I Never Existed Again

Salaam,

Me apaixonei?
Talvez, pode ser
Enloqueci?
Não sei, nunca vi
Preciso sair
Depois que eu descobri
Que há você
Nunca mais existi

I fell in love?
Maybe, it could be
I went crazy?
I don't know, I've never been there
I need to get out
After I discovered
That there is you
I never existed again.

I told the story of this song before. How I heard this song on my "Haiti" playlist on Pandora in 2008, how I excitedly ordered a CD imported from Brasil with the song on it since I couldn't download it on the internet, how I read the insert in the CD to find a translation of the song, and how I realized that the song put into words what I could not.

I fell in love with a man and then I never existed again.

Alas, the very thing I prayed to God wouldn't happened had happened. I fell in love with a man who would not be mine. Why? Why would God allow it?

Over 11 years later, I still don't know. But this song reminds me of that place.

No song that exists on earth speaks to me more than this one. No artist has more quickly become my favorite than Djavan for the fact that he wrote this song. Talk about killing me softly.

There was a time where I couldn't complete a task without thinking about how this man would be proud of me, as he said he was. Proud of how smart I was, amazed at how smart I was. "I amazed him," he told me once. I had never been admired so brightly and so earnestly by a man. It had to be love.

I was so convinced and he was so emblazoned into my person for years that the best way that I could put it is that I wasn't myself anymore. The me that I was before had stopped existing. I became other. And I never existed again.

I was never the same. I have not existed again. He's since married the woman I knew he would end up with. Years after I was over him, his wife came to me in a dream, and described what he was like at their wedding.

I did not know until days later that I dreamed of her on the day they married. I would later see a Facebook post in which she described him exactly as she described him to me in my dream--serious in the face of his upcoming responsibility as a married man.

It's been 11 years since I first fell for him, and I've moved on. We are at two opposite sides of the country living separate and completely full lives, but I had to dream about him to congratulate him on his son. I hadn't dreamed of him in years, but I guess that was an occasion.

In every manifestation of his life, I can now see that he was meant for her, and she was meant for him. I don't know why I ever came into the picture and interrupted destiny. And I don't mean that to be self-deprecating, because the whole thing sure as hell interrupted my life.

The piece in the anthology only tells part of the story. I was too shy to write about the raw obsession and the pain of disillusionment when I found out he had no idea that I liked him, let alone that I stopped existing because of him.

The best that I can say did come out of the whole experience in the manuscript that I'm gearing up to edit.

I can't believe it's been 11 years. We were two different people then. Now, we're doctors. He has a family, and I'm at the precipice of marrying, at least I hope. When we met, we had no idea where we'd be, what we'd be able to do. We were just two nerdy kids in an organic chemistry class.

He didn't know a black girl could be so smart. I didn't know that the annoying, boisterous kid who I dreaded seeing in class every week would change my life.

The me before I met him never existed again. I wanted that someone who felt so important in my life to remain in my life, but only God knows.

Body of Confessions: Long Hair

Salaam,

I'm on nights right now and I just squeezed by with only four hours of sleep. There is a mandatory diversity session at my residency tomorrow that I have to attend from 1-5pm, thus abdicating a full morning of sleep. I should have slept more, but I'm so excited that I have a little bit more time to write because I'm sleeping less.

Earlier this week, I decided to resume taking vitamins for hair and nails. I had taken these vitamins consistently for several months during medical school and saw some real results in terms of not only hair health but hair length unparalleled to my previous efforts. I stopped taking them, actually, only after I had lost some weight and the pills started making me nauseous. At that time, I also started doing some other hair care things that really improved my hair health overall, and I have seen more strength, health and growth than I have seen since I was 12 years old. I have had some breakage at my crown, though, so I decided it would be a good time to bring hair vitamins back into the mix.

Hair vitamins also have B complex, which is helpful for me for stress. When I started taking B complex in medical school (before I started hair vitamins), my mood improved tremendously in just a couple of weeks of resuming the vitamins.

Anyway, on the eve of taking the hair vitamins, I decided to also straighten my hair to trim my ends. I sometimes trim my ends with my hair straight so I can retain some type of straight shape, and other times when it's kinky by just clipping the ends of twists in my hair. I wanted to straighten it just to get a sense of its straight length.

After straightening my hair, I saw that my hair is actually longer than it has been probably since 2006 or so. It made me realize that I was not able to retain any length in my hair during medical school, probably mainly secondary to vitamin deficiency and stress. It's still odd to look at myself with my hair straight, not only because my hair lives in a puff atop my head for most of the year (which is actually conducive to breakage at my oft-neglected crown), but the last time my hair was straightened, it wasn't this long.

Because duh, hair grows.

And while I reveled in my new hair health, a baseline that so many take for granted, when I slept the next morning (since I'm on nights, I sleep during the day), I had a dream that I had straightened my hair and I was surprised to find that my hair was significantly longer--12 inches longer. And I reveled in having long hair just to awake and remember that though my hair is longer than it has been in a while, it is not that long.

And then I became instantly disappointed in myself.

Long hair, don't care? I feel like that is not a reality for many, if not most, black women. More like, long hair, absolutely do care.

I have lived a life that I tried to be as little about my hair as possible, in some parts of my life more than others (namely, the years where I wore khimar). After having a mother who fussed over how my hair basically dissolved away after chemical treatment, I did not to have any part of continuing that tradition, so I went natural. I stopped letting chemicals seep into my scalp every 6 weeks in favor of my natural texture, the touted "new growth" that for several years had been the nemesis to my attempts at bone-straight hair. I went natural, and all of the straight hair fell out. That was in 2003.

Years later, when the likes of Curly Nikki and Naptural85 and all of these other naturalistas came out, I had already arrived at a hair regimen of my own that mirrored popular natural hair care culture. Braiding my hair and then undoing it to have a longer puff was stretching, that thing I did to get spiraly hair was called flat twists, among other things.

I have worn my natural hair when it is only a few inches long and have struggled with it, sometimes inadvertently destroying my hair. I have not been about length, I have been about health in my daily hair care practices. The fact that I wear my hair in a puff most of the time is a testament to my favoring low-maintenance hair styles for my life as a busy resident.

But regardless of how I feel during the day and how much I am an advocate for love your body, including your hair, as it is, I have persistently had these dreams as an adult. As a child, I have not, only as an adult have I had these dreams where I wake up and my hair is significantly longer than it actually is in real life.

And I guess that's just it. At a subconscious level, I want to have much longer hair, hair that I can straighten and let blow in the wind, hair that I can let shrink and shake about my head and still have some length to it. It usually happens after I do my hair in a way I find particularly cute--invariably, I'll have a dream where it's even longer, and even cuter.

I think the fact of the matter is, subconsciously, so much of my idea of femininity is connected to long hair, and not just longer than men's hair, but long hair at base. And I've never had the length of hair that is in most cultures considered unquestionably female. And while the styles of my hair are generally more female, I have to count on the contours of my body and the way I dress to express more of my femininity, especially in those days I'm in a rush and can only do a puff.

And I wish it weren't like that. I wish I didn't have that subconscious desire to have longer hair, but it is there. It sometimes haunts me in my sleep after a day that I feel like was otherwise content. I know it's not about anyone else--it's about me. Because in the dream, each time, I'm waking up in the morning, preparing for my day, and looking in the mirror in surprise. No one else compliments me, no one else becomes attracted to me, no one else cares. It's just me in front of the mirror, marveling at my own self.

I'm usually thinner in these dreams, too, but I'll save that one for later.

The Other Side of the Storm

Salaam,

I'm waking up on the other side of the storm. I just completed 5 weeks of inpatient medicine where I was a senior on service. It was great - I learned a ton, I taught a ton, and I have so much more to learn. I passed Step 3, I'm completely done with the USMLE and I'm one step closer to being a sho' nuff doctor. I'm coasting through the rest of second year with all outpatient rotations after being fairly front-loaded.

And my life around me is a bit of a mess.

