Lightness of Being…

My most exciting memories of Kenya were the summer holidays. When all my uncles, aunts and cousins come streaming down from all over the world to spend their vacations with us. Our house would be rocking, gifts flowing and feasting in abundance.

The women in our household communicated their love for guests through food. They slaughtered goats, rolled chapatis, we served seafood, and made rice, lots of rice. To serve a guest biriyani is to honor them. The more side dishes we had sprawling on the sufra, the more the love that was demonstrated. The women sweated out their love in the kitchen, the men went in and out bringing in groceries and treats (like soda) reserved only for these esteemed members of our family.

As children we looked forward to the influx of people, for more reasons than just food (although the delicacies were much appreciated). The house was thrown into chaos and routines were thrown out the window. The cousins’ reunion was marked by staying up all night long, waking up at the crack of dawn excited for a full day packed with outings and beaches. Many times we would rent a small cottage on the south west coast of Mombasa and squeeze at least 40 plus people in there, which really didn’t matter since most of us stayed in the pool/ocean for most of the day/night.

As children we learned to offer the best we had to others, and share willingly and lovingly in the expansiveness of it all.

These memories of lots of people squeezed into small spaces is something I thought I lost forever when we came to the States. I wouldn’t lie that I initially celebrated the prospect of privacy and independence. Although I was wracked with loneliness and homesickness for the first year, I gradually came to appreciate the long walks, stretches of silence, and taste of solitude for the first time in my life. I even came to like the lack of (many) people in my life, I was fine with my family and my small circle of acquaintances and friends.

I didn’t realize the gradual crusting over of my heart. The way the devastating heartbreak of leaving my loved ones had slowly smoldered into ashy tombs within. I didn’t realize that growing indifference and selfishness had also taken root, until I got married and intimacy created the fault lines within my heart, that would eventually bust open the dam I had forgotten existed.

For our honeymoon we went to Umrah (lesser pilgrimage to Makkah/Madina) and then went back into the folds of all that was familiar yet distant. We spent time in Mombasa, Nairobi, Voi, and Zanzibar. We visited our childhood alleyways and traced the nostalgia of ocean waves and stuffy sleepless tropical nights.

I didn’t realize how much I missed the texture of unbounded generosity, the abundance of being loved wholly without any pretexts or pretensions. I didn’t realize how much I missed people, even the stifling embrace of nosiness and never ending streams of questions.

When we returned to the states, the ache intensified. I moved closer to my family and slowly over the years our family in this part of the world expanded through marriages, immigrations and children.

This holiday season I glanced up one day and my home is rocking again. My uncles, cousins, their children are all flowing in and out. It feels like being in the twilight zone to look outside and wave to Keith (my white neighbor), from our crammed kitchen with teen boys scavenging for food, Sufyan squealing with delight and my mother shouting from upstairs.

I pause to soak it all in. To see the holidays from the vantage point of (of one of the) women. I am cooking, cleaning, preparing; giggling with my aunt, and yelling at the teenagers to keep it down. Then I frown at them for staying up all night, and somehow can’t manage to keep a straight face.

Sufyan is relishing the attention, the love pouring in from all directions. The excitement and delight of many hands playing with him; of toppled routines and extended bedtimes. I am reliving the beauty of those days, through wiser eyes appreciating and giving gratitude for the incredible blessings that pour in with guests.

As I make my way downstairs in the early hours of dawn, I step lightly careful not to wake the sleepers in the living room, on the couches, in the basement, in the guest room, and I bite back the tears of memories gushing the expanse of the Indian Ocean.

We are anticipating even more guests from for Eid into the New Year. Sufyan and Yusuf are incredibly blessed to be able to taste the beauty in the messiness of over-large, noisy, extended families.

I marvel at the cyclical nature of life. And even as I revel in the blanketing love of my family, I still make sure to leave every once in a while for a long solitary walk; or wake up in those small pre-dawn hours to cherish the pauses in between the rhythmic beat of my heart.

Eid Mubarak to you and yours. May your holidays be filled with laughter, love and beautiful memories (amin.)

I am walking down a different path. Trying to learn something of the healing powers of silence; disciplining my self in certain ways to internalize some lessons. I am loving winter. This season of emptying and rejuvenation, the crispness in the air is cleansing. I have paused a lot of things, to allow for some empty spaces, small attempts at opening myself up for a different way of being and understanding. This journey (of the spirit) is necessarily solitary and there are many paths to it, or more precisely various degrees of apprehension. I am trying to pave my way regardless of the seeming insanity of the “masses.”

