this musical genius, my Brazilian, seeing Stevie Wonder? I think I met him while touring Pandora sometime after I took my Brazilian history course in college. In that course, I was exposed to the song, "Haiti" by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil from Tropicália 2. I made a station out of that, and I think songs by Djavan came up from that. The first song I really remember from him has to be "Doidice" (my upload onto youtube, gente! It wasn't there before...). I just listened to it quietly while studying during my first year of medical school, until the last verses of the song, which I recognized were in Spanish. From then commenced my absolute obsession with this song. I looked up the lyrics, translated them the best I could with my Portuguese for Spanish Speakers knowledge, ordered Bird of Paradise on CD Universe so I could own the song (since it was not available for download), opened the cover, and found the lyrics that floored me: "After I discovered that there is you, I never existed again." Damn. That was me and MTQ! I thereafter discovered that I loved Djavan as an artist in general. My favorite songs of his to sing include "Meu Bem Querer," and "Pétala." My favorite song to samba and sing to will always be "Flor de Lis," as I did many a time in my samba course. And while "Doidice" will always be my favorite, "Oceano" is I think one of his most beautiful. I'm not done learning his standards, as there are others, but this man is brilliant...Stevie Wonder agrees. They did "Samurai" together! Beautiful man in his 60s with his beautiful son, Max Viana, by his side at both concerts I went to.
Favorite lyrics: "Me apaixonei?/ Talvez, pode ser./ Enloqueci?/ Não sei, nunca vi./ Preciso sair/ depois que eu descobri que há você,/ nunca mais existi." - "Doidice" (see above)
Translated: I fell in love? Maybe, it could be. I went crazy? Don't know, I've never seen it. I need to get out. After I discovered that there is you, I never existed again.)
AND
"Assim que o dia amanheceu lá no mar alto da paixão/ dava pra ver o tempo ruir." - "Oceano" (see above)
Translated: Now that the day has dawned there in the high tides of passion, one is able to see time ruin. (So poetic!)
(3) Elis Regina Carvalho Costa - Elis Regina. Before I heard this woman's voice and knew who she was, all of my music babes had been mainly men. For this reason, my alto is the most developed, although I think I touch the range of a mezzo-soprano. Then, I hear the Portuguese version of "Corcovado" by my one of my standards, my original babes, Tom Jobim (to the point I'd consider naming one of my kids Antônio Carlos). I didn't know at the time who the female vocalist was of this song I'd heard the smokey voice of Astrud Gilberto sing in English, but I liked learning to sing along with it. She enunciated so clearly, so uniquely...it was gorgeous. I discovered later it was Elis. I wouldn't know about her until I traveled to Brazil, coming back from the public health center in São Paulo, turning on the small television in the pousada to the novela, "Ciranda da Pedra," and hearing Elis belt out "Redescobrir," which was the theme of the novela. I still get saudades when I see that opening...that was my first taste of Brazil, as I barely ate in those first few days, nervous as I was that I was in a country where I didn't really speak the language. And in a way, my finding Elis was really a rediscovery, because she died in 1982, before I was born and 26 years before I would know any of her music. But her vocal interpretations of Brazilian standards, which got her credited as creating Música Popular Brasileira, inspired me in ways that a female singer never had. I found myself aspiring to her range, her passion, her soul. I laughed with her in "Vou Deitar e Rolar," and "Canto de Ossanha." I danced gently over her enunciation in "Só Tinha de Ser Com Você," which I have vowed will be a lullaby for my children. I fell in love forever after uniquely with her interpretation of "Aguas de Março," my favorite song of all time, as well as Brazil's. And I will always be blown away and forever grateful for her rendition of a song I had known for years from Pandora, but never like this: "O Trem Azul." There are so much more of Elis I've yet to learn and hear, but with "O Trem Azul," I get a little taste of what it means for there to be life after death.
Favorite Vocals: "O Trem Azul," when she sings along with the electric guitar. Or, just listen to the song A Capella.
These are three artists whose music I have a lot of and never tire of, the songwriters and singers of the soundtracks of my life. I fell in love with MTQ over "Overjoyed," and it faded away with "Doidice." And B went away with "O Trem Azul." Just a few examples. Beautiful people with a most beautiful gift from God! Masha'Allah!
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Young Hotsy Totsy
As salaam alaikum,
Yesterday was my cousins 39th birthday. Yay, Cousin! She was always one of the big kids to me, as I guess she's 12 years older than me...I'm turning dundunDUN 27 this year. I'm not fearing it too much any more...the last time I feared turning an age, the year ended up awesomely...the last time I was okay with turning a year, the year still was awesome, but with an unawesome twist. Womp womp womp.
Anyway, my cousin will be 40 before I'm 30. Wow. Whereas 27 felt ancient to me before (the only reason is because this is the first time I've ever been 27...and my 20s were the first time I allowed myself to get out of child-brain and recognize that, why yes, sir, I am actually an adult...and being almost 30 is old for a child-brain person, hehe...), 39 is even more up there. Alhamdulillah, I have 12 long years before that!
