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?

Refuge

This one goes out to my brothas and sistas.

It’s possible, at times, to see and feel nothing but the cruelty of the world. It’s possible to feel alone and vulnerable. It’s possible to feel cornered. It’s possible to feel like there is no way out.

The worst one is feeling like there is no one to turn to, no one who will understand, and no one who can help.

The best solution to this sort of problem is friends you didn’t even know you had swooping in over stale coffee at 2 a.m. to say, “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m down. Period.”

I know people who have gone through one, or a series, of bad experiences that would tend to bias a person against some category of people: women, men, some culture, etc. I suppose that it’s tempting to write off the category altogether. I hate men. I hate women. I will never have a _____ mother-in-law. All _____ people want is ______, so I won’t talk to them.

I’ve never fallen that far into my distrust. If anything, if I find that the experiences that cause me to feel vulnerable only endear good people to me more. What would it mean to have good people, if there weren’t any bad ones from whom we needed refuge? Sometimes the best thing a person can do is step up when they’re needed. And the need would never arise without an offending party.

Still, it’s horrific to say: I need you. We really like to feel independent. Perhaps it’s a post-feminism thing. Maybe it’s just my personality. I’ve never thought of myself as reserved, but I recently gave someone the impression that I was – and maybe this is where that comes from. I’m always willing to express a thought, but I’m far more reluctant to say something that might lead to my disappointment. And what could be more devastating than someone refusing to help when you really need it? We’re not sure who is trustworthy – but in a moment of crisis, the line is drawn between  friends and acquaintances. You’re hoping the person in front of you will say, “Yes, of course I’ll do thus-and-such.” But you’re fearing that you’ll hear, “Sorry, I’m just not sure I can help.” There are some people with whom these requests are not problematic: family, best friends. But if none of those people can help – if they want to, but are unable – if they can’t understand – it’s really harrowing to have to go to someone new and untried with a need that must be met. Some things can be weathered. Some things are tough. And some things need to be fixed, and they need to be fixed now.

And that’s where beauty and mercy come in. And how wonderful it is when they do.

It is amazing to me that we fashion these little interdependent communities with each other, and are able to be there for one another, in affection, in mercy, for the sake of God. Because so many of us live far away from our families. So many of us are new in town. So many of us have so many different wants and needs, and for so many of us, it comes down to trusting in God. Sometimes faith in humanity is not enough. Sometimes we lose that – but we are able to turn to God and beg for His mercy, even when we have nothing else, even when we see nothing on the horizon. And He sends these people to us, these brothers and sisters, who can fulfill our needs and fill us with boundless gratitude and wonder at the mercy of people, and their capacity to love and be just – when we were lately so despondent, so distrusting.

Muslims call each other brother and sister. It’s taken on new meaning to me now – and that’s not thanks enough – it never will be – but I hope that for tonight, it will suffice.

Hope redux

I’ve been listening to a song that goes:

Stitch in your knitted brow
And you don’t know how
You’re gonna get it out
Crushed under heavy chest
Trying to catch your breath
But it always beats you by a step, all right now

Making the best of it
Playing the hand you get
You’re not alone in this

There’s hope for the hopeless
There’s hope for the hopeless
There’s hope

I hate to be trite and stupid and blog about song lyrics. It’s difficult for me to express why exactly this song is important to me…

There are few songs, to be perfectly honest, that I don’t interpret in the light of romantic love. It’s entirely possible, and even likely, that the lyrics to this song were written with that sort of love in mind. But to me, this song is a narrative of the most important event in my life.

I haven’t touched much on exactly how my conversion happened. I think now is the time to do a bit of that.

You see, I was the hopeless. I wasn’t particularly unhappy. I wasn’t depressed – far from it. I was, in every way, a very typical 23-year-old girl. I fit perfectly into the social fabric of my college. In the context of parties, I had a wild and daring reputation. I could always be counted on for a good time. I had wonderful friends, and I loved them. I had the best boyfriend in any of my friends’ memories. They were all jealous of my good relationship fortune. Seriously. And I was set up to attend pretty much any med school I wanted. The future was bright. My life was ahead of me.