Reality is closer to this, every single person is struggling in their own way to make sense of their lives and micro choices. The delusion we sometimes carry around, is that other people actually care. I am saying this with the belligerence of “dawah” in mind. The way we compel ourselves to “invite people to our way”; before we have even internalized the lessons of that particular way. There is a huge chasm between what I know in “theory” and what I have allowed myself to experience. I say this as someone who was born into a religion, and has accepted certain mandates as a given. I have seen this tendency in the fervor of “converts” too (to any religion/philosophy.)

It might be human nature, maybe it lies our need as social creatures to connect with others and to feel validated by them. That way we can sigh in relief to know that we are not insane. On a tangent, I was thinking of how the definition of sanity is itself a social construct and should even the longed for Messiah arrive today, he would probably end up shackled in an asylum. Or less reassuring still, is no matter what we proclaim our belief to be, there will always be people to champion us. This is especially true now, where voyeurism has become an art form and mass media (yes, including blogs) the vehicle for it.

The Quran  illustrates many archetypes of the rejected apostles. In essence, we are not in need of a new Messenger or creed. I was thinking too of how, growing up, praying (and to a lesser extent fasting and charity) were always held as the end of our spiritual quest (not the means for opening up certain channels.) I was thinking of how dreary prayer seemed, the endless monotony, the ritual that has been starved completely of its meaning and poetry. So when as children, our moms yelled for us to go pray, sometimes just locking the door to the room and staying put would get us “off.” More often though, we would silence our conscience by performing miracles, the fifteen second prayer cycle.

The Quran also depicts the solitary man on a spiritual quest. The lone voice of reason that urges the community to listen to what the Prophets have to say. In Dawah circles, this lone voice is championed as exemplary to what our role should be. Forgetting that courage doesn’t come in parroting words with the necessary harshness of conviction to “prove” our beliefs and aggressively recruit others to “spread” them. Disenchanted youth normally write off such people as hypocrites. I think hypocrisy is not the right term though for it involves premeditated duplicity not (compounded) ignorance.

I can not teach my own children, least of all an apathetic public anything, period. I find even the act of doing good so that I can “demonstrate” my goodness (with the very Dawah-ish intent of convincing others how good Islam is) very abhorrent. This “Islam” is not a product that we are marketing and does not need a PR team. The minute I become conscious of other eyes on me, I have lost my integrity, and who in their right mind would want to emulate such hollowness?

I am learning from my children the need to experience the world with all our senses. Their unbounded curiosity leading me along paths I had completely forgotten. I don’t want to stifle their potential with my limited way of knowing. They watch my every imprint and the resulting discomfort raises my conscience to examine her self. I am driven to solitude, learning to keep still in those spaces where silence orchestrates the most terrible and sweetest music I have ever heard.

Banish words, burn books,
Shut down the electric currents keeping us all at bay

Let’s go out by the multitude
Or solitary
Beyond confines

to remember the smell of earth again
texture of the universe
against  feel of skin
beauty that wrings herself
tirelessly
regardless of the blind

Banish all words
fragments of dead knowledge
taking us away
so far away
from reality

deadening instincts
rendering the need
to experience, meaningless

wisdom has been put on mute

senses become less
common
atrophying

while distractions and disorders rules the day

Banish them all I say
let’s become explorers
adventurers
remember and celebrate 

let’s birth this universe anew

Let’s observe the world
like we’ve never seen before
through the eyes of a
child

a new born soul

lest we stifle all that is joyous
genuine
and gorgeous 
into blind crusts of jaded bitterness

Come on, let’s go,
the last frontier of innocence
is in our hands, we can’t afford
any more blood

Banish all barriers
that keep us in prisons
without bars

let’s go out
let’s go out by
the multitude

let’s go out solitary

to simply gaze at the stars….

(the irony of using this medium/words to express these reflections does not escape me. Indulge me, please.)

I am whirling and removing layers and layers off my soul. If energy can neither be created nor destroyed (only transformed), I realize there’s no need to hold on to staleness. “I have no energy” is a myth, something we hold on to justify stagnation. It takes the force of will to get beyond “inertia” and get ourselves moving.  

I am whirling and whirling, in imitation of dancing leaves and flowing water. There must be something in the air. All of creation is letting go, and my palms are wide open. 

It feels like waking up from a dream, realizing all the infinite details that color our lives beautiful. When I began recounting His blessings, my heart aches with fullness. Everywhere I look, the universe is celebrating, there’s crisp newness in the air, it chills my bones and empties my soul.

This practice of constant gratitude, weighs my heart down, dissipates my anxieties and keeps bringing me back, turning and turning, till meaning manifests in every direction. Why wasn’t I paying attention before?  

