Expired Love Letters

26 Sep

I write love letters on small squares of thin paper. Sometimes they return home to me, sauce-stained, ink letters bloated beneath water marks. Sometimes the words don’t come back at all. They cling, wet, around another child’s half-finished milk carton in the trash bin. They lie in landfills of coffee grinds and discarded diapers from squalling, rash-angst babies, who have suckled on the deflated breasts of yawning mothers.

I stand by my children’s sandwiches in the early morning, crust sliced clean off, thrown to the tail-wagging, salivating dog. He gobbles it in one leap and paces the floor while I twiddle my pen between middle and index fingers, thinking, softening, aching, even, a little.

No matter what I write, it won’t inject the tide of this…

‘I love you.’

And I don’t care where that message ends up as long as it travels first through their hearts today. I love you!

I write that and a few other words, less important, then tuck the paper swiftly into their lunches. I want my children to read the letters when we are not face-to-face. I don’t want to watch them actually reading it at this very moment. Though, before it has happened, I see my children silently grinning on the words in the noisy, echoing lunchroom, here, while they are just stretched out and pajama footed on the living room rug, picking up the lint – swollen and sleepy-eyed – asking me, what is for breakfast?

God, it hurts, it soothes – how much I feel this thin piece of paper.

It has been four days since I wrote one. Four school days of absence –only plump grapes and slippery carrot sticks. No love letter, because I do not write them every day. Only on some days.

The youngest child flashes high the last letter, like a ticket to the fair, then sweeps it down on the kitchen counter to rest.

“This one is expired,” he informs, with a straight, sober expression.

We walk to school. My daughter races off ahead to be in time for safety patrol duty. The one with the expired love letter tucks his hand beneath mine. We will walk like this under the wooded canopy all the way until the edge, on the top of the hill where other children can maybe see. Then, he will gently, but quickly let-go.

I stand there as a night owl, still and brooding. My eyes follow him until he is gone. And even after, I stay while the dog slaps my thigh with his pounding, impatient tail.

I turn to go back and my feet step over the soft, freshly mulched playground where the workers discuss how to dig out and replace a deeply entrenched border edging. I pass them, head nod, and push my tongue to the roof of my mouth to hold the tear quiet in the crease of my eye.

I imagine all of my children as grown and engaged in whatever purpose they must pursue someday. How many expired love-letters till then?

Tags:

Love of Memory

18 Dec

It was a rare shot.mother-and-sonIf photos could sing, this one would drop down into a soulful tune. If they could morph, it would flutter into a worn-out quilt on a lazy afternoon. If they could speak, it would whisper, hold that baby a little bit longer, while you can still do it with one fell swoop. My sister, her feet also emerged behind me, captured the moment. That was the first and last trip to Morocco we ever took together.

I became miserably ill by night fall. We’d ventured into a shady grove of figs, and by the owner’s permission, I had a fateful bite. All night, my sister held my head up over a bowl and remained vigilant, letting my son tangle her hair in knots, as he cried to be nursed. Near an open window, I laid on a thin mattress in the summer night’s heat, boiling with fever, trying to catch a breeze. As dawn approached I was retching and hollow.

When daylight burst, armed with my sister-in-law, she dove deep into the dusty, sun-latticed souk, looking for vegetables, herbs, and a fresh chicken {which she found, literally}, while trying to explain the absolute necessity of this American thing called chicken soup. The miracle broth gave me strength to move around and nurse my son without falling back. Big sisters are very essential people. I wish my daughter had one.

Eventually, we headed off to Marrakesh to do all the touristy things. Having pumped some milk, I was nervous to leave my son behind with my in-laws, even if for one night, but I was determined to show my sister other parts of Morocco besides the live chickens for sale. It started with a wobbling train ride moving south, wherein we sparred with a sweaty French man, then enjoyed a chat with a group of young, Moroccan graduate students, close to our age. They reminded me of every other graduate student of late- completely not like me, completely not mothers.

Not long after settling into Marakesh, my sister and I had a fight. She stormed one way, I stood there, then traipsed off to our hotel room, where I fell on the floor crying in woeful snots. It was a heated, ideological battle – the most useless sort. We’d made up within three hours and then headed out to a fancy dinner. Sister bonds are very sacred, and equally as complex.

Marakesh-with-Sister

She got a kick out of putting our water bottle into the wine chiller of the pretentious couple next to us after they left. We still giggle about it to this day, in one of those: ‘Remember that moments?!,’ not because anything spectacular happened, but precisely because nothing spectacular happened, yet we still managed to have more fun than anyone else in the room, a decidedly Collard Green trait.

The next day, we all headed to a resort pool where my in-laws met up with us. My sister and sister-in-law wore bikinis; in fact, I think my sister even borrowed one from my in-laws assuming that she wouldn’t need a bikini in a Muslim-majority country. Meanwhile, I wore pants and a long shirt, prepared only to keep an eye on my son in the one foot deep kiddie-pool. Soon, the lifeguard was rabidly blowing his important whistle, motioning for me to get out; I stood there, playing possum.

Coming down off his courtly, high stand, leaving all the children in the deep end to fend for themselves, he marched over to strongly impress upon me the importance of removing my feet and ankles from the pool since women in hijab (the Islamic headcovering) were not allowed. My sister got up and demanded to know what was going on. When I explained, she stood close to my ear and declared: “If you get out of this pool, I’ll never respect you again for the rest of my life.”

A double dawg big sister dare- what’s a Muslim girl to do?

I persisted, meanwhile the hotel director arrived to strike a compromise. He said I could come back after dark and stand there, but under no circumstances should I be permitted in the day light hours to stand covered with my feet in the water,  not for safety reasons, but because the hotel had an image to maintain and I was apparently holding up bunny ears. Then, they threatened to call the cops, despite my sister-in-law’s protests. This was getting serious; I was at a cross roads. Between losing the respect of my sister for life and sitting my Collard Green fanny in a Moroccan prison, I knew what I had to do…I skittered away from that pool faster than a crawdaddy can hustle.

A few days later we arrived in the suburbs of Casablanca, where I took her to a mosque – plucky and delighted to usher her into a house of worship in Morocco. We sat side by side with the other women (all elderly) along the perimeter of the sauna-hot walls, waiting for the call to prayer. One of the women asked us where we were from.

“Alwelayet Almoota7eda (The United States),” I replied, loving the sonorous texture of Arabic rolling off my tongue. The woman inquired: “Where’s that?,” after which her friend tried to explain. “Ah! France!,” she brightened, “I know some people who live there.”

Along with her friend, we tried again and again to place the United States on some reference point on her mental map. Then, knowing the final call to prayer was about to cut us off, I gave up. So many fellow Americans I’d encountered back home had no clue where Morocco was, so why should I be flabbergasted that this frail woman couldn’t pin me? The thinness of her wrinkled, weary skin, reminded me of my great-grandmother who hailed from North Carolina. “Yes, we’re French,” I reassured her. Enchantee! Le temps est plus belle au printemps, oui? She was so pleased to meet us.

The devotees were not about to give up on my sister – suddenly the spiritual tourist. Instead of focusing on her own prayers, the woman to my sister’s left, physically choreographed all her devotional movements, as the sweat dripped from our chins. She pressed down on her back when it was time to prostrate, and moved her right index finger to the call of la illaha illallah (there is no God but God), the way Muslims pray. My sister was gracious, and obliged their enthusiasm like a good Collard Green daughter, but secretly couldn’t wait to get out of there. So,when one of the women followed me out and insisted that we come to her house for dinner, my sister said she would kill me if I accepted; and the thought of her rendering bodily damage seemed plausible by the look on her face.

The woman insisted in the way that Arabs are known to persist in offering hospitality. At length I explained that I could not oblige her request; I could feel my sister’s pulse quickening beneath my own skin. Finally, feeling backed into a corner with no way out, I said: “Someone in my husband’s family has just died, and we have obligations back home.” She bid us farewell and promised to make du’a for the deceased, calling out prayers for all to hear. I felt wretched for having concocted two false stories in just under an hour, and frightened by my performance.

I left my sister at the airport, with seven days more clinging to my own itinerary, and no affordable way to change my ticket date. I’d already been there two weeks before she arrived, and I was homesick in that lonesome, collard green way- when you want to stick your nose into the warm neck of your birthplace, and exhale. As eager as I am to go to Morocco, in the end, I always claw my way back. My Collard Green daddy, chided me once: “You don’t leave the country very well.”

Transporting myself back in time to all of these moments brings me abiding, almost mystical pleasure. Memory is such a miraculous thing; again and again, we go back to past lives, basking in both subtle and bold, emotional shades. The colors swirl, within them voices arching high and low….sniffles and wailing, giggles and guffaws. Sometimes when I am lying in bed at night, I comb through these stories as if running broadly through a meadow of colorful spring flowers – weeds actually; the ones that rise up in the fields without any planning or forethought.

Then, exhausted, I lay down in them and drift further away from the clear colors and voices, deeper into the murky underworld, which drags me more rapidly until it lifts me back up to the place where I left off, only more crystalline than before, to a place where I can see and touch the whole periphery of my memory. Yet, we are in the most bizarre fashion, often out of costume and context – not entirely as I remembered. My feelings flicker in images and emotions, much stronger than the currents that sent me to this familiar, yet foreign place.

The love of memory is the backbone of life, for even when men and women deteriorate in old age, when they can scarcely recognize their own children and spouses, they can remember their lives.

Memory is the conduit that, by God’s grace, delivers us beyond worldly confines…the friend of the prisoner and slave. Our bodies will become fertilizer for the earth, then one day the mountains will blow away like dust. Yet, our memories will live on, delivering us to our final reawakening, when we will startle for the last time, and swear that this, all of this, was certainly a dream.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Girl Who Laughed Into the Palm of Her Hand

6 Dec

In the second grade, I met a girl who I’ll call Lilly; a brunette, she sported a tomboyish haircut and was blessed with high cheekbones, always ruddy from the sun. Though she smiled a lot, she muffled her laughter into the palm of her hand. In our class, Lilly earned the distinction of being the fastest runner.

