Hot hipster lovin’

Saturday morning in a Somerville cafe: in stroll the hipsters. They come for the open doors, the walls covered in art, the outdoor patio and killer fritattas…who knows why they come? Maybe they just happen to be the people living within a stone’s throw of The Biscuit, our favorite closes-too-early-because-of-course-I-forgot-I-live-in-Boston spot. Anyway, in they stroll in their unwashed-hair, unmatching-in-a-surprisingly-fashionable-way splendor.

Raise your hand if you don't want to be one of the people in this picture...didn't think so.

I’m trying not to notice these gum-chewing displays of companionable affection and discipline myself into reading a novel that I am not enjoying one bit. People-watching proves to be the far more compelling pastime (why do I end up feeling like every time I read a novel translated into English it’s full of unnecessarily exhibitionistic excalamations of premature emotion?), and Snow gets ignored, sitting closed by my cooling coffee.

The most obviously in love couple takes the table next to me (!) before they place their orders. After doing so, these two chat about some common project on their (shared?) overgrown Mac. He leans over as if to kiss her cheek – doesn’t – and whispers something in her ear.

I start to think about this. At work, we’ve just finished a house meeting campaign, which basically means that we’ve gone around and asked hundreds of people who are part of the Boston Muslim community what issues they’re facing. These were both among the top issues:

1. getting married (as in, we’re having trouble doing it)

2. staying married (as in, we’re having trouble doing it)

And looking at all these hipsters, I’m wondering if a little of this relaxed, companionable inloveness ain’t what we’re missing.

Now one could argue that any non-Muslim model is, for a lot of reasons, not the appropriate model for Muslim relationships. I’m going to ignore that whole side of it for now, hoping you’ll forgive me – as I explore What the Hipsters Have and We Don’t.

Speaking with some of my (not that much older) married friends, these are prominent commentaries on marriage (slash advice):

1. People think that married people don’t get lonely. Married people are often really lonely.

2. Dishes. Every day. Be prepared to do them. And be prepared that he won’t.

3. You should be picky, because this is the man you’re going to obey for the rest of your life.

Fantastic! Where do I sign up?

And then I’m looking around me at all the marriageable people, and I’m thinking, No freaking wonder we’re still single. I mean, here we are, for better or worse, completely immersed in a culture that not only prizes romantic love very highly, but displays it prominently – both in person and in the media. I don’t need Disney to form a warped, idealistic picture of romance – I have the hipsters hanging out together in my neighborhood cafe. So we’re trapped – maybe not unpleasantly – in a world in love, surrounded by a bunch of married Muslims who are either not in love with each other, or who don’t show us that they’re in love with each other because they consider it to be inappropriate.

I’m not asking for people to start making out with each other outside of Eid prayers or anything. That would be kind of gross. But, like, a little something? Like holding hands with each other, maybe, or the occasional smile from across the room as though you share a private joke? That would be nice. That would make the rest of us maybe find marriage a more attractive state – not some sort of elaborately disguised prison.

The conventional wisdom goes: romantic love does not last; therefore, it’s an illogical and doomed reason to get married. Better to marry for the sake of common values and a synchornicity in thinking about gender roles within marriage and how Islam should be practiced/Muslim kids should be raised – 10 years later you’ll thank us.

I would counter with, “What about the Obamas?”…But I’ll admit that they are the exception and not the rule. So this may very well be sage advice. Nevertheless, I’m not positive that it’s responding – or suitable – to our cultural milieu. It may very well be unwise, but Muslim kids grow up watching their peers fall in love again and again – Muslims see people around them in love all the time. The common cultural narrative goes like this: boy meets girl in some sort of meet-cute, they exchange some pleasant witticisms and then numbers – or maybe they friend each other on Facebook first (baby steps), then they agree under some pretense to meet for coffee (perhaps they happen to be reading the same book, which one of them only read because the other was reading it…), they flirt, they walk to some other destination (someone’s class? The bus stop? He walks her home?), navigate the awkward first goodbye (are we kissing or hugging?) but not before making plans to see each other again. They meet a second time – in the evening, so as to make looking hot and kissing more plausible, have a surprisingly wonderful time, and end the night with a kiss, which could initiate a love affair that may or may not involve brunch at the local cafe, much to the Muslim next door’s chagrin – and, if everyone’s amenable and things go well, could very well end in marriage, kids, and a plot at the local community garden.