Like a gardener I have been (im)patiently prepping the earth within me; weeding, tilling, turning and turning my thoughts, opinions, my life upside down.

Or like a garbage disposer, I have been cleaning and cleaning, emptying and emptying, giving and giving until the cobwebs started dissipating and clarity started descending in small doses.  

I have been reading and reading, seeking holistic paradigms, gathering what was dissipated and building the whole world anew. “There are the years that ask questions and years that answer…”** I am turning and turning, and every page I turn, pours out with the kind of knowledge that my soul has been thirsting for. Where have I been before? 

It’s snowing and my heart is glowing. These words like drifting snowflakes are both a celebration and a prayer.

May our souls always be in tune. Amin.  

Salamaat,

Brass Cresent Award nominees are up. Thanks to you, who nominated this blog for “Best Female Blog”. Go ahead and vote for your favorites, there are lots of awesome blogs nominated (too many to choose from!)

 I have been really busy reading, emptying, reflecting, and working. I will have something up soon Inshaallah. Take care and God bless.

I have been contemplating my supplications, the manner in which my tongue falls and rises tracing ancient pathways in different languages. A prayer I chant rhythmically in Arabic is taken around a different bend in Swahili, before I break down and try to get closer to what I really mean in English.

Every time my tongue rises and falls, something in me shifts; my understanding, my orientation towards God and Reality is subtly moved. I feel as if I am sitting at the base of the proverbial mountain and am afforded different snapshots of the sceneries in shifting perspectives.

Swahili is mother earth. It is the tropical heat, muddy alleyways, the sticky sweetness of jasmine flowers. It speaks of paradoxes at home with each other; poverty and abundance, hideousness and beauty, generosity and intolerance, cruelty and love, biting cynicism and the necessity of faith. It grounds me in the way I remember the texture of my toes, heels, and soles sinking into sand; at home with the earth. It grounds me in the way that poor people have very little patience for frivolity.

Maybe because my memories of our time in the Middle East are faded, Arabic remains distant yet near. It’s buried in my bones with my grandparents; migrated the globe with their footsteps, seeped other tongues into its blood. Its purity lies in an exile’s dreams of a small valley called Hadhramout lying beyond the reaches of her fingers. Arabic is laced in the sepia toned photographs of a little girl in undone braids, smiling shyly at the camera. The language that taught me poetry, rhythm, softness. I credit my sapiness to years of crooning to Raghib and Amr Diab (I cringe to admit). My soul was equally shaped by the rich melodies and taste nurtured by Fayrooz, Umm Kulthum, and Abdel Halim (the old people music my mother always played in the background.)

Arabic is the language I seek God with, reverently, humbly, fluidly. Seeking eternity with its pathways, complexity and depth.

I found my eloquence in English, perhaps because I learnt it relatively late in life, and I am still translating myself in it. My language of resistance, inquiry, understanding. The language of my oppressors and valiant heroes, my teachers and fellow seekers. I am most comfortable in this foreign tongue and perhaps this should give you a clue to the unease that resides under my skin. This constant tug of war that pulls me under in long stretches of silence; I am neither this nor that.

The language that has been appropriated by victims turned martyrs and heroes; shaping the fist of Malcolm, bearing the dignity of Ghandi, carrying Holiday’s blues and propelling the pens of Ngugi, Achebe, Farrah, Morrison, Alvarez and many others into chants of global resistance.

Breaking it’s stultifying surfaces to unearth the beauty that my soul needs to hear; this language that colors my dreams, and breaks me into fits of tongue-tied frustrations. This language that taught me to question, challenge, to break apart my own prejudices and re/member meanings.

I really had to struggle through these paradigm shifts, trying to decide which best suited “me” or trying to find “my” self in the midst of all the contradictions and definitions. I am just beginning to understand that I was looking in the wrong direction; my gaze and quest are slowly turning outward trying to decipher Reality and understanding this world we are living in a different way from the piecemeal way I have been “trained” to do.

I feel gathered in this way; the contradictions that seemed so jarring just a couple of years ago, are slowly falling into place, like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

As I place my forehead on the ground under a small patch of blue sky, the smell of earth brings out so much that had lain buried within me. Somewhere beyond the realm of imprecise words and laden languages, lies beautiful All Enveloping silence; I seek its spaces because there’s much healing to be done here.

There was once a rich land full of very peculiar people who spent a lot of their time sharpening their edges into perfect little squares. Nobody knew or questioned why they had to be squares, it’s just the way it has always been. They lived in square little houses, drove square little cars, they even worked in square little offices called cubicles, more or less.