But for Lilly, I would have never fallen in love with softball; a game I proved very sorry at playing, and so learned, that you can be bad at something and enjoy it nonetheless. Lilly explained matter-of-factly: “It’s almost like baseball, but since we [girls] can’t play that, we play this.” I’d already tried cheerleading and ballet, and proved worthless at both. The ballet instructor said I was distracted and not cut-out. Ecstatic, I secretly cheered. Ballet was as much fun as picking weeds.

Lilly brought a paper to school with all the information about the girl’s softball league in Ocoee- a neighboring town. My mother took one look at it and said no can do! Practices were several times a week with games on the weekend  – too much hassle. Lilly had a solution, “My mama will drive you,” she assured me without even asking her mama. I thought she was nuts; after all, she had five sisters to keep her mama busy. I was dumbfounded when, the next day, she confirmed that her mama agreed.

I asked my mother if Lilly’s mama could be my chauffeur, which required providing her first and last name. I’d only seen her from a distance, a petite, slightly pudgy woman with Farah Fawcett hair, only shorter. She always wore boot-leg jeans atop sneakers and a t-shirt.

In a small town, of course, my mother knew of the woman, but I was surprised to discover that Lilly’s daddy worked under my father’s management, seasonally, in the orange groves. A man without an immigration problem who worked seasonally was likely a drunk.

At seven and 1/2 I already knew that there were two kinds of drunkards – no good boozers and functioning alcoholics. No good boozers let their liquor interfere with their livelihoods, whereas functioning alcoholics showed up to work {blood shot eyes, but still working}. The later always garnered more sympathy than the former. Lilly’s daddy was a boozer, but since he had the distinction of being docile and working hard when he did sign on, he was put into a rare, third category – alcoholics who neither harmed nor benefited society. A melancholy drunk.

I don’t know why my parents agreed, but they let me sign up for softball, provided Lilly’s mama drove me back and forth. Maybe I incessantly begged them, or maybe they just didn’t see any harm. After all, if we barred all the so-called struggling people, we wouldn’t have even been able to stand our own company.

Something else, though, made it extra-ordinary, something that is hard to be honest about, but you well know is the norm the world over, not the exception. What they called, dirt poor, did not socialize with working class, which is where our family fell. Working class people could cohort with upper class and vice versa, but neither had any dealings with dirt poor, unless it was direct, hand-to-hand charity. So, the extreme unlikelihood that I would ever be paired with Lilly for the two years that we were together is something that defies my understanding. Still, it happened, and not in a dream. I remember many of my Lilly days, though the ending of our story is as sparse and convoluted in my mind as the memory of my own beginning.

Like most childhood friendships, ours evolved in as much time as it takes to shell a bucket of peas. As the relationship deepened, my mother would come out and speak to Lilly’s mama and occasionally invited her in. My daddy called her mama, “Sugar,” and made her laugh, just like everyone else who came to our yard. When she did that, her shoulders shook, her head flew back exposing back molars, and she’d slap him on the back. I always wished my mother would laugh at my father’s jokes like that.

During softball practice, and at games, Lilly’s mama was always there cheering me on, which must have been hard to do because I was as coordinated as a lizard on a greased porch railing, and even worse, I was dead scared of the ball flying near my head. My strategy, as an outfielder, when a fly ball soared through the air was to duck with my arms over my head like a crazed shooter was on the loose. Then, I’d pop my head up, gopher the ball and throw it to the in-field. No matter, Lilly’s mama took me under her wing; between that, and Double Bubble Gum, all was well in the world of softball.

Lilly, on the other hand, was fearless on the field, so it surprised me when I invited her to a sleep-over at my house and she refused, confiding that she was too scared to sleep away from home. On the one night I managed to convince her, she was so petrified, she wet the bed. That was the end of that, she never came again. On the other hand, I slept at Lilly’s frequently.

The first time her mama came to pick me up in their faded, brown car, I got a kick out of Lilly’s littlest sisters crouching on the floor board to make more room. All the way, I bounced up and down on the vinyl seat, so happy to be with Lilly and her sisters. Just on the outskirts of town, we pulled into a trailer park, which stopped me from bouncing, and made me affix my eyes to the car window like a tourist on an exotic vacation. Lilly’s mama slowed down over the unpaved, dusty road. Skinny dogs ran from under their owners’ trailers, forced back with chain gangs, yelping over the loud engine. Throngs of trailers on either side lined the way, some in better shape than others. Lilly’s home was the last trailer on the right side of the two lane park; baby-blue with white stripes running lengthwise, and held up by cinder blocks- definitely one of the shabbier ones. It backed up to a running creek and was towered over by large oak trees, so that no matter the time of day, the light was always obscured.

Once inside I surveyed the strange wonder. On the immediate right, by the entrance, was the parents’ bedroom and on the opposite end was the girls’ bedroom. It had two queen-sized beds shared by all six daughters, plus a long oak dresser and an armoire made of thin plywood. There was one bathroom down the tiny path of aisle leading to the back bedroom. It was half covered with linoleum and half-exposed. There was a toilet there, but it did not flush. A bag was made ready for used paper and the flushing was done manually with a bucket of water from the bathtub, stained orange from the well water. There were no windows as it backed up to the tiny kitchen on the other side. A small living room contained two soft couches splayed with orange and brown windmills and country estates. I could get from one side of the trailer to the other in seven good skips.

As quickly as we went inside we left to go run wild outside, while Lilly’s mama prepared dinner. There were only patches of grass in her yard, it was mostly bald and dirt-packed. After a while Lilly’s mama called us in and we huddled around the black and white speckled diner-style table trimmed with chrome. The meal was pan-fried steak, mashed potatoes, carrots, and purple Kool-Aid. I’d never eaten a steak cooked on a skillet, or even a steak prepared by a woman. My daddy always grilled them. I noticed that these steaks were also thin, resembling country ham. I cut up a piece, and put it in my mouth, chewed, and chewed…and chewed for a very long time. Each sister was gobbling down her portion while Lilly’s mama sat on a tall stool, without a plate, looking over like a butler ready to respond to any of her daughters’ need.

My jaws were becoming very sore as I began to panic about the wad of meat in my mouth. How should I dispose of it discreetly with so many watchful eyes?  Prickly heat spread over my body along with perspiration on my upper lip and forehead. The room was spinning and I felt like I had my tongue stuck in a Chinese finger trap.

My hazy mind was sharpened when laughter erupted among the whole lot of them – uproarious,  causing Lilly’s mama to tilt off her stool, and one younger sister to fall out of her chair. Lilly held her laughter in the palm of her hand. Only the wispy blond-haired baby, the only blond in the bunch, looked as stupefied as me.

“You ain’t never had poor man’s steak, I can see!,” Lilly’s mama howled.

I didn’t know how to respond, but out of relief I stopped chewing. I couldn’t say “No ma’am,” because that would be insulting, so I just stayed silent. Finally the tremor of laughter died down.

“That’s alright, you don’t have to eat poor man’s steak if you don’ wanna,” she assured me.

I put the full force of my concentration on the round, plastic plate in front of me, and dipped my spoon into the milky, white mound of mashed potatoes, after which Lilly’s mama discretely piled more and more until I had my full. Later she made Jiffy Pop and we watched T.V. The images were slippery and grainy. With a small living room and six kids, it didn’t seem any trouble flipping through the three channels and adjusting the antennae without a remote.

Lilly’s daddy never came home.

But, I would see him from time to time, like an illusion, suddenly he appeared, though his presence did not fill the house like my own father’s. He did not say much, though he would always ask about my daddy and told me to pass along his greeting, which I never remembered to do. Sometimes he would tell me a funny story about my daddy, to which I always raised two eye-brows out of respect, but they never impressed me because it was common wherever I went. People liked to tell me how funny he was, as if by some bizarre twist that would surprise me.

Meanwhile, Lilly and I never exchanged daddy stories. She knew my daddy was a funny man and I knew hers was a drunk, and there didn’t seem to be any reason to talk about facts as obvious as the State Capital. What our shared imagination spun was much more fascinating over countless hours of make-believe. I had found my little girl soul mate.

One suffocating, hot day Lily said: “You wanna go ring an old lady’s doorbell?”

“What for?” I asked.

“‘Cause she can’t hear a thing, not even a church organ! She can just hear with her eyes,” said Lilly, while shoving both of her index fingers into her eye sockets for emphasis.

Lilly had peaked my interests, “How can she hear with eyes?,” I asked.

“Her whole house is wired. If you ring her bell it sends off blue lights- all over, then she’ll get up and answer, cept’ if she’s sleepin,’ then you gotta wait a long time. She’s super old!”

“O.K.,” I perked up, “Let’s go,” and away we ran.

“You push it!,” Lilly said, giving me the honors.  I was a little hesitant; what good reason did we have to ring the old lady’s door bell except to see if she would answer? Maybe she would knock us down with a cane?

“Just do it!,” Lilly assured me, so I did and we waited, but no one answered. It was pitifully anti-climatic. We came back a half a dozen times until she finally answered, without a cane and with a big smile on her face.

This is my friend, mouthed Lilly, and she placed her hand on her heart and then placed it on mine. Lilly pointed to her eye then wiggled all 10 of her fingers up in the air like flashes of lights, or at least that’s what she meant to convey, and the old woman understood.

She enthusiastically gestured for us to come in. Lilly stood outside and rang the doorbell non-stop while I looked in amazement at the blue lights blinking around her home, in the most unexpected places- like Easter eggs. I found myself wishing that my home was equipped with that feature…for what, I hadn’t a clue. Lilly made out a few more statements which the woman seemed to understand, and of which I was clueless, then we set off to some other destination in the trailer park.

Another day, when the flies were particularly annoying, humming around the watermelon rinds, and having explored as much wildlife as could be found in the creek, and tossed the softball till we grew weary of its weight in our gloves, and journeyed to untold imaginary places, Lilly suddenly perked up: “You wanna go to church?!,” she blurted out, like asking if I wanted to go to Disney World.

“They give out cookies and juice, and sometimes candy, and they tell good stories!”

All of my short life had been invested as a somber Methodist, and I’d just reached the age when I was expected to go sit in a pew from time to time and behave. Bearing this in mind, I tried to make sense of Lilly’s sincere enthusiasm.