I'm sure I have some rotting food in my fridge that I'll soon be obligated to touch to throw out, my bathroom is the nastiest I've ever let a bathroom get (I have a low tolerance for bathroom mess), I have one load of laundry left to do, a bunch of clean laundry to hang and a whole new bunch of laundry piling up in my hamper. I have weeks of eating hospital food catching up with me and I'm off my wellness game. I have evaluations to complete, procedures to log, continuities to track, all sorts of things. I basically have my work cut out for me right now.

But...I'm going to take it one step at a time. Tonight, laundry will go unwashed, the tub will keep it's ring, the rotting food that is now frozen in time in my freezer will freeze another day. After clinic, I will go to the gym, I will come back and do a hot oil treatment, shower and shampoo, and then chill the rest of the evening.

Early spring cleaning? I'll save that for Friday after the gym.

I admittedly let myself go during this last block in favor of being a present, active, senior. I had a bunch of awesome interns that made my job easy. And I think I did the right thing. In order to be as fully committed to service as possible as a resident, you have to siphon some energy from other parts of your life sometimes. The part that I didn't want to sacrifice were relationships. So I kept relationships up and running, maintained the bare minimum personal hygiene, and pushed forward on service.

Last night leaving was relatively cathartic. But residency goes on.

Now what? I have a full day of clinic, then I begin our behavioral health block. I look forward to hanging out with my second year class and sorting out the untidiness in my life and faith right now.


On a slightly unrelated note, I only have nightmares when I sleep on my back. Last night, I had a disturbing dream that the world around me was being destroyed by huge bombs. Already, several people had died and the world was left in a state of anarchy and uncertainty. I was back at home, and it was only my mother and I at home at the time. I don't know where my father and brother were. I was sitting at the table, eating a breakfast of mixed fruit (which was dream fruit so it didn't look like real fruit) that I think was good. My mother and I were having a good morning, shrouded in the fact that we were living each moment like we could get killed the next. It was so scary, but I was a full physician at this time and I had to drive out to work. The problem was, I didn't know which route to take. There was a freeway exchange in my dreams (way back...I'm reaching back, now, because I hadn't had a dream about that exit in a while) that I usually avoided taking when leaving Ann Arbor but that I'd have to take because my other route had recently been destroyed.

And although we knew that we could get killed at any moment, our moments were filled with constant prayer and we had faith in God that we would be seen through. And with all of this on my mind, I ate the fruit plate before me and chatted with my mother about the state of the world as the sun shone more brightly than it usually does in Michigan and as the deceptively tranquil day was before us with blue skies.

I woke up, fearing for my life, sleeping on my back with my head to the side, looking at my open closet. Not sure why I only have nightmares when sleeping on my back.

The Ideal

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.

Superwoman

Salaam,

"Very well
I believe I know you
Very well
Wish that you knew me, too
Very well
And I think I can deal with everything going through your head."
--Stevie Wonder "Superwoman/Where Were you When I Needed You."

After the summer of 2004, before I started to lose my grip on reality and when I began to sense that a relationship between me and MQ was not to be, this song was my theme song. Or rather, my theme song for how I felt about him.

For whatever reason, I felt like I knew him well, if he'd just let me tell him about himself. He would see that I knew him well, and he would come to love me for it. And together, we could deal with everything going through his head.

But then there was this cumbersome part of the lyric to reconcile, and that was about Mary wanting to be a superwoman.

The woman that I was early college, I wasn't into that lyric. What's wrong with Mary wanting to be a superwoman, I asked myself...and probably seriously asked my mother. She didn't give me an answer. For those who have never enjoyed this wonderful Stevie song, here is a sampling of not just the chorus:

"Mary wants to be a superwoman
But is that really in her head?
'Cause I just wanna live each day
And love her for what she is

"Mary wants to be another movie star
But is that really in her mind?
And all the things she wants to be
She needs to leave behind."

Then it launches into the "very well" part.

As my brother is want to say, I took offense to this lyric. Why does Mary have to leave behind the things she wants to do? Her dreams, her aspirations, just for this man? And he claims to know her very well, well enough to know what is best for her as if she doesn't.

"My woman wants to be a superwoman
And I just had to say goodbye
Because I can't spend all my hours
Start to cry."

And like that, it's over.

The lyrics were based on Stevie's relationship with his first wife who had aspirations to be a singer herself. I think he helped produce her first album or something, but it was splitsville from there.

Towards the end of that marriage, Stevie wrote "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" for a woman not his wife. Burn.

Just a little music trivia there.

I took offense and I told myself I never wanted to be with a man who wouldn't let me be a superwoman. Because I've always imagined myself being somewhat of a superwoman. That image has metamorphosed over time...

From my 6-year-old imaginings of a thinner, browner-skinned version of myself sporting bantu knots, a tank top and capri jeans singing "Yes and yes indeed, nobody's just a-right for me," while passing by interested young black men on either side of me in an elaborate fantasy music video daydream to my 21-year-old image of myself in black hijab and jilbab with my activist husband to my left and my young son on my hip, overlooking the landscape of the human rights march we had organized, I always imagine myself a superwoman.

That has got to be the longest sentence I've ever written.

These days, superwoman me is a bit nebulous at best. I see her as some kind of leader in medicine, leader in her community, loving wife and mother, champion of the underserved. I don't see my hair texture or color or whether or not its covered. I don't see the color of my husband or my babies. I don't see my size and I don't hear my voice and the specific of my aspirations I don't know, but I do know I want to be great.

But is that beyond what I am?

Maybe I don't have within me to be a leader. Maybe I'm too soft spoken and accommodating. I've certainly had time in my life to be as activist as I want to be, and I haven't done nearly what I could have done.

Maybe I want to be a superwoman, but that's not really what's in my head. Maybe I should just be satisfied with who I am and go on from there.

...I still take issue with someone telling you, for the sake of your relationship, to forsake your ambitions. Although, at least he left without giving an ultimatum.

The truth of the matter is that I am not the superwoman I saw myself being when I was younger and even among the things I'm relatively good at, I'm mediocre at best at them in the grand scheme of things. I'm relatively poorly read, I'm not that good of a writer, I am not a model Muslimah, and my body has swung on the pendulum back to the fat side of things. My hair is broken at the crown in spite of its growth, and I'm an okay family medicine resident. I'm an occasionally disappointing daughter (to my father) and a distant sister. I'm a hesitant significant other. I'm not the best at anything that I do.

And you know what, that's okay.

Maybe now I can focus on making real goals in my life and not idealized ones, just as I will focus on making a life with a real man in my life, and not an idealized one.

One who I do not know very well. One who I'm not sure I can deal with everything inside his head. And I won't be able to. But that doesn't preclude me from becoming part of his life.

And now I've come full circle.

Dissociation

Salaam,

Dissociation. It's a funny looking word when you stare at it almost immediately. It's that feeling one gets when they've sacrificed themselves entirely to something or someone not themselves and have little self left for his or herself at the end. It's the feeling I used to get after long days as a third year medical student, caring for patients, trying to figure out what was expected of me and comply with that, living for compassion and living for a grade.

I hadn't had that feeling in residency so much until this last night shift. I woke up, tossing and turning, unable to sleep more than three hours after the last shift in which I was absolutely exhausted. I keep thinking about the last patient we admitted. I keep thinking about the family meetings, his grandchildren sprawled out on the floor crying, running out of the room intermittently, bowing their heads, trying to understand, in an instance, death that they apparently did not see looming.

I was tempted to log into the computer to see if he's still alive. If I keep thinking about him, I'll have to. He may not be. I wish I could close the loop with the family and debrief. I wish I could be there, in spite of my lack of sleep.

I couldn't turn in my bed but for dreaming I was in the hospital. So I just had to sit up. And purposeless tears flowed down my face. I did not start them nor stop them. They came on their own.

I think I'm tired, too. Last night, I started losing my sense of self. I felt isolated, I felt apart, I felt different. I feel alien. I feel like I'm different from everyone else. I feel like no one can relate to me, not my classmates, not anyone in my program, not my SO. I felt alien in the music that I like, my sensibilities, the way I dress, the way I think, the way I am.

I think it's all happening because last night was a rough night, I put too much of myself into that family meeting, that patient encounter, gently touching the man who may be dying and speaking to him softly so he wouldn't feel discouraged as his granddaughter, not understanding the gravity of his illness, told me how his legs had been becoming cold before he was admitted. It was hard and I had to be strong. It was hard when I had to be strong because I'm in this position right now because I was inappropriately weak. I can't be weak now.

