Long Time

Salaam,

It's been a long time since I've liked a popular song this much. Maybe 7 years or more. Maybe more than that.


The voice is an incredible instrument. It's also incredible how many unique melodies can be created over time.

Otherwise, I'm in a pensive mood tonight. I'm stuck on a presentation I have to make on Tuesday but don't want to do any more work on it tonight. And so many other things on my mind.

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.

Things that Make Me Happy (In No Particular Order)

Salaam,

Today has been an emotionally trying day. It didn't have to be. I just decided to be family doctor for my family and attempt to coordinate the care for my hospitalized grandmother thousands of miles away (still in the continental United States, yes...this darn spacious land of ours!). Mentally and emotionally, she's in the throws of dementia but otherwise, alhamdulillah, she's doing okay. I need to sit on my hands and let her attending physician do her job, though I let my mother (who spent the day in the hospital with Grandmother today) know exactly what I consider standard of care to be...

I'm day float tomorrow so I should be heading to bed soon so I can be ready to go (as ready as I'll ever be) tomorrow. In the meantime, I was watching Hey Arnold! (yes, a carry over from the last entry) and realized how much it's pretty much my favorite cartoon from the 90s. (My favorite cartoon from the 80s was Muppet Babies, hehe). My favorite part of the HA! cartoon, like many of its other fans of all ages, was the Arnold and Helga storyline. Something about unrequited love really strikes a chord...we've all gone through that before!

I did this exercise once where we were to write down all of the things that we love. It was a little bit difficult for me because love is not a verb I use often for things...or people for that matter. It feels forced. I didn't grow up with it. So as I scanned through some old fanart, some from back in the day and apparently some still being generated (I can't believe it still has a fandom!), I thought, this makes me happy...

And I'm much more likely to recognize things that make me happy than to call them things that I love.

So, in no particular order (or, order of association)...things/people/places that make me happy.

--Arnold/Helga
--requited love (once unrequited)
--crushes
--remembering a crush and feeling almost the exact same way as you remember it
--smiles
--the anticipation of unrequited love becoming requited
--"Overjoyed" by Stevie Wonder
--the notes in two bars of "Overjoyed" that hold almost all of the emotion in the song
--Stevie Wonder
--singing (especially well)
--those old school CD commercials for 80s music from the 90s
--the blue screen at the end of those CD commercials with the number (no website!) to call
--nostalgia fests in general
--YouTubing old commercials that remind me of a better time
--the Tyrese Coca Cola commercial
--the 90s Coca Cola commercial with the red circle and the flashing designs
--the "Holidays are coming" Coke commercial with the Christmas semi
--the old McDonald's characters and their commercials
--remembering when all the network stations were blocked off for that drugs special including all the cartoon characters of the time
--the theme song to the old America's Funniest Home Videos
--remembering the thunderstorm while watching AFHV and running between couches and jumping on them in the living room of our old house
--our old house
--my family
--remembering how my family used to be
--my mother
--my brother
--how my brother calls me "Dr. Sister"
--how my brother remembers things from our childhood when he was not yet verbal and not yet engaged
--remembering my childhood
--childhood
--children
--babies
--thinking of my own (future) babies, and children, and adult people
--my SO
--my large, crazy, sometimes happy extended family
--our memories recorded on VHS and now DVD
--VCRs and VHS
--saudades
--"O Trem Azul" by Elis Regina
--"Redescobrir" by Elis Regina
--"Aguas de Março" (especially by Elis Regina, but also by Tom Jobim and João Gilberto)
--remembering how it felt to learn about Tom Jobim
--Djavan
--"As" by Stevie Wonder
--"Sa Marina" by Wilson Simonal
--"Flor de Lis" by Djavan
--"Una mulata en la Habana" (if only because it was inspired by Aguas de Março)
--speaking Portuguese
--Confissoes de Adolescente
--A Favorita
--Brasil!
--learning how to swim
--my father's ability to whistle in two tones
--my father, his history
--speaking Spanish fluently
--seeing a prayer realized in real time

I could go on for a long time. Right now, what's making me the most happy is knowing that I have more than 8 hours to sleep before work tomorrow, sitting comfortably in a quiet apartment with only the sound of my new window fan blowing in the background, finally having an apartment that is a reasonable temperature (71 degrees) and feeling deliciously sleepy.

