As salaam alaikum,
I was going to write about depression and NVC next, but I want to take a break from that to voice my reaction to an article in The Atlantic that I just read about the two young people, now convicted of terrorism, Muhammad "Moe" Dakhlalla and Jaelyn Young.
For as long as I've had this blog, on this site and the previous one on Xanga, I have tried to steer clear of politics. My quest in Islam was personal, and although I did have real opinions on issues across the Muslim world, I felt too poorly read and ill-informed to make this place a platform to voice them. Granted, I know that doesn't stop many other people from sharing their two cents on the internet, but I didn't want to contribute to that pool. So this didn't become the place where I decried wars, crimes against Muslims, Islamophobia or condemned terrorism in its many forms and specifics regularly.
The exception I made a year and a half ago was my entry on the San Bernadino attack, in which I expressed my fear about the rise of ISIS and how Americans seemed to be spontaneously radicalizing to attack such mundane venues as a company Christmas party. I remember as a post-9/11 teenager scoffing at security measures at a college football game. Terrorists weren't going to target Nowheresville, USA. With the rise of IS and its sympathizers, I was wrong.
I know little about IS and their propaganda other than they exist and they are terrorists who primarily target other Muslims in Muslim majority countries but whose sympathizers have carried out attacks in Europe as well. I feel as the majority of Muslims do--that these amoral individuals carrying out monstrosities in the name of Islam do not represent the true nature of our faith and way of life. I remember hearing about these two young people, Muhammad and Jaelyn, in passing a couple of years ago. I read of their arrest and their intent to join ISIS abroad. I looked at their pictures. I wondered how a young, mixed couple, in particular, a young, African American revert to Islam, got mixed up in ISIS. In particular, for Jaelyn, I wondered how a young American woman could aspire to such an existence. What were they telling them?
I read The Atlantic article and it gave me pause for another reason. Jaelyn's story sounded so familiar to me, especially her growing up story. It could have been mine. Smart, nerdy but isolated kid in high school. Very strict parents. Untreated depression. Cluster B tendencies. Increased interest in Islam in college, starting to don hijab then. The only difference is that she bought into ISIS propaganda, and I didn't.
The other difference was that of 10 years.
When I was her age and searching the internet for everything I could about Islam, posting in my blog, trying my best to join the MSA, YouTube was nascent, Facebook was The Facebook and was open to Ivys and specific colleges like the University of Michigan only, and MySpace was hanging on. There was no Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat. Message boards were on their way out. My online quest was limited to reading online translations of the Qur'an on the go, browsing Hadith collections and cruising (painfully) through online fatwa banks. Video sermons and online imams were not as ubiquitous as they are now.
No one knows what is in this woman's heart and what was in her intentions but she and God, and I'm not trying to defend her at all. I'm just startled at how much the beginning of her story sounds like the beginning of my own. I don't think it could have been me, but could it have?
It also gives a sinister spin to my novel in progress, A Rose Much Desired, with the two Muslim young adults, Nisreen and Mo, trying to figure out their next steps. Their stories begin separate and as innocently as my story characters. My characters do make a series of mistakes and ultimately crash and burn, but they do not radicalize. Mo and Nisreen's story is entangled in the new world of social media as well. How much of a reality would this be for my characters if they were young 20-somethings now and not in 2007?
I also recognize that for that one Jaelyn, there are hundreds of thousands of other young black women who grew up isolated nerds with strict parents and resultant depression that do not end up attempting to joint ISIS. No one knows what happened there. And given that the FBI were the makers of COINTELPRO, my trust of that institution is thin, if any. We will not know in this life where their influence began with either of these young people.
But what I do know is that this did not have to be. This never has to be. We, as Muslims, have to stop shutting out too many people as other, not of us. At some point, many current day terrorists were one of us, people we wouldn't hesitate to call Muslims. Some of them were once children, and therefore our responsibility to guide. I am not a parent yet and I do not have answers. But saying that these people are not Muslim is not enough. Once they were, and now they are not, and maybe some of us had a hand in that doing. Socially, our religious institutions are not exempt from structural violence, and by belonging to the religion, we are sometimes its agents.
It's hard with social media, though. In its earliest iteration for young people, AIM, I would spend hours at night IMing friends, paragraphs, monologues, soliloquies about our lives. AIM is the reason that I'm able to type so fast today. It was a world we created of our own. My parents barely knew it existed except to comment on the sound of me "raining on the keyboard" when typing to my friends. In a similar way, young people, especially those who have gone off to college, have a world of their own with many more modalities to communicate on, separate from their parents, guardians and mentors, that they can never infiltrate.
I know the answer is love and connection, and we're going to have to figure out all of the essential spaces in which it needs to be placed.
Showing posts with label past. Show all posts
Showing posts with label past. Show all posts
Monday, May 8, 2017
Friday, June 24, 2016
Make Way for Compassion, Part 2
As salaam alaikum,
Lack of compassion and self-compassion can lead to hatred.
Some of the ways that I practiced Islam lacked self-compassion.
I can only speak for myself here, but I do predict that there are very many who will identify with me in their own practice and understanding of their faith, and not just among Muslims.
This entry is not meant to be a vendetta against Muslim scholarship or a commentary on ahadith. I am not on par with any authority to speak to that. I really just want to look at commonly held beliefs and rules at face value.
The moment I realized that my practice lacked self-compassion is when I wondered if my day's fast had been invalidated by a mistake.
Invalidated.
This is the language that was used, that was taught to me and has undoubtedly been taught to others in the rules of Muslim fasting. Without going through the list of actions and events that will invalidate your fast, I want to highlight vomiting. Vomiting invalidates one's fast.
I never thought of it that way. I thought of it as--if you vomit, you are sick and it is better for you that you don't fast. To say it is invalidated with vomiting makes harsh self-judgment implicit.
Oh, stupid me, I vomited. Now the whole day's fast doesn't count!
Instead of, oh no, I guess I'm sicker than I thought. I'd better take a break and take care of myself and get some fluids in me in preparation for the mud butt that is about to ensue.
Or something like that.
I pause on invalidated because that's such a strong word. Not counting is duly a strong concept, not to get stuck on vocabulary. I'd like to believe that intent would have something to do with it, so if someone put something in their mouth or ate it accidentally and were not, say, sneaking food while no one was watching, that a pure intention for fasting would supersede the accidental ingestion.
I don't know, but I don't care to look up fatawa on the subject because those things are often traumatizing for me.
My mentor in residency preached self-compassion for physicians as we trialed the very restrictive elimination diet. For three weeks, we eliminated major foods that are often the culprits of food sensitivities through leaky gut pathophysiology -- corn, gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts, sugar, artificial sweeteners, red meat, oranges/grapefruits, vegetable oils -- effectively reducing us to a home-cooked diet. We had to be abstinent from these food groups for three weeks in order to reduce the inflammation in our guts enough to trial the possibly offending foods. For example, no seasoned salt, as it has both corn starch and sugar in it. Even with these restrictions necessary to make this health experiment work, she implored us to practice self-compassion if we slipped up in our diets midway.
I scoffed at that recommendation. I fasted Ramadan for over a decade and dietary restrictions were my way of life. It was easy for me to adhere to the strict diet.
In the end, I had no food sensitivities besides gluten making me really low energy, but I've approached every other diet I've had with a self-compassion script, and its made it even easier.
The Islam I learned is often devoid of a self-compassion script. Or, if there is a self-compassion script, there is often a caveat. It is human to err--but you erred, so you have to make up that whole day again. Sorry.
Of course, the fasting SNAFU was not everything. It was the turning point, the moment of recognition, the catalyst. It helped me to intellectualize what I has been evolving over the last 4 years, from the time I was still a fourth year medical student in Boston attending those conferences on woman and African American Muslims. This reminds me of my father, who, in his last attempts to convert me to Christianity 2 years ago, told me that Islam was a religion devoid of love. That Christianity taught love more than Islam did. I argued him down with Qur'anic citations of my own, but at the end of the day, while Islam is not devoid of love and compassion, the individual practice of Islam is many times lacking.
Again, I can only speak for my own, what I saw modeled, what I was exposed to. Others may identify, some may not. Feel free to counter me.
The Islam I learned was full of judgments, shaming and guilting from human beings. The Islam I learned was rigorous and sometimes unforgiving. A lot of my practice was based on God's obligation, not God's love.
And I know, God obliges us because God loves us, but obligation is heavy.
Obligation is heavy, invalidation is heavy. Both of those terms feel punitive.
Obligatory or what? Obligatory or you will be remote from God's mercy and excluded from Jannah? This does not breed self-compassion. It breeds self-critique and self-judgment.
To which someone may say, yes, self-critique is necessary. It's crucial to keep someone on the straight way. Whereas I feel like we kill our souls a little bit with that.
This is not my announcement of leaving the faith. As long as I believe in one God and submit to God, I will always be Muslim. That has not changed. I just find the level of self-compassion that I am currently living in my life at odds with my practice of Islam, and I've decided that the latter has to change.
Lack of compassion and self-compassion can lead to hatred.
Some of the ways that I practiced Islam lacked self-compassion.
I can only speak for myself here, but I do predict that there are very many who will identify with me in their own practice and understanding of their faith, and not just among Muslims.
This entry is not meant to be a vendetta against Muslim scholarship or a commentary on ahadith. I am not on par with any authority to speak to that. I really just want to look at commonly held beliefs and rules at face value.
The moment I realized that my practice lacked self-compassion is when I wondered if my day's fast had been invalidated by a mistake.
Invalidated.
This is the language that was used, that was taught to me and has undoubtedly been taught to others in the rules of Muslim fasting. Without going through the list of actions and events that will invalidate your fast, I want to highlight vomiting. Vomiting invalidates one's fast.
I never thought of it that way. I thought of it as--if you vomit, you are sick and it is better for you that you don't fast. To say it is invalidated with vomiting makes harsh self-judgment implicit.
Oh, stupid me, I vomited. Now the whole day's fast doesn't count!
Instead of, oh no, I guess I'm sicker than I thought. I'd better take a break and take care of myself and get some fluids in me in preparation for the mud butt that is about to ensue.
Or something like that.
I pause on invalidated because that's such a strong word. Not counting is duly a strong concept, not to get stuck on vocabulary. I'd like to believe that intent would have something to do with it, so if someone put something in their mouth or ate it accidentally and were not, say, sneaking food while no one was watching, that a pure intention for fasting would supersede the accidental ingestion.
I don't know, but I don't care to look up fatawa on the subject because those things are often traumatizing for me.
My mentor in residency preached self-compassion for physicians as we trialed the very restrictive elimination diet. For three weeks, we eliminated major foods that are often the culprits of food sensitivities through leaky gut pathophysiology -- corn, gluten, dairy, eggs, peanuts, sugar, artificial sweeteners, red meat, oranges/grapefruits, vegetable oils -- effectively reducing us to a home-cooked diet. We had to be abstinent from these food groups for three weeks in order to reduce the inflammation in our guts enough to trial the possibly offending foods. For example, no seasoned salt, as it has both corn starch and sugar in it. Even with these restrictions necessary to make this health experiment work, she implored us to practice self-compassion if we slipped up in our diets midway.
I scoffed at that recommendation. I fasted Ramadan for over a decade and dietary restrictions were my way of life. It was easy for me to adhere to the strict diet.
In the end, I had no food sensitivities besides gluten making me really low energy, but I've approached every other diet I've had with a self-compassion script, and its made it even easier.
The Islam I learned is often devoid of a self-compassion script. Or, if there is a self-compassion script, there is often a caveat. It is human to err--but you erred, so you have to make up that whole day again. Sorry.
Of course, the fasting SNAFU was not everything. It was the turning point, the moment of recognition, the catalyst. It helped me to intellectualize what I has been evolving over the last 4 years, from the time I was still a fourth year medical student in Boston attending those conferences on woman and African American Muslims. This reminds me of my father, who, in his last attempts to convert me to Christianity 2 years ago, told me that Islam was a religion devoid of love. That Christianity taught love more than Islam did. I argued him down with Qur'anic citations of my own, but at the end of the day, while Islam is not devoid of love and compassion, the individual practice of Islam is many times lacking.
Again, I can only speak for my own, what I saw modeled, what I was exposed to. Others may identify, some may not. Feel free to counter me.
The Islam I learned was full of judgments, shaming and guilting from human beings. The Islam I learned was rigorous and sometimes unforgiving. A lot of my practice was based on God's obligation, not God's love.
And I know, God obliges us because God loves us, but obligation is heavy.
Obligation is heavy, invalidation is heavy. Both of those terms feel punitive.
Obligatory or what? Obligatory or you will be remote from God's mercy and excluded from Jannah? This does not breed self-compassion. It breeds self-critique and self-judgment.
To which someone may say, yes, self-critique is necessary. It's crucial to keep someone on the straight way. Whereas I feel like we kill our souls a little bit with that.
This is not my announcement of leaving the faith. As long as I believe in one God and submit to God, I will always be Muslim. That has not changed. I just find the level of self-compassion that I am currently living in my life at odds with my practice of Islam, and I've decided that the latter has to change.
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
I Never Existed Again, the Prequel
Salaam,
I was just going through a journal of mine from when I was 19 years old and read a paragraph that really exemplified the whole "I never existed again" thing, 4 years before I would hear the Djavan song that would give meaning to the feeling I had. And this was only the beginning of me feeling this way. I had not known MQ for a year yet, and I was already falling into the obsession circuit in my brain.
Anything in brackets are edits I've made in retrospect. This was written in January, 2004. Emphasis, with the bold, was also added by me later.
I think it was last Thursday, so Thursday, January 6. It was the first time I had my Spanish class with Sra. Highfill (and wow, I just suddenly had déjà vu with her and her class…like I’d been there before or something). Anyway, a girl came in named Sarwat. I had seen her on thefacebook before, back when I was looking up stuff on Azmat…who didn’t end up pairing up with [MQ] at all. It was just me being silly…again.