So, I've gotten into making ecards for people from someecards.com. I love them, they tem a minha cara. They have my face, haha. They're sarcastic and biting, dry humor. Anyway, I decided to give her a card to wish her a happy birthday...below...
Yes! I thought this was the best picture, of a young hotsy totsy (haha, if I may borrow an outdated term) making pouty face at the poor, almost-over-the-hill cousin. I no longer feel old turning 27 (I feel 27 before I'm actually turning 27...I'm still the dreaded 26, haha), because she's 39, masha'Allah!
And insha'Allah I'll be as rambunctious and gutsy and beautiful as she is at 39...or even more!
But looking at this picture got me to thinking...hrm. I want to be a young hotsy totsy! I bethought myself that when I was in my early 20s. I felt like my peak was 20 and early 21, right before I wore hijab...ehh, which for me was the antithesis of bethinking myself young and hot, haha. And inspired a 30 pound weight gain, but that's neither here nor there. The reason I decided to take up hijab at the time, actually, was because I got so much male attention! Every time I turned around on Michigan's campus, I was getting waved at by this one, called out by the other one. I mean...truck drivers would honk, police men would call, all ethnicities, but mostly my lovely brown (Latino brown) and black men. I was like, oh my gosh, I must be a fine piece!
I didn't know the half of it, apparently...
And by the time I was 23 and had shed the khimar for the various reasons that I mentioned in a previous entry, I was more serious-minded...and I felt no longer like the young hotsie totsie. At 23! Ridículo!
So now, four years later, I'm almost 27. My weight since medical school has fluctuated 40 pounds. That 30 pound weight gain with the advent of hijab kind of opened the door of weight fluctuation into my early adult life. I've gone from weighing my high school weight to weighing what I did once I was okay with going to a co-ed gym in college to start shedding my hijabi weight (while I was still a hijabi, I lost 15 of those pounds...what a difference the gym makes!).
So blah blah blah weight. This wasn't meant to be a weight loss diary.
There's no reason why I can't be the young hotsy totsy for the rest of my pre-elderly life! I'm going to take the Brazilian perspective, as I've learned from novelas. There's no talk about the youth of the 30-somethings in the novelas...that is a given. They are young and beautiful people. The almost 50-somethings are told by their parents, "Você é jovem ainda!" You're still young!
Elderly characters talk about how they have all this life left to live...
And I love that! We don't have that here. In fact, I was telling one of my friends that I was the happiest in life when I was in Brazil, and it wasn't because of male attention, because I got no cat calls like I did in the DR. It was because I felt beautiful at baseline. I felt lovely, loved, desired and beautiful at baseline, just as I was, without the presence of anyone or the promise of anyone. I felt like everyone around me knew it, and it could have been a romanticization of my experience but I do feel like that was the vibe that I got from everyone.
Not that I'm saying everyone wanted me, haha, no...I just feel like my beauty as an individual human being, whether regarded by the other as an accident or creation, was just assumed.
I don't know...I feel like the climate is very different in the US. You get more the indifferent vibe, or even sometimes the hostile vibe, but not the your-beauty-is-a-given vibe. I don't know. I just felt happier and healthier there...
Oh yeah, and these older women one place told me I had a great body, which was hilarious...they were cute, they giggled. I was like, oh really?
No one in the US would ever tell me that unless it was a dude trying to entice me...
Anyway...this is not about me about to go out and show some leg, no. It's about me embracing my inner hotsy totsy...my inner vibrant, boisterous, happy, dancing, singing personality celebrating my youth and beauty que Deus me deu. I'm not going to say that 27 is old anymore...and I'll try not to do that anymore for any of my subsequent ages. I'm not as bright-eyed innocent as I was at 20, for sure, but I'm maybe even more excited about life, and hopeful, and activist, and all those other things that I aspired to be.
Insha'Allah, I have so much more life to live...to be old at 27 or 39.
Yesterday was my cousins 39th birthday. Yay, Cousin! She was always one of the big kids to me, as I guess she's 12 years older than me...I'm turning dundunDUN 27 this year. I'm not fearing it too much any more...the last time I feared turning an age, the year ended up awesomely...the last time I was okay with turning a year, the year still was awesome, but with an unawesome twist. Womp womp womp.
Anyway, my cousin will be 40 before I'm 30. Wow. Whereas 27 felt ancient to me before (the only reason is because this is the first time I've ever been 27...and my 20s were the first time I allowed myself to get out of child-brain and recognize that, why yes, sir, I am actually an adult...and being almost 30 is old for a child-brain person, hehe...), 39 is even more up there. Alhamdulillah, I have 12 long years before that!
So, I've gotten into making ecards for people from someecards.com. I love them, they tem a minha cara. They have my face, haha. They're sarcastic and biting, dry humor. Anyway, I decided to give her a card to wish her a happy birthday...below...
Yes! I thought this was the best picture, of a young hotsy totsy (haha, if I may borrow an outdated term) making pouty face at the poor, almost-over-the-hill cousin. I no longer feel old turning 27 (I feel 27 before I'm actually turning 27...I'm still the dreaded 26, haha), because she's 39, masha'Allah!