You’re wondering why I was hopeless. Like I said, it wasn’t depression. I just had an overwhelming sense of having missed the point, and that is the only real name I can give to it. I was a secular humanist. Not really a classical or strict one; I believed in God, but rejected organized religion on principle. It caused wars. Each tradition claimed superiority over all others. That tendency seemed a bit arbitrary, or petty to me. And I saw pretty much every religion that could claim any serious commitment to morals/spiritual refinement as an explicit and insidious attempt to batter the sex instinct out of humanity. Which was simply something that I could not condone. I thought religious people were provincial. Inexperienced. Limited. In my noncommittal theism, I fancied myself enlightened. And liberated from the petty dogma of religion.

But this turned out to be a front. I had over-thought the problem. I was thinking, nitpicking, as my education had raised me to do. And in doing so I left out the most important part of the equation. Faith gives life to the heart – as love does. Both romantic love and faith are really acts of love, and of the heart. I had never been a cold person. I had a rich love-life, taking my boyfriend, family and friends into account. Many people to love, to spend time with, to soften me.

But I missed God. I longed for God as a lover does the beloved. For a few months I felt sort of lovelorn. I would read brief passages from the Qur’an as though they were love letters. I would smooth the printed page with my fingertips, as though it were personal. It was between God and me. Nothing else mattered. The fact that it was a holy book didn’t matter. The fact that billions of people have read it didn’t matter. I felt that it was only for me. God sent me a letter, and I wasn’t sure how to answer.

I could not accept Islam. I could not accept Islam for the same reason that I could not accept other things: it was limited, socially truncated, subjugating to women. But I could not argue with the Muslims I met. The fact was that they all had a relationship with God, and I didn’t have one to speak of. I had the impetus, but not the means. They had means.

In effect, Islam was my forbidden fruit. It was something palpable, something I could see in the Muslims I knew. Their peace, their salaam, was unmistakable. Sure, I thought it was an antiquated, arbitrary, agrarian-based tradition to rise every day before dawn for prayers…but that, and so many other traditions that seemed so senseless and backwards to me, gave them a light to live by. A light I lacked. I was going from step A to step B to step C because the steps presented themselves in that order. But there was no goal. I didn’t know what lay at the top of the staircase.

What I had wanted out of life ended by about forty, by my calculation. I wanted the right job – and I would be an M.D. before I was thirty. Check. I wanted to find, love and marry the right man, preferably sooner rather than later, and I thought I had found him. Check. I wanted kids. I would spend my thirties having children. Check. And then – when I thought about it, what then? My body would start to age. My daughters would surpass me in beauty. I wouldn’t feel the hunger of discovery in each of the areas of my life that I felt now, because they would be settled and familiar by then: family, love, career. All that would be left would be to enjoy what I could in the time I had left. And that was all. I wouldn’t be the wild girl at parties anymore; I’d be a mother. There wouldn’t be any keggers in my fifties – at least, I hoped not. All of the things it felt good to do as a teenager and twentysomething – rather, all of the rules/social conventions/laws that it felt good to break – would have lost their novelty by then. What was the point? Have kids, and then make the best you can of a marriage and wait to die? Seriously?

Even if the point was to do as much good as I was able to do – and this was a goal of mine – what would it leave? A good act is always satisfying in and of itself – I won’t deny that adopting my cat, or watching my niece for the day, or giving in charity come with innate rewards. But even these are temporary. And the effects of these acts are temporary. These things, done for their own sake, do not escape the cyclical and finite nature of life. Charity, development, justice – they are good things to work for, but their legacies (which I do not mean to diminish) are, in the end, worldly. I can touch the lives of as many people as I want, in as positive and giving a way as I can, but even those who outlive me will see their ends. And my legacy will be over. I will be over. There will be nothing left to show that I once existed. There is no way to tie oneself to something lasting and permanent by these means alone.