The next morning her eldest sister fit me into one of their dresses. I had no choice but to wear my mud caked tennis shoes, and for that reason alone, hesitated. I’d never attended church without stockings and black Mary-Janes, which always made my feet feel like they were melting under a heat lamp in the Florida sun. I wasn’t sure if it was blasphemous to walk into the Lord’s house on a Sunday without the proper footwear, but Lilly assured me that some kids even came in jeans and flip-flops, “So, you’ll be fine.” Now I really had to see this church!

In order to get to church we had to catch a church bus at the entrance to the trailer park which was another novelty for me. Lilly’s mama told us to behave, and sent us off, staying behind with her baby and youngest toddler. Before long a short bus, bearing a painted, shining cross, smiling children and a white Jesus, came rolling up. The whole lot of us, unchaperoned children, piled on. A middle-aged woman served as the attendant – her hair that had been frozen solid with a can of Aqua Net, and a clear orange line of makeup ran down her jaw line. She was a happy one, clapping and leading us in songs about Jesus that we never sang at the Methodist church. Lilly knew a lot of them which made me jealous and feeling left out. It seemed this woman’s only job was to pump us up for what was to come, a sneak preview. The driver just sailed ahead, un-phased.

Lilly’s church was worlds away from any religious experience I’d ever had. Looking back, I count this as my first exposure to another faith. Though both of the Christian orientation, Lilly’s church was plain different. The congregation sang hymns, but in high and low voices, out of sync, and danced in place, looking exactly like my father jerking his legs and arms in a hallelujah grip, lip-synching Ray Charles, I Got A Woman. The preacher was the most peculiar sight. He couldn’t seem to stay put on the pulpit; in fact, he made it look obsolete. Sporting a blue polyester, three piece suit, he walked back and forth furiously, from one side of the church to the other. From time to time, for no apparent reason, the congregation would cry out “AMEN!” in staggered, yet powerful crescendos. I tried it too: “Amen!” It was not hard to stay awake and pay attention in Lilly’s church.

She was right that some people wore jeans and other casual clothes, but most striking about the congregation was that they were mixed. I’d only ever prayed alongside people of my own race and I’d never given much thought to any other way. Lilly’s church planted a seed deep within me, one which many, many years later would eventually give rise to a comforting voice in the loneliness of my heartache and thirst, it said: There are other ways, many other ways- be bright, sing high, and don’t settle for inheritance, no matter how much it promises you, when it comes to belief.

I wish I could tell you how my story ends with Lilly. I have looked for her in my mind, time and again, hoping beyond hope to find a morsel of our last days together. I have come up dry every time. I do know that she moved away and then came back again, but I don’t remember ever saying, Goodbye, Lilly, or, Thank you.

Many years later I was with my father volunteering at a ‘Toys for Tots’ campaign in the youth center. The volunteers were tasked with taking the participants around the room, whereby they picked out one toy for each child in their family. Doing this job made me feel very grownup, and on a mission, though I was all of about sixteen years old. As the line progressed I saw Lilly’s mama waiting for a turn, looking older than I remembered her.

Maybe you think I ran up to hug her neck or say I missed you, but I did none of that. I slipped behind a corner wall and hung there for a time, my heart beating rapidly. I wanted the wall to suck me in. Then, my father came looking for me. Of course, he had to show me Lilly’s mama, had to have me properly greet her. I inquired about Lilly, who she said was doing “just fine,” and that her older sister had already married. She had four tickets in her hand, for her younger children still remaining. That was her Christmas. The stark, shrieking contrast lulled my outward speech into superficial words and gestures.

The thought of walking Lilly’s mama around while she picked up her small gifts made me feel ugly. I hoped my father wouldn’t suggest…and of course, he didn’t. He just wanted me to pay my respects and then he walked away with her; slowly they strolled around the semi-circle of packages and I watched. I saw her laugh, her shoulders shake, and her head fly back as I clicked my tongue to keep the tears deep, deep in the well of my belly.

Still more years later I heard that one of Lilly’s uncles won the lottery – a big jackpot, but my source did not know whatever became of Lilly or where she lived. The news made me smile for the rest of the day. Since then, whenever I picture Lilly, I see her under perpetual sunshine, in a comfortable home with a swimming pool and acres of land for her children to run and play on. I have no hard evidence to substantiate this claim. It is all imagination, which was, after all, our sanctuary -Lilly and me.

May Allah cover you in His unfathomable Love and Light, Lilly, wherever the sun rises on your mornings.

Tags: , , ,

Winter’s Thorn

9 Nov

Winter is creeping in. I don’t like her. O Lord, help me {because I sincerely do not like her} I know how dang-awful it is be of that mind-set. I have chirpy, yankee friends. They’ll preach to me of winter’s charm – the snow-covered hills, crystilline icicles, sledding, hot cocoa, fuzzy blankets, snow angels, anyone? All I can think about are skinny animals dyeing from starvation and the way snow looks two days after it falls – like a pile of dirty laundry on the side of the road.

Ya’ll, I’m a Southerner, from as far south as you can go before needing Spanish as a second language. I love sunshine, sweat, and aerifying myself with ‘funeral home fans.’ Really cruddy thoughts come to mind as winter approaches; the most gruesome of all: how am I gonna keep my brood occupied inside all the live long days?! 

Having said all that, however, I actually do have a soft spot for winter, because as a fitting allegory for life’s struggles, it provides teaching moments. When I am under winter’s spell, I think of the winter of the soul, and this warms my center considerably.

There are roads we take, others we are tossed on; sometimes we want to escape – still we march, tight-fisted, brazen and determined. Our surface looks depleted, yet within us new life is forming deep within the quiet darkness of our contemplative selves.

We turn the corner, nearly unrecognizable to passerby. Others underestimated us, but worst of all we underestimated ourselves. Until when…we bloomed- content to be still and perpetually at peace, not because the thorn had been removed, but because it lost that quality of vexation.

Pain is pleasure.

In the dead of winter, we shedded a few needs   – the need for comfort, assurances, safety, promises, perfection, power, position, appearances, validation, pay-backs, attachments, affiliations, perks, recognition, revenge.

We cry out, My Lord! I am well pleased; am I well pleasing? We crave no sustenance other than the answer.

May you and I be granted the winter of our imaginings and the spring of our aspirations.

Something about Ummah

2 Nov

I came upon the term ummah after delving into the study of Islam fourteen years ago.  It’s often translated tightly as community, but it’s so much better than that. So much on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t ever find the precise words for the feeling…like… the most sublime tremor of well-being just to be alive and connected.

No. That won’t do. Scratch that. It’s something else. Something I can’t tell you, just as you can’t tell me how un-done you felt to be in love when you finally realized what it was -with the fear, thrill, and anticipation that sent you laughing yourself to sleep that night.

O.K., you have a point. That’s not fair– to let you in on something, and then not tell you what {it} is!! I agree. Well then, I’ll try.

Ummah is a refined acknowledgment of connection that transcends all boundaries of tribalism and national borders for the purpose of seeking the pleasure of God Most High. It is an idea that breeds transcendence, so it is only natural that ummah will be more palpably felt between two people of different languages and tribes, which is commonplace, for one, in my neck of the woods. Lucky for me! I have so many ummah stories that I could share with you based on my experiences over the years…they are treasures which I pull out and dust off from time to time to rekindle.

Last week marked Eid ul-Adha, the world over – a day of commemorating the Prophet Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of his own son, based on his literal interpretation of a vision from God. Prophet Abraham’s son willingly accepted to be sacrificed believing that it was God’s will;  however, God intervened through the Angel Gabriel, before the sacrifice could take place, and Prophet Abraham was commanded instead to sacrifice a sheep, a thing much less beloved and prized to him. Prophet Abraham had already demonstrated that seeking the pleasure of God reigned supreme in his heart, even when the logic was not apparent on the human, cognitive level. As Muslims, we reflect on his vision as a metaphor, to unhinge ourselves from the world- to give preference and space to love what is Everlasting over what is ephemeral. This story is one illustration by which we can get a sense of the incomprehensible rank that God bestowed on Prophet Abraham by deeming him His friend.

In the U.S. on Eid, Muslims raising young children often gather in public spaces such as parks during the afternoon period. The festivities eventually transport to cozy homes. It is typically a frenzy of idleness, with fired up grills, bags of candy, and throngs of children running as independent bands- coming to their parents only for more juice, or another cupcake. Eid is all about fun and not stopping until you lay, speechless, having said all there is to say, and exhausted on one’s bed – sighing and falling into a peaceful sleep born from doing nothing that isn’t pleasurable.

So, on this Eid, our family packed into the car, then took a detour to pick up the children of a friend who was ill. We piled out expecting to walk into a large crowd of Eid-goers only to discover no one around. There was a large gathering of Muslims in one gazebo, none of whom I recognized. Clearly Palestinian, I thought by surveying the collection of men who needed a BBQ grill so big they brought their own. The pithily one at the park would never do for the massive amounts of beef and chicken they were about to unleash. I understand. I’m Collard Green.

The other dead give-away were the men dressed in brightly colored shirts underneath snug, black polyester vests, coupled with fitted pants reaching to long, black and well-shined, square-toed shoes. Picture minions of Godfathers hovering around a grill next to a massive playground set. The grill master, a young guy, wore his dress sleeves rolled up, and extending from his left hand were five kabob poles extending three feet or more in the air; his other hand swiftly turned the sizzling kabobs still on the grill. The aroma was marinated, charred yumminess- a feast that only a zealous vegan could refuse with satisfaction. I wanted to ravage the place.

Impatient, I scanned the horizon. Where were all our people?  I spotted two familiar faces, likely as disappointed as me over the weak turn-out. We convened and made a few phone calls before realizing that folks were on their way; a phenomenon I’ve come to know as ‘Muslim Standard Time.’ Before long, a Nigerian friend showed up and soon her kids were running around the park; they disappeared into the haze of smoke. She leapt in to retrieve them, and no sooner than she could exit, they insisted that she : EAT! EAT! TAKE! SOME MORE! NO, THAT’S NOT ENOUGH! The men busied themselves with heaving generous portions of food on her plate.

She didn’t know any of them, yet because she walked into their midst for less than a minute, she was obliged to take something away. That’s ummah.

