Lightness of Being…

"There were at it again" Angie was worn out.

"At least your parents have some sort of interaction…" Andy started but then stopped from the force of the sharpness in Angie's look "Sorry man. I mean you know my deal. It sucks either way." 

Andy's mom, Suzanne, had been battling Bipolar Disorder (formerly known as manic depression) for as long as anyone could remember. When she met Mark (his dad) she was going through a mild manic phase and he was intrigued by her eloquent rambling about everything from the state of the world, to religion, to poetry. She was a bohemian artsy type without a care in the world. He was on the fast track to a boring, highly paying but suffocating career in Finance. They were an incongruous match made in heaven.

He offered her the stability she craved and needed, she in turn spiced up his life (literally) rocking it with her spontaneous bursts of creativity, melancholy, and funk.

They had a pretty solid loving relationship, characterized by lightning bolts of passion, torrents of tears, and heights of emotions. When Suzanne read Gibran’s words on love to Mark, he felt as if he could have written them himself.

“But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the season- less world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.”

Mark certainly knew the pain of too much tenderness and yet he couldn’t begin to imagine how drab life would be without her.

Andy never got to experience the kaleidoscope of his mom’s personality. She suffered from a very extreme bout of Post partum depression right after she had him, which she never recovered from. On the day she delivered she could not bring herself to hug him much less love the alien looking infant that was brought up to her. She felt nothing but revulsion for him.  

“I am his mother. Why can’t I love him?”   The nurses assured her that it was normal to feel a bit anxious but she would be okay after a couple of days.  But a couple of days turned into months and she still felt bereft of emotions for her only son.

Mark hired a nanny immediately to take care of the “problem” at hand. He spent a lot of time with Suzanne, trying to coax her out of her funk. She had been through depression before but this was much worse. She couldn’t even force herself to get up from bed. She had no interest in anything at all and when he tried to seduce her, she burst into inconsolable tears.

To make matters worse, Suzanne had an unhealthy paranoia of doctors. She could never trust her psychiatrist and adamantly refused to take her medication.

“I would rather die intact than a drug polluted mechanical zombie!”

Years later, she had developed a host of other debilitating disorders that chained her to her bed.
The short, plump, attractive and colorful woman had succumbed into a pale, skeletal, wraith that mumbled incoherently and reeked of a faint death smell.

His dad responded to her gradual demise by throwing himself into work. He traveled a lot, kept a couple of mistresses, and moved into the guest room when he was home. He checked in on her every once in a while and always made sure the house was well provided for.

Andy had a sneaking suspicion that his dad blamed him for his mother’s condition. He gave him everything he needed materially, but could not be bothered to get to know his son, spend time with him, or even show a passing interest in his life.

When he was much younger, Andy had tried everything to get his parents’ attention. He deliberately flunked school, threw tantrums, got into fights, to no avail. He screamed at his mother to wake up and do something, to care about him, but she simply turned her ghostly pale face to him letting a single tear fall softly into the pillow. He hit his father, kicked the doors, broke furniture, but his dad was always too busy and had to run somewhere, anywhere at the most inopportune moments.

When he tried to commit suicide his father didn't even bother to show up at the hospital. His nanny came as soon as she heard clucking about "Damn crazy gringos who don't give a shit about their own son!"

Andy finally gave up. He resided in the home turned mausoleum, and lived miserably amidst the happy ghosts of past memories and silent echoes of accusations pointing their eerie fingers at him for destroying the happiness that once was.

{-}

The culture shock Sonya suffered when she came to America (the land of freedom where all dreams come true) was too overwhelming to put into words.  Her excitement for the journey ahead was muted by the unbearable pain of leaving her loved ones and exiling her beloved land.  She was by herself with 5 children, ranging from 7 years old to her 2 year old. 

Maria was 7, Sophia 6, David 4, Adam 3, and finally Omar at 2.

She came with a group of refugees and was welcomed by a different branch of the same Christian non profit organization that had organized their orientation.She was placed about an hour away from her sister’s house, thankfully, in an apartment complex right in the heart of Baltimore
City. She wondered at the multitude of Black people in her neighborhood. 

Isn’t America supposed to be White?

Initially, she was petrified of her neighbors although aside from passing curiosity at the spectacle of a colorfully dressed Indian lady with five kids, no one seemed to pay her any mind.

With a little time though, she started reaching out in her own small way. She made little bowls of Firnee (Afghani custard),  Baklavas,  delectable sambosas, and even plates of Kofta and kabobs and packed them in  tupperwares for her closest neighbors.