Loud fans make me happy. Fan wind blowing in my face makes me happy. Cool summer breezes make me happy. Good sleep makes me happy.

And for all of these things listed that make me happy, I am grateful for them. I am grateful to God that they exist, that they make me happy, and I know what happiness is.

I've thought of instituting a gratitude practice of sorts. My prayers tend to be a little lighter on the gratitude and heavier on the request. I think doing gratitude exercises outside of prayer will help enhance my gratitude within prayer and help me take that gratitude with me everywhere.

I am grateful for all of these happy things in my life.

I could go on...

--writing great characters
--reading old stories I've written
--"Weak" by SWV
--great dialogue
--great dialogue I've written
--songs I've written
--singing songs I've written
--cute animals
--baby animals
--baby talk...

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...

[Music Mondays]: I Deserve

As salaam alaikum,

Nothing much. I just looked at my gchat status, which read, "Just smile for me and let the day begin," and looked at my smiling face opposite the status. It was a picture where I was tired like I am now, a third year medical student on my my medicine rotation, with more moisturized, healthier hair than I've had in a while. It was a sweet face. As much as I do admire myself when I look in the mirror, I can't say I've ever thought of myself before. And coupled with those words, all I could think was,

"I deserve to be loved."



"Just smile for me and let the day begin," is the opening stanza to Jeffrey Osborne's  "On the Wings of Love." This was one of my first favorite songs...probably third, actually. My first favorite song was "Stand by Me," by Ben E. King, especially the violin interlude. I must have been under five when I liked this song. My second favorite song was, "With You," by Tony Terry, when I was six.

When I was seven, "On the Wings of Love" was my favorite. I remember sitting on the beige couch in the living room of my childhood home, my legs hanging over the edge and not reaching the floor beneath my feet. My family didn't have our first CD player yet, not for a few more months. It was 1992. My parents were going through their records and playing songs. For some reason, they decided to play, "On the Wings of Love." I heard the song and I was instantly transfixed. I loved it. The song was 10 years old at that point, but I didn't know. I just knew it was the most beautiful song I'd ever heard, and I asked my parents to play it again, and a third time. I listened to it and stared at the dark wood paneling of our family room with a feeling of transcendence, contentment, exhilaration, like I was let into a secret at that moment that everyone comes to know in life.

And it wasn't really the lyrics. At seven, I wasn't worried about love. Not as worried as I would be at 12, maybe because of growing up with lyrics like these. But not at 7. It was the instrumentation, it was the vocals, it was sitting between my parents and them both liking the song, and me being one of them. One of the lovers of this song. It was everything at once. It was childhood being so full and new and replete for me, it was the contrast of the twinges of embarrassment I felt from my brother with autism sometimes, it was tension in the string cords, it was a pop song that was fully orchestrated like they already weren't anymore.

All things I wasn't able to put into words at 7.

It would be my favorite song until I was about 19, even after Janet got lonely, after Lauryn reminded us not to forget the deen, until Stevie suggested that I, too, should be overjoyed, the first time I would identify so completely with lyrics of a love song.



I had a hard night last night. I think the nearby recent seismic activity set a lot of women in labor. Or it was a full moon. Whatever the reason, I worked nonstop from 11:00pm to 8:30am. I saw 8 women in triage, pushed with and assisted 2 deliveries, and tended to my laboring women. I put so much into my work that I sometimes feel emotionally drained at the end of a day. I came home feeling like retreating into myself and not coming out. I imagined not talking to my friends and co-residents anymore, only being present when social activities were required. Working removes completely one of my dimensions, the dimension in which I most often reside at rest. There's little energy left for that dimension after work.

I was tired, but before I went to sleep, before I could start feeling sorry for myself and before I could, once again, begin to despise myself, I saw the Jeffrey Osborne lyric on my status, and though I know the lyric well, I had to see it completed.

And then I saw my face next to it. My tired, smiling face, probably like how I looked for much of the night. And for the first time in my life, I had a glimpse for just a few seconds of how I must look on the outside, to others.