They had perfected the art of being squares so well, that they ran their whole society based on this model of efficiency. They were prosperous of course, with plenty to eat and had everything their square little bodies needed to be lulled into cozy comfort. They believed so much in the necessity of their squaredom, and its basis for their  success, that they set about the necessary work of inflicting it on lands far and wide.

Of course they didn’t really admit to being squares and were quick to distance themselves from each other. For inscribed within their bones were other ways of being; glimmers of the ancient universes and galaxies buried within them, just waiting to be born. Throughout the ages, some sages had been born among them telling them of these marvelous mysteries and revealing to them means that would crack open their little opaque square shells and give flight to the cosmos within; but these peculiar little squares were very ingenious in the way that they stuck to their surfaces.

Some lauded the sages and elevated them into pedestals, made sculptures of them and worshipped at their altar while keeping their square little bodies perfectly intact. Others rejected those ignorant sculpture-worshippers, and went ahead valiantly to forge THE PATH laid out by their own sages, for all others to follow. Were they successful you ask? Did they actually take the means given to them to crack open their little square shells? No, they simply wrapped the means around their square little bodies and walked around pompously, upholding the banner declaring THE PATH for all to see.

Others still rejected the whole lot as delusional hypocrites. Universes and galaxies indeed! Those fables were just created by square little people to make their square little selves feel good about their meaningless existence. There is nothing else outside of squaredom! They proclaimed definitively. Polish your surfaces, sharpen your edges, and be true to your square little selves!

They all argued loudly over their divergences, quoting their sages and insisting on their own grasp of THE TRUTH. Some busied their little square selves with the creation of institutions to uphold the banner of their sages. Others busied their little square selves with admonishing and preaching other squares on the necessity of implementing those means to crack open their squares, and they dedicated themselves so wholeheartedly to this enterprise, they had no time to discover the truth of their own words. Others made a lucrative living perfecting the art of reciting the books revealed to them, in such heart rending melodies, all the square people who stopped to listen would momentarily weep at the obvious TRUTH of those words, and go on their merry square lives.

They all had those beautifully bound books in their homes, revealing all the mysteries of the paths walked on by sages and saints throughout time. Many of those books collected dust. Others insisted on reciting those books every single day, for various ‘other’ reasons. Like it made them ‘feel’ good, or it gave them points to bolster their arguments, or because it enhanced their own esteem of their squareness. THE TRUTH sounded sweet on their tongues, but rarely sank beyond their square surfaces to unearth the treasures within.

Others still, built special schools to indoctrinate the young on all they needed to know of the sages and the other paths, but the children were naturally confused. If there were other ways and those awesome mysteries really existed, why were their parents, neighbors, teachers all so busy perfecting their squares then?

The rulers of squaredom thrived on the diversions the little square people created for themselves. They allowed them the freedom to be square and this gave rise to all kinds of industries created for the perfection of squaredom. There were little square schools set up to produce more square people to fill all those square-perfecting jobs that waited for them out there. There were surface polishers and edge definers who made untold wealth decorating these little square people into walking art forms. Beauty was narrowed down and prescribed to surfaces only; and people were so mesmerized by all that glitter they forgot all about galaxies and whatnot.

Little square shrinks set up their firms to mend those little square people whose shells had been cracked through natural forces. The little square people would take one look at the ghastly void within them and go wild with madness. What were those darknesses? They couldn’t bear to look beyond their little square shells, for how could they? Their eyes weren’t accustomed to that kind of seeing. So they were soon given little square happy pills that sedated them enough to bring them to the surface and were encouraged not to think too much of darknesses and whatnot.

On the surface squaredom thrived and the little square people simply could not have enough. Even though they all paid lip service to their various sages, they had one thing in common, unlimited ‘needs.’ They were necessitated into being squares and working unfulfilling square jobs, because they abhorred living without the luxuries defining them. And as you know, my dear readers, the acquisition of luxuries is really a limitless quest.

There were rebels of course and many who considered squaredom to be a farce. They yearned to escape the inanity of their existence, and the benevolent rulers of squaredom took those people into consideration as well. Industries dedicated to escapism immediately sprang up to cater to those special needs. Regularly scheduled breaks from the monotony of squareness were scheduled to allow all the squares time to relax into make-believe worlds of competing fascination functioning as escape valves.

Those make believes worlds were packaged and brought into every home; to keep all the squares arrested and occupied for long stretches of time.