The first day she had stood on the door and shyly murmured “Me give food you”

Mary, who lived next door exclaimed “You mean you brought me food? Ain’t that sweet! Joe, come over here, this nice Indian lady brought us some lunch!”

“Me no Indian, Afghani!” She corrected with pride in her voice.

And soon an unlikely but comforting relationship was formed between them. Her neighbors took the time to correct her English and teach her, and she repaid graciously with delectable spicy dishes that enflamed their taste buds.

When Kawtara found out where she lived, she was appalled! “The projects?! They placed my own sister in that hell hole? No way, I am going to talk to them, they better move her out of there NOW. I didn’t bring my sister here so she can get killed by those Gang bangers!” She yelled.

Kawtara immediately made calls to her local county to find out if they had any rent-assistance program for her poor widowed sister.

{-}

She wasn’t so much religious, as superstitious. Kawtara, the heavy set, ostentatious sister; was everything Sonya was not. For starters she was a fighter, and understood all the intricacies that propelled the American System. Her entire repertoire of wisdom and experience were placed at the disposal of her own calculated gain. Even the motivation for helping her flesh and blood was spurned more out of the practical demonstration of compassion it would serve in front of her small peer group of rich aunties, rather than genuine filial piety.

Throughout her life she collected gemstones of little habits performed to ward off “Nazar” (the evil eye). She saw nazar everywhere she looked. She even pulled her own three children from Sunday school, for all those other Muslim kids posed a real threat to their wellbeing.

She did not think twice about doing the same with the private school they attended, since everyone knows that Nazar could not be contracted from those benign White people.

“You see, you have to know about Nazar for you to be able to transmit it. You never know about those Mosque people, some of them even perform Black Magic!”  She whispered to anyone who would listen.

In her zeal to ward off the evil eye, she worked hard to understate all the blessings and wealth they were blessed with, she even went so far as to invent ailments in order to attract sympathy and keep prying eyes off her riches. Her love of affectation always got the better of her though. She could hardly hide the gloating note in her voice when she announced rather coyly that her husband had bought her yet another off shore property, this time in Madrid Spain. When the women around her were adequately impressed, she would turn around and start complaining about her phantom pains and miseries of the heart.  The headache caused by her poor widowed sister’s dependence on them, was also one of her favorite topics. 

She made sure to throw salt from the kitchen window every morning at sunrise. She spat three times when she left the house and another three (on the sidewalk o f course) when she came in. She would read certain verses from the Quran around each corner of her house, three times a week. (Three is a magical number). She also forced her children to wear ridiculous pieces of paper around their waists containing Quranic verses, taped, and made into waistbands to ward them from evil. The children soon learned to take them off when she wasn’t looking.

She was obsessive about cleanliness and had spent a whole lifetime at war with dust mites and stains that dared to creep up on their lovely mansion by the lake. As she got older, and a little arthritic, her husband benevolently hired a series of maids for her to help with the cleaning. The poor maids never lasted though.

Left with nothing else to do, she would follow them around with her glasses perched precariously on the tip of her nose, examining everything they did. In frustration she would take the duster from them and patiently show them how to dust in broad strokes to avoid recontamination. As an employer she was ruthless in her criticism and high standards, as a mother she was the direct opposite.

Her three chubby children were spawned around the same time Sonya’s first three children were born. Kawtara had Asiya, Amina, and finally the comfort of her eyes and pride of her soul Asif was born. Two girls and a little boy, a mansion, three SUVs, a puppy (she could never say no to Asif’s pleas even though it fretted her religious conscience a bit) and a well kept manicured lawn and fence, kept Kawtara’s head high amongst her friends.

She was a complete woman, never content though, for she belonged to a society of cut throat competition; she maintained a hawk-like vigil over her children and property (micromanaging everything within her reach), and was quick to nix potentially embarrassing issues in the bud.

{-}

After years of fighting, sleeping in the wild, and subsisting on very little nourishment Hamza was more than ready to go home.  It wasn’t very easy though. With the Soviets withdrawing rebel fighters turned on each other. A bloodbath ensued, where people killed each other for no other reason than to protect their own hide. There was also the issue of the mines. There were too many mines that were still waiting to blow the remaining people into shreds. No one knew where they were exactly located, and the Soviets got to leave with a glum sense of satisfaction, a balm for their wounded pride.  