Anyway, Sarwat came in, and for whatever reason, I just thought of [MQ] whenever I looked at her. Okay, it was obvious why I did…I was thinking about the whole culture thing, and if, for him to ever really consider me, that’s what I would have to be…Desi, Pakistani, whatever…and I never would be…well, obviously. But yes, I thought about that, and then I started thinking back to him, and all the silly little conversations we had… And that progressed, until I thought about him all day. And then that kid who’s in my Biochemistry discussion and apparently living in South Quad, Ajay…he reminded me of him, too. And I would see back of heads [around me in class], and I would get startled when [those backs of heads] looked slightly like [his], and almost wanted to close my eyes and run away in case the head turned around and it was him…
It was something like that, not so eloquently. And I realized at the end of the day that the whole thing was ridiculous. I hadn’t seen him since November, and now it’s January, and I hadn’t really spoken to him since we did in the summer, and that was kind of shitty in itself, and I was still nervous to come anywhere close to him, even if it was second hand through his friend Sarwat, who never mentioned him...
[...] as she looked at me as I pronounced my name [for the professor in class], I’d wondered if perhaps she’d heard that name before…and for what reason she would have heard it. [Maybe she'd heard about this girl from him, this girl that was obsessed with him]. Or if it was from the back of random people’s heads that kind of looked like his…I just realized it was getting out of hand, and that I’d spent more time that day thinking of him than thinking of anything that had to do with me.
And I started to wonder how much of myself I had lost in the process of being in love with him. Yes, I may not have ever gotten him, but I was in love with him, and I wanted him, and I thought that if we worked together, I could marry him…all of that foolishness. But I wondered how much of myself I lost. I thought I was losing my personality by being so stuck on him… But maybe that wasn’t the case at all. Maybe, in the beginning of this whole ordeal, I didn’t have that much personality to begin with. Not as much as I thought I had.
I was just going through a journal of mine from when I was 19 years old and read a paragraph that really exemplified the whole "I never existed again" thing, 4 years before I would hear the Djavan song that would give meaning to the feeling I had. And this was only the beginning of me feeling this way. I had not known MQ for a year yet, and I was already falling into the obsession circuit in my brain.
Anything in brackets are edits I've made in retrospect. This was written in January, 2004. Emphasis, with the bold, was also added by me later.
I think it was last Thursday, so Thursday, January 6. It was the first time I had my Spanish class with Sra. Highfill (and wow, I just suddenly had déjà vu with her and her class…like I’d been there before or something). Anyway, a girl came in named Sarwat. I had seen her on thefacebook before, back when I was looking up stuff on Azmat…who didn’t end up pairing up with [MQ] at all. It was just me being silly…again.
Anyway, Sarwat came in, and for whatever reason, I just thought of [MQ] whenever I looked at her. Okay, it was obvious why I did…I was thinking about the whole culture thing, and if, for him to ever really consider me, that’s what I would have to be…Desi, Pakistani, whatever…and I never would be…well, obviously. But yes, I thought about that, and then I started thinking back to him, and all the silly little conversations we had… And that progressed, until I thought about him all day. And then that kid who’s in my Biochemistry discussion and apparently living in South Quad, Ajay…he reminded me of him, too. And I would see back of heads [around me in class], and I would get startled when [those backs of heads] looked slightly like [his], and almost wanted to close my eyes and run away in case the head turned around and it was him…
It was something like that, not so eloquently. And I realized at the end of the day that the whole thing was ridiculous. I hadn’t seen him since November, and now it’s January, and I hadn’t really spoken to him since we did in the summer, and that was kind of shitty in itself, and I was still nervous to come anywhere close to him, even if it was second hand through his friend Sarwat, who never mentioned him...
[...] as she looked at me as I pronounced my name [for the professor in class], I’d wondered if perhaps she’d heard that name before…and for what reason she would have heard it. [Maybe she'd heard about this girl from him, this girl that was obsessed with him]. Or if it was from the back of random people’s heads that kind of looked like his…I just realized it was getting out of hand, and that I’d spent more time that day thinking of him than thinking of anything that had to do with me.
And I started to wonder how much of myself I had lost in the process of being in love with him. Yes, I may not have ever gotten him, but I was in love with him, and I wanted him, and I thought that if we worked together, I could marry him…all of that foolishness. But I wondered how much of myself I lost. I thought I was losing my personality by being so stuck on him… But maybe that wasn’t the case at all. Maybe, in the beginning of this whole ordeal, I didn’t have that much personality to begin with. Not as much as I thought I had.
This was remarkable for me to read. In that last paragraph especially, it's like I couldn't even remember who I had been before there was him. I go on to write about how my first journal entry began with me musing about the my teenaged crush, Corey, and I wondered how many legitimate thoughts had I had that were not about some male.
Another (perhaps) remarkable thing is that my writing hasn't changed so very much in the last 11 years. I'd like to think I'm a slightly better writer now, and definitely the content is more mature now, but oh well.
I'm, in general, stunned by how naïve I was...11 years is a lot. I ended this entry thinking about taking out loans to take an MCAT class. That's how long ago that was. That was a more than 4 years of medical school, 1 year of public health school and 3 years of residency ago. Wow!
And it's also incredible how you can lose yourself in someone who in the end has nothing to do with you...
Saturday, October 24, 2015
"It Wasn't Meant to Be" Takes New Meaning
Salaam,
"It wasn't meant to be."
Intellectually, I could get with that, but emotionally, I could not. As a several-year sufferer of unrequited love for much of my young adult years, the phrase seemed cruel, a hackneyed trope offered by people who didn't have answers but were well-meaning nonetheless.
Years after getting over the love that never would be, I still couldn't really understand that. Yes, obviously it was not meant to be, because here I am and there he is, living two separate lives, probably never chancing to meet again and, because of Facebook, I know too much.
My last entry shows how I couldn't understand it.
And to be clear, part of me will still wonder. There were so many signs that I interpreted as meaning we would end up together after pointed and plaintive prayers. These signs from hearing a random string quartet practice the wedding march in my dorm to him being down the hall in my friend's dorm, hearing me as I cried. Why would God tease me with these signs if we were, in fact, never meant to be.
Because we weren't. We existed in each others' lives exactly as we should have.
Before I fell for him, I had prayed specifically that I would not do such a thing. I prayed to God not to allow me to fall for a man who was not meant for me. But I did.
Most other prayers I have prayed in my life have been answered, from small things like praying that the rain would let up so I could take pictures for a summer project in high school, to big things like medical school acceptances and residency matches. But my faith remained shaken after the man I prayed for so long would be my future husband ended up to be someone else's.
I used to wonder why, and then for a long time, I gave up. I just didn't think about it. I reasoned, there are probably people who pray for more important things, like being able to feed their child, or to save their dying spouse from the wrath of disease, or any other number of situations who are now sitting on the other side of things, wondering why their prayers weren't answered. For me, the only thing not answered for me is that some dude I had a crush on in college didn't like me back. Big deal.
But then, thinking about the turmoil my fiancé has had to go through because of his family's disapproval of me, I realize something...
...well, for one, it likely would have been several times worse with my college crush. My fiancé has a small family. My college crush had a large family that was apparently invested in him ending up with someone from their own community. And that he did, and their families get along well.
Whereas, my future in-laws will likely have little contact with me...thankfully, as the case were.
I would love to be part of a family that loved me as I feel I deserve to be loved as an excellent future-partner to their beloved son, but it looks like I'm not going to...just as I was prepared was a distinct possibility with my college crush.
I said I was ready for anything back then, now I get to eat my words. It is hard. It's harder to see your fiancé essentially disowned from his family.
But more than realizing that, rationally, it was not meant to be, I also recognize that...sometimes, even if certain traits line up, there is mutual attraction, interest, fascination...whatever...it wasn't meant to be.
Yes, so many other prayers in my life have been answered, and easily. Of course this prayer would be the hardest. Yes, I have a friend who claims she prayed to find a husband and then met her husband the next day, but a lot happened before he became her husband that did not seal that prayer as answered for her. She made it sound easy, but it wasn't.
It's easy when a prayer only involves you, or your personal protection, or something like that. It's easy when a prayer is about a career path, or a housing option, or safety on road or in the air while one travels. It's not easy when a prayer involves a whole other human being who is just as complex as you are, with their own desires, needs and prayers.
The man that you see who you decide must be the future husband of your prayer and desire may have congruent desires but perhaps incongruent needs, for example. People are not ready to order. I have yet to hear anyone say that someone came and was perfectly equipped to be their future spouse when they met them.
So as much as I may have loved my college crush, I could not pray him into being for me. As much as I felt I could "deal with everything going through [his] head," I was never in his head. We existed together in the same realm for just a little bit. His path was other, and I had to steer away. It wasn't meant to be.
Relationship prayers are the hardest to pray and the hardest with which to wait for the answer. The answer is sometimes quite unexpected. Whenever our desires and prayers are directed at a thing that necessarily involves another complete human being, so many things have to line up to make it work. And while certainly nothing is impossible with God, it will take a little bit more time than...driving under a bridge to see the rain stop instantly to allow you to do your high school summer project.
So for me, it wasn't meant to be takes on new meaning. It's no longer hackneyed and frustrating. It's a simple truth. It's not a term of resignation; it reminds me of my submission. Submission to the Truth. For all I prayed, God knew that my college crush was not actually who I thought he was or what I wanted, and if he was, he knew that I was not what he needed. It was never a prayer unanswered. It was a prayer answered, but I didn't leave space or understanding of that being possibly the answer.
And with the tincture of time and experience and the prospect of assuming a family name of a family that will have nothing to do with me, I see...I come to understand. Love can conquer much but you have to decide if it's worth it.
In terms of the signs I got after pointed prayers...I still don't understand those. Maybe it's like the movie Mr. Nobody, and I could have lived a life where I ended up with my college crush if I took precise actions earlier on, actions I was not ready to take at 19. Maybe that piece has some meaning that I'll uncover later in my life. This little epiphany about the whole situation only took 11 years, after all.
"It wasn't meant to be."
Intellectually, I could get with that, but emotionally, I could not. As a several-year sufferer of unrequited love for much of my young adult years, the phrase seemed cruel, a hackneyed trope offered by people who didn't have answers but were well-meaning nonetheless.
Years after getting over the love that never would be, I still couldn't really understand that. Yes, obviously it was not meant to be, because here I am and there he is, living two separate lives, probably never chancing to meet again and, because of Facebook, I know too much.
My last entry shows how I couldn't understand it.
And to be clear, part of me will still wonder. There were so many signs that I interpreted as meaning we would end up together after pointed and plaintive prayers. These signs from hearing a random string quartet practice the wedding march in my dorm to him being down the hall in my friend's dorm, hearing me as I cried. Why would God tease me with these signs if we were, in fact, never meant to be.
Because we weren't. We existed in each others' lives exactly as we should have.
Before I fell for him, I had prayed specifically that I would not do such a thing. I prayed to God not to allow me to fall for a man who was not meant for me. But I did.
Most other prayers I have prayed in my life have been answered, from small things like praying that the rain would let up so I could take pictures for a summer project in high school, to big things like medical school acceptances and residency matches. But my faith remained shaken after the man I prayed for so long would be my future husband ended up to be someone else's.
I used to wonder why, and then for a long time, I gave up. I just didn't think about it. I reasoned, there are probably people who pray for more important things, like being able to feed their child, or to save their dying spouse from the wrath of disease, or any other number of situations who are now sitting on the other side of things, wondering why their prayers weren't answered. For me, the only thing not answered for me is that some dude I had a crush on in college didn't like me back. Big deal.
But then, thinking about the turmoil my fiancé has had to go through because of his family's disapproval of me, I realize something...
...well, for one, it likely would have been several times worse with my college crush. My fiancé has a small family. My college crush had a large family that was apparently invested in him ending up with someone from their own community. And that he did, and their families get along well.
Whereas, my future in-laws will likely have little contact with me...thankfully, as the case were.
I would love to be part of a family that loved me as I feel I deserve to be loved as an excellent future-partner to their beloved son, but it looks like I'm not going to...just as I was prepared was a distinct possibility with my college crush.
I said I was ready for anything back then, now I get to eat my words. It is hard. It's harder to see your fiancé essentially disowned from his family.
But more than realizing that, rationally, it was not meant to be, I also recognize that...sometimes, even if certain traits line up, there is mutual attraction, interest, fascination...whatever...it wasn't meant to be.
Yes, so many other prayers in my life have been answered, and easily. Of course this prayer would be the hardest. Yes, I have a friend who claims she prayed to find a husband and then met her husband the next day, but a lot happened before he became her husband that did not seal that prayer as answered for her. She made it sound easy, but it wasn't.
It's easy when a prayer only involves you, or your personal protection, or something like that. It's easy when a prayer is about a career path, or a housing option, or safety on road or in the air while one travels. It's not easy when a prayer involves a whole other human being who is just as complex as you are, with their own desires, needs and prayers.
The man that you see who you decide must be the future husband of your prayer and desire may have congruent desires but perhaps incongruent needs, for example. People are not ready to order. I have yet to hear anyone say that someone came and was perfectly equipped to be their future spouse when they met them.
So as much as I may have loved my college crush, I could not pray him into being for me. As much as I felt I could "deal with everything going through [his] head," I was never in his head. We existed together in the same realm for just a little bit. His path was other, and I had to steer away. It wasn't meant to be.
Relationship prayers are the hardest to pray and the hardest with which to wait for the answer. The answer is sometimes quite unexpected. Whenever our desires and prayers are directed at a thing that necessarily involves another complete human being, so many things have to line up to make it work. And while certainly nothing is impossible with God, it will take a little bit more time than...driving under a bridge to see the rain stop instantly to allow you to do your high school summer project.
So for me, it wasn't meant to be takes on new meaning. It's no longer hackneyed and frustrating. It's a simple truth. It's not a term of resignation; it reminds me of my submission. Submission to the Truth. For all I prayed, God knew that my college crush was not actually who I thought he was or what I wanted, and if he was, he knew that I was not what he needed. It was never a prayer unanswered. It was a prayer answered, but I didn't leave space or understanding of that being possibly the answer.
And with the tincture of time and experience and the prospect of assuming a family name of a family that will have nothing to do with me, I see...I come to understand. Love can conquer much but you have to decide if it's worth it.
In terms of the signs I got after pointed prayers...I still don't understand those. Maybe it's like the movie Mr. Nobody, and I could have lived a life where I ended up with my college crush if I took precise actions earlier on, actions I was not ready to take at 19. Maybe that piece has some meaning that I'll uncover later in my life. This little epiphany about the whole situation only took 11 years, after all.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
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.