I don't know if it was the depersonalizing experience of being a physician or the fact that I took two Benadryl just before and was getting sleepy.

Music sounds different when you're sleepy and in the dark, by the way.

But that was a sweet face of a sweet girl. And how sweet that you hover over my status and see my smiling face and get the message "Just smile for me and let the day begin." Even though most will not get the reference.

And I looked at that girl with that face and knowing as much about her as I do, all I could think was, "You deserve to be loved."

And I've never been able to say that about myself before. And I've never felt it so sincerely.

And I'm not talking about up and above the clouds love like Jeffrey belts about. Just love. Because life is precious, and by extension, so am I, and independently, by God's grace, so am I.

I can only imagine how I looked putting my hands over my patients contracting belly, breathing deeply with her, closing my eyes ans I felt the contraction to feel its strength, to evaluate her labor, and all I can think is, she deserves to be loved.

I can only imagine how I looked pulling my patient's newborn son from the birth canal, setting him on her chest on the blanket laid out by the nurse as his red lips trembled and mom trembled and as I trembled as I collected cord blood and I think, she deserves to be loved.

So, just smile for me and let my day begin. I really do love a smile.

Music Mondays: All I Do

As salaam alaikum,

I had a lovely weekend, but God help me...I have some important decisions to make soon, and I hope I don't screw up. I'm praying God is with me all the way and helps me not make dumb decisions. Cryptic, I know. You can only imagine...

My cousin was up with her baby daughter for much of the night, and ended up watching TV One's "Unsung," a show about R&B artists who were once popular whose legacy has been since lost for one reason or another. The last episode that I was not able to watch all the way was that of the Bar-Kays, who were recent high school grads when all but two of the original band members perished in a plane crash that also took Otis Redding's life. Otis was only 26, and I still see in my mind's eye the picture of his lifeless body, still buckled in his seat, being pulled from the waters of Lake Michigan, I believe it was.

God! That was so sad...

Tammi Terrell's "Unsung" episode was no exception. The poor thing was gang raped as a child and went in and out of relationships and was sometimes abused, at the hands of such R&B greats as James Brown (yes...did not know he was a woman beater) and David Ruffin. Her albums of duets with Marvin Gaye would be the pinnacle of her career. Barely strong enough to sing through the third album, she died shortly thereafter, succumbing to a long battle with brain cancer, an aggressive glioma that did not give her respite. She was 24.

If the name does not ring a bell, perhaps her hits with Marvin, such as "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," will spark some recognition.






"Ain't No Mountain High Enough," though peaking at #19 and #3 on the pop and R&B charts at the time, respectively, and being eclipsed by Diana Ross's cover that hit #1 years later, would become emblematic of Motown hits for later generations. Tammi and Marvin's duets would be covered, used for sentimental commercials and period movies for some time, immortalizing the song.

And their duets are great songs, written expertly by Ashford and Simpson. Rest in peace, Mr. Ashford.

I wanted to see if she'd recorded anything else that I knew, so I searched her in youtube. The first song that showed up was entitled, "All I Do Is Think About You," and I wondered if it had anything to do with Stevie Wonder's song, and maybe if it was a cover. So I played it, and it was...eerie, to say the least.

Here's the original:





Written by a 16-year-old Stevie Wonder in 1966, this song was meant for Tammi. She sung it, recorded it, but it was not released by Motown. She was 20 years old at the time of recording this. She died four years later in 1970. Stevie would later release the song that he wrote for his own album 10 years after her death, 1980, as "All I Do." This version became a hit, and Tammi's version would not be released until over 30 years after her death.

Here's Stevie's recording:




And though I grew up on Stevie's version, and it reminds me of my mother's relationship with my brother (as she described it, after he was diagnosed, all I did was think about him), so it always has special meaning for me and my family...there's a haunting quality about Tammi's vocals and presentation of the song that make me like it.

And just to make things even more random, of the people providing background vocals for Stevie's version are Eddie Levert and...Michael Jackson.

Thank you, wikipedia, for providing me with minutes of bewildered entertainment tonight!

Tammi was a beautiful vocalist, Stevie is a wonderful lyricist and performer, and life...subhan'Allah! May He have mercy on us all...

And that is your Music Monday.