And insha'Allah I'll be as rambunctious and gutsy and beautiful as she is at 39...or even more!
But looking at this picture got me to thinking...hrm. I want to be a young hotsy totsy! I bethought myself that when I was in my early 20s. I felt like my peak was 20 and early 21, right before I wore hijab...ehh, which for me was the antithesis of bethinking myself young and hot, haha. And inspired a 30 pound weight gain, but that's neither here nor there. The reason I decided to take up hijab at the time, actually, was because I got so much male attention! Every time I turned around on Michigan's campus, I was getting waved at by this one, called out by the other one. I mean...truck drivers would honk, police men would call, all ethnicities, but mostly my lovely brown (Latino brown) and black men. I was like, oh my gosh, I must be a fine piece!
I didn't know the half of it, apparently...
And by the time I was 23 and had shed the khimar for the various reasons that I mentioned in a previous entry, I was more serious-minded...and I felt no longer like the young hotsie totsie. At 23! Ridículo!
So now, four years later, I'm almost 27. My weight since medical school has fluctuated 40 pounds. That 30 pound weight gain with the advent of hijab kind of opened the door of weight fluctuation into my early adult life. I've gone from weighing my high school weight to weighing what I did once I was okay with going to a co-ed gym in college to start shedding my hijabi weight (while I was still a hijabi, I lost 15 of those pounds...what a difference the gym makes!).
So blah blah blah weight. This wasn't meant to be a weight loss diary.
There's no reason why I can't be the young hotsy totsy for the rest of my pre-elderly life! I'm going to take the Brazilian perspective, as I've learned from novelas. There's no talk about the youth of the 30-somethings in the novelas...that is a given. They are young and beautiful people. The almost 50-somethings are told by their parents, "Você é jovem ainda!" You're still young!
Elderly characters talk about how they have all this life left to live...
And I love that! We don't have that here. In fact, I was telling one of my friends that I was the happiest in life when I was in Brazil, and it wasn't because of male attention, because I got no cat calls like I did in the DR. It was because I felt beautiful at baseline. I felt lovely, loved, desired and beautiful at baseline, just as I was, without the presence of anyone or the promise of anyone. I felt like everyone around me knew it, and it could have been a romanticization of my experience but I do feel like that was the vibe that I got from everyone.
Not that I'm saying everyone wanted me, haha, no...I just feel like my beauty as an individual human being, whether regarded by the other as an accident or creation, was just assumed.
I don't know...I feel like the climate is very different in the US. You get more the indifferent vibe, or even sometimes the hostile vibe, but not the your-beauty-is-a-given vibe. I don't know. I just felt happier and healthier there...
Oh yeah, and these older women one place told me I had a great body, which was hilarious...they were cute, they giggled. I was like, oh really?
No one in the US would ever tell me that unless it was a dude trying to entice me...
Anyway...this is not about me about to go out and show some leg, no. It's about me embracing my inner hotsy totsy...my inner vibrant, boisterous, happy, dancing, singing personality celebrating my youth and beauty que Deus me deu. I'm not going to say that 27 is old anymore...and I'll try not to do that anymore for any of my subsequent ages. I'm not as bright-eyed innocent as I was at 20, for sure, but I'm maybe even more excited about life, and hopeful, and activist, and all those other things that I aspired to be.
Insha'Allah, I have so much more life to live...to be old at 27 or 39.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
O meu amor conhece cada gesto seu...
As salaam alaikum,
I admit, I am a maior noveleira, and not really ashamed of it. Well...not really, haha, compared to like, actual Brazilians. I occasionally watch the novela das nove on globo through clandestine novela blogs...I don't really have time for anything else. I get wind of a lot of Brazilian music that way. I particularly like this one...has that eternal spring feeling that I love in a lot of genres of Brazilian music and throughout a lot of MPB...
The title translates to, "My love knows every one of your gestures." Fits perfectly with Paulo and Ester...I don't see how they're going to swing them getting back together! And, coitado de Guaracy...
I'm curious about how many other non-Brazilians in the US watch the novela das nove from Globo? I have a feeling more people are football fans...and as I saw one woman say of novelas, they are usually não vê-las (I don't see them)...hehehe.
I love Ana Carolina's voice, by the way! Shout out to the altos of the world, as much as I love to strain to be a mezzo-soprano, like Elis Regina.
I admit, I am a maior noveleira, and not really ashamed of it. Well...not really, haha, compared to like, actual Brazilians. I occasionally watch the novela das nove on globo through clandestine novela blogs...I don't really have time for anything else. I get wind of a lot of Brazilian music that way. I particularly like this one...has that eternal spring feeling that I love in a lot of genres of Brazilian music and throughout a lot of MPB...
The title translates to, "My love knows every one of your gestures." Fits perfectly with Paulo and Ester...I don't see how they're going to swing them getting back together! And, coitado de Guaracy...
I'm curious about how many other non-Brazilians in the US watch the novela das nove from Globo? I have a feeling more people are football fans...and as I saw one woman say of novelas, they are usually não vê-las (I don't see them)...hehehe.