I think it's all happening because I'm also in transition, a transition that's been long in coming. A transition in my faith, a transition that is not complete but that will be long. I've lost elements of my life that used to give it meaning. My life still has meaning, of course, but in some ways it's so different I barely recognize myself.

I'm in the same in the mirror, and that I'm so the same in the mirror despite how different I sometimes feel inside feels incongruent.

It doesn't make sense that I look the same. I should look different.

I feel like dropping off the face of the earth. Not really. I feel like disappearing for sometime, into myself, away from everyone else, like I used to have the luxury to, to listen to the music that I like that no one else cares for, to dance my samba in peace. I feel like taking long walks alone, reflecting alone, being by myself. I feel like being present only in a professional sense.

And now the tears are purposeful.

Sometime in the course of last night, I completed a turn of dissociation.

I can't be someone I'm not, and I can't play like every way that I've changed since I've started this residency isn't a big deal.

Dreams for My Brother

As salaam alaikum,

As I was walking drowsily home from work today--another uneventful night shift of one early admit and plenty of sleep--I started thinking of things that my brother and I would do if I were to become his guardian. I imagined me coming home from work and working out in the gym with a personal trainer, and my brother also having a trainer work with him on running and weight training. I imagined how healthy and handsome my brother would be if someone actually challenged him in the gym like that.

Though insha'Allah my parents will be able to take care of my brother for some time, the fact that I'll one day be my brother's guardian does cross my mind. Whether I imagine myself as a single, forty-something woman with her forty-something brother, a wife with kids and my brother being Uncle, a wife with kids helping my brother raise his own child or children, it's something I think about periodically when my mind is quiet and at peace.

It's not something stressful for me, but I must admit, I have lot of dreams for my brother. Dreams that are perhaps ambitious. Dreams that perhaps are unwarranted.


My mother claims she was the first one to say that the baseline in the first few bars of this classic Stevie song, "Another Star," sounded like my brother's head, but I remember it being me that said this reminded me of my brother's head.

It's hard to explain, but having known my brother for the past 25 years of his life, and especially as a child, the first few bars of this song is the closest to what I think it'd sound like to be in his head. What his head sounded like to my family. What my love for him felt like then and what it feels like sometimes now.

My brother has autism and epilepsy. He takes three medications three times a day to not have a seizure daily. The better his seizures are under control, the more I watch him continue to grow, even as an adult. The older he gets, the more hope I have for his healthy and happy future that is more expansive than the college-education paradigm.

My brother, like any individual, is like a bud on a tree, bursting with potential energy at all times. My brother is the son of two loving parents who are helping him plan his future and have fought for decades now to ensure his education and well-being. They are his biggest advocates, and for years I was integral in advocating, as the second closest person to him for many years, who understood his idiosyncrasies, his manner of speech, his desires more than my parents could at times. I was his interpreter for many years.

I could tell my parents that when he sang the lyrics "upside-down world" in a slight minor key, he was distressed and feeling like things weren't making sense. This was back in the days when he was scripting as his primary language, taking very appropriately phrases and refrains from cartoon dialogue and song to express how he was feeling. I watched a lot of the cartoons he did at the time and knew exactly where his phrases came from.

So I'd say, "Mommy, he got that from the cartoon..."

And he'd hold his hands out, as if embarrassed, "No no, wait, stop..."

My brother does not like watching family videos because he's embarrassed by his behavior as a child. I wish...

And this is where my dreams begin. I wish someone would find a delicate way to explain to my brother that he has autism. Which is where I part from my parents' party line. I agree with my mother that it may not be necessary, and why stress him when he already knows he's different, but part of me thinks that if there was a developmentally-appropriate way to explain it to him, maybe he would understand a little bit why its hard for him to communicate things and understand certain things, and maybe he would find new ways to adapt.

Just like it was him who came up with the idea to have a medicine alarm so he wouldn't miss a dose like he has so many times before. Since I helped him set up the alarm on his iPod touch, he hasn't missed a dose since. And he's been on antiepileptics for 15 years.

I wish I could find an sensitive way to explain to my brother his difference and set at ease some of the anxiety I know he feels at recognizing this, and help him move forward with this realization to become all that he may want to be.

I wish I could find opportunities to motivate my brother to do something that not only makes him happy, but helps him participate in his larger community as a productive and happy member of society.

I wish I could, yes, take my brother to the gym, get him a personal trainer that is willing and able to work with a young adult with autism and get him to a state of health he's never been.

I wish I could draw from several male role models for my brother as he continues to become the man he will be.

So many dreams for my brother. Cure is never a question for me. I just want his ability to communicate all that he feels and all that he is to be maximized. I've never known my brother any other way than through the filter of autism, and I see his personality, preserved in absolute innocence that few of us are able to maintain.

I have dreams for my brother and I've had dreams of my brother before, neurotypical, in a suit and tie, walking amongst his colleagues, important people in black and gray with neat suitcases, walking down the streets of Baltimore just outside of Hopkins, him looking up and recognizing his sister, nodding, and continuing with the conversation lingering from his meeting.

And what a beautiful dream it was to get a glimpse of what my brother might have been if it weren't for autism. And to know that I loved my real brother no less or was no less proud of him despite this brief image was a relief. In a realm outside of my brother's body, he exists like this.

And one day, insha'Allah, we'll get to know each other in that way, outside of the filter of autism. I rarely think about that, but now somehow I know.

This is my brother, and I love him and if I need to I will go to the end of the earth for him. That bass line is his head, the sound of my love for him as I understand him. That bass line reminds me of everything I want for him, everything I dream for him.

To start, I want my parents to get set up an email account for him so I can start writing to him to help him with his writing.

And buy him a cell phone so I can make his Head Music his ringtone.

I Hate to Admit it, but...

As salaam alaikum,

I hate to admit it, but...

I'm still slightly freaked out by E.T. I saw the updated poster for the movie...his arm looked too skinny. I didn't like it. I had to navigate away from the page for fear of having a movie nightmare.

What is a movie nightmare?

A nightmare where you are watching a movie you've seen several times and you slowly realize that it's not going as you remembered it, just to come to a head near the end of your dream when things are terrifyingly different and someone tries to force you to continue looking at the screen as scary music starts to play in the background.

Insha'Allah, I will not have such a dream tonight! I'm praying on it!

Since childhood, I've had odd dreams and odd things I've found scary. Monsters? I never had a schema for those. When I was a 4 year old, I was afraid of microwaves and VCRs. VCRs in the 1980s had horrible tracking, sometimes manual tracking, and sometimes VHS tapes did not withstand the test of time or children under 5. So sometimes the video would be messed up or (worse) the sound would be warped. And I hated that...I used to have nightmares about that.

And microwaves...something must have happened as a kid, but I still have a specific phobia surrounding things I can't even discuss for fear of my throat beginning to close up.

The movie nightmare is a dream sequence that has stood the test of time in my scariest nightmares. I've had dreams that I've been pursued by murderers, that loved ones are dying, that I'm in a car accident, but nothing is so scary to me as the movie nightmares and the likes of them.

Anything that warps and bends reality in a way that is nonsensical. I mean, I could get into a car accident, or a family member could die.

But E.T.'s body being too skinny or the wrong color or his voice sounding completely different in a dream of the movie that I'm watching...I hate those! It takes me so long to get back to sleep!

That's why it amuses me so much that other people were afraid of such logos as this when they were kiddos, and how many of them post these on YouTube.

I'm not the only weirdo scared by odd things! Sweet!

...insha'Allah I'll sleep like a log and not be scared in my sleep...

Dead at 36

As salaam alaikum,

I take a short break from my regularly scheduled blog...to share something I heard in this documentary I watched that particularly resonated with me:

"If a man happens to be 36-years old as I happen to be and some great truth stands before the door of his life, some great opportunity to stand for that which is right. And the man might be afraid his home will be bombed, or he's afraid that he will lose his job, or he's afraid that he will get shot or beat down by state troopers...He may go on to live until he's 80. But he's just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80, and the sensation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit..." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm only 27, not 36, but could I be dead at 27? Am I standing for truth in my life and not fearing outcome for the sake of survival in tyranny? Insha'Allah the action I take in life is toward truth, and I'm not simply going through the motions of a life tending toward entropy, as it is if we just leave things as they are. Maybe the situation isn't as dire as it was in King's time.