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.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Unconditional Love
As salaam alaikum,
As I said a short prayer to myself before walking into colposcopy clinic this afternoon, I suddenly realized why people over time have been pulled to pray to their ancestors.
One of my friends, who is Christian, once told me that she equally regards most faiths, including Islam, and including worship of ancestors. As a Muslim who acknowledges my own faith to be the one right path for me and not necessarily for everyone else, I could intellectually understand where she was coming from, but did find the view to be peculiar. The way I understood it was that the bounds of her faith would allow for a syncretic existence in which ancestors would be revered close to God for consult and comfort. I couldn't imagine that for myself.
And I still cannot imagine that for myself, but I understand it a little bit more now. And now that I understand it a little bit more, it's making me rethink my imagining of God.
I understand it a little bit more since my grandfather died. As I heard the news of his passing last year, July 16 and shed my first tears, I was instantly filled with hope, calm and reassurance. That was from God. I knew that Grandfather was with God. I knew that he had gone to the Good Place. I had no doubt, and I grieved easier.
In fact, I was so reassured that I struggled to pray for my grandfather in the way that we're supposed to when someone passed because, in a way, I was like, "God's got this." And for the weeks following his passing, I felt him very present with me, as I felt that he had now come to know the truth of all things, and his soul was set at ease for all of the things he despaired about in this world. I also felt like he was getting to see me, all of me, in a way he'd never imagined me as a granddaughter.
That feeling slowly passed with the noor of Ramadan as the month ended, but since then, I've struggled to relate with that closeness. Grandfather's absent in this realm but very much present spiritually for me. My aunt says she talks to him sometimes. She has talked to deceased relatives all of her life. I don't do that. I took issue to that because I figure who better to talk to, effectively pray to, than God. So I pray for my grandfather but I don't talk to him.
But as I walked to clinic today, I thought about how proud Grandfather probably is of me, now that he knows everything about me and exactly what it takes to be a physician and what I've done, probably more than he understood when he was on earth. And then I faced the thought that always deters me from spending too much time in this paradigm: Grandfather also knows my sins. If Grandfather knows the truth of all things and is privy to the current happenings of this world, Grandfather knows all that I've done wrong. Not only that, but knowing the truth of all things, he knows better than me the cumulative consequences of my wrongs.
And that gave me very brief pause. I knew I wouldn't be upsetting a man who is basking in his life's reward, but I wondered if Grandfather's disappointment in those things that I had done wrong outweighed his pride for the things I'd done right. And while I was still in this slippery paradigm, I though, well, Grandfather would love me, anyway.
And I stopped there, and turned to God in prayer.
I realized at that moment that I saw my Grandfather as unconditionally loving, whereas my conception of God is not that, at all. Of course my memory of Grandfather, which is not at all the representation of the whole man that he was, is of an unconditionally loving patriarch. If Grandfather on this earth knew everything there was to know about me, of course he'd love me anyway. It would balance out. I project that to whatever form his soul has taken/will take/had taken in the outside realm.
But while God is Merciful (in that way that, at times, is so difficult for us to grasp), God's love is not unconditional in my conception of God.
I came of age believing in a God who loved charity, service, kindness and good matters and hated all that was evil, from murder to the sometimes vague perversion. So if I committed evil, I would not be loved by God. That is the condition.
Whereas for Grandfather, we'd have to be pretty shitty people before he no longer loved us, for God it seemed sometimes uncertain how much any particular good or bad weighed.
When put before an omniscient, inconceivable but reportedly merciful and just Being and your loving Grandfather, it would be way less intimidating, if it were an option, to go to your grandfather for guidance.
But as a Muslim, I believe that no one can help me or hurt me but God. And by extension, I also believe that God can and would hurt me, if indicated.
Grandfather wouldn't.
But without belaboring that point, whenever I find myself in that space, I extract myself and return to God. Grandfather, insha'Allah, I'll see on the other side and I can learn about the man I'd come to love in his 60s, in the latter years of his life. I look forward to that day but will complete my term in this world gladly, day by day, year by year, and prayerfully with many more.
But God is Greater. And maybe my imagining of God doesn't do justice to God's mercy and love. Not that I'm going to reduce God to a big grandfather in the sky or anything, but...
If I were too intimidated to come to God, who could I really go to?
I know why it is. It's the language of our Book. A God that doesn't need our prayers or reverence. A God that can replace us with beings that are better than us. God doesn't need us, but we think of people who love us as needing us a little bit.
So I understand how it would be nice to worship a center of unconditional love, but that's just not the way I believe.
As I said a short prayer to myself before walking into colposcopy clinic this afternoon, I suddenly realized why people over time have been pulled to pray to their ancestors.
One of my friends, who is Christian, once told me that she equally regards most faiths, including Islam, and including worship of ancestors. As a Muslim who acknowledges my own faith to be the one right path for me and not necessarily for everyone else, I could intellectually understand where she was coming from, but did find the view to be peculiar. The way I understood it was that the bounds of her faith would allow for a syncretic existence in which ancestors would be revered close to God for consult and comfort. I couldn't imagine that for myself.
And I still cannot imagine that for myself, but I understand it a little bit more now. And now that I understand it a little bit more, it's making me rethink my imagining of God.
I understand it a little bit more since my grandfather died. As I heard the news of his passing last year, July 16 and shed my first tears, I was instantly filled with hope, calm and reassurance. That was from God. I knew that Grandfather was with God. I knew that he had gone to the Good Place. I had no doubt, and I grieved easier.
In fact, I was so reassured that I struggled to pray for my grandfather in the way that we're supposed to when someone passed because, in a way, I was like, "God's got this." And for the weeks following his passing, I felt him very present with me, as I felt that he had now come to know the truth of all things, and his soul was set at ease for all of the things he despaired about in this world. I also felt like he was getting to see me, all of me, in a way he'd never imagined me as a granddaughter.
That feeling slowly passed with the noor of Ramadan as the month ended, but since then, I've struggled to relate with that closeness. Grandfather's absent in this realm but very much present spiritually for me. My aunt says she talks to him sometimes. She has talked to deceased relatives all of her life. I don't do that. I took issue to that because I figure who better to talk to, effectively pray to, than God. So I pray for my grandfather but I don't talk to him.
But as I walked to clinic today, I thought about how proud Grandfather probably is of me, now that he knows everything about me and exactly what it takes to be a physician and what I've done, probably more than he understood when he was on earth. And then I faced the thought that always deters me from spending too much time in this paradigm: Grandfather also knows my sins. If Grandfather knows the truth of all things and is privy to the current happenings of this world, Grandfather knows all that I've done wrong. Not only that, but knowing the truth of all things, he knows better than me the cumulative consequences of my wrongs.
And that gave me very brief pause. I knew I wouldn't be upsetting a man who is basking in his life's reward, but I wondered if Grandfather's disappointment in those things that I had done wrong outweighed his pride for the things I'd done right. And while I was still in this slippery paradigm, I though, well, Grandfather would love me, anyway.
And I stopped there, and turned to God in prayer.
I realized at that moment that I saw my Grandfather as unconditionally loving, whereas my conception of God is not that, at all. Of course my memory of Grandfather, which is not at all the representation of the whole man that he was, is of an unconditionally loving patriarch. If Grandfather on this earth knew everything there was to know about me, of course he'd love me anyway. It would balance out. I project that to whatever form his soul has taken/will take/had taken in the outside realm.
But while God is Merciful (in that way that, at times, is so difficult for us to grasp), God's love is not unconditional in my conception of God.
I came of age believing in a God who loved charity, service, kindness and good matters and hated all that was evil, from murder to the sometimes vague perversion. So if I committed evil, I would not be loved by God. That is the condition.
Whereas for Grandfather, we'd have to be pretty shitty people before he no longer loved us, for God it seemed sometimes uncertain how much any particular good or bad weighed.
When put before an omniscient, inconceivable but reportedly merciful and just Being and your loving Grandfather, it would be way less intimidating, if it were an option, to go to your grandfather for guidance.
But as a Muslim, I believe that no one can help me or hurt me but God. And by extension, I also believe that God can and would hurt me, if indicated.
Grandfather wouldn't.
But without belaboring that point, whenever I find myself in that space, I extract myself and return to God. Grandfather, insha'Allah, I'll see on the other side and I can learn about the man I'd come to love in his 60s, in the latter years of his life. I look forward to that day but will complete my term in this world gladly, day by day, year by year, and prayerfully with many more.
But God is Greater. And maybe my imagining of God doesn't do justice to God's mercy and love. Not that I'm going to reduce God to a big grandfather in the sky or anything, but...
If I were too intimidated to come to God, who could I really go to?
I know why it is. It's the language of our Book. A God that doesn't need our prayers or reverence. A God that can replace us with beings that are better than us. God doesn't need us, but we think of people who love us as needing us a little bit.
So I understand how it would be nice to worship a center of unconditional love, but that's just not the way I believe.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Unassuming
As salaam alaikum,
One of the last things about my grandfather that he lost in the months leading up to his death was his personality. Or, I'm unsure if it was his personality per se or more his unassuming nature. I'm not sure the two are the same. They could be. I'm not sure how much of this is an artifact of my grandfather's upbringing, in a small, Southern Baptist family in the South, how much has to do with growing up during Jim Crow and having to choose deference to white people or face certain death, and how much was just his gentle nature. But my grandfather, in the time I knew him, was very unassuming.
"Oh, don't worry about me, baby." "You don't have to do that." "When you're not busy, could you..." "I'm sorry to bother you, but..."
So while my grandmother, in her heyday, would absolutely dominate all conversation in the room, my grandfather was often silent. Even after his death, my grandmother confided in my mother that she worries that he won't speak up for himself on Judgement Day.
When I learned of grandfather's death, I immediately cried but instantaneously felt a nur that could only come from God, and I was blessed to feel his presence. I knew he was not far, and that he was not suffering, and that he was with God, and it was fine. And it's been fine. And though I missed him at the family gathering after the funeral, the chair that he would occupy inside the house during such gatherings empty, I felt his presence in all of us, his offspring.
And one of the things I either got from him or learned from him is how to be unassuming.
Because I am unassuming in my daily comings and goings. I sometimes don't advocate for myself. I think more than that, I purposefully don't try to stand out in certain situations. Sometimes I feel that I do the spiritual equivalent of shrinking myself as small into a corner as I can. And I don't know how much of this was left-over, learned Muslimah jeito from college, but I try not to be too loud (though I have a naturally resonant voice), too boisterous. I try not to take up too much space, consume too much energy around me.
As a result, I feel as if sometimes, people don't really know me, or that the traits they do know me for are artifacts of the unassuming nature.
Then I worry if I'm not really nice, understanding and a good listener.
I've thought about this more as I've begun to speak up more for myself, let my opinions be known, speak before getting a chance to pour over the intent of my words so much. Sometimes, I don't feel myself when I do this, although it is certainly necessary when assuming an authoritative role, like senior resident, recruitment chief, or later, attending.
I've been thinking about this as I've contemplated my career and the various leadership roles I'd like to take, and as I see that if I don't advocate for myself, few people will. People are ready to assume mediocrity, perhaps in part because my unassuming nature. People are ready to dismiss me or consider me someone not worth knowing.
I'm not bland. I'm not boring. I'm just different. And if I spoke of my interests with as much fervor and pride as some of my friends do, as if all of our base interests are universal or at the least theirs are the ones worth sharing, then I'd be in no way dismissed, ever.
But there's something to be said about humility.
I think there's a balance. One can advocate for themselves and influence their own environment while still being humble and kind. I just have to make sure that when I'm unassuming, it's not to my own detriment while being of little benefit to those around me I'm trying not to offend.
One of the last things about my grandfather that he lost in the months leading up to his death was his personality. Or, I'm unsure if it was his personality per se or more his unassuming nature. I'm not sure the two are the same. They could be. I'm not sure how much of this is an artifact of my grandfather's upbringing, in a small, Southern Baptist family in the South, how much has to do with growing up during Jim Crow and having to choose deference to white people or face certain death, and how much was just his gentle nature. But my grandfather, in the time I knew him, was very unassuming.
"Oh, don't worry about me, baby." "You don't have to do that." "When you're not busy, could you..." "I'm sorry to bother you, but..."
So while my grandmother, in her heyday, would absolutely dominate all conversation in the room, my grandfather was often silent. Even after his death, my grandmother confided in my mother that she worries that he won't speak up for himself on Judgement Day.
When I learned of grandfather's death, I immediately cried but instantaneously felt a nur that could only come from God, and I was blessed to feel his presence. I knew he was not far, and that he was not suffering, and that he was with God, and it was fine. And it's been fine. And though I missed him at the family gathering after the funeral, the chair that he would occupy inside the house during such gatherings empty, I felt his presence in all of us, his offspring.
And one of the things I either got from him or learned from him is how to be unassuming.
Because I am unassuming in my daily comings and goings. I sometimes don't advocate for myself. I think more than that, I purposefully don't try to stand out in certain situations. Sometimes I feel that I do the spiritual equivalent of shrinking myself as small into a corner as I can. And I don't know how much of this was left-over, learned Muslimah jeito from college, but I try not to be too loud (though I have a naturally resonant voice), too boisterous. I try not to take up too much space, consume too much energy around me.
As a result, I feel as if sometimes, people don't really know me, or that the traits they do know me for are artifacts of the unassuming nature.
Then I worry if I'm not really nice, understanding and a good listener.
I've thought about this more as I've begun to speak up more for myself, let my opinions be known, speak before getting a chance to pour over the intent of my words so much. Sometimes, I don't feel myself when I do this, although it is certainly necessary when assuming an authoritative role, like senior resident, recruitment chief, or later, attending.
I've been thinking about this as I've contemplated my career and the various leadership roles I'd like to take, and as I see that if I don't advocate for myself, few people will. People are ready to assume mediocrity, perhaps in part because my unassuming nature. People are ready to dismiss me or consider me someone not worth knowing.
I'm not bland. I'm not boring. I'm just different. And if I spoke of my interests with as much fervor and pride as some of my friends do, as if all of our base interests are universal or at the least theirs are the ones worth sharing, then I'd be in no way dismissed, ever.
But there's something to be said about humility.