I love Ana Carolina's voice, by the way! Shout out to the altos of the world, as much as I love to strain to be a mezzo-soprano, like Elis Regina.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
...and the crazy dreams continue!
As salaam alaikum,
I had a series of crazy, convoluted dreams last night. I feel like I dreamed the entire night.
In one dream, I was in the notorious mall of my dreams shopping in the women's clothing store for one of the characters in the novela I'm watching, Eunice. Eunice has very particular and expensive tastes, so I was pulling out things that I thought would appeal to her. I think I transitioned out of that dream before she tried anything on...
Also, lately in dreams, I've become people that I wasn't. In this other dream, I was living in Mexico and I was a Mexican-American woman who was pregnant. My husband was Mexican and he was the proprietor of a small neighborhood bar. Before my pregnancy, my husband and I would sometimes share a beer at the end of the day. But now I was pregnant, and he drank alone. One day, I decided that, like the women on the movies whose doctors said it was okay to drink wine every now and again during pregnancy, that it would be okay, if just this one time, to drink a beer while pregnant. So I took a flask of beer and sipped on it, hiding it behind my thigh when my husband came in so he wouldn't see it. It tasted so good (since I've never had beer in my life, I think it tasted like the ginger ale I drank before bed), I didn't think it would be a problem. So I sat by the window, looking out at the desolate countryside, sipping my beer, pregnant.
Then I switched back to being me. I was a fourth year medical student applying for residency. I felt my belly and I could feel the fundus of my uterus at the umbilicus. That made me about 20 weeks pregnant (yes, I was still pregnant). I suddenly became aware that I already had a little girl (maybe the little girl that I wanted to name Hasna from my dream that I had a baby for B) and that this one would be a boy. I was unmarried and not with the father, and I was still trying to complete my medical degree. I remember thinking how upset my mother would be if she found out and wondered how much longer I could keep it a secret. I looked in the mirror and sucked in my stomach, but it was no use. You could see the protrusion in my lower abdomen. I kept feeling the fundus and reflecting that it should have been a lot more uncomfortable. I resolved to practice my Leopold maneuvers on myself to know how to more gently touch a pregnant woman.
Even though this was my second pregnancy, I was still excited to feel the baby growing inside of me, to feel myself sustaining the pregnancy. I stopped pressing on my uterus for fear of causing myself to miscarry, which I acknowledged was a bit of a silly fear. And I reflected with satisfaction that I did not have hyperemesis gravidarum.
Then the last dream was a dream that was mixed Mad Men with medical school. One of my classmates was Cosgrove, and we were talking about how exclusive his apartment was. The apartment complex was connected to this agency we worked in, which was like in the middle of nowhere but the apartments were luxury and it was ultimate convenience getting to the office, though that meant you pretty much never left. We were going to sneak and check out his apartment without him knowing, but when we got ourselves into the lobby, there was a small buffet of fancy snack food waiting for us, as if we were in a conference. It was the realtor, I think, showing properties. So we stopped, and then Cosgrove and a cohort of my classmates came, bringing more food, making it a potluck. Soon, everyone was really my classmates from medical school, the ones who are graduating, mixed in with a few college friends. Then my mother and brother were at the end of the line, waiting for food. I hadn't seen my mother in a little bit, so I grabbed a pickle, which was more sweet than tart, and started talking to her about all of the food available.
With the parents of my family, the whole gathering became very sentimental. I don't think I was pregnant in this part of the dream.
I was in the process of making a plate when I woke up.
I had some other dreams, I believe, but those are the ones that stick out in my mind.
I had a series of crazy, convoluted dreams last night. I feel like I dreamed the entire night.
In one dream, I was in the notorious mall of my dreams shopping in the women's clothing store for one of the characters in the novela I'm watching, Eunice. Eunice has very particular and expensive tastes, so I was pulling out things that I thought would appeal to her. I think I transitioned out of that dream before she tried anything on...
Also, lately in dreams, I've become people that I wasn't. In this other dream, I was living in Mexico and I was a Mexican-American woman who was pregnant. My husband was Mexican and he was the proprietor of a small neighborhood bar. Before my pregnancy, my husband and I would sometimes share a beer at the end of the day. But now I was pregnant, and he drank alone. One day, I decided that, like the women on the movies whose doctors said it was okay to drink wine every now and again during pregnancy, that it would be okay, if just this one time, to drink a beer while pregnant. So I took a flask of beer and sipped on it, hiding it behind my thigh when my husband came in so he wouldn't see it. It tasted so good (since I've never had beer in my life, I think it tasted like the ginger ale I drank before bed), I didn't think it would be a problem. So I sat by the window, looking out at the desolate countryside, sipping my beer, pregnant.