Oh, but it is.

Folks just got quiet and continued doing so much dirty work. It's easy to hide it.

A Net of Birds

As salaam alaikum,

I just attended yet another great conference, this one that I liked even more than the last: Expression of Islam in Contemporary African American Communities. I'll reflect on this later. There's a series of other things that I need to reflect on first, however.

The first one was a dream I had last night.

I had a dream that I saved a baby sparrow from its most certain demise. The sparrow was not yet mature, but I believed it to be loyal to me. It had been injured and was now healing, but had a little, black rubber tag, cylindrical, around its little stick leg as an identification.

For some reason, my parents were collecting birds to include in some master recipe. This meal would be prepared consecutively, so many birds would have to be sacrificed.

And for some reason, we had a house full of birds. Most of them were sparrows, but some were pigeons, mourning doves and blue jays. Those were the ones that I remembered.

Anyway, in order to collect the birds for the sacrificial stew, so to speak, my parents, but I mainly remember my mother, held up a basket-woven net connected to a large trash bag. This way, the birds would fly through the round openings in this basket net and not be able to fly out, thereby being captured.

I really didn't think this scheme was going to work, so I was at first unconcerned...until my mother held up this odd net contraption and birds from everywhere in my old house (because this was all taking place on the steps to the upstairs in my childhood house) flew in to the net obediently, effectively capturing themselves for the kill.

Nor did they protest or flap around at all once they were trapped. They just complied, silently.

And then, I remembered my young sparrow. He or she (it was too young for me to tell the difference) was perching on my finger. I figured that it was loyal to me and would not be tricked into flying into the trap like all the other birds so dutifully did. But I was deceived. Though it did so later, my baby sparrow flew into the top of the net and disappeared amongst the numerous other sparrows, only distinguishable by the black tag on its leg that I could no longer see.

And I was crestfallen, but I didn't let it show and I was also in denial. I knew that was it for my baby bird that I nursed to health that wasn't even done healing yet. I wonder if it knew that it was flying to its own death, or was it just a cheerful little bird just trying to go where the other beings like him or her were going. The birds chirped happily, as some of them perched on the net.

So many thoughts went through my mind. I thought, well, the death will be quick, and my baby bird won't suffer and he or she will get to be with its own kind soon in the Hereafter. I also tried to see if I could see my birdie in the translucent bag so I could rescue her or him and sneak away with it, not looking back.

But I also felt a sense of resignation. I knew that, since my bird flew into the trap, it was destined for this odd, ritual sacrifice that I somehow did not question that much. I felt like it was something I just had to do. My only hope was that, since there were now easily over a hundred birds in the net, that maybe my bird would not be of those selected for the day's sacrificial stew, though, for the sake of my own suffering, I hoped that the stew was all cooked in one day so I would not have to suffer the agony of thinking of my baby bird.

And this is a stew that I would have to partake of, mind you. I also feared eating my baby bird. I'd have to eat the stew.

My mother was moderately surprised that so many birds had flown into the trap, and was contemplating what to do with them all as she made her way to the kitchen of my childhood home.

And then I either woke up shortly after or I switched dreams.

I tell you, I've had odd dreams in my day, but this dream was odd in content and emotion. I felt ambivalence as my beloved baby bird that I had nursed to health chose his or her own kind over me, and then flew to its certain demise, and I was helpless in determining its fate. Ambivalence and sadness, helplessness, resignation...

My dreams are so complicated these days, I can't begin to tell you what they mean.

[uncensored]: Breaking the Fourth Wall

As salaam alaikum,

So, I started up this blog, and it's predecessor, (the xanga version), with the intention of living Islam in every aspect of my life, including my blog. If I intend to submit my entire self to God, I figured, and if I wanted to be able to do nearly everything in my life in the name of God, then what I blog about should be no exception. I wanted a place where I was comfortable reviewing what I was learning as a Muslimah (the original, xanga version) and just reflecting on my life through my Muslim lens (this blog).

Sometimes, I have these entries called [uncensored]. I never really explained them, but I will now. I usually label entries as [uncensored] when I feel it's important to express myself in a raw way without employing my usual purity, my Muslimah censor. That includes using curse words on occasion if my spirit so moves me. That includes talking about things I wouldn't usually talk about, or revealing details about my life that I usual don't. I hadn't done one in a while because I didn't feel so inclined. I was happy about life and possibilities seemed to abound.

How fickle that feeling is.

So, in this entry, I need to vent. I'm breaking the fourth wall. What does this mean? You can wikipedia it, but I learned about it in the context of television shows. Will Smith on Fresh Prince broke the fourth wall a few times, notably when the actress for Aunt Vivian changed or when baby Nicky grew up form an infant to a preschool age child in one season. Perhaps one of the most famous instances in television history of breaking the fourth wall (and also in the literal sense) was when Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad danced off the set of The Cosby Show on the last episode, revealing to the television audience for the first time what the set looked like.

I still get emotional when I see that! That show brought so many happy memories for me, though surprisingly, has little (consciously) to do with me wanting to practice obstetrics.

So that's breaking the fourth wall. So now I'm going to break the fourth wall, if just for one entry. Because there are just some things that happen in my life as a Muslimah that I either censor or omit, and I just have to be real for a little bit.


Before I decided to become a better Muslim, I was known as the sweetheart. The good girl, don't ever change type of deal. I still am, I guess, but it's brought me mostly pain and isolation.

Being a good Muslimah in the way I see most fit has brought me mostly pain and isolation. I pray to God for solace, and maybe it is that I'm getting it, and things would have been much worse if not.

Maybe.

Like my story in the anthology, most of the time, I feel like I'm an unfortunate, hybrid bird doing his mating dance alone in a field, and any mates that would have otherwise been interested are passing me by. The one thing I struggle with in my faith is believing, and actually believing, that someone, one day, will love me for who I am, for all of who I am. I struggle believing that. I so struggle believing that. I always have.

I have faith in God when it comes to my career, residency, all of these things. I have faith in God when it comes to the future of my family, my parents and my brother. My faith is weak when it comes to my future, wanting to have a family of my own, my own children. And it causes me a lot of despair, because I know how much I want it and I feel like God may not want it for me, and I don't understand why, but I feel trapped. I feel like I'm trapped in a world where I may really want something and God, in His infinite wisdom, doesn't want it, and I'll not know why until I return to him.

And it's so painful, and I'm so lonely.

I've hoped and prayed for so many things. I've hoped and prayed for my husband to fall out of the sky. I've searched for my husband in some of the men I've known. I've been rejected in a way that was really painful for me. I've been passed over. I've been ignored. All the while I've been lonely, hoping for the companion that I could share my Islam with, hoping for a companion that I could share my life with.

And I guess I'm only 27. This is a wait that really has no bounds. This is a wait that has no limit. And that's maddening to me. Absolutely maddening. It's one of those things I wonder why and I despair because the only answer I have is that God "knows what [I] know not."

I have to repeat to myself, over and over, "Consider the bright morning hours, and the night as it grows still and dark. Thy Sustainer has not foresaken thee, nor does he scorn thee. For, indeed, the life to comee will be better for thee than this earlier part [of thy life]! And, indeed, in time will thy Susatainer grant thee [what thy heart desires], and thou shalt bee well-pleased." (93:1-5)

The truth is, I'm despairing because I finally just cut B out of my life. I just had an elaborate dream about all of the possible women his new girlfriend could be. The reality is, I was talking to a Muslim man, Y, who I thought was interested in getting to know me for possible marriage. He called me last night, and I didn't pick up, because he informed me that he's talking to another woman and his ex is back and wants to learn about Islam. I talked to his ex about Islam. What else is there for us to say to each other?