So, we huddled in our barren, yurt-like gazebo and ate the Palestinians’ food. It was so good. I could hardly complete a thought, but when my consciousness returned, I felt guilty to have left a sick friend with an empty stomach. My intention had been to bring  her some of our food, but not enough in our party had arrived to start grilling. Not having grown up in an ummah-centered culture, I was too shy to walk up to the Palestinians and ask for more food, even if for a sick woman. That’s what Collard Green people would call tacky. But, there’s no tacky in ummah which is what my Nigerian friend knows. She didn’t hesitate to return. With wide smiles, like greeting a long, lost friend, they encouraged her a second time. EAT! EAT! TAKE! SOME MORE! And this time they handed her an entire tray full of freshly grilled shrimp to go along with her over-flowing plate.

Eventually our party showed up; we were able to start our own festivities. Toward the end of the day, I navigated my way into the Palestinians’ enclave with a measly plate of fruit. Meandering around the men, I crept deep into the belly of the party where all of the women, from the Palestinian region of Gibran, languished. Their space was dim and hazy. The smoke from a shisha pipe rose – hovering like cumulus clouds over their lair. Their heads cocked back -mouths gasping for air because it was just so funn-y…I can’t speak..I can’t breathe…my love, habeebti!!!

In their colloquialism, I had no clue what they said. What caused them to laugh so convincingly? They looked the way life does…when it is living.

A thin, petite woman took my plate and winked, thank you, she said. I did not stay; in fact, I ejected myself swiftly, feeling like a school girl who’d slipped out of bed and tip-toed into her mother’s party, uninvited, but then stricken by being so far out of her element, scurries back to bed, only to wish she had stayed.

There was more goodwill to be had. The Palestinians made these fantastic high-end goodie bags and proceeded to throw them into the arms of any child within reach, including my own. To which one of my kids exclaimed: “They have really good stuff!”

Our parties had mingled so much, they would have been indistinguishable by passerby.  One of the Palestinian women made her way to our huddle and lamented that she had left her broom at home. “Do you have one?,” she asked. “I can’t just leave the place like this!” she lamented. Of course, how could she leave her first-come-first serve gazebo so un-kept?! Doesn’t everyone sweep up the concrete floor after a BBQ. How disappointed would the next party be?! “Sorry,” we replied, we are fresh out of brooms.

Later that night we ended up at our friend, Laila’s house for an all dessert pot-luck. Families with roots in Korea, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia, Palestine, Turkey, Morocco, and my very own ‘Merica, amassed on the main floor with the men huddled in the basement. We had our own version of a smoke-filled room, without the smoke. Over-indulged on the qatayef, chocolate, and coffee, we remembered the Palestinians and felt joy.

Ummah is a thing that eschews mere politeness; it scoffs at minding your manners. It is a surging wave that thrust itself forth, covers the other, washes over and quenches the thirst of its members – both giver and receiver. It harbors no refuge for the ego; for to experience it you must peel off the coarse layers of yourself and meet with the tender heart of another. Like Prophet Abraham’s vision, it forces you to see beyond the ephemeral and dive into the timeless Source of all Pleasure.

I can’t tell you precisely what it is, but I pray that you will feel it on the tip of your tongue one day….so close, but never able to convey it precisely. Who can define love, after all?

Tags: , , , , , ,

All I Want for Ramadan

10 Aug

Ramadan, the special month of fasting, prayer, and contemplation, has already come and is almost gone. This year it was preceded by a series of unordinary encounters in my life – events that put me in touch with people I would otherwise never chance to meet.

In early June, while riding with my kids in the car on a two lane country road, my serpentine belt popped off, which I quickly discovered shuts down every important function in a car. All at once, the power steering quit, the engine light turned on and the car came within seconds of overheating. To make matters worse I was already straining to see the road because of a heavy downpour. With my husband many, many miles away, my first instinct was to freak out, but since my brood was watching, I had to act like a sane human being- not a freak-out mom. Slowly, over the period of an hour, I managed to inch the car into a gas station. My first question was to ask the attendant where I was and the next move was to call a mechanic. I knew I was in the middle of nowhere, I just didn’t know which nowhere. It was a farming town in north Maryland- a place of rolling hills, rich soil and old stone facades. Richly idyllic, unless your serpentine belt pops off, leaving you stranded with kids.

The rain stopped abruptly, mimicking the kind of weather I’m used to back in Florida -a quick flash of lightening and sharp rain, then poof, like it never happened. Even more spectacular, the sun was receding, revealing a horizon swathed in blushing hues, lending the imagery of a seamless, silk blanket rolled out above the earth.

I was disappointed to discover that the mechanic was miles away and not likely to be lulled from his pub on a Friday night to rescue the likes of me. A couple of men stood around and scratched their heads trying to figure out why my belt suddenly popped off yet remained in tact. If I could just find a mechanic to loop it back on, I’d be on my way. These swarming Yankee-Doodle-Dandies, however thoughtful, were proving themselves completely useless in the rescuing a damsel in distress category. A Collard Green man would have called me honey and popped that belt back on by now.

There were clearly no rent-a-husbands here. My own husband was scheduled to head out on a business trip early the next morning, so I held off calling him to drive several hours back and forth to come get us. Plus, that would have required leaving the car in the middle of nowhere. AAA was no help; we’d used up the service calls on a mechanical issue weeks ago. Surely, I could find a way to solve this problem. Then, poof, a petite woman, carrying a half gallon milk jug, came by and informed me that a mechanic lived behind the gas station. Really?! Perfect! Why didn’t anyone else mention this, I wondered.

After knocking on the fiberglass door of the trailer, a woman peeked out. We looked at each other for an awkward moment, but she didn’t say a word, just smiled. Realizing that there was a communication barrier I attempted to dust off the mental file containing all the Spanish I learned in college – it hurled from my tongue in a gnarled, grating  pattern like the hinge of an old screen door which hadn’t been oiled, and flew open in the wind. Despite the awkwardness, I managed to communicate my predicament, only to discover that the mechanic, her husband, was out working his dishwasher job until the wee hours. His two older sons, however, were available; they’d only been in the U.S. a couple of weeks- badly homesick and completely shell-shocked, they seemed eager to plunge into some project.

Fortunately, although my spoken Spanish is very bad, my comprehension is decent, so I was able to understand when the boys told me they had just crossed the border illegally on the famed La Bestia – a ghastly train service which by default carries many a eager man and woman, non gratis, for free a top its boxed cars from Central America. They managed to stay awake to avoid falling off and permanently maiming or losing a limb. Men, women and children fail prey to it regularly. If they are fortunate enough to ride all the way, then walk through the scorching heat undetected, with only a few drops of water, and a square meal a day – they have the pleasure of working a back breaking job in landscaping or at a greasy fast food joint, completely off the grid of health benefits and 401Ks.

While the brothers set off to work, and with the night sky fast approaching, my son and I had to perform the fourth prayer of the day known as the Maghrib prayer. I settled our straw mat on the grassy margin bordering a farm next to the gas station. The men followed me with their eyes, perplexed.

Not knowing the word for prayer in Spanish, I tried to announce my plans as best as I could.

“Yo voy a Dios”, meaning literally, “I go to God.”

“Si, Si,” they smiled, and motioned me with nods of their heads, like ushers, making shooing gestures with their palms down, “You go to God,” they affirmed. “We understand.”

And so I did and felt all the better for it – very relieved and soothed to be praying near my son under a blushing night sky, with fire flies twittering about and the murmur of cicadas beginning to erupt. After the prayer, I bought the gas station out of its crispy fried chicken, as an initial offering, and was invited to sit with the boys’ mother in her tiny cubicle of a kitchen- its floor of brittle, pale linoleum peeling up in the corners, showing its underbelly of plywood. She made homemade tortillas while my kids happily depleted their attention spans on a slew of cartoons via their bulky, tubular television set. At this point they weren’t sure if they could fix the problem without their father’s tools, so they invited us to spend the night, as eagerly as if they were inviting a member of the family. I called my husband and he said something to the effect of: “Woman, have you lost your mind!? Where are you? I’m coming!!” Where am I?  Err….in a very nice lady’s kitchen on a hill top, eating warm tortillas. Kids are watching Tom n’ Jerry re-runs and have red juice-staches. I’m not sure exactly where I am but I’ll call you very soon. Don’t worry! Love you. Bye now. Click.

While the brothers continued to work, the mother told me her story of immigration – how she escaped to the U.S. from the bandidas (bandits) who had gashed and broken her leg because she couldn’t pony up the cash to pay them protection dues for the hardware store she owned with her husband. “You see here,” she pointed to a thick mass of lightly pigmented scare tissue splayed out and contrasted against the rest of her thin, olive colored shin. Before her husband fled, the bandidas kidnapped and tortured him for a week for refusing to pay. The police, either in concert with the bandidas, or out of plain fear did nothing. The trouble was her husband simply had nothing left to give. They had already closed up the store, but the bandidas were unrelenting. They fortunately paid no mind to the four penniless children; after all, it was nothing personal, just business.

In progression, after the father arrived in the U.S., he got down to working odd jobs to earn the transport money for a coyote to bring them “safely” across the border. The mother followed on the illicit Bestia. She fell into the clutches of drunken co-passengers, who at knife point ordered her and all the women huddled to strip naked while they humiliated and molested them. After the ordeal, other riders threw them clothes from their own bags- merciful gestures, trying to restore them as if it never happened, but their kindness never erased it from her mind. Every time she hears the train whistle just beyond the perimeter of her trailer she twitches and wrings her hands – she’s haunted, she says, she can feel them touching her even though there is no one there. She was later captured by U.S. Border Patrol and spent several months in an Arizona prison before she managed to get out and make her way up North. She is currently working to be able to bring her two other children to the U.S.. They fend for themselves now, she sends them money enough to survive, and they wait.

Her American dream is to have all of her children in one home, and make a sky-high pile of homemade tortillas for them – to sit and talk with them and laugh, for no other silly reason than that it feels good. She wants to watch them breathing at night as they sleep unaware and kiss them on their foreheads, and never worry about another bandida at her door.

Within a few hours the brothers emerged and announced that they managed to loop the belt back on. I felt like hugging someone in a sigh of relief. I gratefully paid for the service, though they looked away, seeming shy to acknowledge a rightful wage. The next morning the mother called to ask if I had made it home safely.