Children and youth were especially problematic for the rulers of squaredom. You see, the rulers had become dependent on the slavish dependence of squares on everything “else” outside of themselves. They needed to keep them busy and predictable so that fortunes could be made on the sidelines by those fortunate enough to be born into the ruling class. Children were not quite as easy to fool with trinkets and could get out of hand if they were left to their own devices so special institutions called “public” schools were built where the masses had to send their children for proper drilling. The children eventually grew uniformly bored, apathetic, cynical, whiny, immature; and most importantly slavish dependents of acquisition that “everyone else” was.

The rulers were quite happy with their perfect little society and everyone would have lived happily ever after save for an Imperceptible and Relentless force that tended to work against the very framework of squaredom. Lightening strikes of disenchantment cracked the hardest of shells and turbulence simmered under each surface threatening to explode. Fear quaked in every heart and the ever-so-alert rulers immediately feasted on it and churned out terror against all those square-hating-infidels. Blood was spilled, lives lost, and confusion reigned. The rich got o’ so oily rich and the poor little squares worked ever so hard to catch up but it was like they were placed on an endless treadmill that just kept going and going and going.

Something kept happening though baffling those ever-alert-rulers who needed squaredom to stay put; so they could concentrate their own wealth and power. Institutions threatened to crumble underneath their feet and as “occupied” as they kept the masses; some outraged souls still managed to get a sense of what was happening for reality had an inconvenient way of asserting and reasserting itself.

It seemed like the outer galaxies were conspiring to remind the  little square people of their own galaxies within them and again that Irresistible force was pulling the two ever closer together. No matter how much the rulers and square “masses” struggled; everyone sensed the pull and lashed out against it in their own ways.

Angels kept circling around the square edges alongside the saints, seers and sages (very few of whom were still alive to bear witness to the madness); murmuring right under the cacophony of surfaces. Their melodious tales were wrapped around the orbiting planets, replicated infinitely in the flight of birds, cycling seasons, ebb and tide of the oceans; waxing and waning of the moon. Their soulful tales were infused into the essence of both momentary death and eternal life.

Of what do they murmur you ask? Why, just take a pause and listen, my dear reader.

I didn’t realize how nervous I was of Yusuf’s labor and how much I was talking about it, until one day Sufyan rushed into the room clutching his tummy:

“Mommy I am scared!” Eyes wide, heart racing, tummy clutched.

“What are you scared of habiby?”

“OF DA LABOR!”

I almost passed out.

“DA LABOR” was thus inaugurated as a new monster. Sufyan would stand at the window and run exclaiming “DA LABOR IS COMING!”

Or open the closet and inquire “DA LABOR?”

Or order “Mama RUN!!! RUN!!! DA LABOR IS HERE”

and on and on…I tried to put a stop to it, by telling him that DA LABOR is gone, but it hasn’t helped. He still brings up DA LABOR, along with DA OLD MAN, and DA MONSTA as the three top “scary” figures in his life right now. (I don’t know who/how DA OLD MAN joined the crew, but he’s there in spite of my attempts at telling him stories where DA OLD MAN is the hero and savior of the day.)

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Yusuf is all preciousness. He is quiet, undemanding, gorgeous (absolutely!), and happy. He loves to coo, to be talked to, and held. Right now he sleeps through the night, but I know better than to celebrate, since that tends to change.

When people told me to “enjoy” Sufyan when he was a baby since that phase was the “easiest”, I wanted to strangle them. What do you mean easy? I was so overwhelmed with him, I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t’ tell day from night, wasn’t coherent for about six months post-labor.

With Yusuf, everything is much smoother, gentler, sweeter, Alhamdullillah. I am really enjoying him, cuddling with him, breathing in that heaven kissed newborn scent. I am all “please don’t grow up fast baby, please take your time…”

With Sufyan I couldn’t wait for him to get to the next milestone, reading everything on motherhood, observing his “progress”, celebrating…With Yusuf, I wish I can freeze him in the moment. I want him to take his time, but it seems like time is not willing to slow down for him either.

I am still more forward-looking with Sufyan, reading up on what options I have for his education/learning, knowing I am blazing the same trail for Yusuf. With Yusuf, I just want to enjoy the moment he is nursing, the way he can now swat his hand clumsily on my face, the way his little fingers clutch at my shirt.

I cried when I went to buy Sufyan’s stage 2 diapers, I could just see all the other milestones passing by, him in wedding suit being whisked away by his bride (the nerve she has!) With Yusuf though, all I could muster was “already?”

Yes, no matter what your mom said to you, she did compare you all. Or more precisely, her self and experiences with each of you.