I think there's a balance. One can advocate for themselves and influence their own environment while still being humble and kind. I just have to make sure that when I'm unassuming, it's not to my own detriment while being of little benefit to those around me I'm trying not to offend.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Learning to Be Alone
Salaam,
Now that I've been stably in a relationship for nearly two years, I've gone back and read some of those pieces aimed specifically at single people that I couldn't palate the while I was single. Most of the time, I am usually dismayed that I was not able to arrive at the level of sheer self-contentment that the articles recommend. Happily partnered and not desirous of single status, though intellectually feeling that this time around, I could handle it, I wondered how much of my partnership was just for the sake of not being alone. I began to wonder if I would keep looking if I had arrived at a place where I was as content with solitude as these pieces recommend single people to be.
One of the pieces of advice that these articles often cite is that one needs to learn how to be alone, in general. Not just be single, but learn how to be content with one's own company.
And I thought about how bad I was at doing that even while still single. It wasn't that I was constantly yearning for a significant other to fill a space. But my space was constantly filled--with phone calls to my family and friends and visits from friends. The time that I actually spent alone was very meticulously filled with necessary studying while I was in school and writing projects or casual reading when I had free time. I usually exercised alone as well. But I didn't think I enjoyed this time alone--it was just a matter of course.
I enjoy hot showers after sweaty workouts, for example, but showering is something that one necessarily does alone the grand majority of times--I assume this is true even for married women.
But then, it happened. After a week of staycation and getting my life in my apartment organized for the first time since the first few months that I had moved in, I was organized enough to seek out samba class. I found one that I wanted to check out, finished my rotation duties and headed over to the class. I had a good dance and workout, walked home, cooled down and then jumped into the shower to wash the paint off of my feet (I danced barefoot on a raggedy, painted dance floor in a small cultural center in the International District) and in general enjoy the hot spray on my body.
Then, lotioned and deodorized, I sat on my futon and adjusted the temperature in my place by placing the window fan in the window, turning on the only lamp that survived the move from Boston in the corner, and settling down to write a little.
And I probably let one of those this-is-the-life sighs escape my lips before I realized...
Here I am, alone, in my own space, completely content with being alone right now, with the trajectory of the day, with how I plan to conclude my evening, with the fact that I can sit down and write.
It took me two years of a stable relationship to learn to be alone.
When my apartment was filled with papers that needed organizing, laundry to be sorted and washed and put away, dishes caked in grease that didn't come off with one round of dishwashing (but always with a clean bathroom!), I did not enjoy my time here. I spent most of the time in my bed, the only relatively clear spot in my place, with the blinds drawn because...if I have a night shift, I sometimes sleep during the day, so the goal of the bedroom is darkness. I spent most of my days at my SO's place, because he has a house, actually, and is a minimalist so has very little clutter. My house became a cluttered sleeping den with a refrigerator I was afraid to open.
Now, with all of my educational papers organized into binders and files, all of the junk mail that I had let accumulate over two years shreaded and recycled, the kitchen clean and ready for the next meal, my dining room apetizing, my reading corner restored with my papasan chair open and inviting...I have no need to be anywhere else. My space is less than 600 square feet, but I now can do almost everything I want in here. I can practice my samba moves in the living room with my small stereo system with sub woofer. I can experiment with different recipes and eat them at my dining room table or my now pristine bar area at the sink. I can curl up with a good book or medical journal and read in my reading corner. I can take a nap on my futon.
Or, like now, I can sit with my legs crossed and my laptop on my lap and write whatever comes to mind.
And my room, small and functional, can be reserved for what I always meant it to be for: sleep! Fresh sheets, organized closet and dresser drawers, dusted nightstand with my Qur'an, alarm clock and personal effects there at the side. It's back to being my bedroom again, and not a glorified dorm room of yore.
In med school more than in college, my dorm room bed was a place to eat, study, watch television, read and sleep. And repeat. And sometimes cry.
And there are so many other things that I occasionally do when I'm here, like long hair-care days. I recently spent 9 hours twisting my hair, and could spend a similar amount of time doing my next henna rinse and deep conditioning routine. And of course, there's the singing and the documentary-watching.
And this is just inside of my apartment! There's a whole world of things outside of the apartment that I enjoy doing solo - my samba classes, my workouts, shopping, eating what I want without being policed.
Not that I don't love doing things with my SO. Not at all. But there are definitely things that I did when my time was all my own that I miss now because I'm trying to balance a busy work schedule with future family time, so to speak.
That's when I wondered whether these self-help blurbs for singles are written by people who are happily partnered. Because it sounds a lot like my happily married mother's advice when I was a young, yearning girl. "One day, you'll look back at this time and be repentant," is the only thing missing from the learn to be alone injunction.
Because that's what I wish I could tell my single self now and what I'll know in the future. This time that you're spending doing whatever the hell you want is priceless. Don't sell it short for the sake of a relationship. Enjoy it. Soak in it. You may not have it again.
Especially since I have baby fever at all times, I don't feel like I'm going to get to enjoy too much of my future married life non-pregnant or mothering, insha'Allah.
So if I don't take advantage of the last of my alone time now, gone could be the days of my concurrent samba dancing, jazz club singing (!!), personal training, exercising, hair henna glossing, two strand twisting, journal writing, MPB singing all the while doctoring self.
Ahhh...I get it.
But I did not arrive at this place when I was perpetually single. I didn't know what it was like to divide my time. I had time to do all of those things but I also had time to be lonely, devastated and disillusioned. That space is now filled and is overflowing into my alone time.
So now, I know how to be alone. Yes. Great.
No, but actually, great! It just gives me hope that my success in a relationship was not dependent on my being completely happy single. In fact, part of the impetus that keeps any two of us together as disparate human beings is anything from a preference against to a fear of being alone. So that's okay.
But I didn't need to have the single thing perfect before leaving that stage of my life.
...and the fact still remains, if nothing much is going on, I'm going to end up calling my mother, preferentially, anyway.
Now that I've been stably in a relationship for nearly two years, I've gone back and read some of those pieces aimed specifically at single people that I couldn't palate the while I was single. Most of the time, I am usually dismayed that I was not able to arrive at the level of sheer self-contentment that the articles recommend. Happily partnered and not desirous of single status, though intellectually feeling that this time around, I could handle it, I wondered how much of my partnership was just for the sake of not being alone. I began to wonder if I would keep looking if I had arrived at a place where I was as content with solitude as these pieces recommend single people to be.
One of the pieces of advice that these articles often cite is that one needs to learn how to be alone, in general. Not just be single, but learn how to be content with one's own company.
And I thought about how bad I was at doing that even while still single. It wasn't that I was constantly yearning for a significant other to fill a space. But my space was constantly filled--with phone calls to my family and friends and visits from friends. The time that I actually spent alone was very meticulously filled with necessary studying while I was in school and writing projects or casual reading when I had free time. I usually exercised alone as well. But I didn't think I enjoyed this time alone--it was just a matter of course.
I enjoy hot showers after sweaty workouts, for example, but showering is something that one necessarily does alone the grand majority of times--I assume this is true even for married women.
But then, it happened. After a week of staycation and getting my life in my apartment organized for the first time since the first few months that I had moved in, I was organized enough to seek out samba class. I found one that I wanted to check out, finished my rotation duties and headed over to the class. I had a good dance and workout, walked home, cooled down and then jumped into the shower to wash the paint off of my feet (I danced barefoot on a raggedy, painted dance floor in a small cultural center in the International District) and in general enjoy the hot spray on my body.
Then, lotioned and deodorized, I sat on my futon and adjusted the temperature in my place by placing the window fan in the window, turning on the only lamp that survived the move from Boston in the corner, and settling down to write a little.
And I probably let one of those this-is-the-life sighs escape my lips before I realized...
Here I am, alone, in my own space, completely content with being alone right now, with the trajectory of the day, with how I plan to conclude my evening, with the fact that I can sit down and write.
It took me two years of a stable relationship to learn to be alone.
When my apartment was filled with papers that needed organizing, laundry to be sorted and washed and put away, dishes caked in grease that didn't come off with one round of dishwashing (but always with a clean bathroom!), I did not enjoy my time here. I spent most of the time in my bed, the only relatively clear spot in my place, with the blinds drawn because...if I have a night shift, I sometimes sleep during the day, so the goal of the bedroom is darkness. I spent most of my days at my SO's place, because he has a house, actually, and is a minimalist so has very little clutter. My house became a cluttered sleeping den with a refrigerator I was afraid to open.
Now, with all of my educational papers organized into binders and files, all of the junk mail that I had let accumulate over two years shreaded and recycled, the kitchen clean and ready for the next meal, my dining room apetizing, my reading corner restored with my papasan chair open and inviting...I have no need to be anywhere else. My space is less than 600 square feet, but I now can do almost everything I want in here. I can practice my samba moves in the living room with my small stereo system with sub woofer. I can experiment with different recipes and eat them at my dining room table or my now pristine bar area at the sink. I can curl up with a good book or medical journal and read in my reading corner. I can take a nap on my futon.
Or, like now, I can sit with my legs crossed and my laptop on my lap and write whatever comes to mind.
And my room, small and functional, can be reserved for what I always meant it to be for: sleep! Fresh sheets, organized closet and dresser drawers, dusted nightstand with my Qur'an, alarm clock and personal effects there at the side. It's back to being my bedroom again, and not a glorified dorm room of yore.
In med school more than in college, my dorm room bed was a place to eat, study, watch television, read and sleep. And repeat. And sometimes cry.
And there are so many other things that I occasionally do when I'm here, like long hair-care days. I recently spent 9 hours twisting my hair, and could spend a similar amount of time doing my next henna rinse and deep conditioning routine. And of course, there's the singing and the documentary-watching.
And this is just inside of my apartment! There's a whole world of things outside of the apartment that I enjoy doing solo - my samba classes, my workouts, shopping, eating what I want without being policed.
Not that I don't love doing things with my SO. Not at all. But there are definitely things that I did when my time was all my own that I miss now because I'm trying to balance a busy work schedule with future family time, so to speak.
That's when I wondered whether these self-help blurbs for singles are written by people who are happily partnered. Because it sounds a lot like my happily married mother's advice when I was a young, yearning girl. "One day, you'll look back at this time and be repentant," is the only thing missing from the learn to be alone injunction.
Because that's what I wish I could tell my single self now and what I'll know in the future. This time that you're spending doing whatever the hell you want is priceless. Don't sell it short for the sake of a relationship. Enjoy it. Soak in it. You may not have it again.
Especially since I have baby fever at all times, I don't feel like I'm going to get to enjoy too much of my future married life non-pregnant or mothering, insha'Allah.
So if I don't take advantage of the last of my alone time now, gone could be the days of my concurrent samba dancing, jazz club singing (!!), personal training, exercising, hair henna glossing, two strand twisting, journal writing, MPB singing all the while doctoring self.
Ahhh...I get it.
But I did not arrive at this place when I was perpetually single. I didn't know what it was like to divide my time. I had time to do all of those things but I also had time to be lonely, devastated and disillusioned. That space is now filled and is overflowing into my alone time.
So now, I know how to be alone. Yes. Great.
No, but actually, great! It just gives me hope that my success in a relationship was not dependent on my being completely happy single. In fact, part of the impetus that keeps any two of us together as disparate human beings is anything from a preference against to a fear of being alone. So that's okay.
But I didn't need to have the single thing perfect before leaving that stage of my life.
...and the fact still remains, if nothing much is going on, I'm going to end up calling my mother, preferentially, anyway.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Things that Make Me Happy #2: The Perfect Retro
Salaam,
Some time ago, I had a post where I did a gratefulness exercise inspired by a similar exercise that we did during Residents Only time during didactics, in which we usually do some type of meditation. The first one was called "Things that Make Me Happy." Self-explanatory. The second was "That Day He'll Love Me Back," which is my favorite part of unrequited love, the moment of anticipation when your beloved realizes that he or she loves you, too, and you begin your lives together.
That anticipation, which lasts for several moments over the span of an unrequited love, makes me very happy.
So this also makes me happy: the perfect retro.
Bruno Mars did it with "Treasure." Let me explain why.
Michael Jackson, "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough," Off the Wall, 1979.
The Gap Band, "You Dropped a Bomb on Me," The Gap Band III, 1982
And if it weren't for wikipedia, I would have never seen this video, but Bruno Mars and his producers must have seen this Earth, Wind and Fire video, because a lot of the elements are identical.
Earth, Wind and Fire, "Let's Groove," Raise!, 1981
Genius!
Seeing the video made me appreciate the song a lot more. Honestly, when I first heard the song back in the summer, because I heard it at a wedding that was also playing older songs (I heard one of my faves referenced in the aforementioned entries, "Overjoyed."), I thought it was an old song that I perhaps hadn't heard before. Maybe somebody's B side or something. Thought maybe the artist was DeBarge or something, since I don't know a lot of their stuff. Then I started hearing it on the radio and I realized that it wasn't old, and that it was Bruno Mars.
There are definitely elements of the song itself that place it in that late 70s, early 80s era. First, lyrically, a song named on the simple premise of praising a woman, naming one of her attributes...that is a classic attribute of many songs of the era.
Coming to mind immediately are, "Outstanding" by Gap Band (Gap Band IV, 1982). Others include, "Special Lady" by Ray, Goodman and Brown (Ray, Goodman & Brown, 1979) and "You are My High" by The Gap Band (The Gap Band II, 1979). Lyrics only, because these songs have a different groove, obviously. Of course this concept extends outside of this era, but I feel like this era was one of the last times that R&B had songs like this that were chaste declarations of love without some muted or overt sexual reference.
For example, "Candy" by Cameo (1985). Obvious sexual reference.
Then there's the actual music. The beat/groove reminds me of a couple of songs of that disco/post-disco era. First to mind is Emotions, "Best of My Love" (1977). The vocals, once again, reminiscent of Michael Jackson, the dance moves, the same.
But with all of this, he put together a song that really could have come out in 1979. Every element of it (except for the woman in the video doing the Bankhead Bounce, popularized apparently by this song in 1995) is true to that time, including the instrumentation and vocal effects.
Why does this make me happy? Because, this is my dream!