I didn’t see these conclusions as morbid. We’re all going to die; that’s just life. We’re all careening towards six billion uncertain ends, and we’re all struggling to make the best of our lives in the meantime. It’s foolish to ignore one’s mortality in youth. People die young. I realized this too. I wanted more. I was hungry for more. I wanted more than what I saw in my future: expensive cars, lots of sparkly diamonds, the most perfectly attentive and loving husband, a socially responsible career, lovely children. It wasn’t enough. It would end. I knew it. It was a painful awareness. There had to be more than the merry-go-round of life – the getting on, making the best of it as long as it ran, and then making an exit- and whatever more was, I wanted it. I wanted to devote myself to something permanent. Something greater, something bigger. I wanted a reason – for everything.

Once, when I was a child, I fought with a member of my family – my father, I think. I said something to him that, upon further reflection, lying in bed, I could not forgive myself for. This was my first experience of real remorse, and it came hard. I remember looking out at the street lamp from my bedroom window, and weeping, and feeling that I was lost. That it was over. I could never forgive myself.

Something happened. Something transcendent and amazing. Before I could console myself, I was consoled. And I stopped crying. It came from outside myself as surely as if my mother had come in the door in her white cotton nightgown and rocked me in her arms. I was forgiven. And then suddenly it was easy to forgive myself. This experience determined my understanding of God until I was 23. God had forgiven me.

I sensed in my heart that it was this moment – the importance of this moment – that could pull my life’s attention and give it meaning. I knew that only traveling towards this All-Forgiving One would satisfy my trajectory in any real way. Other hungers had their places and would be satisfied. But my thirst, my love, my traveling towards God could never be quenched, or trumped, or completed. This was why I admired the Muslims in my life so much. I may not have understood why they did what they did – I may have even disapproved. But they knew where they were going, and I was traveling without a map. Without a compass. Without a concept of the cardinal directions.

I try to think about why I’ve been blessed with this. With faith. I feel truly undeserving. I look around at other people in my life – good people. I don’t mean that in a bland, not-doing-harm way. I mean people who are devoted to the action of good. I know these people. They are trying to make the world a better place – often more than I am. And I talk to them about Islam sometimes, and they’re not interested. Which amazes me. Like really dumbfounds me. An early Muslim once said that if those who did not believe in God knew what happiness the Muslims held in their hearts, they would take up arms against them in an effort to win it – as though it were booty. Hearing this always makes me smile, because I’ve been in both states. If I had known what I was missing before coming to Islam, I would have tackled the nearest Muslim in the middle of the street and begged him or her to teach me what I needed to know in order to enter the religion. But that was it – before I was here, I didn’t know where here was. I didn’t know what sweetness faith held. How could I want something I didn’t know existed? They say faith has a fragrance – and those who feel attracted to Islam by meeting Muslims catch a faint whiff of it in their interactions. This was my experience. I smelled something lovely – I wanted to taste it. I have – I do. And now, now that I know, I taste, I see, I hear, I love, I feel what Islam is…if anyone took it from me (which, thank God, they can’t), I would take up a sword to get it back. Thank God there’s not a limited quantity. Whoever wants is welcome – and that is God’s bounty.

I can think of one instance that would explain why I came to Islam. One.

At times, Prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of God be upon him) would put something God had said in his own words. One of the things God tells us in this way is, “Whoever comes with a good deed will be given ten times its worth or more so, and whoever comes with an evil deed will be recompensed its worth or I will forgive it. Whoever draws near to Me a handspan, I will come to him the extent of a forearm. Whoever draws near to Me the length of a forearm, I will come to him the length of two outstretched arms. Whoever comes to Me walking, I will come to him at speed. And whoever comes to Me with the Earth’s weight in sin without associating anything with Me, I will come to him with forgiveness of equal measure.” [Sahîh Muslim]

I came an inch towards God, and was rewarded with something more precious than anything else in the world. I remember it well. I shared a bottle of wine with a friend. I drank most of it. I’m a small person; I was fairly drunk. Intoxication can bring forward our basest desires – it often did mine – but this time, I was stripped of the inhibition I usually felt in talking about faith. I admitted that I wanted a relationship with God. I wanted to pray in a community. I didn’t feel at home in church. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to be close to God, but was hopeless that I could effect this change in my life. I said it all aloud, to a friend who couldn’t relate. I cried. And that was it.