And…apart from the kissing, etc. pre-marriage, what’s wrong with this picture? Are we telling ourselves to want something we can’t want?

I feel like we might be approaching it like this: the married community (to the extent that such a thing exists) is telling the unmarried community, “This [i.e. romantic love] is what’s broken in your culture [self].” So we’re supposed to want to get married for very practical reasons: to have a family, to have religious support, to not sin. But I don’t think that’s why we really want to get married. We’d like to be swept off our feet by an experience that makes us feel like taking on responsibility and adulthood with this person will feel less of a burden, and maybe even fun – we want to lose sense of ourselves, to desire someone – hopefully for deep and shallow reasons, we’d like to come across a person who makes us feel like all this waiting we’ve done is insignificant, erased, by the pleasure of his/her company. We’d like our minds to be blown – and eventually think about a family, support each other, happily not-sin together.

It’s not that we’d like to marry someone with terrible character and a tendency to shirk responsibility. It’s that we don’t want it to be just choosing not-that. Who wants to end up in Charlotte’s marriage to Mr. Collins?

Practical? Very. Into each other? ...I rather think not.

Now, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy? There’s a better model. The beauty of this fictional match is that neither partner compromised on the ideal character of their imagined beloved – they both dreamed of marrying refined, interesting people of superb character. Perhaps Elizabeth imagined herself with someone a tad more outgoing, and Mr. Darcy imagined himself with someone a tad more rich – but these things are not the glue that holds people together. They loved and respected each other, and with good reason. And no surprise, happy ending there.

I like this much better. Much.

Why should we be trying to fit ourselves into a box that…doesn’t fit? If we want to love our spouses, I mean – isn’t that okay – isn’t it desirable? It only needs to be tempered with some sort of reasonable wisdom or reason – of course it’s possible to be infatuated with, a person who is all kinds of wrong for you. Of course. It happens all the time. But that is very different than feeling deeply in love with a person you respect and admire, and therefore want to spend your every day with. Maybe he doesn’t rake leaves, and maybe she’s not so on top of the dishes, or the laundry, or whatever. But I’d so much rather do without a few of the teeny little chore expectations I had and have someone I actually like spending time with. Isn’t that what marriage is? Time? I’d so much rather enjoy it.

So I think it’s hot hipster lovin’ or bust. This transactional nonsense has got to go, dig? Can’t nobody defenestrate that but us, one lovemonkey marriage at a time. Ready?

Coming home, take 473

I’m sitting on a plane that left from Detroit at an indecent hour. Having left an immoderately bright morning behind us, we are descending into a dreary midday sky over Boston. I am crooking my neck over the two slumbering figures between me and the oval window, which is finally showing us the grey-navy bay water and some pentagonal memorial-looking stone structure. I blush, reminded yet again of what a horrible Bostonian I am. I don’t go to Red Sox games, I’ve never been to Walden Pond, and then there’s this new something that I have yet to visit and admire. We sink shakily, and I feel like my spine has wrapped it’s arms around my belly button and is squeezing. It’s the same thing I feel when I meet people whose books I have read wonderingly, the same thing I used to feel in junior high when a boy I wasn’t sure liked me looked at my lips. It is magnified on the plane, accompanied by my breathy la ilaha ila Allah‘s. But the delightful-scary sensation isn’t caused only by the plane playing hopscotch on the wind. I’m excited to come home. Then I realize what I have just thought: home.

For years, maybe ever since high school, whenever I have come back to the place I am most rooted in at the moment, I have always thought about it like this: I’m going back to New York. I’m back in Amherst. I’m returning to Cairo. Everywhere, including Boston, has been the place that I happen to be living at the moment. I haven’t lived – that is, haven’t placed my bed – in any one room for more than nine months at a time since I was seventeen. That was nine years ago. Nothing has felt solid. It was all slipping through my fingers all the time, and this too might be slipping, but at the moment I’m ignoring that possibility. Suddenly, magically, Boston has become my home.