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Sufyan is all demanding, all LOOK AT ME RIGHT NOW AND NOT THAT BORING BABY. He can still be his old sweet adorable self at times, but we have those really hard intractable moments when he is SHRIEKING his head off and I am holding on to my last strand of sanity (and by the way, why oh why, do they schedule their crying/demands at the SAME TIME?)

I am okay, really, I am fine.

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Sufyan’s vocabulary astounds me. He speaks in full-sentences-thank-you-very-much and uses logic to trap me in my own inconsistencies (already!)

Like the benign “Sufyan don’t use too much water to wash your hands okay? It’s a waste and waste is not good, k, baby?” And him turning around gasping “MAMA! That’s too much water! It a WAISHT”

Or being contrary for the sake of it: “Mama are we there?”

“Not yet Sufyan”

“YES YET MAMA!”

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Word of the month:  “NEED”

“Mama I NEEEEEED to swing”- Trying to explain swinging is not exactly a NEED does not work.

“Mama I NEEEEEEDDDD that toy/cookie/ice cream/juice/pretty-much-the-forbidden-item-of-the-moment.”

Most heartbreaking of all “Mama I NEED you” with a sob, at a moment I am invariably busy with Yusuf.

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One commentator, a new-ish mother of one (yes, you Natalia), asked once whether we can truly love the second as much as the first (or something to that effect.) It’s hard to explain, they both inspire different emotions in me. Sufyan taught me what motherhood entails, and is still leading me down the pathway and yet-to-be-reached milestones. We know each other, we’ve “been” there together, we have made history together in each other’s universes. Yusuf is all newness, excitement, wonder, nostalgia. He gushes out the maternal/sappiness in me.

I feel this incredible compassion for him. I feel so sorry for him; he is so little, so helpless and vulnerable. Particularly heart breaking, is when he is chilling in his bouncer, with all that divine innocence of his short life, smiling vaguely at an Angel in the distance; when all of a sudden WHACK! Sufyan just swooped down and hit him on the head!

Sufyan soon figured out his doesn’t even need to hit him physically, he can just stand somewhere in the vicinity and let out a heart-shattering-ear-splitting scream for Yusuf to be startled into a wide-eyed-confused-scare of what just happened here?

I totally understand where Sufyan is coming from and it’s really hard to get too mad at him. We prepped him too well, for the little brother who will come and play with him, who will learn from his feet and who will be Sufyan’s own little baby. The moment Sufyan came into the hospital room, he said “Come on Woofuf! Let’s go PLAY” And Yusuf just sat there staring into space.

We cheated him. We had left out the part where the baby does NOTHING exciting for a long, long time (eternity in a preschooler’s world). He just eats, sleeps, and demands mommy’s time at all hours of the night, making mommy tired, cranky and short tempered with Sufyan (the once reigning prince of her universe.)

We are all somewhat adjusting. Thankfully for Yusuf’s long sleeping hours, Sufyan and I can still have our one on one moments. Sometimes, I leave the baby with his daddy and take Sufyan out to the park, walking, for ice cream, so that it’s just “us” time.

I noticed the more I give him attention, the less whacks the little one gets and more affectionate Sufyan is with his little brother. It’s so cute to see Sufyan baby-talk to Yusuf and Yusuf smiling and cooing back.

I have also learnt to pre-empt the attacks, by tuning in on Sufyan’s mood. The moment he is bored, sleepy or hungry, I have to intervene or else…

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I am learning too much at one time, marveling at my own endurance throughout it all. Some days, are perfect, like today enabling me to work, write, and play. Other days, I despair of anything resembling normalcy.

I have fixed two things in my schedule that enable me to face each day with a reservoir of optimism (that is sometimes drained away in a moment): Going for a quick jog/walk in the evenings when daddy-yo is home. It helps me connect with nature, empty myself of negative energy, trace the henna dyes flaming the horizons, and breathe that delightful crisp air announcing winter.

And I also wake up before the household for some prayer/reflection/supplication/meditation. Everything else is fluid and so far it has worked out beautifully for me.

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Stay tuned for the next episode of YuSufyan….
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It’s been almost three years since we got rid of him. I couldn’t take it anymore. This addictive way I hated him; this helplessness that would make me unable to turn away. I would stare at him for hours at a time, listening to his constant chatter, seductions, lies.

You see, I knew he was lying; I knew it, even when he arranged his face into a serious pose and started talking about what’s going on in the world. It was especially when his voice took on the self satisfied gradient of “objectivity” that infuriated me more. “You lie!” I would mutter under my apathetic slumber. Somehow he did that to me. He arrested me in a vice grip of passivity and my mind would turn into mush under his hold. My spirit would flee during our daily sessions, and I would be left with the constant chattering of my mind, my soul; the myriad of ways he scattered me, yet I kept coming back for more.