I couldn’t stop thinking about them all day long, and the next day… and then the next. I hugged my children a little more, lingered longer at the breakfast table, and gazed at them with a deeper sense of gratitude in my heart, but tethered to an anchor of melancholy plunged into my stomach. It somehow doesn’t feel as good when you know that someone else is aching for the same morning, but can’t have it. The sun’s rays don’t illuminate with that particular lightness of being.

Two weeks later, I drove to Assateague Island to go camping with my kids among the wild horses.

My husband, again, could not come along because of work obligations, but I was determined to make the best and even better of it. Within less than an hour of arriving, while setting up camp, we met some campers about to have an all out Moroccan feast. I was pitching our tent when they came off of the beach. Seeing me alone with my children, and Muslim like them, it sparked their curiosity. The day was waning and high winds made the task of simultaneously holding down all four corners of my tent nearly impossible.  Every time my son and I would lay it down to figure out which side was which it would completely fold over and whip sand everywhere. One of the Moroccans enthusiastically jumped in to help. When I thanked him, he averted eye contact, and with that distinctly Arab gesture of hand on heart, simply replied: “bent bledi”, which means ‘daughter of my land.’

We gladly accepted their dinner invitation and sat down to this gorgeous tagine.

The spread was spectacular. I thought who else but a Moroccan would turn a camping trip into a foodie experience?! It was awesome down to the petite pot of mint tea brewing on the grill. Conversation dawdled on what each person did. The benefactor of the whole feast, co-operated a deli in downtown Washington D.C. with his brother. Another Moroccan in the group, originally from Rabat, was middle aged; she had settled into life as a nanny after the economy withered. The money isn’t bad, she explained; she genuinely loves the kids, but the parents are complete brats who never thank her beyond writing her pay check every two weeks. She wished she could get a little more recognition for kissing boo-boos, making oatmeal, reading books, and all the other things a stand-in mother must do. She never expresses these feelings to her employer. She needs the job. She wasn’t looking forward to rubbing elbows with upper class white women and their nannies during one of the hottest summers on record. I sympathized. She had tried to move back to Morocco at one point, but having been gone for so long, first in France and then in the U.S., she didn’t feel her place there anymore. Trouble is, she doesn’t feel her place anywhere; she has no partner or children of her own…she feels un-rooted and solemn most of the time.

The deli operator, when asked about Morocco, looked up to the sky, and smacked his lips over his right hand as if sending a greeting across the Atlantic.

“My country,” he says, “I miss my country,” he cries. “I never should have left,” he laments, looking about as one adrift, with deep set cavernous eyes, like a man who had heedlessly cheated on his one love, and can never return to hold her again.

I asked the obvious question: “Why don’t you return?”

“If it were that easy,” he shook his head.

“Why isn’t it?,” I ask bearing my plucky, American grin, with its over the rainbow all things are possible glitter.  He explained that he was an accountant with a solid job, enough money to spend and enough to save, but his big brother, aching for companionship of his own, had put visions in his head of streets lined in gold. He was itching for change because such is the condition of man – always convinced that just over the next bend, the next tier, is a whole new world, a better place waiting, and if he can just get there he will be happy ever after. Truly, man was created, very impatient (Qur’an, Al Ma’arij, 19).

Instead, of utopia he found a tasteless existence, with heaps of meat waiting to be sliced and served to the next lucky patron. He’s lonelier than he’s ever been in his life.  He sits in his deli serving lines of busy customers, all of them strangely eager to grab a swath of food and eat on the go -never stopping like back home to savor the sights and the smells; to sit, for no better reason than to eat, digest, and listen to their bones. He misses his home country but he can’t survive there anymore. His old job is gone, the economy has tanked, and frankly he’s scared to return with meager savings and no job prospects. There was a space of silence after he explained the reason. What more could I say?

Quixotically and impressively, he shook off his fermented sadness, breathed in the salt water air, and dug into his cooler to produce an elaborate, chilled fruit tray to share.

The next morning I brought breakfast to their camp and bid them farewell as they packed up for the day. I sat on the beach under an umbrella, digging my toes further and deeper into the sand until they reached the hard-packed, cool underbelly of the shore. The kids ran back and forth for sandwiches and juice. They spent several hours catching hermit crabs with their buckets, only to return them back to the ocean again and again- never tiring of the monotony. I thought of our hosts the night before. If only it were so easy to go back home.

The next day my camp stove malfunctioned and set fire – a big hazy fount of flames sprung up from the device while I said something to effect of: “Umm…someone…please HELP!” Fortunately, the father in the campsite next “door” sauntered over with a fire extinguisher and nonchalantly put the whole drama to rest. His profession had something to do with the fire department so he wasn’t too hyped up by our little emergency; his cool demeanor was contagious so that I was able to blow the whole thing off myself. Yeah, I almost burned down a national treasure, no biggie. That is not my modus operandi. I’m more likely to be seen jerking my body like I’m twirling an imaginary hoola hoop if ever a drama is in the works.

In my haste I’d forgotten a bag of Twizzlers by my car. One of the wild horses gratefully clip-clopped over, tore the bag open with his mouth and glutinously devoured its contents to the tune of my three year old howling in the background and pleading with me to call the cops to have the horse arrested. Fortunately, we didn’t go hungry. The family who put out the fire also generously offered their camp grill so that we could cook our dinner. Meanwhile, we shared a nice long talk about the primitive thrill of camping in the Adirondacks with bears- something I’ve determined from that conversation never to do. When the family left to take an evening drive, the horses came to their site and attempted to gobble up all of their left out groceries. My son and I swatted at them from a distance with long towels which herded them back toward the beach. I felt grateful for at least a small opportunity to repay their kindness.

The next morning just before dawn a storm blew in – a really, really big storm. I didn’t have have enough warning to break down my tent, so I had to throw my kids in the car and back it up against all of our camp gear to keep it from flying away. It worked, but the force of the wind snapped our tent poles in half. Our good Samaritan neighbors had their entire pop up canopy wrecked, which seemed entirely unfair given how downright nice they were. We spent the whole next day levitating like slothly castaways on the beach, weathered and grateful to have made it out relatively unscathed. I thought about all the kind people I’d met recently- contemplated on their generosity and also their personal tragedies. I felt grateful to carry their memories with me and made prayers for them along with myself and my family.

Now the month of Ramadan is upon us. Long days and nights of fasting, reading Qur’an and praying are this month’s focus- not getting myself into predicaments. I was feeling a bit depleted before Ramadan, plagued by the thought of so many people who want but have not. I could not reconcile the seemingly topsy turvy distribution of hardship and ease. My center was off, the place where you momentarily fail to glean the whole purpose of life. It is hard to grasp that notion, much less hold onto it indefinitely. I find I am always catching it and letting it go, berating myself, and catching it again.

Ramadan is here and all I want to do is be alone with it. This is the one time in the year, when honestly, I could detach from everyone for a month. That is completely impractical and impossible, of course. The days must go on and I must go with them, stretching to find that rhythm of spiritual balance, that place where you are in the world but the world is not in you. Life is full of tailspins and ending up for miles on other roads- some good, some bad, and what we at once perceived as lost, is in fact, exactly where we were meant to be.

Life is not always a happy ending- not always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That is about the most honest, Big Girl thing I can say at this moment. It’s hard to admit. It almost feels unpatriotic. The truth is, needs and wants are so relative and sometimes hardship endures. One woman wants a swimming pool in her backyard and another woman just wants her children. One man wants to take that New Zealand trip to go skydiving this year, and another man just wants to go home. Life is certainly not “fair,” and it isn’t meant to be. There is no enduring happiness attached to any momentary pleasure in this world.

Is it not through the remembrance of God that hearts find tranquility? Quran 13:28.

God asks me this question and I’m intent on answering it for myself. Sometimes the answer is beyond my reach because I am not still enough to ponder the question. Now Ramadan is here and I’m very still, and very alert. I can discern now what was woolly.

Rememberance, tranquilty – the later is completely dependent on the former. The only one who truly loses in this world is the one who never discerns his true purpose; the one who continually forgets.

Indeed, life is full of tailspins and ending up for miles on other roads- some good, some bad.

Nothing in it endures. Everything passes as it should. Life is a bridge. I’m walking on it right now, but I cannot always perceive it – my senses are so often dulled. The only abiding peace is in the redeeming act of rememberance. If I remember God, Al-Wahid (The One), I remember eternity, and if I remember eternity I perceive my own mortality and the mortality of everyone around me. I perceive the temporal space around me and the mechanics of my body as a holding place, as something that was never designed to remain. The only part of me that will remain is the part of me that is capable of remembering, with deep attraction and longing, my Creator.

Ramadan is a month in which our purpose is to learn self-control, and in order to gain that control, as a prerequisite, we must know the purpose of the self. In Ramadan we feel that purpose acutely – we sober to reality, which we are enabled to do because we give up the trivialities of excess food, speech and sleep.

All I want for Ramadan is to deepen to the remembrance of God, then to let it hold me the rest of the year, like a torch lighting each step through the sunken passages and sudden turns on my journey. Through each encounter, with each new experience, I want to discern the reality of the inescapable passage of time and purpose of life.

Imaam ibn Al-Jawzee a scholar from Baghdad in the twelfth century, said: “Beware of every hour and how it passes, and only spend it in the best possible way, do not neglect yourself, but render it accustomed to the noblest and best of actions, and send to your grave that which will please you when you arrive to it.”

May we spend the rest of this month ‘in the best possible way.’ May we discern ourselves, remember God, and be at peace.

Tags: , ,

‘The Livin’ Is Easy’

31 May

One of the first songs I taught my eldest son is the old jazzy tune, Summertime. I’d call up family and friends ‘one last time’ just for a good excuse to listen to him sing.

I love the sultry carelessness of summertime so much that on an overcast winter day I may be found in my kitchen, slaving over a pot of something warm, yet remembering and singing:

     Summertime and the livin’ is easy. Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high. O! your daddy’s rich and your mama’s good lookin,’ so hush little baby don’t cry.

I’m thinking of long, hot days nestled under the shade of an umbrella, good book in hand, watching my babies spread out in the sand.

There shall be sweet tea and boiled peanuts. There shall be warm, starry nights laying on our backs amidst the black-eyed susans and honeysuckle blooms. There shall be wispy moths frittering over campfire infernos, and slumber parties in pitched tents.

There shall be creeping, slithering things to make us hollar, run and laugh all in the span of twenty seconds.