The truth is, I struggle in a world where Muslim men will perhaps disapprove of me for the way that I practice, the way I comfortably do not don the hijab and would not do so for a future husband, the way that I do not really believe in the obligatory-recommended-discouraged-forbidden scheme of things when it comes to my religion and depend on saying salat "because I want to because God knows what's best for me." I struggle in a world where my pool is small. I struggle in a world where I am open to non-Muslim men, but where they are basically looking for free sex and are disappointed when they find they won't find it in me.

There's no place that I can look to find a future husband. I'm afraid that no one will accept me as I am. I am a 27-year-old Muslimah. I've never had sex but, God have mercy, I have known some intimacy with men. I was in a short relationship with a non-Muslim man who randomly was no longer attracted to me, and I suffered from that rejection. My Islam is simple and organic, more spirituality than law. I don't like living strictly by dos and don'ts and I live in a way that makes sense for my well-being, with the spiritual wisdom of revelation. I have no doubt that people who don't call themselves Muslim who believe in God and are good people and do good deeds overall will have a place with my Sustainer in the Hereafter along with me, insha'Allah, so that one says it's obligatory for me to do X, Y and Z as a Muslimah doesn't make sense to me if I know believers of other faiths who do not do this will also have their place with my Sustainer. It is obligatory, or what? It is a sin if I don't do it? Obligatory or hellfire? Is it that they don't know better, but I do? It could be. But the God I grew up with, the God that my mother taught me about...isn't like that.

Allahu a'alam.

We all try to do our best, anyway. I've tried to do my best as I've come into Islam and formed my own opinions of things. I've tried to do my best to understand why God wants me to be single right now and why I stumbled in a past relationship instead of finding a man who fit in my life. I don't understand. I struggle to understand. I struggle.

It was something I needed to live, that relationship. Something I needed to get out of my system. I had a pent up notion of sexuality and a pent up sexuality that I thought I needed to validate that I needed to get out of my system before I could begin healthy abstinence, meaningful abstinence and a healthy relationship with someone else.

I know that.

I wondered why, when I looked at him, I had this feeling, "You're going to end up with him." I was surprised, because he wasn't my type, and distressed, because I didn't get a sense of timeline. I just knew we were going to be in a relationship, but I didn't know how long it would last. I just heard it like a voice, like I've heard other things that will perhaps materialize, surprisingly, in my life. You're going to end up with him, the voice said, and I recorded it in my old journal back in April 2010, and I tried to ignore it, deny it.

And there it was. It happened. Now what?

So I'm breaking the fourth wall. I struggle with my beliefs. I'm an invisible Muslimah because I don't wear the scarf and there's not a lot of other ways that you could recognize that I'm Muslim, besides the times I may disappear for salat, but I usually pray when no one is around. Besides the content of my character and the goodness of my heart, masha'Allah. Besides my sense of justice and charity. But you can't see those things on the outside. So maybe I'm still invisible.

I struggle with trying to find what I feel is the purest sense of my religion and the purest way for me to live in this society. I believe in ways people will disagree with because of my trepidation with the law. I struggle to believe that God wants for me what I want, even though it's half of my religion, simply because it's not come yet and I have no signs of it. And I've touched men before.

This is me, breaking my fourth wall. This is me, no longer just reflecting on the more halal parts of my life. This is me being rough around the edges as I always was, and always will be. This is me taking a break to be human.

This is me imploring God for guidance, as always, and hoping that, every day a little bit, and cumulatively to the end of my life, that He is pleased with me.

This is me.

In Wait for Mr. Right

As salaam alaikum,

After the thing with Y didn't work out (long story...long, happily hilarious story, haha!) I suddenly felt free! It was inexplicable. Instead of my usual moping after the end of a relationship (or not-relationship, as this case was) and believing that "no man likes me," I went to sleep, had a crazy dream where I felt freer than I ever have (but, for the sake of self-censorship, haha, will not reveal), and woke up and had an awesome day.

There was something liberating about not waiting around any more for this man to decide if he wanted to be with me or not, or get things started. There was something liberating about trying to make him fit in my man paradigm just because he was the one who liked me. Especially after I made the declaration "No more Nigerians!" (not that I'm excluding my motherland brothers entirely...but the record, brothers and sisters, has not been good), I felt especially free!

I realized that feeling lonely is one thing, but feeling like only one type of man or one group of men will likely end up marrying you is another feeling of desolation all together. Don't get me wrong, I love my heritage! I just don't think that ending up with a Nigerian man (and if Allah (swt) wills it, who am I to dispute it!) is necessarily the best fit with all that I am. I am Nigerian, but my tradition in Islam is more that of African Americans and not Nigerian Muslims, for example. I'm most Nigerian in my body type (apparently) and my food palate, but the second pais do meu coração is Brazil! I keep imagining instances in my life in which I could just pick up and live there, maybe in Salvador, for years. I clearly know more Brazilian music than Nigerian music. I don't speak Igbo...I speak Spanish and Portuguese. If I had to choose a hemisphere longitudinally, I would stay on this one. The family I grew up with is here, Latin America is here.

As I say in "The Hybrid Dance," I am more than an Igbo who is not Christian, more than an African American Muslim. I am a Muslimah, first and foremost, independent of my culture and ethnicity. I am Igbo Nigerian American, black American and a lot in between. I was born a daughter, a granddaughter a cousin and a niece, and I became a sister along the way to a very special young man who I tease but who has all of my heart. I am also a sambista, a noveleira, a future family physician and public health practitioner. I am a creative writer, a música popular brasileira singer! I am a nerd! I am a hispanohablante and a lusoparlante. I am a soul sister, loving me my soul music throughout the years.

And all of these things I am and all of these things that I have done, I've done by the grace of God without a partner in life, sometimes in wait for him and sometimes not. But I've become this full person not to thereafter mute parts of myself to fit with a man who likes parts of me and doesn't care about the rest. That is not why Allah (swt) gave me this time on earth to develop my interests, my career, my tastes. That is not why God has me waiting now, in wait of my Mr. Right. For me to act like I didn't have this time to become everything I dreamed and never dreamed of becoming just to throw it away for a man who is not it!

No! If that were the case, I could have met said man a long time ago, and maybe I wouldn't have been some of the things that I am. And that would have been okay, but that's not the reality.

No. I may be in wait for Mr. Right, but it isn't a twiddling-my-thumbs kind of wait. It's a Center of Awesomeness kind of wait. It's a me doing my own thing, taking care of my physical and emotional health and my hair health type of wait. It's me loving and living with those in my life type of wait. It's a me continuing to develop type of wait. Because, insha'Allah, I'm graduating from medical school this May with my MD and MPH, and I'm going to begin the transformative process of residency, iA. There is so much more that I'm going to be, iA, if he continues to bless me with the full life I've already had.

And Allah (swt) will provide for me a worthy partner, as I will be a worthy partner for him. Insha'Allah.

I know I'd be more content with myself, in and of myself, if I didn't have this strong need to share myself with others. I think the reason I've always wanted a partner is that I've wanted someone constant, who as long as he lives and as long as we are together, is going to be in my life. And even in times of absence, I'll know he'll be back. He'll be that person that I can share all of my life with, who doesn't move on with his life like friends will, who isn't my parents. I love the times I am alone, just me, writing or chilling or listening to music, but even with music in the background, it's quiet.

My friends know from the way I blab, I love to share my life. And I get lonely when there's no one to share my life with. But lonelier is the feeling that who you may be accepting into your life as a partner may not share. May not let you live in his blue.

É, você que é feito de azul, me deixa morar nesse azul...

I'm in wait for that man made of blue...or yellow, or magenta, or cerulean...or cinammon, or milk chocolate, or cream...of gold, whatever color he may be. I'm in wait for someone who lets me live all up in it, as I'll let him in my burnt orange!

A Tale of Two Huskies

As salaam alaikum,

My grandmother, who has been having vivid visual hallucinations that cause her great unrest and have been increasing in intensity over the past 4 years, has not seen them in the last four days, alhamdulillah.

After months and months of praying, including her on outside prayer lists, trying all sorts of interventions and consulting all sorts of specialists, most recently geriatric psychiatry, my mother and many of her siblings were at their wits' ends. The best thing that had happened for months was the trazadone I had recommended to help both of my grandparents sleep.

