How fragile we are.

I woke up this morning as per usual to make myself a sandwich and have a drink of water before heading back to bed when I saw that my granny’s lights were on. This was no big deal she’s usually up at the wee hours of the morning reading her Quran. I heard deep breathing that sounded like someone was in pain, naturally I walk into the room to make sure she’s ok when she tells me she’s really dizzy and maybe I should get her some honey. I rushed to the kitchen to get what she’d asked of me and returned to her side. Now I’ve had a similar experiences way more often that once and I remember that honey just made me throw up.
I’m not her…she’s not me… and I thought she’s been in the home remedy business for quite a while with her three kids and 6 grandchildren so who was I to contest. As expected the honey did what I thought it would do and at this point I thought ok…this will definitely make her feel better I know that when I’m all woozy, in cold and hot sweats a good upchuck usually solves my dilemma. It’s pretty run of the mill routine at this point… the weather is changing and she’s fasting so her poor little body just isn’t in as good a shape as it used to be. She starts to shake violently and her face looses all sorts of color. Still remaining calm, which is surprisingly uncharacteristic of me, I cover her up and decide that there is no need to worry my mother by waking her from her sleep. I figured seeing my calmness would ease her worry but instead it is what makes her decide to tell me that she’s dying. “It’s time for me to go Sandy”. She’s repeating the shahadah and saying allahdmeullah for having performed her wodoo. And just like that I went from calm to an emotional wreck. The tears streamed down my face and all I could think was how I wasn’t nicer, sweeter more caring and tolerant. How I didn’t spend as much time as I should have saying all I wanted to say. How many more times my tone could have had a lot more 7ineya in it. She asked me to get my mother, she wanted to see her before she left. So I ran to grab my mum…
how do you really wake someone up without startling them at 5 o’clock in the morning?

My mother came into the room half asleep and well aware that this sort of thing had happened before. We sat next to her babying her with hugs kisses and massages and had regained our composure until the dramatic ahaaat stopped. She whispers “the talking will stop now…. My tongue is feeling heavy” And just like that she stopped talking. She was still breathing and her pulse going but the silence was lethal. My mother, a woman who I’ve only seen cry on one occasion in her life, broke down and started to weep uncontrollably and all I could say was “2iti2y il shetan ya mummy, she’s fine she’s just resting” Then there was the slow opening of the eyes and the apologies for having to put my mother through all this… that she’d spoken to some person whose name I’d never heard before about a plot somewhere so my mummy wouldn’t have to worry about it. that’s when I thought… this is it… the nightmare I’d awoken myself up from by panic stricken crying last week is going down right here and now… in my bed and I’m never going to be able to lay here again without thinking of this exact same moment. I got flash backs of being 10 and how my mother wept so much she couldn’t catch her breath after her father passed away. I remember her laughing and cracking jokes at the funeral and I remember thinking for a split second that she’d officially lost it. I don’t remember hearing my grandmother’s laughter ring quite the way it used to after that day. I don’t remember her walking into a room and having it light up the way it used to. I remember her telling me she used to think she was going crazy because she could feel him watching her sometimes. All of this brought into my mind instantly. I would soon be the owner of all that emotional baggage with the passing of a few more minutes. It was right at that moment that I realized sometimes you need to have someone to call out to. Someone you’re hoping will listen and intervene when things get out of hand. It was at precisely that moment that I realized how lucky I was to be of faith… dwindling at times and not as strong as one would hope but of faith none the less. And with that thought I felt this calm come over me like it would be ok. Like after having said the words “ya rab” over and over again under my breath he was going to help me through this. It brought me peace and I thought this too shall pass.

i want more

I constantly find myself in these situations where I wish, want, need, desire open commentary. Why can’t I be in both places at once? Me and the bird’s eye view could be one and the same. That situation works for me. I could so relate zay ily eddo fel nar but with the luxury of dude whose chilling fel pool with daiquiri in hand. I wish people would just say what they had to say. The filtering, reworking sentences before they come out, the withholding of information and the awkwardness that surrounds the situation is completely unnecessary.

Thought of the day.

Sick cycle carousel...

Less school more life? ...more life less school?

E. T. Bell once said...

"Nevertheless, the consuming hunger of the uncritical mind for what it imagines to be certainty or finality impels it to feast upon shadows in the prevailing famine of substance."

1 little 2 little 3 little sheepies..4 litlle 5 little 6 little...

Staring at my ceiling last night imagining what it would be like if: the ceiling was the ground and my ground the ceiling. How the stucco would feel on my bare feet and how the light could double as a heater as well as a source of illumination. How much more interesting it would be to stare at a ceiling with furniture stuck to it as opposed to the current bumpy cream stuff. Useless thinking really, a pre-bedtime routine to get me in sleep mode. I looked out the window and sadly came to the realization that sunshine would soon, if not already, be a thing of the past. I’d soon forget what summer felt, smelt and looked like and I’d be consumed by winter. Ramadan is round the corner and with it I sincerely hope a renewed sense of faith. I read a forward recently about how everyone of us has this inner struggle between good and evil where both are wolves. The one that takes over is ultimitely the one you feed. I wonder if I’ve been feeding the wrong one?

I made pacts to read more and connect more last Ramadan. I made pacts to pray more. I remembered that I’d done less that year than all the years before. I wonder if it was the pacts that set me back?