The reasons for keeping him were just as powerful as the reasons I had for getting rid of him. They were probably more potent, since a small part of me had been sold by his lies. It’s not easy to fight someone who drags you down the abyss; the nihilist within is just waiting to unfold.

So I kept him long after I was convinced we needed to sever these poisonous ties. I kept him longer still because “everyone else had him” and because I wanted to believe that amidst the chatter there must be something useful in there for me. That somehow I needed to listen to him, so I would have something “smart” to say when company was over. You see, he provided us with the flaming “debates” of the day and gave us pointers for both sides. I was a bit afraid of all that emptiness his disappearance would cause. What would we do without him? I also didn’t want “to miss out” because surely there are some educational benefits to his presence, even if the education lies primarily in sharpening the cynicism within. Isn’t cynicism a good thing?

I would watch the most debasing of programs, staring at him in revulsion, but at least content in knowing “I was better” than the masses. What he termed “Reality” were actually doses of delusions, but I was “smart” enough to detect them and I prided myself in my own illusions. Without his presence, who would nourish my ego like that?

It wasn’t easy, and everyday there were more reasons to have him; and every other day there were more reasons to get rid of him.

I really needed a more powerful motivation to be rid of him, and it came wrapped up in the sweet innocence of my first-born’s face. My protective jealously immediately set me into action. No, I will not my share my baby’s attention with him. No, I refuse to subject this angel in my care to his indoctrination.

So we finally got rid of him and my whole household breathed in relief.

I waited for the sky to fall, for my life to be dramatically different; but nothing perceptible happened right away.

Gradually we started filling up the time we had with more soul-nourishing activities; my spirit never had to leave anymore. I was in constant touch.

People wonder how I raise my son in his absence. Some feel bad for me, for they tell me how their children have learned much from his presence. “Do you know he teaches ABC’s and 123’s? Do you know he even teaches SPANISH?” I nod in silence. You see, I know better than try to argue with them, I remember when I was in his all encompassing hold…it’s not easy. I know it’s not easy.

Some people wonder what does my son do all day? “Not even computer games?” They ask me, and I shake my head. No, I am raising him “smoke” screen-free for as long as I can help it. See, many people have forgotten that children are extremely imaginative and when left to their own devices they flourish. I respond, “I let him play.” And they can’t imagine how a child can just play without the constant stream of entertainment to arrest them. “I don’t want to imprison him.” I respond.

Without his presence, my son is so busy, so busy. He plays with household pots, pans, spoons, and sometimes his toys. He sits for long periods of time to write/draw/color. He loves best to go outside. The little backyard we have, is his haven. He observes little creatures, rides his bike around, and more than once I would catch him simply staring at the trees and sky in awe.

Without his presence, my son has learned to entertain himself. He makes up stories to himself, he runs and hides from “imaginary” monsters and sculpts playdo with time.

Without his presence, we found out about the groundhog who has made a home in our backyard (of sorts.) And my son keeps me updated on his movements and we’ve affectionately adopted him as “hotdog” (Sufyan’s version of groundhog.) Without his presence, my son is still whole.

Some visitors come and take one look at how our couches are all facing each other, instead of the mandatory orientation towards his altar; and they get confused. “Is he in the basement?” They ask about him, like he is the uncle or grandpa. The mandatory family member whose presence can’t be missed. I say “oh no, we decided to get rid of him…” They look at me without comprehension, why? The vibe around us immediately becomes charged, I feel the walls coming up. So I say something vague and try to shrug my shoulders.

And this is what pains me the most, their assumption that I got rid of him due to “extreme” “religious” reasons. “It’s not that” I try to explain, but to go into all the real reasons would be worse. I have had experience in this, the way they would try to argue down each reason as if…as if, I was somehow convincing them to clean him out of their houses as well. But I know they won’t. I know they can’t. For some of them, he came with a hefty price tag, something in the range of the thousands; wrapped up in the latest technological model. I can’t compete with that, so I don’t even try anymore.

One person really close to me admitted “I would be depressed without him.”

I am happy though. My home is my refuge. The walls don’t have to absorb synthetic sounds; we don’t spend our long evenings in his flickering lights anymore. I don’t have to feel the deadness within every time I plop down on my couch.

My couches are for snuggling and reading children’s books out loud, for recitations, for conversations.

My home is for silence, for children’s laughter, for nurturing beautiful thoughts and adorable beings.

There are a lot of worries I don’t have anymore. Of what else my children would be absorbing, of images I have no control over, of being “programmed” in ways I still can’t shake off. I don’t have to deal with the empty chatter of noises in the background, with scheduling my life around “episodes”, or the constant dose of lies, insecurities and psychosis he fed me.