Few things can compare to the shivery thrill of the familiar. The beauty of this particular pleasure is so rare. New, bright and shiny things have an easy time fascinating us. But when you find yourself peculiarly enthralled by, say, your toaster, as opposed to the new iPhone sitting on your desk – that is a special moment.

Oh, how I love thee. Let me count the toasty mornings...

Now, I know that I have an unreasonable tendency to romanticize anything and everything that could possibly be construed as wholesome or New Englandy. Let’s leave that aside for the moment. Because what I want to say is this: what is familiar, known, comfortable already, the love of these types of things offers us a comfort incomparable to what is new and exciting.

This is what is easy: it is easy to fall in love with the new curve of a soft cheek, the sharp green smell of a new jacket, the inevitably surprising softness of a new hand. This is what is difficult: to hold hands for the 857th time and feel your heart jump a little, the priviledge of being beloved, and companionably touched, by this person still impossible to take for granted. To fall in love is no achievement. To stay in love? A feat of wonder.

You knew I was going to do that.

Of course, I’m as clueless as everyone else (except, apparently, our darling President and his lovely wife) when it comes to the actual realization of this feeling with another person. Generally, I am enamored more of the old than the new. I’m hoping this is a good start. But I’ve found myself changing, as well – where I used to think that I would never manage to be anything other than a die-hard country bumpkin, I find myself more and more unable to imagine living in Amherst again – or any place like it. I have started to enjoy the smallness of the city and its possibility, the thrill of meeting someone at my local cafe and then realizing as I walk home that we live on the same street. I find that there is something peculiarly enjoyable in having so much access to so much life by foot and bike, and in passing so many people on the street. I used to think that there was nothing I would trade for the pleasant, breezy solitude of an aimless country drive – but I find now that a stroll by the river or through residential streets with a friend is preferable.

It is not the promise of newness that the city offers me. The city is, in most ways, just as mundane as the country. We have routines just as those in the suburbs do. We have circles of people we are used to seeing, grocery stores we visit, the baristas that can greet us by name. I don’t attend every lecture or exhibit; I am not persistently aware that the next person walking through the door of my office could be someone I’ve never met before – I don’t live my days in anticipation.

What is it? Perhaps Boston has bred into me a love of rotaries and an endless supply of unnamed streets – or the Irish-y tendency to nickname places with the most endearing possible epithet: Southie, JP, Dot. As though the places are good childhood friends.

Maybe it was only a matter of time, and no matter where I had laid my head for most of the years since graduation it would have been the same. Perhaps I could have felt the same way about Cairo, or L.A., had I remained in either place. Perhaps it was a matter of knowledge and connectedness; I know more Boston history (what could be more charming than a whole sprawl of roads built on cow paths?) than any other place – excepting maybe Amherst. And then there is that so many of those I admire and wish to emulate have at least passed through this city: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Barack Obama, Louisa May Alcott, Emerson, Thoreau, William James, Malcolm X, Jhumpa Lahiri.

It could also be my stubbornness. It might be easy to love Florida, with her sunny promises, or L.A., because she flirts with fame – or even the slick, forward New York, all gaunt limbs and labels. But Boston, who has given us so many people that make us proud to be American, whose people do ridiculous things like throwing tea into the ocean and naming walls in ballparks ‘The Green Monstah,’ what of her? Maybe we could use some more street signs; perhaps we could do without a Bertucci’s or Cheesecake Factory here and there. Perhaps we’d have more good, old-fashioned summertime fun if we didn’t risk serious infection by dipping a toe into the Charles – but really, where’s the excitement in that?

I don’t need things to be so easy, so sunny, so sophisticated. The New Englander in me recoils a bit from these things – the moment I decided I couldn’t stay in L.A., I was watching a nipped-and-tucked woman draped in gold lamé and skin-tight everything shuffle into a hippie-vegan brunch spot in stilletos. On a Saturday. I don’t want to be that stylish – or primped – I just want to eat my organic tofu scramble in my jammies, thankyouverymuch. I mean, what are Saturday mornings for?

Seriously?...like, in the daytime?