Then I switched back to being me. I was a fourth year medical student applying for residency. I felt my belly and I could feel the fundus of my uterus at the umbilicus. That made me about 20 weeks pregnant (yes, I was still pregnant). I suddenly became aware that I already had a little girl (maybe the little girl that I wanted to name Hasna from my dream that I had a baby for B) and that this one would be a boy. I was unmarried and not with the father, and I was still trying to complete my medical degree. I remember thinking how upset my mother would be if she found out and wondered how much longer I could keep it a secret. I looked in the mirror and sucked in my stomach, but it was no use. You could see the protrusion in my lower abdomen. I kept feeling the fundus and reflecting that it should have been a lot more uncomfortable. I resolved to practice my Leopold maneuvers on myself to know how to more gently touch a pregnant woman.
Even though this was my second pregnancy, I was still excited to feel the baby growing inside of me, to feel myself sustaining the pregnancy. I stopped pressing on my uterus for fear of causing myself to miscarry, which I acknowledged was a bit of a silly fear. And I reflected with satisfaction that I did not have hyperemesis gravidarum.
Then the last dream was a dream that was mixed Mad Men with medical school. One of my classmates was Cosgrove, and we were talking about how exclusive his apartment was. The apartment complex was connected to this agency we worked in, which was like in the middle of nowhere but the apartments were luxury and it was ultimate convenience getting to the office, though that meant you pretty much never left. We were going to sneak and check out his apartment without him knowing, but when we got ourselves into the lobby, there was a small buffet of fancy snack food waiting for us, as if we were in a conference. It was the realtor, I think, showing properties. So we stopped, and then Cosgrove and a cohort of my classmates came, bringing more food, making it a potluck. Soon, everyone was really my classmates from medical school, the ones who are graduating, mixed in with a few college friends. Then my mother and brother were at the end of the line, waiting for food. I hadn't seen my mother in a little bit, so I grabbed a pickle, which was more sweet than tart, and started talking to her about all of the food available.
With the parents of my family, the whole gathering became very sentimental. I don't think I was pregnant in this part of the dream.
I was in the process of making a plate when I woke up.
I had some other dreams, I believe, but those are the ones that stick out in my mind.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Realization and Sexuality
As salaam alaikum,
First, this, the translation I remember my mother reciting:
By (the token of) time (through the ages),
Verily man is in loss,
Except for such as have faith, do righteous deeds,
and (join together) in the mutual teaching of truth
and of patience and constancy.
- Al-'Asr, A. Yusuf Ali
I made a realization that I've made many times before. I can't live this life alone. I can't live Islam as I see fit without a partner at least, without a community. The Qur'an and Sunnah provided us information on how to live together as Muslims, not on how to be an isolated Musilm in a secular community and society. I've stressed so much about this and wonder why things were so hard sometimes, but this is it. The nature of our realities on this earth is that we are products of our environment arriving to Allah (swt) at the end of it all by his grace alone, but there are means and agents of this process. Why else is it important for us to build strong communities except for us to come together and help guide each other? Because looking out at the world of Muslims today, a lot of us need guidance...and I'm not talking about guidance on frivolous things on which so many of us are unfortunately fixated. There are bigger fish to fry!
I often feared that I wasn't being a proper Muslimah, that I wasn't living up to a proper moral standard within Islam, but I realize that if I'm not interacting with other Muslims, many of those standards are virtually meaningless (not before Allah (swt), of course, but in social dealings). I realized that in the Dominican Republic, when I was the only Muslim in the region I lived in. I wore hijab. When I walked down the street, it meant nothing to the men. I was cat-called or harassed as much as the women in my group who wore their capri pants and tank tops, although I was also called Maria on occasion because of the misperception that I was a nun.
This is not me resigning myself or anything, it's just a realization. Islam makes the most sense in at least a partnership or a community context, as a means of governance of human relationships. It encourages faith as a group enterprise. It's not a magical thing that jammah salat is important...praying in a community of like-minded individuals, coming together united like that takes on greater meaning than always praying alone. I know...I usually pray alone.
Where did this come from? I was reading for my Sexuality and Public Health class (hundreds of pages of reading weekly, ladies and gents!), and I just made a realization. I was reading about social constructionism, that operates on the assumption that reality is a social construct. Extrapolating that to attraction and sexual orientation as the article was, it is impossible to segregate whatever biological meanings these two elements may have because they take on distinct meanings depending on one's culture. While an evolutionary theorist (or an essentialist) would posit that there are natural forms of attraction or sexual orientation (very Platonic of them), a social constructionist would argue that these two things are influenced by social circumstance.
For example, in some cultures, romantic love does not exist. They also gave the example of a culture where males are initiated into sexual activity with men only, get married and continue sexual activity with men while having sex with their wife, but are expected to only have sex with their wife after the birth of their first child. In this culture, there is no conception of homosexuality (which I tend to shy away from such declarative statements of what does and does not exist in one culture unless I am actually a part of said culture).
Anyway, with all of this...I thought of something I often say. I often say that our reality on this earth is actually our realities, and they are subjective. Even so, I believe in a singular reality of things, which is reflected in my belief in Islam. I believe that we each live separate realities in our heads, though these realities may be close matches in certain contexts (cultural and religious), they're all unique. There is a singular reality, a singular truth to all things. Some approach this Truth with theory, some with worship, some with both. Some ignore it for the sake of the reality of this life.