Islam came from the ether and pierced my heart clean through. I didn’t go searching for it. Converts often take a deliberate survey of some of the world’s religions before settling on Islam, but that was not me. I did nothing else. It entered my heart slowly, unnoticed (I would have fought the impulse, I think, otherwise). It got to the point where a Muslim friend of mine sat me down and said, “Liz, look – I think you’re Muslim.” And I was. I took my formal shahada within twenty-four hours. [literally, shahada means witness, but it is also the name of the statement one utters to formally enter the religion: I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.]

And so God rewards the sincere. And I was sincere only for a moment – and an intoxicated one at that. That was all it took – and the world was new.

So there’s hope for the hopeless, after all. God is waiting to give us what we truly want – but out of forbearance, will not force it upon us. If we want, if we confess the desire – if we ask, He is waiting to bless us.

This is a blip.

This is what I tell myself: this is a blip. This can’t possibly be permanent.

There is no way that my professional career is over, kaput, at the age of twenty-five. Being out of work is temporary; it must be. I’m too well-educated, too smart, too young for it to be otherwise. It can’t possibly be that studying abroad in a non-degree program, followed by six months of unemployment, will be prohibitive to my gainful employment forever. There simply is no way. This doesn’t happen now. I can’t be pigeon-holed into obscurity and idleness yet. Right?

Loneliness. This too is something I will laugh at later. The convert, especially the late one, has the special privilege of feeling out-of-place and different in every situation. I am an outsider, an unknown, a minority, a mystery, to the people I grew up with, the people with whom I have all but one thing in common. And among born Muslims, there is so much running just under the bridge of my spoken words, a whole world of experience that is unknown, a whole landscape full of my regrets, my hopes, that is simply untouchable. They talk about things they dream of, new things, pure, untouched, unknown, and I’m thinking: I miss that. Or: It’s not worth it. You think you want that, but you don’t. More trouble than it’s worth. The recollection, the extra conversation I have with myself, is sweet, it is bitter, and I’m looking around for someone who knows, and there are no knowing eyes to meet mine. Alone in a crowded room.

It takes time to enter fully into a new community, and really there is no complete knowing another person. Does my mother wish that she could introduce me to her own twenty-five-year old self? Does it fill her with melancholy that at twenty-five, she still hadn’t met my father? Is it strange that most of the people in her life then are gone from it now? I doubt these are things that plague her – and yet, I don’t really know. Perhaps this happens to everyone, and the extremities of my own experience only give me the illusion that I’m the only one. I’m not the only one with a past. I’m not the only one whose social circle has shifted completely in her twenties. So what makes me think I’m so different? That I have more extravagant stories? That makes me feel older than I actually am – like there are two generations encompassed in my life. Two lives lived. I can say things like: In my wilder days…and I don’t say it often, but the fact that I can, and it would make sense for me to, sometimes makes me feel like a bit of a grandmother. You wouldn’t believe it of me, kids, but when I was your age I used to…

And then there is my constant affliction of underachievement. My brother, who is nearly two years my junior, is fluent in a foreign tongue, is on a Fulbright scholarship, and is nearly halfway through a Master’s degree. And is happily married (may God increase their happiness!). And there is me…the family diletante and court jester, theater-dance-biology-literature-politics-Islam-journalism enthusiast [note: scholar of none of the aforementioned fields]. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll do something. I’ll accomplish something. I’ll do my father proud. These are the things I tell myself in my day-to-day incompetence. Someday. Someday soon, too. I sit and watch people, people with fields of study and cultivated interests, people who have not only chosen but taken a path, and my skin prickles a little with jealousy. Just a little. I tell myself my ship has yet to sail. It’s not that there isn’t a ship. I’m just doing extra polishing. I’m thorough. I’m preparing. I’m cocooned. In just a moment I’ll emerge as a gorgeous butterfly, and then I won’t care that anyone else did it before me…