Yesterday, my mother told me that she finally let go, and acknowledged that it was in God's hands, that He had knowledge and she did not, and that maybe this was something that Grandmother had to go through. And she submitted, like that.

She did so because of a dream she had. In the dream, she was driving in her car, though not aware of the car around her. She was on the freeway, when she heard a lot of horns honking around her. There, in the middle of the highway, was a man barbecuing. He was still alive, and standing there barbecuing, in the middle of the street. I think she swerved away from him and sometime into the future, she was pursued by two huskies. They were beautiful huskies, she said, very cute dogs. She became quickly aware, however, that they were trying to jump into her car. When the first one tried and missed and then started running after her, she started praying (in the dream). She prayed to God that if it was His will that the huskies overtook her, she submitted, but that to please protect her if it was His will. And the huskies fell away, I think.

It was this that helped her decide to let go and let God, essentially, when it came to my grandmother.

We were having this discussion as I was walking home from the hospital. I brought home dinner and was holding it in my hand. She wondered aloud if the dream was a sign from God, if that was her sign that she needed to submit herself to Him in this way, to acquiesce, to recognize that it's in His hands and His will is greater.

As we continued to discuss the amazement at the people (which my mother has wondered if they are jinn) finally leaving my grandmother alone, a feat that was apparently accomplished by my grandfather verbally telling the people to leave the house (ummm, case study into elderly psychology much?), I rounded the corner and approached my apartment. As I came to the intersection nearest my apartment, I squinted at a dog in front of me. I knew what was happening before I saw the second dog.

There were two huskies before me. They came up to me and walked up to me, and I knew they would approach me, though I was afraid for a moment that maybe they were going to attack me as they tried to attack my mother in the dream. Instead, they sniffed at me, their little paws on my coat, and tried to take a whiff of my food. And they were beautiful dogs. So beautiful with round faces and intelligent eyes. They looked at me like, "Wait, so...you're not going to feed us, is that it?" and I told the owner to have a good night and I walked away, my voice high pitched but muted, as I told my mother that I had just seen two huskies.


My mother and I took that as a sign. Yes, that was God instructing my mother through her dream. And this was me also learning from my mother's experience. The theme of this week has been letting go and letting God and really, Muslims are those who submit and people argue about what point you can be truly considered a practicing Muslim but I think that the endpoint is not as determinable because I think too many of us miss the point. Our complete submission, so I see, is often imperfect. It took my mother months to comfortably submit to the will of God on the matter of my grandmother. It took me years to submit to the will of God in terms of my marital status, and I'm still struggling with that.


However, I saw those two beautiful huskies in my neighborhood last night that I've never seen before, and my mother and I were sure at that moment that the answer is with God, and that was enough.




In place of worrying excessively now, I have learned. I take everything that begins to worry me and I take it to prayer while sincerely believing that it will be answered. I've been using istikhara like no other time in my life. And the difference is I let go, and I have faith that God will guide me in the manner.


I finally understand. Letting go and letting God isn't about waking up every morning without any plans and expecting God to physically jettison you through your day...but at the same time, that's exactly what happens. It's but the grace of God that I'm motivated to get up in the morning and go to the hospital and learn, but the grace of God that I have the capacity to learn, that I make it safely to and from my destination, eat food that doesn't purge me, have the capacity to exercise...everything I am in a day and everything I'm protected from is by His grace. I let him reign over so many other aspects of my life. It's time to let Him reign over this part of my life without my fighting it.


So I won't revel in worry. As soon as I fret, I'm going to pray. God told me I shall not suffer, nor shall I grieve, as long as I believe and live righteously. I struggled because I did not properly believe. This is not a criticism of my faith or saying it wasn't strong, but...this is life. Life is learning to believe, learning to get that much closer to God so that when we're no longer limited by space, time and a physical body, we will be sufficiently purified in order to perceive Him.


Later, I'm going to contemplate the word purity.

All of My Stuff

As salaam alaikum,

Last night, I watched "For Colored Girls." As a result, I had a dream upon waking that my ex was trying to rape me. Yeah, not cute. Before then, I had a dream where I saw him, and I was just filled with hatred at the site of his silhouette.

Yeah, no more movies like that before bedtime.

But there was one of the poems that I really liked from the work that I just read for full effect. "Somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff." I liked it, because someone almost did. I especially identified with this part:


somebody almost run off wit alla my stuff
& i waz standin
 there
lookin at myself
the whole time 
& it waznt a spirit took my stuff
waz a man whose 
ego walked round like Rodan’s shadow
waz a man faster
n my innocenc


waz a lover
i made too much 
room for
almost run off wit alla my stuff
& i didnt know i’d give it up so quik
& the one runnin wit it

don’t know he got it
& i’m shoutin this is mine
& he dont 
know he got it
my stuff is the anonymous ripped off treasure
 of the year
did you know somebody almost got away wit me
me in a plastic bag under their arm
me 
danglin on a string of personal carelessness...

This was my ex. I made too much space for him. And I almost let him walk away with so much of me, and my dignity, which I regained when I erased all traces of him from my life, save the backpack that was a gift to me and is actually quite useful and a Chimamanda Adichie book that he lent to me that he may never get back at this point.

I don't know why women do this. We put so much of ourselves into relationships, give so much of ourselves...and the men don't care. They don't know how much they've taken away. We made a space to fill with them, and then they leave us, and now we've got an empty space. And we chase them for a while, for the sake of sensation and sentiment, and they don't want to have any part. They don't even realize what havoc they've wrought.

They can't get too far with all of our stuff if they don't know they even have it. It should be easier to take it back.

Sometimes I wonder why we were made this way, women, to nurture so much, so many times at the expense of ourselves.

Something

As salaam alaikum,

I woke up from my morning slumber this afternoon (I work 14-hour night shifts for this rotation) with this song in my head, reminding me of a different time, but giving me hope for the future:




Yes, neo-soul cover of "Something" by the Beatles, apparently the second-most covered song behind, "Yesterday." This was the first cover I heard, and I still love it. I woke with the lyric, "Something in the way she knows, and all I have to do is think of her."

I pray for patience to receive good things in this life, and for ultimate patience to deserve the good things of the life to come.

God Laughing

As salaam alaikum,

Yesterday was a very good day. I was sitting in the emergency room, seeing patients, loving my life. It could have been because I only had two patients during my entire shift due to some of the complexities of the way flow goes and the way that I pick up patients. But I feel somewhat more comfortable in the space now, comfortable enough to know that I'll miss the ED, I'll miss the residents. I have a med student crush on two of them, one because he's like the best resident ever, the other one because he's really cute and is a good resident.

The latter is married, haha, so it's like, admiration from a far. They're med student crushes, anyway...not I-want-to-get-with-you crushes.

Then, during the night, I had a sudden feeling of doom. I suddenly had the impulse to look at pictures of death. I watched, again, the last moments of the crew of the space shuttle Columbia, the tape feed that survived, before the shuttle broke up upon reentry into the atmosphere. Then I looked up a picture of Otis Redding's body that was pulled from the lake after his plane crashed...

I saw a dead body once. There was blood everywhere because his head was crushed in a motorcycle accident. Dead on the scene. Somehow, I got through an entire third year of medical school without watching a patient die. Some of my patients have died, but after I met them, so it's like they might as well still be living. Some of my relatives have died...

I suddenly started to remember the type of Muslimah I wanted to be...one who would be prepared for both life and death if it were to happen tomorrow. I wanted to feel as if I was doing everything right and as if I were good with God so that if I were to die the next day, I'd feel more secure about my going to Heaven.

I had a series of strange dreams last night. I think they all tied together. They were family related. I had a dream my cousin's daughter was on my computer and I kept her from it. I also had a dream that I got a free upgrade to Windows 7 and had some bugs to work out. I had a dream about family, and that we were somehow related to Levar Burton's wife, and Levar had converted to Islam, I guess, because his wife wore jilbab and niqab, even. I forgot how we were related to them. They had a light skinned son that she carried around. She was very stylish under her jilbab and very stylish with it. I helped her retie it upon leaving, and I wanted to tell her that I liked her jilbab, but for some reason, I didn't want my father to hear.