The article was trying to argue that an essentialist view and a social constructionist view were mutually exclusive, but I think it depends on how you define these terms and what elements of life you apply them to. For example, I am essentialist in the sense that I believe that elements of sentiment on this earth, such as mercy, truth, etc. are reflections of the more perfect forms of these attributes that are Allah (swt). Do I apply essentialism to attraction? No. I am social constructionist when it comes to those things.
For example, for my roommate, romantic love is not romantic love but sexual desire given the name love. For me, romantic love is not romantic love but the elation of imagining oneself married to a potential spouse, spending the rest of your life with them, having children, what the children will be like, etc. My roommate has no schema for this.
My view of romantic love is a reality for me, a subjective reality but a reality. It was formed by living in a society in which romantic love exists, and I'm influenced by that. But, being a Muslimah, it is unacceptable to me to place the cognitive meaning of romantic love on sexual desire as my roommate did. I wouldn't, after all, want to marry someone if I was influenced by that type of romantic love! So instead, I placed romantic love on another cognitive attribute...the desire to marry, spend the rest of my life with, and raise children with...whomever. It is not sexual desire...I've heard Muslims before equate sexual desire with the desire to marry, which I think is just as problematic (though not inherently wrong, just problematic) as equating romantic love with sexual desire.
I think what people define as love is different. It may be a mainstream US thing to equate some part of sexual desire with romantic love. As an American Muslim, I took my two paradigms (or three paradigms, if you include my black subculture) and that is how I define romantic love. It's based on finding one who understands, who you can talk to about anything, who is caring, compassionate...basically a bunch of characteristics that would also make a good husband. Romantic love for me is this growing realization that you could marry this person and the wonder of spending the rest of your life with another person, growing to know them and fit your life with them.
Sex...I usually have a hard time imagining sex. My roommates find this perplexing. Social constructionist theory also argues that sexuality is a social construct. Since my social influence is not strictly US culture, but also draws from my upbringing and my immersion in Islam...yeah, I can see that. People in my class would see my state as unnatural (abstinence), but really, sexuality as one experiences it is not a universal experience. People are interestingly egocentric when it comes to that...but I never assumed my sexuality was universally experienced by most other women, so it's surprising to me that other people believe so...
Anyway...I'm taking this class because sexual and reproductive health are my favorite topics ever, so yes...the theory behind these things is interesting. We'll see if I'm able to apply anything back to the clinic and wards...
Time to catch the shuttle in the midst of this Nor'easter!
First, this, the translation I remember my mother reciting:
By (the token of) time (through the ages),
Verily man is in loss,
Except for such as have faith, do righteous deeds,
and (join together) in the mutual teaching of truth
and of patience and constancy.
- Al-'Asr, A. Yusuf Ali
I made a realization that I've made many times before. I can't live this life alone. I can't live Islam as I see fit without a partner at least, without a community. The Qur'an and Sunnah provided us information on how to live together as Muslims, not on how to be an isolated Musilm in a secular community and society. I've stressed so much about this and wonder why things were so hard sometimes, but this is it. The nature of our realities on this earth is that we are products of our environment arriving to Allah (swt) at the end of it all by his grace alone, but there are means and agents of this process. Why else is it important for us to build strong communities except for us to come together and help guide each other? Because looking out at the world of Muslims today, a lot of us need guidance...and I'm not talking about guidance on frivolous things on which so many of us are unfortunately fixated. There are bigger fish to fry!
I often feared that I wasn't being a proper Muslimah, that I wasn't living up to a proper moral standard within Islam, but I realize that if I'm not interacting with other Muslims, many of those standards are virtually meaningless (not before Allah (swt), of course, but in social dealings). I realized that in the Dominican Republic, when I was the only Muslim in the region I lived in. I wore hijab. When I walked down the street, it meant nothing to the men. I was cat-called or harassed as much as the women in my group who wore their capri pants and tank tops, although I was also called Maria on occasion because of the misperception that I was a nun.
This is not me resigning myself or anything, it's just a realization. Islam makes the most sense in at least a partnership or a community context, as a means of governance of human relationships. It encourages faith as a group enterprise. It's not a magical thing that jammah salat is important...praying in a community of like-minded individuals, coming together united like that takes on greater meaning than always praying alone. I know...I usually pray alone.
Where did this come from? I was reading for my Sexuality and Public Health class (hundreds of pages of reading weekly, ladies and gents!), and I just made a realization. I was reading about social constructionism, that operates on the assumption that reality is a social construct. Extrapolating that to attraction and sexual orientation as the article was, it is impossible to segregate whatever biological meanings these two elements may have because they take on distinct meanings depending on one's culture. While an evolutionary theorist (or an essentialist) would posit that there are natural forms of attraction or sexual orientation (very Platonic of them), a social constructionist would argue that these two things are influenced by social circumstance.
For example, in some cultures, romantic love does not exist. They also gave the example of a culture where males are initiated into sexual activity with men only, get married and continue sexual activity with men while having sex with their wife, but are expected to only have sex with their wife after the birth of their first child. In this culture, there is no conception of homosexuality (which I tend to shy away from such declarative statements of what does and does not exist in one culture unless I am actually a part of said culture).