When Hamza finally trudged home, he was met with the news that his family had relocated to the
US.  At first he was too dazed and tired to care. He passed out on the spot leaving the responsibility of his survival to his family.
He was coaxed into wellbeing by aromatic foods, soups, herbs, and a good scrubbing. The rest stoked the fires needed for his outrage to explode.

“HOW DARE YOU LET MY FAMILY GO WITHOUT MY AUTHORITY?” he shouted at Sonya’s penitent father.

“I am sorry son, we really thought you were dead”

“I WANT THEM BACK”

He raised hell at the American embassy but they told him politely to fill out the appropriate paperwork and apply for a visa to join his family.

When Sonya found out her husband was okay, she was ecstatic. With the help of Kawtara, they immediately applied for his sponsorship. The good folks at the Non profit Church mission group however, soon informed them of the complications in his case.

“You see he was a jihadi”

“Yeah, but the whole world liked them! They were supported by the US”  Kawtara countered.

“That may be true, but it doesn’t matter. The INS is worried about his predilection for violence”

They filed appeal after appeal. And it wasn’t until a decade later that Hamza was finally reunited with his family.

{-}

A decade is an eternity and a couple of lifetimes combined.Sonya’s struggles had transformed something so deep within her, she could not begin to conceptualize it much less voice it.

Moving from the city into the suburbs was traumatic for her.  She had come to count on the friendly faces sitting on the stoop, healthy amount of litter on the streets, the little children playing hopscotch on the sidewalk, languid boys hanging around looking menacing but actually quite decent under their veneer of coolness.

She had come to internalize the city’s throbbing heartbeat infusing a certain urgency of living in all of its inhabitants.

She had even come to appreciate the hideous beauty that was wrapped within the concrete landscape of her city.

The suburb in contrast despite the perfectly manicured lawns, identical houses, symmetrical trees, flowers, and even blades of grass was completely devoid of life. She never saw her neighbors, ached for the sound of children’s laughter outside, friendly faces, even the litter! She incessantly took long walks and was struck with an eerie feeling of walking amidst a gorgeous yet haunted neighborhood.
“Do people actually live in these houses?” She worried whether by being outside she was breaking some law she wasn’t even aware of.

In the suburb her isolation was sealed with an irrevocable finality that the floodgates of pent up anguish and homesickness were flung open yet again. She did not doubt that the move was necessary for her children’s wellbeing, and quite honestly had little time to wallow in self pity; she worked more than enough hours to numb her grieving soul.

Her children had practically raised themselves as she easily worked 70 hour shifts between Wally-mart and the part time job at a nearby retail outlet. The part time job allowed her steep discounts as an Inventory Specialist (a fancy title for one who kept track of the boxes and counted the merchandise when it came in). She needed that discount to keep her children clothed in the latest attire.

While she was frugal to a fault when it came to her own needs, she worked hard so that her children’s assimilation into America would be complete. She wanted to make sure they were going to get the best opportunities and experiences their adopted country had to offer. She even scraped to send them to summer camps when she barely had money to buy herself a much needed pair of comfortable shoes.

At Wally-mart she had started out in the dimly lit backrooms stacking, organizing and cleaning and as her English improved she was successively moved forward to the produce section, cashier, and ten years later she was a first line supervisor in the lingerie section. She had a whole 3 dollar an hour raise in the ten years she had toiled and a host of new responsibilities were piled on her thin square shoulders.

Her three sons were virtually indistinguishable from each other. They went to school, came home to either watch TV or play the hand-me-down Xbox from Asif who had gotten the latest 360 model. They sorted out their fights amongst themselves, did nominally okay in school, and were content to ignore the rest of the household except when they needed something.

Maria had grown up to be her mom’s helper. She was hardworking, ethical, and responsible. She never waited to be reminded to do anything. She came home from school, cleaned the house, emptied the dishwasher, cooked, and cleaned the kitchen. She then sat and did her homework with meticulous precision that won the admiration of all her teachers. She even spared some time to tutor her younger brothers and made sure they at least completed their homework and assignments.

Sophia was the natural born rebel of the family. She inherited her father’s temperament and stubbornness.  To her family she was all ice and sharp tongued; to her friends she transformed into a charming, sweet, caring persona.  She hated her own schizophrenic tendencies but her family seriously got on her last nerve.

Her mom kept a weary eye on her but did not worry much; she is just stumbling a little over her identity she will be okay.  

Sonya Deen was an undying optimist.