I woke up from the dream near the end, where I was playing a recording that I guess I had made with my webcam. I thought it was of me singing, "So High," by John Legend. And it started out like that, but then it became this 80s power ballad that I was singing at an impressively high register (which is unlike me, because I have a bit of a deep voice and I'm an alto by nature). I started singing along with it, but when I saw that my voice wasn't going to be able to do it today, I started it again so I could hear what I did. I looked at myself in the video. I was wearing an orange shirt, pacing up and down in my parent's house when I was singing it.

Then, my brother came in, and I told him to stop and listen to my singing, and watch me. He did his characteristic, "Whaaaattt?" but I started playing it for him anyway. I'm starting not to be able to reproduce the song, but the last lyrics were, "If I can't make it through the day, I'll make love through the night." Something like that.

And then my mind was like, "What kind of song is this?" And then I woke up.

But I woke up smiling...that was such a pretty song.

I woke up after feeling that little bit of impending doom feeling to a day where I'm once again, loving my life. I look around, I have everything I want and need, alhamdulillah. Something's going to change.

I just talked to a friend of mine who recently got married. I had a dream about her...she was telling someone that she prayed through Jesus (as) and she asked the man how he prayed, and he said through Jesus (as) as well. She is Christian, but she always refers to what God will do, not what Jesus will do, so it was a strange dream.

Anyway, she was saying that there is an incredible feeling of companionship that comes from being married than there was before she and her husband were married. I laughed and told her that this was the same thing that Imani said. She told me, "Yes, and you'll feel the same way with your husband."

I then snorted, "Yeah, in 10 years or whatever."

She chuckled, "You know, God is probably laughing at you." I didn't quite hear, so I asked her to repeat. "God is laughing at you, just waiting for you to see what He has in store."

This friend of mine...she is a riot! God laughing at me because I don't know what great thing I have in store?

...but I kind of took that to heart. Not the God laughing part, but that, if I only knew what was in store for me, I would be overjoyed, I would be even happier than I am now. If only I knew that what I will have will be better than I knew could exist.

I pray.

Because I prayed in my dream, too. I remember how she said she prayed for a God-fearing man, and two days later, she met who would be her husband. So, in spite of myself, in the dream, I prayed the same, with the same expectation. I prayed for in my dream what I have not been able to pray for in real life because in a sense I've given up, I've prayed for this for years, like, since I was a kid, and I guess it hasn't been time yet.

But waking up from that dream is one of those times in life that I feel like I'm in a state of grace...

...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.

Wednesday Word Vomit

As salaam alikum,

Although I avoided making this thing student-y inasmuch as possible, I must say...aaaaahhh! To be done with that literature review is the sweetest feeling I've known in about one month's time. It was 17 pages of gold...well, not really. But it was 17 pages.

In other news, I keep writing zingers to B. Man oh man, if I do say so myself, when I'm going through stuff, I write very well. We gchatted and it was the first time we talked about the break up. He brought it up, saying that now that we're no longer together (whose fault is that, o senhor?) he needs to get out of Boston at least once-monthly. He didn't set up these trips when we were together. I then said aww, and told him I'd had a dream about him, and we were broken up in the dream.

He asked what happened. Why, I don't know, so I told him.

This is a true story.

In the dream, we were sitting together on the ground...either on the floor of my apartment or outside (I can't remember which). I didn't set up this part. Anyway, we were drawing a D on a piece of paper. And he mentioned something he wanted for "our kids." And then I reminded him that they were just his kids, that they weren't our kids anymore. And then he said, "Oh."

His gchat response? "I see."

I mean, dude, you asked! He knows my dreams very well by now. The first one that he was in, we switched genders, and he became the girl and I was the guy. Heh, he hated that dream, but it was because of his lack of taking initiative, something that I guess by being in a relationship with me he realized that he needed to do...

But anyway, I wrote him this awesome email that I would post, but since this thing is searchable I feel like I would increase the chance of him finding this site, if he hasn't already. But I liked it.

And after I wrote it, I just felt...even better than I'd already been feeling upon returning to Boston from my spring break. I felt relieved to talk about some of the things that I did with him, things that I felt like he should know. I illustrated him explicitly the process I'm going through to remove the little reminders of him from me, the way that he'd become enmeshed in my life. If we're going to be "friends," I can't have any secrets eating at me. By openly talking about us no longer being together, it gave me a voice to talk about how hard it was for me and that, even now, as I begin to move from my apartment, if I find small reminders of him here or there, it will give me pause, and I will reflect on it with a little sadness.

But then I said that it's little sadness that makes samba sweet. Then I hit him with the words of a samba that he liked from Djavan, when we went to the Djavan concert in one of our early outtings.

Mas não sei o que fez tudo mudar de vez. Onde foi que eu errei. Eu só sei que amei, que amei, que amei, que amei...

Which translates to, "But I don't know what happened for everything to change suddenly. Where did I make the mistake? I only know that I loved, that I loved, that I loved, that I loved..."

And I told him that I was glad that I loved, and the little bit of sadness makes my life more like samba, one of my preferred art forms.

A bit much? That wasn't the only thing that I included in the email, so it was even more.

But yes, this is Wednesday Word vomit...and I feel so relieved to get it all out!

I don't have class tomorrow, so I'll probably go in to my practicum site at 9:30am to meet with my lady at 10am. I'll get some work done for my practicum class as well as I'll work on my project a little bit, and then I plan to head home in the afternoon.

The bottom line of all of this is...there's a lot more work left to do for my practicum and this is only the tip of the iceberg, but at least I have two days of no class to do work, that I would take B back if I were convinced that he had direction in his life and that we could spiritually line up, but I'm unconvinced, so I'm not taking him back...and I'm back on the market!

Hahaha, this is a little tongue in cheek, but do any of you readers know of some brothers that may be interested? Or if you're brothers, are you interested? If so, there's another Muslimah available!

...emotionally, mentally and spiritually available for the first time maybe since I was 19, really.

End vomit.

The Adventures of Long Legs and Butterfly

As salaam alaikum,

Whoo! So...it's been a long week! I can't believe tomorrow is Friday so the week isn't over yet!

I've very much enjoyed the food I made this week. I'll have soup for probably another few days, so tomorrow I'll have to think about a non-soup entree to prepare. I'll probably do the barbecue chicken again, since I have a lot of barbecue sauce left over and all I need is to buy chicken. I'll make less chicken this time, though, so I don't get tired of it.

And the entree I think will be vegetarian this time. I think I'll be easy on myself and make fried rice or something. I have vegetables, so it's all set.

Also, alhamdulillah, the housing search is going along nicely. There's this second year student who lives in Brookline whose place I'll check out. As much as I'm not keen on moving back to the nowheresville that is the Longwood area, at least I'll be close to Trader Joes and Stop and Shop so I don't have to get my non-food necessities at CVS anymore. Although...Rubbermaid has come a long way since the old days of their plastic ware not being microwave safe, I tell you what...

Although, I am still cautious about heating plastic with my food...not only my distaste for melting (a specific phobia that is not as serious as it had been, but still existent...time was, I wouldn't be able to mention it here, even), but also because of the famed BPA. What's the use of eating organic if microwaving may kill nutrients in food and then the plastic you heat it in leaches chemicals?

Whatever. God looks out for us. A little chemical here, a little there...we return to Him in the end, as long as we intend the best for the bodies He gave us, at least I figure.




I may try my hand at a children's book at some point...or a pseudo-children's book. I got the idea earlier this week. For various reasons that will be kept confidential (but not so much in this partial disclosure), I had been freaking out this week. At the height of the freaking out, I sent B a kind of desperate email. I was afraid of how he was going to take it.

And, masha'Allah, he is so cool! I mean, not like in the popular way, but in the calm, collected way. I've cried in front of him at least twice, once because he said something really touching, and the other time...ehh, hormone soup. Hehe, serves four. Anyway, even with the freaking out email giving him permission to leave if he couldn't handle stuff (yes, it was like that), he took everything in stride, just like the day I cried to him about how much I loved my roommates and I wanted to give them a hug (yeah, that was definitely me being an estrogen bag, right there).