I have a story idea called, "The Misadventures of Nisa," that is set in the early 80s, and it's either going to be a musical or it'll have a lot of music in it. I've got the basic concepts for 3 songs in it so far, one that is the theme, another that is just one of the side songs, and another that is an instrumental for the background. The story itself is really campy, but it's an outlet for me to write songs that I think could have existed in the era. For whatever reason, even though the music wasn't the greatest in terms of quality, I love 80s music for what it is, I think more than any other era. The 1960s had the best soul, the 1970s had the best funk, bass progressions and Stevie Wonder, the 1990s has my heart and is the first era where I have real nostalgia for the music, the 2000s lost my interest.
The 1980s were...awesome. It was flux, it was worldly, it was uncertainty, it was instability, it was change, it was disintegration. It was the era that gave birth to hip hop, which degenerated into gansta rap. It was the era of fame and change for Michael Jackson. It was the era of AIDS with no cure in sight, the war on drugs and the introduction of crack cocaine into the inner city. It was an era of big hair and harsh makeup and men in skinny jeans for the first time. It was the first era I look at documented in television where people look the most human to me, and not coiffed in clothing that is characteristic, universal and just-so to give us the semblance of civilization. It was more animal. It was dirtier, messier. You could almost smell the 80s.
Or maybe it's the first era that's really real to me because I was born in it. That could be it.
But someone who is able to pull of that perfect retro, harkening back in a piece of music or art or whatever to an era that actually existed such that my own mother, who existed in that era, thought that it was actually an old video of an artist she didn't know? That is genius right there.
Some time ago, I had a post where I did a gratefulness exercise inspired by a similar exercise that we did during Residents Only time during didactics, in which we usually do some type of meditation. The first one was called "Things that Make Me Happy." Self-explanatory. The second was "That Day He'll Love Me Back," which is my favorite part of unrequited love, the moment of anticipation when your beloved realizes that he or she loves you, too, and you begin your lives together.
That anticipation, which lasts for several moments over the span of an unrequited love, makes me very happy.
So this also makes me happy: the perfect retro.
Bruno Mars did it with "Treasure." Let me explain why.
Could have left out the "Baby squirrel, yous a sexy m***f***er" part, though, but whatevs.
I thought the song was cute months ago when I heard it, but I didn't see the video until recently. I don't generally watch videos but I saw a Bruno Mars video while getting bubble tea one day and I was like, huh, I wonder what this one looks like...
..and I fell in love.
Let me break it down for you.
First, the video. Bruno Mars is my age, born in 1985. The style of this video is clearly before either of our times. I would place this video pre-Thriller, probably late 70s to early 80s, more precicely 1979 to 1982.
Let me give you a few examples of what this video reminds me of.
Of course, the video reminds the most of one of Bruno Mars' greatest influences, Michael Jackson.
This was the first video that came to mind when I saw "Treasure." Going to the end of that era of music video is the likes of Gap Band's "You Dropped a Bomb on Me."
And if it weren't for wikipedia, I would have never seen this video, but Bruno Mars and his producers must have seen this Earth, Wind and Fire video, because a lot of the elements are identical.
From the special effects, to the basic choreography, to the random chick dancing in it, everything...he nailed this era!
Genius!
Seeing the video made me appreciate the song a lot more. Honestly, when I first heard the song back in the summer, because I heard it at a wedding that was also playing older songs (I heard one of my faves referenced in the aforementioned entries, "Overjoyed."), I thought it was an old song that I perhaps hadn't heard before. Maybe somebody's B side or something. Thought maybe the artist was DeBarge or something, since I don't know a lot of their stuff. Then I started hearing it on the radio and I realized that it wasn't old, and that it was Bruno Mars.
There are definitely elements of the song itself that place it in that late 70s, early 80s era. First, lyrically, a song named on the simple premise of praising a woman, naming one of her attributes...that is a classic attribute of many songs of the era.
Coming to mind immediately are, "Outstanding" by Gap Band (Gap Band IV, 1982). Others include, "Special Lady" by Ray, Goodman and Brown (Ray, Goodman & Brown, 1979) and "You are My High" by The Gap Band (The Gap Band II, 1979). Lyrics only, because these songs have a different groove, obviously. Of course this concept extends outside of this era, but I feel like this era was one of the last times that R&B had songs like this that were chaste declarations of love without some muted or overt sexual reference.
For example, "Candy" by Cameo (1985). Obvious sexual reference.
Then there's the actual music. The beat/groove reminds me of a couple of songs of that disco/post-disco era. First to mind is Emotions, "Best of My Love" (1977). The vocals, once again, reminiscent of Michael Jackson, the dance moves, the same.
But with all of this, he put together a song that really could have come out in 1979. Every element of it (except for the woman in the video doing the Bankhead Bounce, popularized apparently by this song in 1995) is true to that time, including the instrumentation and vocal effects.
Why does this make me happy? Because, this is my dream!
I have a story idea called, "The Misadventures of Nisa," that is set in the early 80s, and it's either going to be a musical or it'll have a lot of music in it. I've got the basic concepts for 3 songs in it so far, one that is the theme, another that is just one of the side songs, and another that is an instrumental for the background. The story itself is really campy, but it's an outlet for me to write songs that I think could have existed in the era. For whatever reason, even though the music wasn't the greatest in terms of quality, I love 80s music for what it is, I think more than any other era. The 1960s had the best soul, the 1970s had the best funk, bass progressions and Stevie Wonder, the 1990s has my heart and is the first era where I have real nostalgia for the music, the 2000s lost my interest.
The 1980s were...awesome. It was flux, it was worldly, it was uncertainty, it was instability, it was change, it was disintegration. It was the era that gave birth to hip hop, which degenerated into gansta rap. It was the era of fame and change for Michael Jackson. It was the era of AIDS with no cure in sight, the war on drugs and the introduction of crack cocaine into the inner city. It was an era of big hair and harsh makeup and men in skinny jeans for the first time. It was the first era I look at documented in television where people look the most human to me, and not coiffed in clothing that is characteristic, universal and just-so to give us the semblance of civilization. It was more animal. It was dirtier, messier. You could almost smell the 80s.
Or maybe it's the first era that's really real to me because I was born in it. That could be it.
But someone who is able to pull of that perfect retro, harkening back in a piece of music or art or whatever to an era that actually existed such that my own mother, who existed in that era, thought that it was actually an old video of an artist she didn't know? That is genius right there.
Friday, November 29, 2013
[uncensored]: Part of That World
Salaam,
I've been following along with the recent posts at loveinshallah.com in response to the controversial contribution, "How I Met My Son's Mother." First of all, big ups to this guy who was so courageous to write a piece on this website and be subject to such scrutiny. There's not much left to say that hasn't already been said in several response posts on that website and the 140 and counting comments.
Reading all of these posts about the ideals of Muslim marriage and how we fall so far from that ideal did get me feeling, to use a phrase that I actively despise, "some kinda way..."
I'm probably just ovulating or something and my hormones have come out of a year and a half long hiding, because I almost started crying at a beautiful moment between a tiny newborn and her teenage mother when I was doing baby's exam yesterday. But reading these blogs about people seeking out marriage in the halal way reminded me of what I once wanted for myself, and frankly, what I gave up on a long time ago.
It all unraveled years ago when I was on an online site and this brother from Florida was serious about setting up communication. This was not the first one and nor was he the last. He was also not the first more than 1000 miles away who wanted to skype. In these settings, I usually gave an email that I used to forward my old University of Michigan mail that I used for the purpose of signing up for internet things that I didn't want to spam me...and for online dating. No phone numbers, no skype dates. Anyone who wanted to skype with me immediately I figured were too into my looks, anyway.
So brother from Florida was earnest. He was not at all my time and had a career trajectory that was not appetizing (the lyric comes to mind, "I'm a hustler, baby, I just want you to know..."). But otherwise, he was just fine on initial contacts from an Islamic standpoint. And for him, I was just fine...pre-med (at that time), with a promising career, "just throw a hijab on [me] and [I'd] be perfect."
I didn't take offense to this because I never said never again to hijab, and at this point in the game, approaching 25, I didn't know if I should be so picky as to not want to be with a man who felt hijab was fard.
Then he asked me if I had a wali. Ooohh...
"Because, you know, I talk to sisters on here and they act like they're serious, but then I find out they don't have a wali, which is absolutely required."
This was either about to be my perfect out for the Florida Hustler or it was going to be yet another cop-out for a brother who may have had promise.
I didn't have a wali. I hadn't sought a wali and at that point was unsure if I wanted to, even though I know that it would be required if I chose to go about marriage at this way. What was I thinking? I know exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking that I had to finesse this Muslim marriage thing. I have a Christian father who gets nervous anyone has a Muslim name or comes from a majority-Muslim country for "extremist ties," in spite of being married to a Muslim woman who practices five pillars. My "coming out" as Muslim in my early 20s imposed a deep rift in my family that my adult brother with autism cannot afford, nor can my parents' otherwise loving and functional relationship afford. It's a sucky place to be in as a daughter of an interfaith couple, but so it is. My parents, for this reason, were not fit to guide me through the marriage process.
Of course, my father would love to arrange my marriage with a man that he trusts. That man would be a Christian man. I bet he still would love to, but that's another story.
So, if I wanted to go forward with legit Muslim marriage, by the books, I probably would need a wali. But where would I find one? One of my formerly atheist now Muslim convert friends from medical school who converted to Islam prior to marrying her husband easily told me that I should talk to an imam, that he would help me.
Yes, thank you so much. Because it was so hard for you, dating your Muslim husband the regular way.
I hope this friend is okay. She had no wali and shut herself out from her friends in the time leading up to her marriage. I didn't even get to do my "there is no compulsion in religion" talk with her before she apparently converted and struggled through salat with Arabic words she didn't understand.
So here I was, trying to be more honest, on skype (still wasn't comfortable with it) with Florida Hustler Brother who was right. If I wanted to do this right, I needed a wali. But doing things right would mean ultimately alienating my father from this process, and maybe alienating him from my life as well. I realized that getting a wali was just a red herring. The process of attempting to get "Muslim married" by getting to know a man outside of the dating paradigm and essentially arranging my marriage was incompatible with maintaining a relationship with my father and having my parents at all involved in my decision to marry.
Because my mother is a wife that defers to her husband. My mother is also a woman who did not have patience for her pool of Muslim suitors, which for her as a black Muslim woman in the late 70s were black Muslim men, the new Muslim crew following WD Muhammad or at that point, stragglers from the Nation, who she had seen preferentially select "lost found girls" because "they put out." She is also a woman who does salat in English and does not shudder when people tell her that her prayers will therefore not be recognized. She slides easily from reading the Qur'an daily to living her Islam in the way she sees fit, and in that mode of Islam, she sees no conflict in having married my Christian father, whose morality is more excellent than any other Muslim man she's known, including her own father.
Therefore, she would not be my ally in seeking to get Muslim married at the expense of my relationship with my father.
There's always the slim possibility that I would go about this process, not alienate my father, he meets my suitor and sees past the religious difference to see that he was a genuinely God-fearing man who had the best intentions for his daughter. My mother would also be pleased with such a suitor.
But in order to get there, I would have to begin a serious search, and in order for it to be safe for me as a single woman searching without the aid of family or other elders of a spouse, I would need a wali, a legit one, a trusted guardian who really had my best interests at heart.
And I'd either have to keep it from my father or endure months of disapproval from him until the process yielded success, and the impact that would have on my mother and brother as my father took out his frustration on my mother, as he did when I first told him that I would "never be Christian."
I'm not being melodramatic. My father still tries at intervals to get me to realize my salvation through Jesus Christ and convert.
Some would argue that the decision should be easy, that I should aim to please God more than my parents. And what more example do I need than the father of both my and my father's religion, Abraham, and blah blah blah.
I mean, it is a valid argument. I should want to please God over everything else. But people who make these arguments typically were never in the position I was in. Without my parents, I have no one in this world. And at the very least, as a single woman, that is not safe.
So I closed the Skype conversation with Florida Brother and never spoke to him again. I would not be getting a wali. And from that point onward, it slowly degenerated to, "I will not be getting Muslim married."
To which I occasionally wonder, what will become of me? Marriage being half of my religion, I either will not get married at all or, if I marry, I will be less of a Muslim because of it. The ramifications are clear. I will become like my mother, who has not prayed with anyone else besides me, occasionally, when prayers are silent because I do salat in Arabic and she does salat in English. She fasts in isolation, she practices in isolation. She hasn't been in a mosque since before I was born. She's able to exist as a Muslim woman married to this Christian man praying in English because of her isolation. This was not what I wanted for myself.
It's not true that marrying a non-Muslim man means that you're children will be raised non-Muslim. I've seen more Muslim men married to non-Muslim women raise non-Muslim children than the other way around. Cultures are different, and in ours, often, the mother's faith rules. But it is true that a strong, believing father of another faith will continue to have an influence and somewhat control over especially his daughter's potential spouses, especially if that daughter loves and respects him.
I wore hijab for two years, successfully finding ways to hide it from my father until I couldn't anymore and for multiple other reasons, stopped. The same way goes my plans for marriage.
And I've come out the other side a shadow of the Muslimah that I initially sought to become. I strove to become part of a world that I could not have become a part of without disowning myself from my father and potentially permanently destroying our relationship. But my father is a good Christian man who believes in God with all of his heart who raised me to the best of his ability and wants the best for me and he does not deserve such cruelty.
My mother, a few years ago in my angst about my situation, apologized to me as I spelled this out for her. She should not have placed me in such a precarious position. What a thing to apologize for, to have married a solid husband, a great father and provider.
In the end, I have made a choice about how I will seek my partner. It is one that both of my parents approve of and because of that, feels a lot safer, although in reality, I realize that there is no safe way to do such a thing. Not only in terms of safety of emotions, but in terms of safety of person. I go forward prayerfully as with everything I do.
I've been following along with the recent posts at loveinshallah.com in response to the controversial contribution, "How I Met My Son's Mother." First of all, big ups to this guy who was so courageous to write a piece on this website and be subject to such scrutiny. There's not much left to say that hasn't already been said in several response posts on that website and the 140 and counting comments.
Reading all of these posts about the ideals of Muslim marriage and how we fall so far from that ideal did get me feeling, to use a phrase that I actively despise, "some kinda way..."