Ultimately, I suppose, this feeling continues to be a mystery. And now that I am so close (less than five months – and counting) to maybe-leaving Boston, it feels more present – and more precious. What is it to be home? To love a thing?

Muppie takes the Fifth.

Sage advice

The more concerned members of my family, who would like to see me happy and settled, and have a less intimate knowledge of the Moslems, occasionally pipe up to give me some love advice. This being:

Dear Liz,

If you want to marry a pious Muslim, stop yapping about your male childhood friends hugging you on your blog. Also, never ever ever mention that you have “a past.” Also never talk about your screw-ups. The pious Muslim men won’t have it and will think you’re some sort of libertine. And maybe you are. Regardless, bottle it up and shut up about it. The Christians accept you for who you are, because, you know, we’re very reasonable people, but you know how small-minded Muslims are. So please do yourself a favor, and become someone you’re not. Or at least pretend to be someone else. Until after the wedding. Then, good luck living up to the lie! Protestantism is always here for you, should you ever tire of the charade.

Love always,

your loving family

Needless to say, I haven’t taken their advice. Why? Well, I’ve tried. Boy did I try. I tried to be what I imagined everyone would want, and I tried to ignore the pieces of me that you might not expect. I tried to ignore the fact that I’m a convert, and American, and that the culture I grew up with is very different from the subculture in which I now find myself. I tried. And it kind of backfired.

We all have our struggles, and I’m not saying that this (i.e. Islam) is supposed to be a piece of cake. It’s not. Talk to any convert. Forget that, actually – talk to anyone. What you’ll hear from almost everyone, in one way or another, is this: I wouldn’t have it any other way. But sometimes it’s so difficult I fear I’m about to bust something.

We’re all Muslim because we choose to be. Lord knows that the easier and infinitely more convenient thing to do in this society is give it up – give up the prayer, fasting, your beard, covering your hair, no gambling, no drinking, no dating, no sex. We don’t do those things because it’s fun. We do them because we’re committed to something greater than ourselves, because we want to travel towards and not away from God throughout the course of our lives, because we believe that within struggle lies growth. Like, you can’t become patient if you get everything you want the second that you want it. You’ve gotta wait sometimes. Like that.

Thing is, I do all that stuff (minus growing a beard, of course). By most people’s standards, I’m considered very conservative – even by my own family (see very disconcerting advice above). But my family, and occasionally the Muslims around me, keep warning me (between telling me that I’m CRAZY conservative like those loony fundos) that I’m too liberal. Too liberal for the hardcore fundos out there – and we all know that that’s precisely what all of the practicing Muslims are – but not what you might call a “progressive” Muslim.

Which leaves me……where?

Eeny meeny miney, community?

The bizarre thing (I find) is that some converts are able to cast off their “past lives” with total disregard. It’s like the first twenty/thirty/forty/whatever years of their lives disappear into the ether and they’re the first ones to forget about it. And I’m sitting there….wondering how. It’s not that I’m stuck in my past – it’s not that I romanticize it (Ah, the days I used to do haram things! If only I could go back!). It’s that I want to be able to admit that it’s there, and develop naturally, and without cultural amnesia. Is that so much to ask?

Sometimes I’m asking this of the community, and sometimes I’m asking it of individuals. I was at the local mosque last night, and there was a scene that recalled my early days in Islam all too well:

There was a girl laying on the floor waiting for prayer. Two women sat on either side of her. She was bright-eyed and asking a lot of questions: What do I say after the adhan? What do I do when _____ happens?

An Egyptian woman was answering her inquiries. Every sentence she spoke to this newbie began with one of two words: do or say. And I’m listening to her and thinking: You’re teaching this girl like you have a Ph.D. in prayer and you’re mispronouncing your “tha”. It’s atheem, not azeem.

Now there’s nothing wrong with this unloading of advice per se. It’s all kindly meant, and most converts (myself included) do arrive at the mosque with roughly a billion questions every other day. But still. Don’t cram it down her throat like that. Write it down. One thing at a time. Leave her wanting more, not feeling dizzy with information she can’t hope to remember – and doesn’t understand.