So he took it all in stride. It was no big deal, he had no reservations. It was business as usual. So after I found out that we were still okay, that he wouldn't be breaking up with me (soups on!), I was happy and wrote as my facebook status, "And so continue the adventures of long legs and butterfly."

And then I thought, hmm...that sounds like the name of a children's book.

Then I had a dream about my mother singing to me "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," that she used to do it when I was little and draw a little spider-in-motion by drawing a triangle superimposed over a star (so that the spider had eight legs). It was really cute, and in the dream, I said that I loved the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

I did like that song, but I liked Anansi the Spider more. Anansi was gangster. He was so witty and clever and I loved him.

So I imagined that the children's story would be about a Daddy Long Legs and a Butterfly. Long Legs is B because, hah, he has really long legs (and a short torso...when we sit next to each other, he's only a little taller than me, which is really funny to me, because he towers over me when we stand together). I'm Butterfly because that's what he always called me, even before we were official. Sometimes Mariposa, but butterfly.

And Long Legs and Butterfly would have adventures!

The illustrations would not be anthropomorphic, but the characters would be. Butterfly would be a free but sometimes frantic spirit who was giggly, good-natured but sometimes nervous to try new things. Long Legs would be the calm, collected voice of reason that helped guide Butterfly through the adventures. They would be best friends.

I just thought it would be really cute to write the story based on events in me and B's life...our own adventures. Base them on major things that happen in our lives and adapt them into children's stories about a spider, a butterfly and their other insect friends.

It would be something I would make for my children so, in a kind of sneaky, subliminal way, they'd get to know their parents.

...alternatively, I was thinking of making it a book of short stories, poetic prose if you will, about B and I, except it wouldn't be a children's book. Still, I would be Butterfly, and he would be Long Legs.

Hehe, my Long Legs. :) By proxy, hehe, if you will...

Sound Off! and In Other News

As salaam alaikum,

In my Sexuality and Public Health class, there are a couple of people intent on bashing Islam. One of my friends, also Muslim (and Nigerian!) had to stand up and defend. We have a new addition to our class, an Arab Christian lady who was the main culprit...the ridiculous things that she said were in the Qur'an! I mean, come on! You want to talk about the evil things that Musilms have done in the communities you know of, fine. I don't deny these things, I condemn them along with you. Am I comfortable with only negative examples of Muslims being shared in this faux-liberal class? No, but I'm also not comfortable with the fact that Muslims around the world are doing ignorant things, not only to others but to themselves and within their own communities, own homes such that those who will have things to voice about, noise about, fodder to bash an entire group of people based on the activities of a loud minority...

Terrorism is the obvious thing to condemn, and I believe most of us here (in the US) condemn it readily. People who say that we don't obviously do not personally know Muslims or follow any Muslim media sources, and don't care to. Others of us recognize and condemn other things. My pet issue to noise about in the past has been racism, but there are others...women's rights, for example. With the racism argument, I've encountered the defense that Muslims are humans, too, and make mistakes. I mean, obviously, but I believe that we have as much of a duty to speak out against and to inform ourself about injustices within our physical and imagined umam as we have a duty to defend injustice against us, to be chartible to one another, and all else. I believe that without the former the latter is incomplete.

People who will would find a way to bash Muslims even if evil and ignorance were being committed by 100 Muslims. There are upwards of 1.7 billion of us on this earth right now, and if as many of us were backwards as they want the public to believe, this whole place would be a greater chaos state than it is now...if I may reduce the world to a state. I despise those who, in the name of Islam, perpetuate ignorance and spread their evil works and besmirch the image of my religion, who massacre my brothers and sisters in Islam and otherwise make it harder for other Muslims to live on this earth. I despise them more, actually, than most of those in my faux-liberal class who so readily speak ill of my religion while knowing nothing about it.

Activists are sometimes funny people. They are very reactionary and use the word agency a lot. They think they are liberal but really they can be as narrow-minded as conservatives are, just on the other side of the argument. Oh liberal actvitist, you don't have the market cornered on the best way to live life and conceptualize future. To believe that you do is a type of cultural imperalism not unlike that which you would decry in the history classes about the various European colonization efforts that you may have taken in your liberal arts institutions.

Yes, hello. I am a Muslim woman. I find it funny, oh classmates, that you see abstinence as unnatural and restrictive so universally, but I'll let you have that one. But I also find it funny that you think you're so liberal in your effort to have language inclusive for people of all sexual orientations and gender identifications, but you adopt language and ideals that is not inclusive of those who choose to be more conservative with their sex, for whatever reason.

But I guess inclusivity of more conservative modes of thought is not most people's definition of liberal. I guess I was under the false assumption that being liberal meant being more open-minded, more inclusive, more accepting of differences in thought. Oops!



In other news...

An annonymous donor has contributed $30 million dollars to Harvard Medical School for primary care, and that has gone toward a new center of primary care...new, because there's not been one before, and months ago, the primary care budget was cut at Harvard, leading to an understandable unrest amongst our primary care activists. The announcement came in an email from Dean Flyer shortly after the announcement about the expansion of the immunology program, something that I'm also excited about because, personally, the immune system is my favorite system of the body (yes, actually not the reproductive system!). But this is awesome. I'm excited to see what comes about in my next year and a half at the medical school in terms of primary care and see it's implications for family medicine.

Also, after discussing with the roommates whether "in love" existed [which I think is a moot argument, kind of, in the way that they were having it...one said that the feelings existed, but in love, as in romantic love, doesn't exist, while love for family and friends is the only love that exists...I could write a whole entry about how my conceptions of love have changed over time, but yeah, that's not what this about], I went to sleep and, like a fool, had a dream about B. B, being the man that he is, neglected to tell me that when he was leaving this weekend, he wouldn't be back until...next Friday!

And I didn't see him at all after going to the Djavan concert with him (in which, admittedly, I kind of wish I could have gone alone and pretended I was Brazilian, since I can now speak Portuguese without a sotaque), because he was working on his poster.

But a whole week...d'oh! Why did you think that was okay to tell me at the last minute...we may just be friends+, but my friends tell me their plans, I expect the same of a friends+.

So then, after waxing philosophical about love and the term "romantic love"...I had a dream about him last night. I had a dream that I was in my apartment with friends, and I went to the kitchen where my roommates were, and there he was. And I ran up to him and hugged him, asked him what he was doing here. I excused the place being a sty (which it is right now), and he said that he didn't care. However, there were tampon wrappers and tampons around the living room that I tried to discreetly pick up (okay, so the apartment in real life is not that nasty...no stray tampons, mainly just papers from school). He told me that for the conference, the hotel cost more than him just commuting back and forth by bus, so he decided to come back home and commute daily (makes no sense in the dream, either, because the hotel room was supposedly only $50 and the commute on the bus was $6 round trip...I've been watching too much "Mad Men.")

So I introduced him to all of my friends, which included one of my roommates friends (who we visited last night in the upstairs boys apartment) and a bunch of other random Asians, including this girl from my sexuality class, an undergraduate at The College (hahaha, if I may). We watched this movie on the small tube television in our living room.

It became late, and one of my roommates suggested that B stay over. She then, as I imagine she would do in real life, suggest that he stay in my room. I objected, which for some reason involved me making acting out an upper case sigma with my body, at which B laughed. That was the part of the dream that made the least since...me making the sigma. That's biostats coming into my head, and the fact that I have an upcoming biostats exam.

I woke up and laughed at myself. That was a perfectly ridiculous dream.

Yesterday was my roommate's birthday. We went out with her parents to Fire and Ice, this restaurant downtown very much like BD's (Mongolian Barbecue) at home. It was fun. It was great seeing her parents...seeing where one comes from makes a lot of sense. And they paid...that was awesome.

But speaking of which, back to working out for me! I've had too much free food in the last month, too little exercise. Time to start it back up before my weight creeps back up.

Anyway...I just remembered a song my mother used to listen to that I haven't thought of in years. Wow...I don't know why I just thought of this. I think I'm in that sentimental mood right now...gah, I forgot how this feels!

{Currently listening: Brandy (I Really Miss You) - O'Jays}

Oh man! Adoro.