I'm probably just ovulating or something and my hormones have come out of a year and a half long hiding, because I almost started crying at a beautiful moment between a tiny newborn and her teenage mother when I was doing baby's exam yesterday. But reading these blogs about people seeking out marriage in the halal way reminded me of what I once wanted for myself, and frankly, what I gave up on a long time ago.
It all unraveled years ago when I was on an online site and this brother from Florida was serious about setting up communication. This was not the first one and nor was he the last. He was also not the first more than 1000 miles away who wanted to skype. In these settings, I usually gave an email that I used to forward my old University of Michigan mail that I used for the purpose of signing up for internet things that I didn't want to spam me...and for online dating. No phone numbers, no skype dates. Anyone who wanted to skype with me immediately I figured were too into my looks, anyway.
So brother from Florida was earnest. He was not at all my time and had a career trajectory that was not appetizing (the lyric comes to mind, "I'm a hustler, baby, I just want you to know..."). But otherwise, he was just fine on initial contacts from an Islamic standpoint. And for him, I was just fine...pre-med (at that time), with a promising career, "just throw a hijab on [me] and [I'd] be perfect."
I didn't take offense to this because I never said never again to hijab, and at this point in the game, approaching 25, I didn't know if I should be so picky as to not want to be with a man who felt hijab was fard.
Then he asked me if I had a wali. Ooohh...
"Because, you know, I talk to sisters on here and they act like they're serious, but then I find out they don't have a wali, which is absolutely required."
This was either about to be my perfect out for the Florida Hustler or it was going to be yet another cop-out for a brother who may have had promise.
I didn't have a wali. I hadn't sought a wali and at that point was unsure if I wanted to, even though I know that it would be required if I chose to go about marriage at this way. What was I thinking? I know exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking that I had to finesse this Muslim marriage thing. I have a Christian father who gets nervous anyone has a Muslim name or comes from a majority-Muslim country for "extremist ties," in spite of being married to a Muslim woman who practices five pillars. My "coming out" as Muslim in my early 20s imposed a deep rift in my family that my adult brother with autism cannot afford, nor can my parents' otherwise loving and functional relationship afford. It's a sucky place to be in as a daughter of an interfaith couple, but so it is. My parents, for this reason, were not fit to guide me through the marriage process.
Of course, my father would love to arrange my marriage with a man that he trusts. That man would be a Christian man. I bet he still would love to, but that's another story.
So, if I wanted to go forward with legit Muslim marriage, by the books, I probably would need a wali. But where would I find one? One of my formerly atheist now Muslim convert friends from medical school who converted to Islam prior to marrying her husband easily told me that I should talk to an imam, that he would help me.
Yes, thank you so much. Because it was so hard for you, dating your Muslim husband the regular way.
I hope this friend is okay. She had no wali and shut herself out from her friends in the time leading up to her marriage. I didn't even get to do my "there is no compulsion in religion" talk with her before she apparently converted and struggled through salat with Arabic words she didn't understand.
So here I was, trying to be more honest, on skype (still wasn't comfortable with it) with Florida Hustler Brother who was right. If I wanted to do this right, I needed a wali. But doing things right would mean ultimately alienating my father from this process, and maybe alienating him from my life as well. I realized that getting a wali was just a red herring. The process of attempting to get "Muslim married" by getting to know a man outside of the dating paradigm and essentially arranging my marriage was incompatible with maintaining a relationship with my father and having my parents at all involved in my decision to marry.
Because my mother is a wife that defers to her husband. My mother is also a woman who did not have patience for her pool of Muslim suitors, which for her as a black Muslim woman in the late 70s were black Muslim men, the new Muslim crew following WD Muhammad or at that point, stragglers from the Nation, who she had seen preferentially select "lost found girls" because "they put out." She is also a woman who does salat in English and does not shudder when people tell her that her prayers will therefore not be recognized. She slides easily from reading the Qur'an daily to living her Islam in the way she sees fit, and in that mode of Islam, she sees no conflict in having married my Christian father, whose morality is more excellent than any other Muslim man she's known, including her own father.
Therefore, she would not be my ally in seeking to get Muslim married at the expense of my relationship with my father.
There's always the slim possibility that I would go about this process, not alienate my father, he meets my suitor and sees past the religious difference to see that he was a genuinely God-fearing man who had the best intentions for his daughter. My mother would also be pleased with such a suitor.
But in order to get there, I would have to begin a serious search, and in order for it to be safe for me as a single woman searching without the aid of family or other elders of a spouse, I would need a wali, a legit one, a trusted guardian who really had my best interests at heart.
And I'd either have to keep it from my father or endure months of disapproval from him until the process yielded success, and the impact that would have on my mother and brother as my father took out his frustration on my mother, as he did when I first told him that I would "never be Christian."
I'm not being melodramatic. My father still tries at intervals to get me to realize my salvation through Jesus Christ and convert.
Some would argue that the decision should be easy, that I should aim to please God more than my parents. And what more example do I need than the father of both my and my father's religion, Abraham, and blah blah blah.
I mean, it is a valid argument. I should want to please God over everything else. But people who make these arguments typically were never in the position I was in. Without my parents, I have no one in this world. And at the very least, as a single woman, that is not safe.
So I closed the Skype conversation with Florida Brother and never spoke to him again. I would not be getting a wali. And from that point onward, it slowly degenerated to, "I will not be getting Muslim married."
To which I occasionally wonder, what will become of me? Marriage being half of my religion, I either will not get married at all or, if I marry, I will be less of a Muslim because of it. The ramifications are clear. I will become like my mother, who has not prayed with anyone else besides me, occasionally, when prayers are silent because I do salat in Arabic and she does salat in English. She fasts in isolation, she practices in isolation. She hasn't been in a mosque since before I was born. She's able to exist as a Muslim woman married to this Christian man praying in English because of her isolation. This was not what I wanted for myself.
It's not true that marrying a non-Muslim man means that you're children will be raised non-Muslim. I've seen more Muslim men married to non-Muslim women raise non-Muslim children than the other way around. Cultures are different, and in ours, often, the mother's faith rules. But it is true that a strong, believing father of another faith will continue to have an influence and somewhat control over especially his daughter's potential spouses, especially if that daughter loves and respects him.
I wore hijab for two years, successfully finding ways to hide it from my father until I couldn't anymore and for multiple other reasons, stopped. The same way goes my plans for marriage.
And I've come out the other side a shadow of the Muslimah that I initially sought to become. I strove to become part of a world that I could not have become a part of without disowning myself from my father and potentially permanently destroying our relationship. But my father is a good Christian man who believes in God with all of his heart who raised me to the best of his ability and wants the best for me and he does not deserve such cruelty.
My mother, a few years ago in my angst about my situation, apologized to me as I spelled this out for her. She should not have placed me in such a precarious position. What a thing to apologize for, to have married a solid husband, a great father and provider.
In the end, I have made a choice about how I will seek my partner. It is one that both of my parents approve of and because of that, feels a lot safer, although in reality, I realize that there is no safe way to do such a thing. Not only in terms of safety of emotions, but in terms of safety of person. I go forward prayerfully as with everything I do.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
And I Stop Breathing
Salaam,
It never fails. I find when I see pictures of MQ and his wife together, my breathing arrests. And I only realize it when they're out of my view and I've scrolled down the page. It's no longer about him, though. It's about the memory of how much I loved, seeing that other person who is in the position I desperately wanted to be for a few good years of my adulthood, and realizing that I will never love like that, again. It's over. That was my chance, and it was never going to be, anyway.
And I thought I no longer stopped breathing when I saw them. But I still do.
...maybe I should delete them from my Facebook.
It never fails. I find when I see pictures of MQ and his wife together, my breathing arrests. And I only realize it when they're out of my view and I've scrolled down the page. It's no longer about him, though. It's about the memory of how much I loved, seeing that other person who is in the position I desperately wanted to be for a few good years of my adulthood, and realizing that I will never love like that, again. It's over. That was my chance, and it was never going to be, anyway.
And I thought I no longer stopped breathing when I saw them. But I still do.
...maybe I should delete them from my Facebook.
Monday, September 16, 2013
That Day He'll Love Me Back
Salaam,
So, in my last post, I talked about things that make me happy, how sometimes I don't exactly feel the word "love" for places, things, ideas and how I have to approach it from that glowing feel I get whenever such things are mentioned, when I experience them, when I travel to them...
Because happiness for me is a glow in my chest, a warm feeling, kind of like a tingling pressure that expands.
And it lasts for the duration that I experience these things, places, ideas, that I'm in the presence of these people, and lasts until I'm no longer thinking about them.
So one of the ideas that makes me happy is the realization of a love once requited. Not the actual realization, though. That feeling of anticipation of that realization of a currently unrequited love...is probably one of the strongest emotions I've felt so far in life.
I think it will only be surpassed by holding my children for the first time.
The biggest crush I will probably ever have in my life was, for those who have been reading for a long time, MTQ. I was 19 years old. It was the first time in my adult life that I "fell in love." It may be the last time in my adult life that I fall in love. It wasn't "love at first sight." I recently had that (with not my SO, prior to him being my SO, but concurrently with that...long story). He was a kid (a 19 then 20-year-old kid) who I at first didn't like. But later, I did fall...
And what a fall it was.
Right now, as a 28 year old woman, nearing the 10th Anniversary of Falling (if I may), the 10th anniversary of the Unrequited Love Tale of My Life...I have to be reminded of what it felt like to be "in love" with him. I have to go to old journal entries, old stories, and read and smile and remember.
Sentiments like, "I can't believe you exist in a realm in which I also exist," still make me tingle on the inside. I have to be reminded, but once I am, I can feel that again...and I love that feeling.
Implicit in that statement is that anticipation. The anticipation of the realization of a love that is yet unrequited is amazing. It's such a burning, glowing, magical feeling. And until that day happens, and as long as you believe this to be true...you are taken over by that anticipation. You eat, sleep, pray, breathe that anticipation. I've never realized and unrequited love so I don't know how that feels...it may be the grand anticlimax, I don't know.
But that draw of that anticipation is why so many people liked the Helga/Arnold thing on Hey Arnold!
And I'd probably have a list of rom-coms that played a similar role...if I watched them! :D
There are a few songs that capture this adeptly...and thus are some of my favorite songs (you can find a song for any sentiment you want from a talented artist).
In English, of course, Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed," not only lyrically, but musically, instrumentally, through its arrangement, captures that feeling perfectly. In fact, I can identify the exact moment that feels like my anticipation. See the clip below:
See 1:38-1:46 (not only the lyrics, but what the music is doing in the background...perfect. "And maybe, too, if you would believe you, too, might be..."). Almost what my anticipation feels like. My anticipation feels like some notes that don't exist, that may exist if I were genius enough to make my own arrangement of it.
Other such songs that are my favorites that I really feel when I sing along (or listen along, hehe) include Patti LaBelle's "If Only You Knew," "Natural High," by Bloodstone, and "Sweet Thing" by Chaka Khan (one of my favorite genres thus being apparent). (In linking these, I had to listen to them in their entirity). That moment of anticipation is captured with Patti LaBelle's "if" that she vocally embellishes in the chorus and then belts out repeatedly in the end. It's in Bloodstone's soaring chorus above the rest of the song, especially at the end of song. Chaka Khan's song is a little different...that song is the confession of love.
Chaka's is also the singing voice that I aspire to. Sigh.
Then, there are songs that capture the other side of that feeling...when that unrequited love is never realized, never will be realized, gone. Djavan's "Doidice" similarly masterfully written from the perspective of music, lyrics, emotion, captures the feeling when you recognize that your anticipation was for naught, that you were living in a fantasy existence.
(Incidentally, my only post on my YouTube Channel.)
There's a whole story about this song that I believe I posted before on my old blog that is now, I guess, off the web (but thankfully archived). But I was drawn to this song on my Pandora, got an imported CD from Brasil (because I couldn't find this song to download it), found the translation in the insert in the CD and realized that the lyrics described me for months, years after I realized that I would never be with MTQ. And the music enveloped me, and became that...and still feels like that when I listen to it.
Translation of the Chorus:
I fell in love?
Maybe, it could be
I went crazy?
I don't know, I've never seen it
I need to get out
After I discovered that there is you
I never existed again
I was this chorus, exactly. I don't know what it was I felt...love, insanity, obsession. But whatever it was, after I fell in love with him...I stopped existing for myself. So much was for him. I think I forced myself out of depression because I wanted to be well for him (topic of perhaps next entry). I wanted to be attractive for him, smart like he thought I was, all the awesome he thought I was when he told it to my face but he barely knew me, so how could he know?
For months, I lived in anticipation. It was a constant high and an evocative place to live. I was those few bars of "Overjoyed."
And then I was the chorus of "Doidice."
And the key word here is exist. "I can't believe that you exist in a realm in which I also exist." "I never existed again." Nunca mais existi. Living in anticipation sometimes mean you exist in an alternate reality so you can keep up that anticipation, though it may never come to pass.
Or maybe you need to just tell him, already. And if it didn't happen, it's because you waited until you graduated from college and sent it to him in email form when you knew he was long gone.
But the fact of the matter is...true love is not as sharp and prickly and exciting as that anticipation.
And that's why we never tell. Because we hold out as long as we can living in anticipation of that day he or she will love us back.
So, in my last post, I talked about things that make me happy, how sometimes I don't exactly feel the word "love" for places, things, ideas and how I have to approach it from that glowing feel I get whenever such things are mentioned, when I experience them, when I travel to them...
Because happiness for me is a glow in my chest, a warm feeling, kind of like a tingling pressure that expands.
And it lasts for the duration that I experience these things, places, ideas, that I'm in the presence of these people, and lasts until I'm no longer thinking about them.
So one of the ideas that makes me happy is the realization of a love once requited. Not the actual realization, though. That feeling of anticipation of that realization of a currently unrequited love...is probably one of the strongest emotions I've felt so far in life.
I think it will only be surpassed by holding my children for the first time.
The biggest crush I will probably ever have in my life was, for those who have been reading for a long time, MTQ. I was 19 years old. It was the first time in my adult life that I "fell in love." It may be the last time in my adult life that I fall in love. It wasn't "love at first sight." I recently had that (with not my SO, prior to him being my SO, but concurrently with that...long story). He was a kid (a 19 then 20-year-old kid) who I at first didn't like. But later, I did fall...
And what a fall it was.