There shall be sand in between our toes and in the hard to reach places in our van. There shall be long walks on both curvy mountain trails and endless coasts. There shall be fire engine-red tomatoes at farmer’s markets and 31 flavor sno-cone stands. There shall be sweet, sanguine watermelon juice dripping from little chins, and pooling into amber dark navels.

 Standing under the sun’s radiant canopy, there shall be just a few words spoken to try to express that feeling – how good it is, how grateful we are, to be here.

And if you would count the favors of Allah you will never be able to number them. Allah is Forgiving, Compassionate. Qur’an, Chapter An-Nahl (The Bee), Verse 18.

May your summertime be filled with easy livin.’

Tags: , , , ,

‘Bald’ Peanuts

20 Jun

If you grew up in the South Eastern part of the United States, (what my daddy refers to as ‘God’s country’), you get all giddy at the sight of a pot-bellied man stirring a kettle of boiling peanuts by the road-side; if he is chewing tobacco and sporting overalls-all the better.

The kettle holds a salty, velvety, steaming tonic for the soul. I sometimes call them Collard-Green Caviar and they are pronounced, bald peanuts. The recipe is simple which I’ll share later, and involves simply: raw peanuts simmering for a few hours in salt.

My kids don’t even know they are otherwise known as boiled peanuts. They’ll ask me: “Mama, could you make us some of your bald peanuts?”

I live up North now which is fresh out of pudgy men dripping sweat over vats of peanut-gold. Instead, people above the Carolinas are stocked with road side snow-cone shacks, featuring at least thirty flavor varieties; which I reckon is some kind of consolation. They are served by high-school girls- their locks tied up in ribbons, and their neon bikini strings roped round their slender necks.  They chew large wads of gum and smile defiantly despite whiteheads erupting from chins and foreheads. I love snow-cone princess, but they are simply no match for pot-bellied entrepreneurs operating out of their mud-crusted giddy-up trucks.

Several weeks ago, my dear friend from Winter Garden, who was my friend long before Facebook announced the fact, reminded me of those roadside boiled peanut stands. As a status update, one sunny day, I dutifully reported the good fortune of spending a peaceful afternoon on the back porch with my kids, accompanied by a pitcher of sweat tea and a whole vat of bald peanuts, which I had prepared during the morning and early afternoon.

Every now and then, a mercy-laden breeze would drift from yonder over our little plot of joy- bringing with it sweet perfumes of Spring, as if to say, you made it through another cold winter, it’s all sunshine and cricket songs, picnic baskets and long days, green grass and bare feet. It’s days like that which gave inspiration to Travis Tritt’s song: It’s a Great Day to Be Alive:  You know the sun’s still shinin’ when I close my eyes; they’re some hard times in the neighborhood but why can’t every day be just as good.

He should have written about boiled peanuts instead of rice.

I thanked Allah for the decent, simple pleasures of life, which cost just a trifle, and for the good health of all of us to enjoy them. Not long after, a bright, red cardinal and his muted, dust-colored bride swept over the lawn and pecked at the earth. I imagined them feasting on their own version of bald peanuts. 

I was giddy to share my good fortune with friends, via Facebook – many scattered far and wide over time zones and even continents. My good friend from Winter Garden, made a very fitting observation. She pitied me for resorting to boiling my peanuts on my own stove when:

We can get ours from fellow redneck sitting under an umbrella with a vat of boiled peanuts on a burner on the side of the road! When I first read your status I thought, she must be in Winter Garden:)

After that comment I wanted to click my bare feet three times and wake up under the fierce rays of the Florida sun, tucked under a potent shade tree, next to a boiled peanut stand. I was feeling sorry for myself that I had to get my green peanuts at the local Asian market, put them on a conveyor belt and take the change from a five foot tall Korean woman, which is about as far away from a collard green mascot as you can get! 

You never know what you’ll miss until you look around and realize that even if you start walking toward it, barefoot, until your feet crack and bleed, you wouldn’t get near enough.  Then you miss it with a crazed lonesomeness that won’t sway to any distraction, not even a majestic, brightly colored snow cone from a woman-child who can sing all the words to a Lady Gaga song.

I didn’t even know that bald peanuts are a collard green people’s delicacy until I moved North. Do ya’ll know who told me? It was a Yankee! Can you believe?! It’s true. A dear friend, raised up North, asked me if I’d ever eaten a boiled peanut.  I thought, well, sure hasn’t everybody?! She might as well have asked me if I’d ever eaten a boiled egg. Dogone, she awakened me to the reality that boiled peanuts are the pride of collard-green civilization.

She said a friend of hers, who grew up in the south, cooked her up a batch once and she loved them! That made me so stinkin’ jealous. I wanted to be the Collard Green ambassador to have introduced her to that charming, simple dish.

So, while I sulked over my childhood friend’s bragging rights, the thought occurred to me that at least I could profit from the thrill of finding an unsuspecting Yankee, and converting her to bald peanuts.

So, the next day, I simmered another pot. I already had the perfect candidate– a friend born and bred in Pennsylvania- a convert to Islam like me, whose mama and daddy were also born and bred, and many of their relatives before that, in Pennsylvania. She isn’t just from Pennsylvania, she’s from the middle of it – rolling hills and Amish-made quilts. You don’t get more Yankee than that! I could be close to certain that she had never eaten a boiled peanut. She’s also very adventurous, gutsy and inquisitive, so I could also be near certain she would oblige my request for just one bite.

Now, she’s not Southern, so she didn’t eat one and bust out with a declaration, like: Well, I declare, that is the tastiest thing I’ve ever had in my mouth!!!! Yankees don’t substitute exclamation points for periods as readily – hooting and hollering and letting everyone on the block know that they are having a good time and won’t ya’ll come over and join us!!!!

No, Yankees are a bit more sober which requires getting to know and translate their expressions into collard-green lingo. If a Yankee simply cracks a smile and head-nods in agreement – that is the same as a slew of exclamation points.

It didn’t take my good friend long to become addicted to bald peanuts. She even made a trip to the same Asian market that week to buy a batch and boil some at home for her husband. That was my first convert. I checked it off my list of things to do before I die.

It gets even better. A few days later I was at a gathering of Muslim women and an American friend of Syrian descent gave me two thumbs up on bald peanuts. How did she know about them? Well, of course, my Yankee friend told her. Afterward, she went out and bought herself a batch to boil for her visiting uncle and the rest of her family. They were all hooked too! Another friend, who grew up in New Orleans, in a large Palestinian family, was clueless about boiled peanuts so I dispatched some to her house as well.

I was beside myself; indeed, euphoric. I’d set out to convert one person and now I had lots more. It was a bald peanut revolution. How far could this go? I thought maybe I ought to open my own peanut stand. I’d be the first collard green lady in hijab to make Yankees swoon.

The night drew on and there was yet a lonesome woman at the gathering who had never tasted a bald peanut. She is a Uyghur Muslim raised in China, fluent in several languages; including, Chinese, Turkish and English. She’s a smart cookie is what I’m trying to say, and I like her plenty; not only for the fact that she’s been informed by leading a very fascinating life, but because she doesn’t take herself or others too seriously. In fact, I took an easy liking to her which is why it was so important to me that she adore the southern pastime of munching on bald peanuts.

When it comes to bald peanuts, companionship counts. It is a dish best shared with family and close friends, who don’t require small talk or pretension. This way, you can pop the whole peanut in your mouth and expertly extract the liquid, salty gold inside with awkward contortions of your mouth; then, just spit the shell back out- covered in the sheen of your own saliva, and open it to savor the tender peanut-pearls inside.

Digging into a bowl of bald peanuts makes you want to cut past all the fluff. The joy of rolling a soft peanut shell around your mouth is like soaking in an anti-venom for stress. It makes you feel settled down and nostalgic; you don’t want to have that vibration interrupted by the kind of person who’d likely throw a hissy fit over the temporary breach of hygiene and poise required to really savor this collard-green caviar.

When I presented this friend with a cup of boiled peanuts she wowed me by picking one up like she’d done it a thousand times and popping the whole thing in her mouth! Most newbies feel obliged to feign daintiness the first time, but she leapt directly into the spirit of eating bald peanuts, which confirmed my suspicion that I have good taste in people. There could not have been a better finale to my week-long stint of converting my corner of the world to collard –green goodness. The encore was that two weeks later, my Pennsylvania-Yankee friend came over. We sat on the back porch with our kids on a rare, lazy afternoon and devoured a whole stock pot of bald peanuts. We talked about everything and nothing, which is the best conversation for such an occasion. She challenged me to try a Pennsylvania whoopee pie to savor the flavor of her own people. I am waiting for her to cook me up a batch from her mom’s recipe (wink, wink if she is reading this). 

If you’re collard green, I challenge you to out-match my conversion rate so far. On the other hand if you want to know what all the fuss is about then try cooking up a batch. Here is the recipe. It’s as simple as this:

Step 1:

Get five bulging handfuls of fresh green peanuts;

Put em’ in a tall pot and cover with water like you plan to make soup;

Throw in a ½ cup of salt to start;

Turn the fire up high and wait for them to boil.

Step 2:

After they have boiled for 20 minutes or so, turn it down to medium heat and let them continue boiling.

Go invite someone over and think about how nice it will be to enjoy your bald peanuts with that person. Don’t forget to make a pitcher of sweet tea and cool in the refrigerator.

Step 3:

Turn the heat to low and let it marinate in its own broth. The peanuts will become saltier the longer they languish in the broth and will taste their best 5-6 hours after you started cooking them in the first place. Don’t add more salt until you are ready to eat. If it is not salty enough, add enough to taste and then simmer for another ten minutes.

Step 4: (optional)

Dig up a pair of overalls, tussle your hair to look haggard, make a quick homemade sign: ‘Boiled Peanuts 4 Sale,’ then stand on the road-side next to a pick-up truck. Don’t wave folks over; infact, act like you don’t care. A real Collard-Green mascot knows that he doesn’t have to pitch a bald peanut. It’s just that good. See if you get any takers and let me know.

I double dawg dare ya!

Potty Purgatory

29 Apr

In today’s age, bathrooms can speak for our sense of style and especially our imaginings. For example, a family in South Dakota has guest towels with rustic sail boats and sea shells. Their vanity is scattered with displaced coastal knick-knacks, while on the walls hang pasty children in starched knickers building a sandcastle.