{-}

Kawtara had refused to visit them in the city.

“What would people say if they saw me go into those neighborhoods?” She lived her life with the constant illusion of an invisible paparazzi following her around minutely recording everything she did.

When Sonya finally moved to a ‘respectable’ neighborhood, Kawtara came trooping with gifts, followed by her sulking children and quiet mousy looking husband.The gifts were nothing more than some hand me down clothes her children detested anyway, old pieces of furniture that she dug out from storage, and three well used mattresses soiled with urine stains (it took a while for her children to get out of the habit of bedwetting).

 “That wicker chair means so much to me! The memories it holds. If it wasn’t for you my dear sister I would never part with it” 

Kawtara was sincerely struggling with the emotions of parting with her frayed wicker chair that wobbled on three legs.

Asiya and Amina sat primly on the edge of an old sofa, Sonya had acquired from a generous neighbor in the city. They did not say a word to their strange cousins and looked as if they were afraid to breathe the polluted air of indigence.

Asif had been dragged in whining and refused to hug or even greet his aunty.

“NO! I DON’T WANT TO” He whined in the annoying voice of an overgrown boy still holding on to his toddler years.

He then proceeded to climb on the kitchen counters and started to bang the cabinet doors. 

“He is so active and feisty! I don’t know where he gets all that energy” Kawtara exclaimed with a misty fondness.

 “Active, yeah” Sonya echoed, if active means he is a rotten misbehaved kid in need of a good spanking.  

“Yes, yes active” Kawtara’s husband agreed with an absent stare.

Kawtara easily dwarfed her husband. For her matronly hips, bulging bust, and huge chapati round face; he offered a thin angular face, long nose, and a chin that looked like it was running away from the rest of his head. He had a small frame and a humble demeanor that camouflaged his brilliance in surgery. His hands were small, soft, and delicate, and placed next to Kawtara’s short, hairy, and stumpy fingers one could easily confuse the genders of their owners.

The two camps of girls hated each other on sight.

“Who do they think they are?” Sophia hissed.

After a couple of uncomfortable moments, she excused herself and slammed the door to her room.

Maria sat with characteristic politeness and entertained their uncouth guests to the very end.

{-}

“Credit” Kawtara whispered with the smug air of one imparting essential wisdom.

“But doesn’t that involve interest and isn’t it…haram?” Sonya asked alarmed.

“No! no!” She waved a fat arm around.  “I asked the Sheikh and he said in America the ruling is flexible. This is one of those exceptional cases. How do you think people live here? You can’t buy anything without credit, a decent home, a car, proper furniture, even clothes. If you want to make it, you have to manipulate the credit system. You can own everything you ever wanted, and take your sweet time paying back.”

“But what if I can’t afford to pay it back?” Sonya was riveted despite her better sense.

“This is not like Afghanistan where someone will come knocking on your door and embarrass you in front of all your neighbors. This is America my dear sister. They are civilized. They will call you discreetly and arrange a payment plan. All you have to do is pay a very nominal monthly fee. So what if it takes years to pay, what else are you doing with your time? You have to work anyway!”

“But won’t they take away my stuff if I can’t make the monthly payment”“

Not if you pay the minimum balance, which is like $20 dollars a whole month. Even you can afford that!”

Sonya bit her lip, her mind racing.

 {-}

“100,000 DOLLARS, mom what were you thinking?” Maria’s eyes were full of tears.

“I don’t know. I wanted to buy us nice things. I didn’t want Kawtara looking down her humongous nose at us all the time. I wanted to hold my head high too!”

“But mom….” Maria was at a loss for words. How could she censure her mother, when she was one of the beneficiaries of her impulsive purchases? She looked around their overstuffed town home him in revulsion.

The tattered sofa and wicker chair were replaced by stuffy Victorian furniture, with huge matching mirrors, heavily embroidered draperies, and a beautiful Persian throw rug. The girls’ and boys’ rooms were outfitted with gender appropriate furniture and personal knick knacks symbolizing their personalities. The master bedroom was crammed with a huge ultra king size canopy bed, with a matching dresser, and armoire.

There were still the name brand clothes, brand new van, and “essential” china in the kitchen to account for.  

“All this stuff for what?” Maria thought sadly. They were 100,000 dollars in debt and didn't even own a house.

“Mom I will get a job, don’t worry. We will all work together to help you pay off this loan.” The weight of that responsibility sagged Maria’s shoulders with its sheer immensity.

{-}