Anyway, with all of this...I thought of something I often say. I often say that our reality on this earth is actually our realities, and they are subjective. Even so, I believe in a singular reality of things, which is reflected in my belief in Islam. I believe that we each live separate realities in our heads, though these realities may be close matches in certain contexts (cultural and religious), they're all unique. There is a singular reality, a singular truth to all things. Some approach this Truth with theory, some with worship, some with both. Some ignore it for the sake of the reality of this life.
The article was trying to argue that an essentialist view and a social constructionist view were mutually exclusive, but I think it depends on how you define these terms and what elements of life you apply them to. For example, I am essentialist in the sense that I believe that elements of sentiment on this earth, such as mercy, truth, etc. are reflections of the more perfect forms of these attributes that are Allah (swt). Do I apply essentialism to attraction? No. I am social constructionist when it comes to those things.
For example, for my roommate, romantic love is not romantic love but sexual desire given the name love. For me, romantic love is not romantic love but the elation of imagining oneself married to a potential spouse, spending the rest of your life with them, having children, what the children will be like, etc. My roommate has no schema for this.
My view of romantic love is a reality for me, a subjective reality but a reality. It was formed by living in a society in which romantic love exists, and I'm influenced by that. But, being a Muslimah, it is unacceptable to me to place the cognitive meaning of romantic love on sexual desire as my roommate did. I wouldn't, after all, want to marry someone if I was influenced by that type of romantic love! So instead, I placed romantic love on another cognitive attribute...the desire to marry, spend the rest of my life with, and raise children with...whomever. It is not sexual desire...I've heard Muslims before equate sexual desire with the desire to marry, which I think is just as problematic (though not inherently wrong, just problematic) as equating romantic love with sexual desire.
I think what people define as love is different. It may be a mainstream US thing to equate some part of sexual desire with romantic love. As an American Muslim, I took my two paradigms (or three paradigms, if you include my black subculture) and that is how I define romantic love. It's based on finding one who understands, who you can talk to about anything, who is caring, compassionate...basically a bunch of characteristics that would also make a good husband. Romantic love for me is this growing realization that you could marry this person and the wonder of spending the rest of your life with another person, growing to know them and fit your life with them.
Sex...I usually have a hard time imagining sex. My roommates find this perplexing. Social constructionist theory also argues that sexuality is a social construct. Since my social influence is not strictly US culture, but also draws from my upbringing and my immersion in Islam...yeah, I can see that. People in my class would see my state as unnatural (abstinence), but really, sexuality as one experiences it is not a universal experience. People are interestingly egocentric when it comes to that...but I never assumed my sexuality was universally experienced by most other women, so it's surprising to me that other people believe so...
Anyway...I'm taking this class because sexual and reproductive health are my favorite topics ever, so yes...the theory behind these things is interesting. We'll see if I'm able to apply anything back to the clinic and wards...
Time to catch the shuttle in the midst of this Nor'easter!
Friday, September 17, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Cult of the Black Mama
As salaam alaikum,
I find when I'm stuck in front of a book, studying for hours, I have a lot of ideas for journal entries...of course, because I am studying and not at liberty to write whenever I want. I mean, I could...but then I'd never get any studying done.
So this is one I've been thinking about for a while.
Yes, Cult of the Black Mama. Let me explain.
So, back when I was at Michigan, I took a bunch of classes on race and history in Latin America. The first one I took was called "Writing Race and Nation in Latin America and the Caribbean" or something like that, and it was my first exposure to race in Brazil...the country that would later become a veritable love of my life.
Anyway, it was through this class that I learned a little bit about the Cult of the Mulata. In Cuba and Brazil especially, the mulata, specifically someone of mixed African and European heritage, has a specific space in culture. The mulata is a woman of unmatched beauty, sensual, graceful, the one that people always look for in dance, in front during the desfiles of the samba school, whatever. The mulata is also often objectified as a sexual object. Not as much in Brazil but in the Caribbean you also have the negra, that I feel exists more as an object than the mulata does.
But then again, the things coming to my mind right now are "Una mulata en la Habana" by Adalberto Alvarez and "Yo quiero un vacilón" by Toño Rosario ("yo quiero un vacilón con una negra sabrosa [...] negra, mueve la cintura").
It's not just Brazil and Cuba that have a bit of the Cult of the Mulata going on. The black community in the US has gone through waves of it, when you'd only see "light skinned" curly haired people on the cover of Ebony. These days, you're more likely to see a more mixed-looking woman on commercials than someone with chocolate skin and either natural or straightened hair.
And you know what, I'm actually not mad at any of that. I'm just going to do my own thing, so excuse me while I start the Cult of the Black Mama.
Because in these Latin American cultures and at least historically, not so much the case anymore, the way you got the mulata was through the black mama. Seriously, I read in my Latin American history classes so many eulogies for the mulata and how this was the perfect form for a woman...brown skin, curves with European features, all of this, and nothing about where these women came from. What about their black mothers? Not even worth a mention? They were good enough for these leaders and stuff to get with at the time but now only their daughters get the shout out?