Interior decorators refer to the bathroom as a potential sanctuary and retreat. That is a lot of pressure to put on a room that began conception as an outhouse. My Georgia grandma never tired of telling us what it was like to get up in the frigid air of January to brave the sharp winds just to use the potty. My North Carolina grandma lived in the city limits but she still had to use the outhouse when visiting family on the farm. I bet you have a nostalgic grandma who told you about using the Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue as “toilet paper.” I hope you have a grandma like that.

I know what ya’ll are thinking- didn’t this lady already write about Twelve Rolls of Toilet Paper? Yes, I did. The bathroom is on my mind a lot because it’s the annex to my office, which is the rest of the house. I have three kids; my brood includes a toddler and a pre-schooler who still need technical assistance in the wiping department. Ya’ll might also be thinking – what does bathroom decor have to do with a Collard Green-Arab, family?

PLENTY!

In all the homes I’ve visited in Morocco, and I’ve visited a lot, the bathroom serves a strictly utilitarian function, much like in my grandma’s generation and every generation before that. I’d wager that the majority of Moroccans are not going to spend a lot of time, thought, and resources into concealing the true purpose of a bathroom. Everybody knows that you go in there to do the stuff that nobody wants to be around- not even your mama, which is why she toilet-trained you in the first place! Depending on the socio-economic status of the hostess it might be a hole in the ground or a shiny porcelain throne. It will not say anything about the hostess, and you better not saying anything either!

In Morocco, no one walks out of the toilet and says: I just love what you’ve done in there! Heck no! She will: a) think you are trying to insult her, and/or, b) wonder whether one of her kids forgot to flush the toilet. 

Moroccan women are a lot like Collard Green women, so at that point, she’s going to serve you cake and tea while praying under her breath that you will get pulled away by an important phone call, which is such a shame, because, it would be lovely if you could stay, because, she always enjoys your company and especially your conversation, and do come again!

Here’s another piece of advice to save you a lot of embarrassment – there are a pair of cheap sandals next to the bathroom door. Those are for you. Wear them!

Let me explain. Moroccans will clean all day long, with that bald-headed mascot of disinfection, Mr. Clean, and they would be horrified to let the soles of their feet, or anyone else’s slide across that clean floor. Moroccans wear flip-flops in the bathroom because they leave their walking shoes at the front door. I didn’t know this and no one told me so my first trip to the little girl’s room went something like this:

We stopped at a friend of the family’s home on the road to my husband’s small town. Everyone’s shoes came off at the entrance; next, came the customary Islamic greeting, Peace be upon you, before we were seated in the family room. Trays of sweets and pots of tea were brought out by the mother, her teenage daughters and several of their female cousins. After a while, I had to go the bathroom very badly on account of having swallowed so many glasses of sweet, hot mint tea. In Moroccan culture, and this is also true for most of the Arab world, if you empty your tea glass, the hostess is obliged and happy to fill it back up for you. Leaving an ounce at the bottom is a polite way of saying enough.

I didn’t know that and no one told me. Every time I finished a cup the hostess would touch the mouth of the teapot to the rim of my glass as if to dribble its contents inside. Then, as is customary, but surprised me- she swiftly leveraged it up until her arm could reach no higher, in a sublimely extravagant effort that betrayed no concealment of pretension. This produced a golden fountain which, though high, emptied only into the narrow cavern of my petite, brightly tinted-blue glass- its façade rimmed with silver, geometric repeating patterns.

The force of this lava-hot stream made a rim of thick foam swell up, almost to the mouth of my glass. Rising from the foam was a concentrated vapor of fresh mint which filled the space in front of me. I was intoxicated by an unfamiliar yearning to abandon all my earthly affairs and never return home.  Through the haze of steam, my eyes fixated on my hostess’s expression of joyful ease, made even more ornate by a charcoal-colored tattoo, perfectly aligned along the center of her chin; extending from its base to the underbelly of her bottom lip- illuminating the perfect symmetry of her smile.

I might have given into the siren’s call, if not for the sharp pain emanating from my full bladder. I needed to use the restroom badly, but it’s not like I could discreetly saunter up to my hostess and ask if she would kindly show me to the powder room. Who needs a tour-guide book filled with useful, everyday expressions when you are being escorted by a native speaker? That’s for tourist. I was practically Moroccan, right? Or, at least, I was married to one. My husband used to translate everything. Not cool. There is nothing more humiliating than having someone announce that you need to take a trip to the john, and no better motivation for becoming a student of the local language.

After my husband announced my predicament, all the ladies of the house sprung up, downright giddy, to help me navigate my first trip to the toilet. It was quite an entourage. Since I eloped and never walked properly down the aisle- that is probably the closest thing to a formal procession I’m ever going to get while I’m alive. They ever so carefully led me around the corner, through a sparsely furnished square room, down a steep step, through a corridor, around another corner, down a short hallway and then- voila! There was the door of the bathroom and I rushed to it feeling that my time was short.

I was almost home-free when I heard a cacophony of shouts erupt- La!, which, in Arabic, means no. I turned around and those  not biting their lips, or cupping their mouths, were just plain laughing. I wanted to laugh too. I love to laugh, but I didn’t get it. One of the girls sprinted to my side; she bent down and produced a pair of bright orange sandals about two sizes too big for me. I still didn’t get it. Are we going to the dang boardwalk? Never mind, I thought, they can laugh, but I’m going in.

I turned to enter, but that girl pulled me back as if she were saving me from a certain death. She put the flip flops on her own feet, and then passed through the dark room and out again to demonstrate how it’s done. Alright. They want me to wear their flip flops in the bathroom, I said to myself, fine, I’ll wear a dead possum on my head if it’ll get me into that toilet. I dashed in with the proper foot wear and closed the door. There, on the floor, was a wide, dark, deep hole with two foot rest on either side. I didn’t think twice. I knew what to do. I’m Collard-Green; when you are out somewhere and there is no porcelain throne for miles- you simply adapt.

Later, I emerged flapping like a penguin, made-in-China, in my oversized orange flip flops. Everyone was where I left them, crowded around the door, still smiling. Maybe they thought I wasn’t coming out and were drawing straws to see who should have to go in.

So, that was my ‘Intro to Toilet’ seminar and since then I’ve worn all manner of plastic flip-flops to go to the bathroom there. Over the years, I somehow adopted the Moroccan notion of what a bathroom should and shouldn’t do. It should serve a necessary purpose- not express your good taste and unique expression. It doesn’t have to be your grandma’s outhouse, but good gosh don’t try to make it your sanctuary with a toilet; the master bedroom will work just fine for a retreat. As for the bathroom -get in, get out, disinfect it regularly, and don’t look back.

Well, that all changed last year when my good friend, raised in New England and Colorado, planned a visit to spend a week with us. I asked myself why our bathroom didn’t speak to our sense of taste and imaginings. We didn’t even have a nice set of guest towels. How was I going to make her feel really welcome? I felt ashamed. Here I was, all grown up and the mama to three, yet my bathroom looked like a glorified outhouse, when it was supposed to look like a vacation destination. I didn’t even have miniature lilac soap bars, shaped like oyster shells, for guests to admire (and not use). I wasn’t going to go out of the world this way. Heck no! I made up my mind.

I drove straight away to Home Goods and headed for the double wide aisle which shelved the towels. It was overwhelming, really. I should have brought reinforcements. I didn’t even have a strategy. I gave up my lofty ideal to have a bathroom that communicated something about me and just decided to acquire anything nice. My only other requirement was that they look like a proper set – useless.

I finally narrowed in on a teal and cappuccino colored ensemble. For just $3.99 you could get a non-utilitarian accent piece with matching tassels and beads on the end to drape over the arrangement, like a corsage on a sparkly debutante. That made its useless value skyrocket in my opinion, and thus even more fitting to accomplish my mission. I arrived back home to my husband and kids and set to work like a master florist.

Next, my very Arab husband came in and asked:

“What are those?”

“Guest towels. It was hard work picking them out, so say they’re nice,” I warned him.

“They are nice,” he said.

“No, I mean say something really nice about my good taste,” I explained.

“You have good, nice taste,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

“How much did they cost?” He asked.

“A thousand dollars and fifty cents -so don’t use them, alright? Their guest towels.”

He leaned past me to feel the fabric.

“Huh…kind of coarse. Do you think guests will want to use them?” he cautioned.

“No,” I replied.

“Why?” he asked.

“’Cause they’re guest towels!”

“Wa’kha,” he said.

Wa’kah– there is that word again. I wrote about in this post.

I bought those towels a week before my friend arrived, and in that time my Collard Green-Arab kids had already pulled them off to use in the shower. I kept reiterating that: “Those are guest towels!” I had almost given up because it was a headache and I seriously doubted that they inherited my particular strand of post-modern American, guest-towel DNA.

I picked up my friend from the airport and got her settled in. I was so happy to see her, I forgot about the trauma of trying to convert my kids to the idea of having useless things in the bathroom. It’s a good thing my friend reminded me. I was tickled pink when she walked into that bathroom and commented on what a nice set of guest towels I had, which of course she didn’t use.

That was last year. Since then, our bathroom has struck a kind of compromise. It’s in potty-purgatory. I grew weary of washing and re-arranging the towels my kids couldn’t remember not to use. So, the towel racks are now all stocked with clean rounds of fluffy white towels. However, the walls are adorned with Frenchy-inspired pictures and we have a sleek shower curtain, found on clearance at Marshalls for just $9.99! Would my great-grandmother have imagined that I would put art on the bathroom walls or devote the cost of a pot roast to a shower curtain? I think they were on the right track.  There are plenty of other corners in a home to fuss over and pamper– why dawdle in the bathroom unless you have another toilet-training tour to fulfill?

Here’s to bathrooms that don’t compromise. To bathrooms that don’t inspire! To bathrooms that don’t express anything! To bathrooms that call you in, and then hustle you right back out! To my old bathroom, dang-it!

 Raise a glass (of sweet tea)!

The Day My Soul Caught Fire

24 Mar

When my Muslim friends raised overseas ask me what makes growing up in the South so unique, I talk about church camp. All my good Yankee friends are surely going to protest:  I went to church camp too; the South didn’t trademark that!