And I am hopelessly underfaithful. This is my biggest and most pressing problem. No one is promised tomorrow. I live and pray in fear of never achieving life’s only worthwhile accomplishment: closeness to my Creator. Thankfulness for my blessings. Sincere worship. I know – in my head, I know that nothing else will matter to me in my grave. I know it, but my heart has yet to ingest and implement this knowledge. Bowing in prayer, I attempt to be aware of the fact that, God willing, come the Day of Rising, I’ll be bowing before the Magnificent, the One I have worshiped lovingly all my life. I try to imagine how real that bow will be, how deep and meaningful – how fulfilling…and the same feeling I’m imagining – of urgency, of I spent my life preparing for this, I am afraid to say, does not permeate my prayer. I hope and pray that these things will get better…I imagine myself a better person, a better daughter and friend, a better sister and aunt, a better Muslim. There’s hope for me. I’ll get there. I go about doing dishes, feeding my cat, ironing and pinning my scarves, dimly aware of the fact that saints have tread this earth, and every moment was thankfulness, nothing was petulant, that in reality, they were in love – with God. They looked at their families and the people they loved, at their homes and jobs and property, at themselves, and instead of wanting more and more, instead of being laterally in the space of love, they took it up. They upped the ante. They were aware of the blessing and its Bestower all at once. And that was enough – it was more than enough – their lives inspired real devotion. I am only scraping the surface. I am thankful, but it is far too easy for me to forget that my life was given to me. I forget that I, too, am a creation, and have no claim on my Creator. It’s as though someone has handed me the keys to a shiny new Prius for no reason at all, just because, just out of love, and I’m upset because it’s not a Jaguar. I mean, who cares? Who do I think I am? Was there ever a perfect life?

Today’s lesson (and thank God for it, too): I went out to dinner with a couple of good friends, and the hostess at the restaurant was lovely, warm and nice. But her face, which was not unattractive, was completely lopsided. One side was scarred with obvious surgery, and it looked slightly pinched – as though her features had emanated from a point by her right ear. But she was friendly and completely unafraid, and quite beautiful because of it. I marveled at her. Here I sit – how many moments have I wasted fussing over every pimple, every slight imperfection – how much time have I spent searching for things on myself that didn’t meet my approval? How much time? God forgive me for every second I didn’t praise Him for every touch of beauty He gave me. What was I thinking? What did I want? What more could I have asked for? What would have been enough? Really. Insecurity is a bottomless pit. Nothing would have satisfied me. What foolishness.

The truth is, I don’t need for anything. I’m independent and mobile and self-determining. I’m free to pursue my interests as I wish. I have youth, and health, and faith, and a working mind, literacy and bookshelves of books, and more love and admiration for my friends than I could hope for. My parents love me and are in good health. I have three lovely siblings, the best sister-in-law in the world, and a cat that chirps like a velociraptor.

Meow.

I want things from life. Sure. That’s human. There is a beauty to wanting, to hope. But my fault is in allowing that to distract me from what’s there. How stupid I would feel if tomorrow I were paralyzed, or diagnosed with a serious illness. I would have missed the opportunity to recognize my blessings while I could still enjoy them. Would I feel cheated? I hope not. I hope that I can want things – a proper job, to be known, to become accomplished in some field, to feel close to God and thankful for my blessings – without feeling entitled to them. I feel that is missing the point. I don’t deserve any more than the next person. Who am I to claim a larger share of employment, of wealth, of health, of beauty, or faith, knowing that we are both creations, and that our bodies, personalities, abilities and hearts have been bestowed upon us just as our external circumstances and material possessions have? Have I a greater claim to anything? Surely not. But I forget. Again and again, I forget.

Remind me, forgive me. Mostly forgive me.

(for Nuha.)