Here’s what I want: I want someone to say to her: Hi, salaam alaykum, welcome to the community.

How are you?

Anything I can help you out with?

How are things going for you? How is your faith? How is your family? How are your friends?

Can I grab you some tea?

So here’s what I did: I introduced myself. I said welcome into the fold, gave her my number, took hers, prayed maghrib next to her, and told her that I had to leave to give a friend a ride, but that she should never hesitate to call me at three in the morning. I told her that I’ve been Muslim for two and a half years. And sometimes it’s rough. And I get it.

The trouble is that with all of our fussing over the newbies learning all the “right” things (most of which, mind you, are not required by the religion), we teach them a thousand things a minute, tell them what to do and what not to do, and then wonder why they get overwhelmed, or why they haven’t been to the mosque in a while. There’s no real effort to get to know them. It’s not like, hey let’s go grab coffee and chat cuz we’re sisters now, it’s like, perfect yourself perfect yourself perfect yourself. Yesterday! There is no subtlety in dealing with the converts. NONE.

Maybe the right answer lies somewhere in between my way of dealing with this girl and the other woman’s. I’m not sure, honestly – I’m figuring this out as I go. But what I want is to not be imposed upon by another culture. I want to be Muslim, but not Egyptian. Or Pakistani. Or Turkish. Because I’m none of those things. I want to be Muslim and white, and for that to be my  identity. I’m Irish and Polish. I’ll be teaching my kids to pray and making them golumpkis for dinner, thankyouverymuch. I’ll teach them thikr, hopefully pronounced correctly (God willing), and read Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson with them – and Al-Ghazali. Because they will own all those things, and they should be able to. They should be proud of that. Not all of the ideas, art, and culture borne out of the Anglo-Saxons is bad. It is not all to be rejected. It is to be refined.

To be honest, I stayed away from Islam for a long time because I thought: square peg, round hole. Because I was a dancer, and a singer, and a theater chick – where was I going to put all that stuff? Three years later, I’m discovering that I can put them in a blog, in speaking, in poetry readings. But it took that long. And you know what? I hate to say it. It’s the community’s fault. We’re all so obsessed with the deen beauty contest that we forget that people grow, and it takes time to come into your own, and that’s okay.

So that’s why I put it here, I guess. It’s half declaration of identity-independence, and half prayer. I want to be able to say: I have a story, and not have everyone balk at it. Because you know what? If you can’t handle someone with a story, then you can’t handle converts. The fact that people come into this religion is purely the mercy of God – because the Muslims certainly don’t make it very easy for them. The Muslims make it so hard to be Muslim that converts’ family members tell them to hush up. Doesn’t that strike anyone else as extreme?

And maybe they’re right. Maybe I am making it harder for myself. Maybe some really great, really conservative guy who would otherwise be interested in me is reading this and thinking: never mind. You know what? So be it. Even if I didn’t have a blog, this is still who I am. And it’s not going to go away, no matter how much I don’t talk about it. And when I do find the guy for me, God willing, I want him to accept me for who I am – past, flaws, virtues, talents, quirks, all of it. What’s the point, otherwise? If you have to become someone else to be loved, then you’re not really being loved – someone else, some other identity that you’ve put on, like an outfit – that’s what is being loved. And nobody wants that, including me. I want to be loved, or bust. No masks, no pretending. And I’ll wait as long as it takes.

Slowly, oh so slowly, I’m finding people who love me just as I am, and still help me to be better – but don’t try to make me into someone else entirely. And it’s more cheering than I can possibly say. We buoy each other up, we laugh together, we protect each other, we encourage each other – but never absolutely, never with an iron fist. And isn’t that the way of our beloved Prophet, may the peace and blessings of God be upon him? Who was gentler? Who loved people more? Who accepted people more? Did he (pbbuh) teach the Muslims their religion in one day? Did he (pbbuh) ask Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him) to become a different man, once he came to Islam? No. The Prophet (pbbuh) asked Umar to use his talents and his personality in the service of the religion. And that was all. If that was all we were asked by the community – love what you love, be who you are, and when you can, do those things in the service of your Lord and this community – my goodness, what a relief that would be.