Right now, as a 28 year old woman, nearing the 10th Anniversary of Falling (if I may), the 10th anniversary of the Unrequited Love Tale of My Life...I have to be reminded of what it felt like to be "in love" with him. I have to go to old journal entries, old stories, and read and smile and remember.
Sentiments like, "I can't believe you exist in a realm in which I also exist," still make me tingle on the inside. I have to be reminded, but once I am, I can feel that again...and I love that feeling.
Implicit in that statement is that anticipation. The anticipation of the realization of a love that is yet unrequited is amazing. It's such a burning, glowing, magical feeling. And until that day happens, and as long as you believe this to be true...you are taken over by that anticipation. You eat, sleep, pray, breathe that anticipation. I've never realized and unrequited love so I don't know how that feels...it may be the grand anticlimax, I don't know.
But that draw of that anticipation is why so many people liked the Helga/Arnold thing on Hey Arnold!
And girls will all be like, "That way he looked at me, did it mean something?"
And I'd probably have a list of rom-coms that played a similar role...if I watched them! :D
There are a few songs that capture this adeptly...and thus are some of my favorite songs (you can find a song for any sentiment you want from a talented artist).
In English, of course, Stevie Wonder's "Overjoyed," not only lyrically, but musically, instrumentally, through its arrangement, captures that feeling perfectly. In fact, I can identify the exact moment that feels like my anticipation. See the clip below:
See 1:38-1:46 (not only the lyrics, but what the music is doing in the background...perfect. "And maybe, too, if you would believe you, too, might be..."). Almost what my anticipation feels like. My anticipation feels like some notes that don't exist, that may exist if I were genius enough to make my own arrangement of it.
Other such songs that are my favorites that I really feel when I sing along (or listen along, hehe) include Patti LaBelle's "If Only You Knew," "Natural High," by Bloodstone, and "Sweet Thing" by Chaka Khan (one of my favorite genres thus being apparent). (In linking these, I had to listen to them in their entirity). That moment of anticipation is captured with Patti LaBelle's "if" that she vocally embellishes in the chorus and then belts out repeatedly in the end. It's in Bloodstone's soaring chorus above the rest of the song, especially at the end of song. Chaka Khan's song is a little different...that song is the confession of love.
Chaka's is also the singing voice that I aspire to. Sigh.
Then, there are songs that capture the other side of that feeling...when that unrequited love is never realized, never will be realized, gone. Djavan's "Doidice" similarly masterfully written from the perspective of music, lyrics, emotion, captures the feeling when you recognize that your anticipation was for naught, that you were living in a fantasy existence.
(Incidentally, my only post on my YouTube Channel.)
There's a whole story about this song that I believe I posted before on my old blog that is now, I guess, off the web (but thankfully archived). But I was drawn to this song on my Pandora, got an imported CD from Brasil (because I couldn't find this song to download it), found the translation in the insert in the CD and realized that the lyrics described me for months, years after I realized that I would never be with MTQ. And the music enveloped me, and became that...and still feels like that when I listen to it.
Translation of the Chorus:
I fell in love?
Maybe, it could be
I went crazy?
I don't know, I've never seen it
I need to get out
After I discovered that there is you
I never existed again
I was this chorus, exactly. I don't know what it was I felt...love, insanity, obsession. But whatever it was, after I fell in love with him...I stopped existing for myself. So much was for him. I think I forced myself out of depression because I wanted to be well for him (topic of perhaps next entry). I wanted to be attractive for him, smart like he thought I was, all the awesome he thought I was when he told it to my face but he barely knew me, so how could he know?
For months, I lived in anticipation. It was a constant high and an evocative place to live. I was those few bars of "Overjoyed."
And then I was the chorus of "Doidice."
And the key word here is exist. "I can't believe that you exist in a realm in which I also exist." "I never existed again." Nunca mais existi. Living in anticipation sometimes mean you exist in an alternate reality so you can keep up that anticipation, though it may never come to pass.
Or maybe you need to just tell him, already. And if it didn't happen, it's because you waited until you graduated from college and sent it to him in email form when you knew he was long gone.
But the fact of the matter is...true love is not as sharp and prickly and exciting as that anticipation.
And that's why we never tell. Because we hold out as long as we can living in anticipation of that day he or she will love us back.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
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.
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.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Happiness
As salaam alaikum,
There were no retrospectives, no reflections, no words for the end of 2012. I meant to, I really did, but I didn't finish the entry, and it's no use now. So much happened in 2012, so many great life shifts, from matching in family medicine to graduating from medical school with my dual degree, from moving to Seattle to making moves in the relationship department. There were a lot of big transitions in my life in the last year of the Gregorian calendar, but many more subtle, though no less great, transitions. I graduated from medical school, becoming a doctor, and now I'm in residency, becoming a doctor.
The transition itself is not so subtle, but I guess I mean that there's no succinct way of describing it.
A big transition for me that I have not at all discussed is still in progress. It's a huge, spiritual revolution of sorts. I'm changing the way that I think about life and my pursuits in this life. I let go of so many anxieties and became a healthier person. And it all started with one afternoon in the park.
One of our faculty members is our resident integrative medicine specialist. She completed a fellowship and brought her expertise to our program. Not only does she have exercises for our patients, but she does a lot for us residents in terms of self-care. So, just a couple of weeks into our program, while we were still in our glorious orientation month, we sat in a circle in a little park just a block up from the residency office and talked about holistic self-care techniques and mindsets. She taught us about mindfulness.
I've mentioned mindfulness before. In fact, it wasn't the first time I'd heard of it. I'd had a counselor in the past that introduced it to me, but part of me was still back with the, "Oh, she doesn't understand. I'm a Muslimah. I can't live this way..." or "She's minimizing something that is a real struggle for me that does not have any easy, religiously-sound solutions."
But it was something about sitting in a circle in a park on a beautiful, sunny Seattle day and where I was in life and everything that happened and all that I had done that allowed the message of mindfulness resonate with me.
And everyday after that, with only a few exceptions, I've been living my life one day at a time, sometimes, one moment at a time. It was a fast but slow transition. I shifted my mode of thought immediately but it took a while for old habits to dissipate. I would live my life one day at a time but still have moments of internal panic at some of the decisions I made as a result. I still occasionally wondered if this was the best thing for me to do spiritually. I made the transition to living one moment at a time but it took me some time to accept my occasional cognitive dissonance with the idea.
I worked hard to learn a theology, a way of life that taught me to keep my eyes on the prize, the Afterlife, and constantly strive to be better. I worked hard to learn a way of life that taught me that the purpose of life is not happiness, it is service. Service to Allah (swt), which for me is often too esoteric for me to understand serving God who doesn't have a need for my service, pleasing God who does is not sustained by my appeasement, so I simplified it to all of the elements of service that make sense to bettering the world in which we were placed. Service was the purpose of life. Happiness was not, especially if it interfered with your service or following one's nafs over God's will for us.
I never aimed for happiness. After all, the next life is better than this. If I suffer in this life in pursuit of service, striving at all times to submit better, be better...then yes, I shall have happiness. In the next life.
It's funny how even though my understanding of Afterlife is organic and yet I never thought of what impact a self-imposed life of tumult would have on the state of my soul after this space-and-time-bound existence expires.
Restated, I believe that when we pass from this existence, we bring with us the balance or the summation of all that we were in this life. If we strove to be good people and fill our surroundings with peace and charity, that good essence will define ourselves and surroundings once no longer on this earth. So somehow, I believed this organic version of Afterlife but did not believe in pursuing happiness at all.
It was more like, service should make me happy, and alhamdulillah, it does, but if I were not to have happiness, oh well, such is life and so God wills.
I've read Purification of the Soul, I used to ascribe to the belief that depression and anxiety were in fact spiritual deficits with spiritual solutions, all the while suffering from both, and I delved into Islam with the hope that this was the spiritual solution to that anxiety and depression, not realizing that popular ways of thinking that I embraced in becoming more practicing actually exacerbated my problem.
I just took it as my personal jihad, that this was something I would tussle with, and insha'Allah He would help me find the solution as I grew in faith.
I never thought for a moment that I'd have to start over...
To be continued, insha'Allah...
There were no retrospectives, no reflections, no words for the end of 2012. I meant to, I really did, but I didn't finish the entry, and it's no use now. So much happened in 2012, so many great life shifts, from matching in family medicine to graduating from medical school with my dual degree, from moving to Seattle to making moves in the relationship department. There were a lot of big transitions in my life in the last year of the Gregorian calendar, but many more subtle, though no less great, transitions. I graduated from medical school, becoming a doctor, and now I'm in residency, becoming a doctor.
The transition itself is not so subtle, but I guess I mean that there's no succinct way of describing it.
A big transition for me that I have not at all discussed is still in progress. It's a huge, spiritual revolution of sorts. I'm changing the way that I think about life and my pursuits in this life. I let go of so many anxieties and became a healthier person. And it all started with one afternoon in the park.
One of our faculty members is our resident integrative medicine specialist. She completed a fellowship and brought her expertise to our program. Not only does she have exercises for our patients, but she does a lot for us residents in terms of self-care. So, just a couple of weeks into our program, while we were still in our glorious orientation month, we sat in a circle in a little park just a block up from the residency office and talked about holistic self-care techniques and mindsets. She taught us about mindfulness.
I've mentioned mindfulness before. In fact, it wasn't the first time I'd heard of it. I'd had a counselor in the past that introduced it to me, but part of me was still back with the, "Oh, she doesn't understand. I'm a Muslimah. I can't live this way..." or "She's minimizing something that is a real struggle for me that does not have any easy, religiously-sound solutions."
But it was something about sitting in a circle in a park on a beautiful, sunny Seattle day and where I was in life and everything that happened and all that I had done that allowed the message of mindfulness resonate with me.
And everyday after that, with only a few exceptions, I've been living my life one day at a time, sometimes, one moment at a time. It was a fast but slow transition. I shifted my mode of thought immediately but it took a while for old habits to dissipate. I would live my life one day at a time but still have moments of internal panic at some of the decisions I made as a result. I still occasionally wondered if this was the best thing for me to do spiritually. I made the transition to living one moment at a time but it took me some time to accept my occasional cognitive dissonance with the idea.
I worked hard to learn a theology, a way of life that taught me to keep my eyes on the prize, the Afterlife, and constantly strive to be better. I worked hard to learn a way of life that taught me that the purpose of life is not happiness, it is service. Service to Allah (swt), which for me is often too esoteric for me to understand serving God who doesn't have a need for my service, pleasing God who does is not sustained by my appeasement, so I simplified it to all of the elements of service that make sense to bettering the world in which we were placed. Service was the purpose of life. Happiness was not, especially if it interfered with your service or following one's nafs over God's will for us.
I never aimed for happiness. After all, the next life is better than this. If I suffer in this life in pursuit of service, striving at all times to submit better, be better...then yes, I shall have happiness. In the next life.
It's funny how even though my understanding of Afterlife is organic and yet I never thought of what impact a self-imposed life of tumult would have on the state of my soul after this space-and-time-bound existence expires.
Restated, I believe that when we pass from this existence, we bring with us the balance or the summation of all that we were in this life. If we strove to be good people and fill our surroundings with peace and charity, that good essence will define ourselves and surroundings once no longer on this earth. So somehow, I believed this organic version of Afterlife but did not believe in pursuing happiness at all.
It was more like, service should make me happy, and alhamdulillah, it does, but if I were not to have happiness, oh well, such is life and so God wills.
I've read Purification of the Soul, I used to ascribe to the belief that depression and anxiety were in fact spiritual deficits with spiritual solutions, all the while suffering from both, and I delved into Islam with the hope that this was the spiritual solution to that anxiety and depression, not realizing that popular ways of thinking that I embraced in becoming more practicing actually exacerbated my problem.
I just took it as my personal jihad, that this was something I would tussle with, and insha'Allah He would help me find the solution as I grew in faith.
I never thought for a moment that I'd have to start over...
To be continued, insha'Allah...
Monday, December 3, 2012
Beauty's Soundtrack
As salaam alaikum,
Beauty's soundtrack would have to include this song. Always love it!
Beautiful is my brother, eternally my baby brother, not because of his autism, but mostly because for the first few years of his life, I could not pronounce his name, and that's what his name was. Baby Brother. Or, as I pronounced it, Baby Bwodda.
And this song reminds me of the times when he's revealed himself, when he's recalled things we shared before he could speak, before he made eye contact, before he could sit still in a chair. It reminds me of all those times I've cried. Such a beautiful cry and such a beautiful feeling to recall.
And the beauty of the music of this song, and hearing the verse about Sa Marina making everyone cry after entertaining them, making everyone sing...just the catharsis of a day of enjoyment closed with tears of joy...
Beauty's soundtrack, I'm telling you...
Beauty's soundtrack would have to include this song. Always love it!
Beautiful is my brother, eternally my baby brother, not because of his autism, but mostly because for the first few years of his life, I could not pronounce his name, and that's what his name was. Baby Brother. Or, as I pronounced it, Baby Bwodda.
And this song reminds me of the times when he's revealed himself, when he's recalled things we shared before he could speak, before he made eye contact, before he could sit still in a chair. It reminds me of all those times I've cried. Such a beautiful cry and such a beautiful feeling to recall.
And the beauty of the music of this song, and hearing the verse about Sa Marina making everyone cry after entertaining them, making everyone sing...just the catharsis of a day of enjoyment closed with tears of joy...
Beauty's soundtrack, I'm telling you...
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
All of My Stuff, Revisted
As salaam alaikum,
I was suddenly reminded of this poem from For Colored Girls when talking to a friend a few days ago. I looked for the entry about a year ago when I quoted it, and I read it, closed my eyes and remembered where I was, and thanked God how far I have come.
Here's the excerpt I then most identified with:
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...
At the time, I know I didn't feel as if I had recovered everything back yet. I said it, hoping to claim it, but there was still desperation in my words. Why are we women like this, I wondered.
One year after I wrote that first entry, he has nothing of mine. Not a strand of my hair nor my taste in his mouth. My body and my spirit are all my own, all my own stuff that God gave me and I'm not letting anyone take it away anymore, not under their arm, stuck to the sole of their shoe or tucked in their butt crack.
And it's a very liberating thing to realize, in the midst of what had been angst and longing for the day where I wouldn't hurt...to not be hurting.