I'm also not mad at that, either. In my Cult of the Black Mama, the black woman shall not be objectified. No moviendo de la cintura, no shaking ya a** and watching yourself, dropping it like it's hot, none of that. No Daisy Dukes and no apple bottom jeans.
For me, my black mama is the absolute matriarch. She is earthy, she lives organic, she is quintessential beauty. She is real, through and through, accepting her imperfections as coolly as she wipes sweat from her brow with her forearm. She is the cornerstone of family, she is loving, accepting, children under her arms and at her feet. She is unrecognized and gorgeous.
I've been part of the black woman fan club for a long time. As a result, all of the protagonists of every story that I've written have been black women. So, and this is probably as much of an intro to this new site as I'm going to give, it will become apparent as I explore about what it means to me to be black, a black Muslimah, whatever else, my feelings about the unique existence of the black woman in society.
So a roda da saia mulata não quer mais rodar, não senhor... The spin of the mulata's skirt doesn't want to spin anymore, no sir...
Welcome to Invisible Muslimah, The Cult of the Black Mama, and other such social anecdotes by Chinyere! It will be a fun trip.
Oh, by the way...smoke from 50 burning Canadian forest fires obscured the Boston skyline on Monday...it was pretty cool. The whole place smelled like smoke. You could have told folks it was the end of the world and they would have believed it.
Time to sleep. I work out in the mornings now, and given I'm on a diet I'll probably sleep again like a hog tonight.
I find when I'm stuck in front of a book, studying for hours, I have a lot of ideas for journal entries...of course, because I am studying and not at liberty to write whenever I want. I mean, I could...but then I'd never get any studying done.
So this is one I've been thinking about for a while.
Yes, Cult of the Black Mama. Let me explain.
So, back when I was at Michigan, I took a bunch of classes on race and history in Latin America. The first one I took was called "Writing Race and Nation in Latin America and the Caribbean" or something like that, and it was my first exposure to race in Brazil...the country that would later become a veritable love of my life.
Anyway, it was through this class that I learned a little bit about the Cult of the Mulata. In Cuba and Brazil especially, the mulata, specifically someone of mixed African and European heritage, has a specific space in culture. The mulata is a woman of unmatched beauty, sensual, graceful, the one that people always look for in dance, in front during the desfiles of the samba school, whatever. The mulata is also often objectified as a sexual object. Not as much in Brazil but in the Caribbean you also have the negra, that I feel exists more as an object than the mulata does.
But then again, the things coming to my mind right now are "Una mulata en la Habana" by Adalberto Alvarez and "Yo quiero un vacilón" by Toño Rosario ("yo quiero un vacilón con una negra sabrosa [...] negra, mueve la cintura").
It's not just Brazil and Cuba that have a bit of the Cult of the Mulata going on. The black community in the US has gone through waves of it, when you'd only see "light skinned" curly haired people on the cover of Ebony. These days, you're more likely to see a more mixed-looking woman on commercials than someone with chocolate skin and either natural or straightened hair.
And you know what, I'm actually not mad at any of that. I'm just going to do my own thing, so excuse me while I start the Cult of the Black Mama.
Because in these Latin American cultures and at least historically, not so much the case anymore, the way you got the mulata was through the black mama. Seriously, I read in my Latin American history classes so many eulogies for the mulata and how this was the perfect form for a woman...brown skin, curves with European features, all of this, and nothing about where these women came from. What about their black mothers? Not even worth a mention? They were good enough for these leaders and stuff to get with at the time but now only their daughters get the shout out?
I'm also not mad at that, either. In my Cult of the Black Mama, the black woman shall not be objectified. No moviendo de la cintura, no shaking ya a** and watching yourself, dropping it like it's hot, none of that. No Daisy Dukes and no apple bottom jeans.
For me, my black mama is the absolute matriarch. She is earthy, she lives organic, she is quintessential beauty. She is real, through and through, accepting her imperfections as coolly as she wipes sweat from her brow with her forearm. She is the cornerstone of family, she is loving, accepting, children under her arms and at her feet. She is unrecognized and gorgeous.
I've been part of the black woman fan club for a long time. As a result, all of the protagonists of every story that I've written have been black women. So, and this is probably as much of an intro to this new site as I'm going to give, it will become apparent as I explore about what it means to me to be black, a black Muslimah, whatever else, my feelings about the unique existence of the black woman in society.
So a roda da saia mulata não quer mais rodar, não senhor... The spin of the mulata's skirt doesn't want to spin anymore, no sir...
Welcome to Invisible Muslimah, The Cult of the Black Mama, and other such social anecdotes by Chinyere! It will be a fun trip.
Oh, by the way...smoke from 50 burning Canadian forest fires obscured the Boston skyline on Monday...it was pretty cool. The whole place smelled like smoke. You could have told folks it was the end of the world and they would have believed it.
Time to sleep. I work out in the mornings now, and given I'm on a diet I'll probably sleep again like a hog tonight.
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