What dreams may come?

The challenge:

Apply to 12 law schools.

The reward:

I haven’t decided yet.

Okay. I can be a bit of a strange mix of things. On the outside, it may seem that I’m some version of Together Girl; I dress well, tool around Cambridge in my cutie Dutch bike, I’ve just applied to law school, I run a successful outreach program at New England’s largest mosque, and I have a few small community-building projects that appear to be working in the way I had hoped.

This is what Together Girl looks like. Boots included.

Now, inside, it is a different matter. Inside, I am a half-fried mad-hatted writer with a thousand ideas, a hundred ambitions, and not enough time to wash yesterday’s coffee pot. Thankfully, I am able to disguise this well, but that doesn’t mean that my befrizzled inner self doesn’t weasel herself out of her cage now and again. And on those days, she renders me incapable of being either responsible or productive.

Five minutes. It's all I need, I swear.

This happens every time I have to do…anything large. Queen Procrastination reigns with horrifying tyranny, her adviser Sir  Stress faithfully by her side. The torture they inflict is excruciating. I hope you never, ever experience such pain.

Here’s where the odd mix comes in. I don’t not do things because I don’t care about them. Take these pesky little applications. I didn’t not complete them…um…more than a day before the deadline because I didn’t care. I do care. I care so much that I am paralyzed with fear. What if no one lets me in? What if I get one digit of my social security number wrong, and no one knows who I am? What if I mistakenly mark that I am from Bangledesh and they think I’m a lying fraud? What if I send the Penn essay to Northwestern, and the Northwestern essay to Columbia? What if I’m too late already, with a December LSAT? What if they don’t let Muslim girls into law school? What if I’m not smart?

Maybe if I curl up in this ball, the applications will do themselves?

I know. I know I know I know. Muppie, CHILLAX, it’s not that deep. It’s just an electronic application. Fill out phone number and permanent address, attach personal statement, press send. It is soooooooooooo very simple. Really. Seriously.

(In my defense, hindsight, wisdom, and friends all have 20/20 vision. Insecure girls masquerading as more together versions of themselves do not.)

So, you’re right. It’s not that deep. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Worst possible scenario: I get in nowhere. I reapply next year. In, like, September. Get the rolling  admissions process on my side. And I get in places. And I go to law school a mere 12 months after I had originally intended. Big freaking deal.

Thing is, to me it would be. I have never ceased to be terrified of suddenly finding myself incapable or inadequate. This has resulted in a lot – a lot – of playing it safe. Of putting things off. Of dreaming crazy dreams that involve Yale, a lot of ivy, a lot of coffee, a lot of all-nighters, and a Juris Doctor, and then placing them on that tidy shelf in my psyche labeled Pie in the Sky. Also known as the Maybe Later? shelf. As long as they are dreams, I cannot fail. As long as they are dreams, I do not have to hold myself up next to my high school classmates who are (gulp) already practicing lawyers. Because I’m finding myself. Very consuming work. Far too busy to take entrance exams and fill out applications now. Next year. Maybe next year.

BUT. But, dear readers, my lovely blog-visitors, I have TRIUMPHED! I have barely triumphed, yes. But I. Have triumphed. Over Procrastination Queen and her Minions of Misery. I. Have applied. To graduate school.

I flabbergast myself!

Do you realize what this means? Maybe. Probably not. I am on Cloud Nine right now. I can do things! I can apply to grad school, if I feel like it! I MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE A FUTURE! Can you believe it?

Anything can happen now. I will believe anything. I will believe it if my favorite juvenile cartoon prince shows up with roses.

I just can't get enough of this guy.

I will believe it if the sky is purple tomorrow, or I wake up and don’t have Tragic Morning Hair. I will believe it if I get into law school. Anything can happen to me now. Anything!

I want to give myself a prize, but what? I’ve contemplated a cheesy romance novel instead of some more serious literature for my next book; throwing myself a party; allowing myself to watch as much Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I want for an entire week (I know, I’m like, crazy). I haven’t decided. So I’m blogging. Because clearly, this is what you do when something momentous happens. A girl needs witnesses.

What dreams may come, you ask? Any. Any dreams may crawl off your Pie in the Sky shelf and sneak over to Real Life. Isn’t existence delicious?

The Council of Strangers

The new convert to Islam has a lot of things to get used to. One of the most surprising is the council of strangers.

