I dreamt that I went to Easter at Grandma’s, and didn’t poke anyone with the pins on my hijab as I hugged them. Nobody said “Oops, you got me right in the eye,” and nobody cackled too loud in response. I didn’t blush.
I went to Easter, and my grandfather said he would go see the doctor, and didn’t smoke any cigarettes, and wasn’t out of breath.
Nobody told me she had a dream that I wasn’t wearing my scarf, and how wonderful it was to see my hair. Nobody told me that wearing the hijab is like going to a Muslim country wearing a giant gold cross. Nobody said that it is cultural and not religious, and nobody said it didn’t matter. Nobody told me that I’d never get hired again if I didn’t take it off. Nobody told me nicely, in so many words, that I make everyone uncomfortable. Nobody said it was “food for thought”.
Nobody told me I think too hard about prejudice.
Nobody sold guns for a living. Nobody said they don’t believe in global warming.
Nobody told me what a shame it was that I didn’t go to medical school. They didn’t ask me why I had switched fields. They thought it made sense that I want to be a writer, and encouraged me.
When I gave someone a page from my novel, he said he liked it, and wanted to read more.
When I said that I had been hired to write for a magazine, they asked, “which one?” and asked for a reminder email. When I told them I had a blog, they asked for the address.
My fifteen-year-old cousin didn’t say that she never wants to get married. In response, I didn’t think: You haven’t lived alone in the world.
I didn’t serve pork.
I enjoyed playing dice games as much as everyone else, and didn’t wonder if it constituted gambling. I wanted to win and felt bonded by mutual enjoyment to the family members sitting around the table. When I looked around, I felt we shared more than a certain similarity about the forehead, eyebrows and lips. I looked down at the penny with which I played our game and thought we were a true manifestation of the hope stamped there: E pluribus unum.
When we left, no one avoided my head so that I wouldn’t stab her with my pins, and I hadn’t checked to make sure the ends were tucked on the inside five times. I wasn’t obsessed by the idea that I had upset my only aunt who never gets upset by hopefully insisting that some Americans wouldn’t mind my working for them, and that I don’t necessarily alienate everyone. When I told her I came from two communities: WASP and Muslim, I felt at home in both. I was sorry to go. I felt connected.
I didn’t fear that I had offended anyone by trying to worship God. And the way I try didn’t scare anyone at all.