Honestly, I don’t know because I never made it past the Mason Dixon Line until the age of 15; our town sent me on a mission trip to build a protestant church in Spain and convince the Catholic citizens of Barcelona about our Southern brand of religion. So, alright my friends, maybe ya’ll did go to church camp, but you never went to Jesus camp.

My collard green daddy didn’t send us to camp to explore new interests, like horseback riding, origami or basket weaving. Heck no! Jesus camp had one purpose- to teach you how to love Jesus and fear God. Those who loved and feared the most were honored with a baptizing ceremony at the alligator-infested lake. Breathing in the bloated, soggy air under lava-hot Florida sun rays, made the threat of alligators less irksome, and salvation, a risk worth taking.

We’d all go down there, singing a gospel song and gather at the muddy edge. The pastor would go waste deep and start baptizing campers one by one to a round of amen. I almost waded in once, but changed my mind after my friend came up to a shout of hallelujah, and poor thing, she forgot to wear an undershirt. That’s the closest I’d ever been to a wet T-shirt contest. The pimply boy-campers, hovering around like flies on the sweet-tea pitcher, pounded out an awfully sincere word of praise. She spent the rest of the week getting waited on hand and foot.

Meanwhile, I was in no danger of fending off a courtship. The most prominent thing about me was a nasty under-bite, for which my mama sacrificed three days wages to pay for an orthodontic retainer. That tooth lasso could usually be found clacking around my mouth, which no doubt, was an effective boy repellent.

I pity you if you never went to Jesus camp because it was a four-star kiddie vacation. There were the sing-alongs in the fellowship hall, the breakfast of pancakes and sausage, the obstacle course, swimming, nature walks, devotionals, calling the top bunk, reprimands for practical jokes- somehow always involving toothpaste, covert hook-ups, a crush on that very fine camp counselor-college student, giggles, verbal cat-fights, fumes of gossip, canoeing, bonfires, S’mores, and Bloody Mary stories- followed by high-pitch screams.

Last but not least, was the reliable, collard green inoculation against evil in the form of a well-choreographed finale sermon.  The whole congregation of campers held hands and swayed to the organ music. We swore from the bottom of our collard green hearts to go home and be better children, students, and community members…better Christians.

When my son was six-years-old a group of Muslim parents from North Florida organized a camp and registered participants at mosques around the State. It was to be held at one of the camp grounds where I attended as a retainer-sporting princess. I was ecstatic to learn that the program rules allowed younger children to attend, accompanied by their parents. The three-day weekend activities were centered on the theme of Islam and Ecology, and the goal was for campers to depart, affirming in their hearts that they would go home to be better children, students, and community members…better Muslims.

Several volunteers lined up to lead workshops; there was even a contest to determine which child delivered the best presentation, educating fellow campers on how to better care for our planet. I eagerly put my name on the volunteer list and started preparing for the role. Then, I talked it up every day till X marked the spot on our calendar. We piled in the car, my son behind my seat and his baby sister, along for the ride. Our voices alternated between Islamic themed sing-alongs and our favorite blue-grass hits blaring from the CD player. I filled my son’s head with visions of myself as a child, a few years older than him, sitting in the back seat, just like him, listening to the radio with my daddy, just like him, wishing the miles away in anticipation …just like him!

He hung onto my every word because the only thing he loves more than telling me about something he’s gonna do, is listening to me tell him about something I already did. His expression always hovers between disbelief and longing to walk into that world with me…as if he can hardly comprehend that I was a kid once too.

As we approached the entrance to the camp, the traffic accumulated. It was a two-lane road, running a path through flat, sandy earth yielding only brown tufts of grass. In the distance I could see a group of people huddled on either side, holding up fluorescent poster boards on yardsticks; they alternated pumping them up and down like gilded, iron horses on a merry-go-round. As our car advanced farther in the queue, we could distinguish the lettering enough to make out the words: Jihad Terrorist Camp, Islam is an Evil Religion, Get out of America …and more.

My son was not a fluent reader just yet; still, I tried to distract him, but it was no use. The protestors were shouting and their voices became audible as we moved closer.  His father turned up the radio real loud.

“What are they doing?” my son asked. I un-latched my seat belt to turn my full body around in the seat and look into his quizzical expression, laced with a trace of wariness.

I shocked myself with a rapid response: “They welcome new campers like us. It’s part of the camp spirit,” I said. “They even made signs! How cool is THAT?!!”

A big grin spread across his face, and revealed the gaping hole where his two front baby teeth used to perch. He perked up in his booster seat and gave them all a big wave and a holler: “Welcome to you too! Thank you! Welcome!!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to make his voice more audible over the blaring radio.

He pleaded with his daddy to “roll down the window,” so that the “nice people,” could hear him shout back. His dad feigned grumpiness, and claimed he didn’t want to let the air conditioning out. I reassured him that the welcoming committee would be just as happy to see his smiling face through the window. My son didn’t ask why their foreheads were crumpled up and their fingers were shaking up a storm. I slumped back down into the seat, struck by the realization that a six-year-old will take his mama’s word for just about anything.

It was probably no more than ninety seconds until our car inched into the clear, but it felt like ninety years.  The weight of the world bore down. The reality of raising my Muslim children bore down. The sight of the protestors’ signs, their battle-cry expressions, and waging fingers, bore down. The sight of my boy’s tooth-less, gullible grin; the force of his hearty wave; the piercing noise of that radio, drowning out their venomous shouts; the bitter taste of that lie on my tongue – it all bore down.

I wanted to unleash a river of scalding tears, caged off and burning a hole in my throat…burning me so badly it felt like fire ripping through my entrails, and lighting my soul ablaze. I wanted to make an opening to exhale. I had something to say, muddled inside the inferno of my disfigurement. If you came here to shock us; if you came here to wound our notion of belonging; if you came here make us want to crawl out of our skins, just because you can; if you came here to make us weep into our pillow to muffle the sound from our children; if you came here to do all of that… you won, damn you. You won!

I am acutely mortal in such circumstances. I didn’t feel defiant, yet humble, like David before Goliath, or merciful and determined like the Prophet Mohammed when his people threw garbage and rocks at his head, yet he only responded with an earnest prayer, asking God to forgive them all. My mind didn’t instantly revert to the oft-repeated verse from the Qur’an: “And the servants of (Allah) Most Gracious are those who walk on the earth with humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say, ‘Peace!…” (25:63). 

I’m not proud to say that I only felt smoke rising from my sudden, ruptured existence. I loathed them all.

I didn’t grip my husband’s hand, in a show of affection and solidarity. He didn’t grip mine. Whatever comfort we might afford one another, was muted in the shock of our predicament, and in the need to keep appearances for our boy- now nearly bursting out of his seatbelt in joyful agitation.

Our son almost opened the door before the car came to a full stop. The hot coal in my throat started to extinguish with the need to turn our focus on the details of registration and cabin assignments. The fire still flickered and I yearned for a private moment, just long enough to have a good cry. I wondered about the older children who read the signs, and actually understood them, but I didn’t ask. In these situations, people don’t want to talk, they just want to forget.

Those who lagged behind skipped the clan-like welcome. Even hate-mongers break for happy hour. They didn’t hold their ground against the “terrorist;” rather, they left voluntarily not long after our scheduled entrance. Apparently, it was not conviction that drove them there, but the sick thrill of capture…a hit and run. They smacked our kids real good; now, it was time to celebrate over a round of cold beers and high-fives. Maybe a reporter would even quote one or two protestors, then ask a Muslim camper to respond- as if it was a battle between two sides, and the public must decide. Only if the bigoted assault were directed at any other group of children would it be deemed a shameful act.  These were, after all, Muslim children and wasn’t it Muslims who attacked us on 9-11?

Meanwhile, we met in the Fellowship Hall. The keynote speaker told all the children that they had a duty to God; and as an extension of that duty, a duty to their fellow citizens, and a duty to care for the earth. He said it is not always easy to be faithful, but we must be sincere and try to do our best. We must not let hatred directed at us, interfere with that duty. The talk was followed by a communal prayer. When I touched my head to the floor, bowing down in worship, I noticed the burn was no more. I felt close to my Creator, and vast distances away from the world outside.

My son would soon read fluently; he would hear and see all things clearly. I could only protect him for a while longer.

My children will receive shocks of pain from corners that I never anticipated, and that I scarcely would have imagined as a child. They will know pain, but he will also know the sweet relief from bowing, in humility, in utter helplessness and submission before their Creator – like Abraham, Moses, and Jesus… like Mohammed, peace be upon them all.

I was reminded of this day, while watching a You Tube video featuring a group of protestors, led by fiery politicians, shouting down Muslim men, women, and children, as they approached the entrance to an event raising money for U.S. charities, aimed at stopping hunger and homelessness in America.

It is horrifying to watch and words do not do justice. I should warn you that it is not appropriate for young viewers, although you will see that many of those who attended the charity event were children.

Among the protestors, you will see more American flags than at a Fourth of July Parade, which begs the question- what does pure, unadulterated hate have to do with the symbolism of our flag?  The answer is so obvious, the question doesn’t even seem worth asking.

I protect their right to wave our flag. In fact, if that right were in serious jeopardy, I would hold it up for them, swaying it high over my hijab-wearing head (with giant ear-plugs). While I support their right, I disdain their work to make the symbolism of our flag the functional equivalent of a swastika. I wish they would don the disguise of their forefathers– a white sheet and pointed hood. It is, after all, an honest badge for those who cannot feel anyone’s humanity but their own.

This targeting of Muslim inter-faith leaders and community builders, along with their children, will be featured in a documentary aired on CNN this Sunday at 8 p.m. EST. It is called, Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door. Click on this link to see the trailer. I am hopeful that a mass media outlet is bringing this issue to light.

I will say goodbye, now, with a statement from the trailer. It was made by a Muslim mother who will be featured in the documentary. When asked whether she thinks fellow Americans hate her, she stated:  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think people understand what Islam is and (what) Muslims are.”

I also want to conclude with a word of sincere thanks to a high school classmate who contacted me recently to say she made an appointment at her local mosque to address for herself negative assumptions about Muslims. So far so good; they gave her a warm reception over the phone. I hope the inter-faith relationships she encounters will last a lifetime. She’s collard green, of course. I know they are just going to love her.

← Older Entries