I find the concept of naseeha mysterious even now. The duty to advise one’s brothers and sisters regarding etiquette is not unique to the religion; the jarring piece is freedom with which people will do this.

Sometimes it is the point of a finger. A girl with uncovered hair walks through something that is perceived as “Muslim space” and a man across the room frowns, points at her, and then to his head. The message: Cover that. Sometimes a two-way conversation suddenly morphs into paternalistic sermonizing on the great traditions of Islam. “In Islam, you know, we know that God is greatest…” And sometimes it is meant well; the smallest of comments about your shoes, your dress, your presence, though coming from a place of sincere care, cuts deep. Makes you feel inadequate, unwelcome, embarrassed, angry – sometimes all at once.

 

  

I know that was meant well...but man I hope I never see that guy again!

 

I suppose that what I have always found mysterious is the lack of boundary when it comes to this. So many Muslims feel out of place, are searching for belonging – and yet we can’t resist the urge to nitpick each other’s behavior at every turn, creating the most alienating of environments out of what we are told on the mimbar is the most welcoming, egalitarian of communities. It is as though we are incapable of any other basis for interaction other than critique; there seems to be a lack of consideration as to whether or not the advice that slips so generously from our lips might be heard in the way it was intended. We think it is our duty to speak up; somehow we think it is not our duty to take care of each other first and foremost. 

 

Now I’m telling you this out of sisterly love! Appreciate my tyranny!

 

I have never gotten used to having to be prepared to be criticized about any aspect of my behavior or appearance by anyone at any time – but on occasion this is what it means to belong to this community. Is it a good thing? I wonder how many well-intentioned comments fall on deaf ears, ears reddened with anger or shame. I wonder how many people hopefully walk into a mosque, or an event, hoping to be met with open arms and instead confronting the disapproving glances of strangers or a series of suggestions on who else to be. Who has come to us on the promise of love and egalitarianism and been disappointed by our closed ranks, by our assumption that we know better, all the time? Who has been so shocked and embarrassed by being told where to pray, how to dress, how to wash, where to enter, that they’ve never come back?

A wise man once told me that the conditions for giving advice include that the giver thinks the listening party will be able to use the offered wisdom. So within the idea of giving advice there is the notion that advice is personal, and that is as it should be. Not every comment is appropriate for every audience at every time; ideally, we should be meeting people where they are at.

No one would think that it would be appropriate to point at an uncovered woman in distaste, and go merrily on your way, if you knew that woman had come to the mosque/musalla/event for the first time, timidly, not knowing what was right, with the intention to learn about Islam. She would be led to the most knowledgeable person in the room, catered to, served tea while she told surrounding Muslims her story, and asked her questions. This tricky thing we call our deen would not be shoved down her throat in one fell swoop; she would learn a little day by day in a supportive and welcoming environment. She would be loved; her progress would be praised, every step she took on her spiritual journey would be celebrated and held up as evidence of Islam’s success.

The problem is that every girl is that girl.

 

If only we knew.

 

 

May God guide us towards being better with each other; may He give us the strength to not take insult personally, and remain in the spaces we love and need despite callous and embarrassing treatment, ameen.

 

Dear Yale

Yale has asked for two hundred and fifty words, and this is keeping me up at night.

A 250-word love letter to Yale that I will never send:

Yale,

Everything I think to write to you sounds absurd in my head. The notion of admission at this point is ludicrous. What, me? Since when did I have the audacity to think myself special? Doesn’t the world know yet that I have not grown up? I keep thinking that one morning I will wake up and suddenly things will click; that I will prefer soup to nachos, that I will stop ingesting coffee at such an alarming rate, that I will rise at five o’clock every morning for a five-mile run, that I will start making grocery lists and going to the dry cleaner’s. I’m waiting for my future to become the technicolor present. I am in a fabulous law school, and lo! I study like a maniac, because this time around I actually know what I want. Come the end of first semester I surprise myself, but not my parents or professors, by acing all of my exams. My family declares that they are proud of me, my mentors prophesy that I will make a smashing scholar of the law, and I manage to dress fashionably the entire time. Nutmeg has a favorite perch (on the windowsill, overlooking the street) in my charmingly adorned, yet small, apartment near campus. I drink tea and read the paper every morning, and have not given up novels despite the raging pace of studies. My yoga practice is flourishing, and I’ve finished the manuscript of my first novel.

I promise this is all possible, Yale. For you, I would become the girl I could be. If you asked.

Love,

Muppie