I am still healing from the onslaught of all those years I had wasted at his threshold. I am still piecing together my own imagination and just starting to hear my spirit’s songs. I am still learning what it feels like to be whole, but I do take solace in that at least my children won’t have to take the longer and more painful  trek home. God willing. Amin.

Ours was a chaotic household. If the walls could speak, they would reverberate with pulsating laughter, loud arguments, and shrieks of children’s voices. My mother raised the entire village, cooking overfilled pots just-in-case-because-you-never-know-who-will-drop-by-for-lunch. I still haven’t mastered the art of cooking in small portions; and I still don’t know exactly how I am related to some of the “uncles”, “aunts” and “cousins” that were constantly in and out of our home.

People have always suffocated me, drowned me in their concern and love. I grew up being chastised by neighbors, crowded by relatives, and deeply bonded to my friends. There was texture to the relationships around me, a demand for depth in our horizontal relationships that plumbed our souls in the process.

Of course I couldn’t wait to get away from the stifling heat of nosey neighbors and the all-encompassing embrace of my (over) protective brothers.

Of course I nursed dreams of going far away and living in my own private enclave. I wanted to nurture my independence. I yearned for “freedom” (in all the ways that I mis-understood it then.)

Independence rocks when you are self sufficient, materially and health wise. Poverty forces people into small spaces; necessity binds us together. Generally, even in communal cultures, the more money one has the further away they choose to live from the “masses”. The biggest houses have the lowest occupants; somehow we find solace in living in tombs.

Independence is an illusion that dissipates fast when the first trial hits and you are left in a cloud of dust; fragments of the flimsy networks of surface relationships we have surrounded ourselves with.

I had Sufyan in the midst of my mom’s surgeries and chemos; surrounded by my extended family (some of whom flew thousands of miles to be close by.) Since Yusuf’s birth we have hosted so many relatives and friends, I joke that he probably doesn’t have a clear idea of who lives in this house. My mother and sister live with me, my brothers a couple of miles apart from us. Aunts, uncles, cousins still stream in and out, visiting and staying over from time to time. Along the way, I have formed deep friendships that have resisted changing circumstances to endure.

Like any other blessing I can’t imagine what I would do without the women around me who lovingly gave me soups, massages, and tough love through the rawness of childbirth. I can just begin to understand the terrible loneliness, fatigue, and frustration that can drive a woman to harm her own children. There is madness in inflicting individualism on innately social creatures.

Social creatures need depth to be able to make sense of them selves. There is an added element of sacredness that comes from womb relationships, this mercy that binds our hearts pumping the same blood. Something that fixes the soul in knowing that however much my family can drive me up the wall (and yes they often do); the knowledge that they are there for me grounds me. We live in times that dissuade and fragment family ties, only to try and replicate the same relationships with strangers. More often than not, these other “networks” remain loose and superficial and remain at best pale imitations.

I am freed to do many things because of my extended family support. When people ask me how hard it is to be raising two small children, I am almost ashamed to admit that it’s not that bad. There are many hands to help out and those times when I feel completely depleted (there are times like that, yes) I can afford to take breaks without worrying about leaving them in estranged (and potentially traumatic) environments. 

My mother still mothers me through my own motherhood (yes, that’s a mouthful.) And I in turn am afforded the blessing of caring for her and offering her a feeble semblance of gratitude. My siblings know me too well for me to paddle in pretensions.

It took me a while to figure out and implement that I owe them the best of my manners and appreciation; that intimate relationships serve as a mirror for us to polish our faults off. It took us all a while longer to stop forcing conformity on each other and learn to admire our differences and what each of us brings to the table.

 I realized too that I can’t pray for virtues like forbearance, kindness, beauty; if I don’t practice them with those closest around me. What use is a stranger’s false perception of us, when the reality of who we are is reflected by our inability to sustain a single loving relationship?

It was really my mother’s illness that galvanized our family together; and helped us to learn the little ways we all can and do make each other’s lives easier. And honestly, I think most of the growth had to come from my side; to clear some confusion within me that had once flipped my priorities upside down.

I realize how short lived this blessing may be, that tomorrow everyone may disappear, that jobs and opportunities keep beckoning from far away. That fights and estrangements have broken up the most solid of families; that we live in times that encourage us to tear ourselves apart from the seams; but I pray to be able to esteem the best within these relationships and not to ever live with the regret of knowing I could have done more.

May He blow His winds of Mercy in our hearts and incline us towards what matters (amin.)