I was suddenly reminded of this poem from For Colored Girls when talking to a friend a few days ago. I looked for the entry about a year ago when I quoted it, and I read it, closed my eyes and remembered where I was, and thanked God how far I have come.
Here's the excerpt I then most identified with:
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...
At the time, I know I didn't feel as if I had recovered everything back yet. I said it, hoping to claim it, but there was still desperation in my words. Why are we women like this, I wondered.
One year after I wrote that first entry, he has nothing of mine. Not a strand of my hair nor my taste in his mouth. My body and my spirit are all my own, all my own stuff that God gave me and I'm not letting anyone take it away anymore, not under their arm, stuck to the sole of their shoe or tucked in their butt crack.
And it's a very liberating thing to realize, in the midst of what had been angst and longing for the day where I wouldn't hurt...to not be hurting.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
What is Marriage Now?
As salaam alaikum,
I thought about my desire for motherhood being perhaps at odds with my faith, my faith in God's will, and I thought about what marriage means for me now, and how that's different than before.
Because I haven't sat and thought what marriage means for me now. Not yet. Not until now.
The first thing that comes to mind is that marriage, for me, when optimum, is the optimum environment for raising a family. And, as I mentioned in my previous entry, one of my greatest aspirations is to be a good mother. And as a good mother, I desire my partner also to be a solid parent. If not, I'd rather him not involved. Okay.
...and, what else do I want in marriage? Now?
Because before, it was different.
In the height of unrequited love, marriage was all these lofty words and phrases, the likes of Djavan's "Doidice," not believing that I existed in a world he also existed, wanting to live in his blue like Elis' "Só Tinha de Ser Com Você." The Carpenters' "Close to You." Like that feeling would last forever and whatever life threw at us, whatever God ordained for us, we would survive because of that...love.
In loveless, pragmatic but admittedly still hopeful times, marriage was esoteric. There existed no soul mates but there was right. Or fit. Whichever one's pleasure. There was most importantly spiritual compatibility, commonality in the most essential values between us, shared aspirations, mutual admiration, mutual attraction. This was the optimum. And as long as I prayed, God would provide this for me.
But none of these, is in fact, marriage. I don't know what marriage is, and I won't know until I live it. These are, at best, the ideas of mine that would lead to me wanting to marry someone. Fair enough.
What would it take now? Do these things still apply?
I wanted to say no, but as I thought more about it...yes, they do.
I wanted to say that real relationships are not limited by the expansive love vocabulary of my unrequited love experience, and I wanted to say that my pragmatic view was also limiting. And I do think that's true. But I know many a loving couple who would describe their relationship, sometimes, with that expansive love language, and many times speak of their relationship pragmatically, in terms of compatibility and mutual attraction.
I know there are people who do believe that they've found their soul mate, so it is, in fact possible, and my wanting anything less than what is possible for me, yes, would be settling, even though I tried to tell myself otherwise.
Marriage, for me, has not changed, has not become some more circumscribed, realist version of its previous self. It is children and gushy love and fit. Its some balance of those things, not the perfect balance, but the balance that works. Above all, it's a partnership with some sort of shared notion of the arrangement, the contract, the relationship, however its viewed by the couple.
I have no idea how I'm going to get there, but insha'Allah, I'm going to get there, or bust!
I thought about my desire for motherhood being perhaps at odds with my faith, my faith in God's will, and I thought about what marriage means for me now, and how that's different than before.
Because I haven't sat and thought what marriage means for me now. Not yet. Not until now.
The first thing that comes to mind is that marriage, for me, when optimum, is the optimum environment for raising a family. And, as I mentioned in my previous entry, one of my greatest aspirations is to be a good mother. And as a good mother, I desire my partner also to be a solid parent. If not, I'd rather him not involved. Okay.
...and, what else do I want in marriage? Now?
Because before, it was different.
In the height of unrequited love, marriage was all these lofty words and phrases, the likes of Djavan's "Doidice," not believing that I existed in a world he also existed, wanting to live in his blue like Elis' "Só Tinha de Ser Com Você." The Carpenters' "Close to You." Like that feeling would last forever and whatever life threw at us, whatever God ordained for us, we would survive because of that...love.
In loveless, pragmatic but admittedly still hopeful times, marriage was esoteric. There existed no soul mates but there was right. Or fit. Whichever one's pleasure. There was most importantly spiritual compatibility, commonality in the most essential values between us, shared aspirations, mutual admiration, mutual attraction. This was the optimum. And as long as I prayed, God would provide this for me.
But none of these, is in fact, marriage. I don't know what marriage is, and I won't know until I live it. These are, at best, the ideas of mine that would lead to me wanting to marry someone. Fair enough.
What would it take now? Do these things still apply?
I wanted to say no, but as I thought more about it...yes, they do.
I wanted to say that real relationships are not limited by the expansive love vocabulary of my unrequited love experience, and I wanted to say that my pragmatic view was also limiting. And I do think that's true. But I know many a loving couple who would describe their relationship, sometimes, with that expansive love language, and many times speak of their relationship pragmatically, in terms of compatibility and mutual attraction.
I know there are people who do believe that they've found their soul mate, so it is, in fact possible, and my wanting anything less than what is possible for me, yes, would be settling, even though I tried to tell myself otherwise.
Marriage, for me, has not changed, has not become some more circumscribed, realist version of its previous self. It is children and gushy love and fit. Its some balance of those things, not the perfect balance, but the balance that works. Above all, it's a partnership with some sort of shared notion of the arrangement, the contract, the relationship, however its viewed by the couple.
I have no idea how I'm going to get there, but insha'Allah, I'm going to get there, or bust!
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The Only Liable Limitation
As salaam alaikum,
First of all, Eid Mubarak to my Muslim family!
In 2002, I was introduced to the hauntingly symbolic song and video by OutKast, "The Whole World." What could be dismissed as just another goofy OutKast song for me as a 17 year old was full of social commentary. The song's chorus for me symbolized the plight of the black man in the United States over time.
The whole world loves it when you don't get down...Michael Jackson, by then no longer remembered as the Prince of Pop but as a child molester.
And the whole world loves it when you make that sound...every eye-bucking, shucking and jiving or just trying to make a living in the guise of buffoonery black comedian ever.
And the whole world loves it when you're in the news...OJ Simpson (umm, who can write a doctoral dissertation on the racial dynamics of the OJ Simpson trial? Many of us can...).
And the whole world loves it when you sing the blues...
I'm not sure why it struck me so much as the black man at that time, but I realize it could also apply to other celebrities. In general, people love to be entertained by the lives and misfortunes of others. And the video, with the all-black circus backdrop and the mainly white male cooperate audience clapping in unison really gave me that feeling...
Meanwhile, while the show seems to be all for the entertainment of this off-putting audience, Dre and Big Boi (can't say much for the guest artist who wins the prize of fitting as many sexual references and as much double entendre as he can into his section) drop a lot of critical analysis at the time.
The one lyric that hit me recently that has a lot to do with where I am now, spiritually, is the following:
"The only liable limitation is yourself."
The only liable limitation is yourself, huh?
Let me tell you about me being my only limitation for becoming all I want to be...
I think that, in the years since becoming a more practicing Muslim, I've too often looked outside, to others, to complete my identity as a Muslimah. I came into practice seeking a community to help me. There were many communities that I've been a part of or was at the fringes of, but none of them in particular helped me. I tried to hard to be a part and in the process lost some of myself and my original motivation for practicing more along the way. I ended up spending many years morphing myself into what I thought others wanted me to be instead of actually nurturing my natal spirituality.
While God reminds us that we are in loss, "except for such as have faith, do righteous deeds and join together in the mutual teachings of truth," that joining together in the mutual teachings of truth does not have to be within a discrete Muslim community, and it does not have to be with Muslims only. We Muslims, after all, do not have the market cornered on Truth. Truth has many dimensions, and as a Muslim without a Muslim community at this point, it would be negligent of me to ignore those other dimensions of Truth while not in the company of my coreligionists.
I can live the Truth that is our purpose in life...to help each other through life, with others than Muslims. Insha'Allah I do this daily through my profession.
I am my own liable limitation. I should not have waited with bated breath for a community to embrace me for my identity and practice as a Muslimah to be complete.
When a community that I fit into seemed out of my reach, I then looked to marriage. I didn't need a Muslim community per se if I acquired a good Muslim husband and therefore built a Muslim family. Maybe the husband would come with a community I could thereafter fit into. Then not only would my identity as a Muslimah have been complete, but I would be fulfilling my duties as a Muslim...to marry and build a household dedicated to Allah (swt).
I didn't realize that this had nothing to do with my practice as a Muslimah, either.
I am not limited by a lack of community or the lack of a good, pious, egalitarian, professional, whatever other adjective Muslim man seeking me for marriage. I didn't seek practice as a Muslim to join a group or to get married. I thought they were necessary, but really, we are born alone and we die alone. The community or husband I wait upon to complete my life will not be there to vouch for me when I die, that I was a good Muslim. It just is and has always been me, myself and Allah (swt).
My non-Muslim co-residents, when I talked about my long-standing discomfort in praying in public places that are not mosques or my own home, offered 5 locations on campus where I could pray. And I've been using them with comfort, alhamdulillah. Some of these people who offered me places to pray don't even believe in God, and yet they respect me and my beliefs. And we can be colleagues together, living the Truth that is the guarantee of health care for all.
I love being in the company of a man who has always respected my beliefs and practices and perhaps has a greater understanding of them, having been raised with a Muslim background
It has never been more evident to me that I am my only limitation in being the Muslimah I want to be. I may never have that Muslim community or that Muslim husband that unifies my practice, but I will have a community and insha'Allah a husband that complement, not supplement, me as I nourish my natal spirituality.
I have always been my own limitation. I drew boxes on a plane in two dimensions and tried to fit myself into them, but I'm three dimensions. God have mercy on me if the way that I choose is errant and leaves jagged edges on my soul, but God please guide me aright anyway, though I err. Ameen.
First of all, Eid Mubarak to my Muslim family!
In 2002, I was introduced to the hauntingly symbolic song and video by OutKast, "The Whole World." What could be dismissed as just another goofy OutKast song for me as a 17 year old was full of social commentary. The song's chorus for me symbolized the plight of the black man in the United States over time.
The whole world loves it when you don't get down...Michael Jackson, by then no longer remembered as the Prince of Pop but as a child molester.
And the whole world loves it when you make that sound...every eye-bucking, shucking and jiving or just trying to make a living in the guise of buffoonery black comedian ever.
And the whole world loves it when you're in the news...OJ Simpson (umm, who can write a doctoral dissertation on the racial dynamics of the OJ Simpson trial? Many of us can...).
And the whole world loves it when you sing the blues...
I'm not sure why it struck me so much as the black man at that time, but I realize it could also apply to other celebrities. In general, people love to be entertained by the lives and misfortunes of others. And the video, with the all-black circus backdrop and the mainly white male cooperate audience clapping in unison really gave me that feeling...
Meanwhile, while the show seems to be all for the entertainment of this off-putting audience, Dre and Big Boi (can't say much for the guest artist who wins the prize of fitting as many sexual references and as much double entendre as he can into his section) drop a lot of critical analysis at the time.
The one lyric that hit me recently that has a lot to do with where I am now, spiritually, is the following:
"The only liable limitation is yourself."
The only liable limitation is yourself, huh?
Let me tell you about me being my only limitation for becoming all I want to be...
I think that, in the years since becoming a more practicing Muslim, I've too often looked outside, to others, to complete my identity as a Muslimah. I came into practice seeking a community to help me. There were many communities that I've been a part of or was at the fringes of, but none of them in particular helped me. I tried to hard to be a part and in the process lost some of myself and my original motivation for practicing more along the way. I ended up spending many years morphing myself into what I thought others wanted me to be instead of actually nurturing my natal spirituality.
While God reminds us that we are in loss, "except for such as have faith, do righteous deeds and join together in the mutual teachings of truth," that joining together in the mutual teachings of truth does not have to be within a discrete Muslim community, and it does not have to be with Muslims only. We Muslims, after all, do not have the market cornered on Truth. Truth has many dimensions, and as a Muslim without a Muslim community at this point, it would be negligent of me to ignore those other dimensions of Truth while not in the company of my coreligionists.
I can live the Truth that is our purpose in life...to help each other through life, with others than Muslims. Insha'Allah I do this daily through my profession.
I am my own liable limitation. I should not have waited with bated breath for a community to embrace me for my identity and practice as a Muslimah to be complete.
When a community that I fit into seemed out of my reach, I then looked to marriage. I didn't need a Muslim community per se if I acquired a good Muslim husband and therefore built a Muslim family. Maybe the husband would come with a community I could thereafter fit into. Then not only would my identity as a Muslimah have been complete, but I would be fulfilling my duties as a Muslim...to marry and build a household dedicated to Allah (swt).
I didn't realize that this had nothing to do with my practice as a Muslimah, either.
I am not limited by a lack of community or the lack of a good, pious, egalitarian, professional, whatever other adjective Muslim man seeking me for marriage. I didn't seek practice as a Muslim to join a group or to get married. I thought they were necessary, but really, we are born alone and we die alone. The community or husband I wait upon to complete my life will not be there to vouch for me when I die, that I was a good Muslim. It just is and has always been me, myself and Allah (swt).
My non-Muslim co-residents, when I talked about my long-standing discomfort in praying in public places that are not mosques or my own home, offered 5 locations on campus where I could pray. And I've been using them with comfort, alhamdulillah. Some of these people who offered me places to pray don't even believe in God, and yet they respect me and my beliefs. And we can be colleagues together, living the Truth that is the guarantee of health care for all.
I love being in the company of a man who has always respected my beliefs and practices and perhaps has a greater understanding of them, having been raised with a Muslim background
It has never been more evident to me that I am my only limitation in being the Muslimah I want to be. I may never have that Muslim community or that Muslim husband that unifies my practice, but I will have a community and insha'Allah a husband that complement, not supplement, me as I nourish my natal spirituality.
I have always been my own limitation. I drew boxes on a plane in two dimensions and tried to fit myself into them, but I'm three dimensions. God have mercy on me if the way that I choose is errant and leaves jagged edges on my soul, but God please guide me aright anyway, though I err. Ameen.
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