I remembered a conversation with my friend’s mummy about this feeling of being lost and not knowing what my purpose was. This conversation about how a better job just didn’t hold any excitement no sense of fulfillment. How the extra money earned didn’t present a world of opportunity because I simply had no desire to spend it.
It makes no sense to me!
And driving me crazy! Shouldn’t I be all about the spending and buying? Isn’t that what young professional women do? They make money to spend it? Shouldn’t I be leafing through magazines trying to cut my hair in a way that “perfectly reflects me.” And contemplating how to perfectly accessorize my new cell phone? Wheather the next pair of shoes I get should be from Aldo or transit. Souldn't i be yearning for a new purse from guess' new collection? Shouldn’t Halt Renfrew hold a special place in my heart and the perfume isles at the Bay excite every inch of my being? I’ve had this discussion with myself a gazillion and ten times. It’s always been too exhausting too superficial and too petty. But really the world judges you on what you look like. What’s the use of being gold on the inside if you don’t shine?
Why not change with the world that surrounds you and be hip and into all that is “cool”. Why not love yourself enough to want all those pretty things? Why can’t all this primping grooming and shopping just casually fall into the self improvement category? But at the end of the day. I refuse to buy into the commercials and the soap, the creams the clothes and the accessories that claim will make me complete, that promise to captivate all that surround me.
All this conversation in my head.. I should totally just project it onto objects and that way have a conversation with something other than myself... much like paulo cohelo did in the fifth mountain. I could befriend my bedside table or better yet my uninspirational cieling.. I could ask poor stucco the questions and before he gets a chance to respond i could give him my opinion and declare it his..Stupid bumper stickers... they work! Their msgs embedded in my brain..."everyone is entitled to my opinion" The ones that irk me the most are these new ones emerging everywhere. "support our troops" they're magnetic... I've visciously confiscated 4 so far... I'll have none of that in my space...my eyes don't need to see it... if the owner wants the world to know he/she is militant well they'll have to do it on their own time not mine and not through a medium i come in contact with... i'll have none of it...not on my watch. fuck freedom of speech. Hypocracy at its best here I hate that people control the space that surrounds me...why oh why am i eternally punished by forcebly being exposed to arabic drama on the tele 24/7? yes ok my granny is a wonderfull woman and she's loosing her hearing so the tv being at top volume is understandable... but whyyyyyyy oh whyyyyy must any trip to the kitchen be accompanied by the sound of a ya lahwee? And on that note y must any trip to the convenience store be accompanied by some random woman who can't drive in the first place telling some other woman off in cantonees? Yeah sure its exotic and under normal circumstanes I like forign sounds but when you've built a superstore that has chineese take out at the low low price of $3.00 and in the process have managed to make the air that surronds me smell like crayfish.. A smell might I add that seeps into your bones through ur pores and clings onto them like no tommorw... I am in no mood to listen to your high pitched squealing. but i'm ranting and being totally intolerant here soo like the good little girl that I am I'm going to follow in lady macbeth's footsteps and "out... out damned spot... out I say".

Confines, borders and lines.

The warm air, cleansing rain and grey overcast have, as they often do, sent me into deep thought. There are many things that surface on days like this. The general direction in which my life is headed and weather I’ve ultimately become anywhere remotely close to the person I’d hoped I’d have become at my age are just some to name a few. I’m constantly surprised at how much harder it becomes to make the right decision as you get older, I suppose it can be attributed to the fact that I’m just getting intrinsically better at seeing the many differing shades of grey between wrong and right.
Confronted with one moral dilemma after the next it seems as though I’ve submitted to hedonism far too often. And while it is momentarily gratifying it is ultimately accompanied by a sense of disappointment. Maybe that can partially be accredited to my sudden rekindled interest in Socrates’ works and the idea of having to separate oneself from worldly things to arrive at truth. What truth exactly I am unsure. My truth, my personal state of nirvana I suppose. Or perhaps I’m just going on a tangent and the explanation is far simpler. Maybe I’ve just become jaded by how hard it is to align what I’d like the world with me in it to look like with the reality that surrounds me. I am particularly disheartened by my depreciating associated value for the words I love you. Not particularly solely in a significant other kind of way but in an overall general sense. Friends I’d thought I’d “love” for ages upon ages to come have now become distant strangers where prolonged periods of awkward silence are the norm and hugs and kisses are sterile, abandoned by warmth and emotion, exchanged solely upon the merit of formality. Or perhaps it is self pity that consumes me and not disappointment. Perhaps I had undeservingly given my self the authority to assume I could not so soon be forgotten, set aside or disregarded. Or maybe it is neither disappointment nor self pity but isolation. Have I unintentionally heeded to a form of self imposed exile?

A Sacred Blasphemy

"Be off and know that the way of lovers is opposite all other ways.

The impossible is common place,
Punishment is reward,
Tyranny is justice,
Slander is the highest praise.

His harshness is soft,
His blasphemy is sacred.

When he’s bitter it’s better than a candy shop.
When he turns his head away it’s all hugs and kisses.

A “No” from his lips is a thousand times “Yes”
His infidelity is faith,
His stones are jewels,
His holding back is giving,
His ruthlessness is mercy

You may laugh at me and say,
“The path you’re on is full of curves!”
Yes- for the curve of his eyebrow
I have traded in my soul!

I can not say another word!
Carry on, my glorious heart,
Finish the poem in silence…"