What my family asserts, or sees, about the community, isn’t wrong. They see us all “starched up into seeming piety” (Mansfield Park, I can’t help myself) and wonder how authentic it is, and see – quite rightly – that there’s no room for WASPs/WASMs (read: White Anglo-Saxon Muslims). My family doesn’t want to deal with all of the cultural/social/emotional confusion and pain my brother and I went through – and who can blame them? Are we really all that welcoming, if we ask everyone to be instantly different from the moment they convert? Where is our patience with people? Where is our love for each other?

What I’m hoping is that we’re moving towards a happier balance. I think we are. My brother changed his name when he came to Islam, but by the time I followed seven years later, he advised me not to (resulting in something I like to call “Lizzy pride.” I love that someone with my name introduces herself in hijab. I have such a WASP name, and I’m so Muslim. Surprise!). The struggles of the converts in the 70s, 80s, and 90s were much greater than ours. So there’s hope, I think – for the girl in the mosque yesterday, and for me. There’s hope that I can admit that I struggle, and I can sound off on my insights into the community that are inevitably through the lens of my past (both Muslim and before), and that yes, when I see the guys I’ve known since third grade and love like brothers (and who know me better than some of my family) hug me, I don’t shove them off rudely, screaming, For shame! I don’t touch boys anymore. It’s called chastity, you lecher. And that despite all that, I have friends – and hopefully, God willing, I’ll have a best-friend-roommate-husband who will love me because/despite it all.

And then I will say: I told you so. Until then, here’s my line:

It’ll all turn out all right in the end.

How will it, you say?

I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Something else entirely

Very often this happens: I start to write about something. An event, maybe. An idea. And then three-quarters of the way through, or even after I’m done, I realize that I was writing about something else the entire time. Usually the something else is loneliness.

I’m not really sure what to say about it. We all feel it, and yet we can’t seem to solve it for each other, which puzzles me a great deal. It seems that things get confused, like my writing. We think we want one thing, but after we get it we discover that we wanted something else entirely. Back to square one, a new post, a new project, a new something, chasing something else. And then the refinement of that. And so on.

I think the loneliest time in my life was probably during junior high. I had kind of a clique in elementary school, but it busted wide open in seventh grade, spilling its contents in different classes, separate hallways and lunchtimes, and a wide range of rungs on the social ladder. I landed somewhere near the middle-bottom. I think. No way of really knowing.

Here’s what junior high is like:

1. All the same people are cool. There is some predefined coolness that is unchangeable and unknowable until you get there. There is not a lot of room for originality, unless you want to totally give up and embrace becoming an outcast. Few people have the courage to do this early on. It usually takes a couple of years of swimming in pointless circles.

2. All of the people – cool, uncool, pretty, unpretty – have crushes on the cool people. Now this is interesting. The cool people aren’t necessarily the prettiest. They’re not necessarily the most accomplished. They’re not necessarily interesting, but the people who have crushes on them don’t know this, because they’ve never actually spoken before. These crushes are feelings borne of wallflower moments at school dances where one person seems to shine or appears immoderately happy, out of imagined intimacy when one arm brushes another in the hall, out of the aura, the mystique, created by the fatal combination of distance, new, overgrown desires, and active imaginations.

3. Everyone wants to be cool, but no one is sure why. There is some social currency in popularity , but it’s not clear what it will get you. Maybe a boyfriend on the JV basketball team. But maybe not. Nobody knows, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

4. The psyches of barely-not-children are pretty trampled on the way to the top. Example: I once had my two best friends bring me to the Guidance Counselor’s office (who, keep in mind, is there to reign in reason and protect the sanity of the innocent) to tell me that they couldn’t be such good friends with me anymore, because I wasn’t cool enough. That’s right. That was the only reason. They were magnanimous; they would let me say hi to them in the hallways. But no more weekend sleepovers. It was over.

Time passes, and a few things happen:

Sometime in high school, or college, depending on where you’re at, you realize that all the hullabaloo is a sham. The cool people are bland. Or you realize that the girl who sits next to you in homeroom is actually prettier. Or you develop some interest that allows you to interact with people in a way that isn’t based on mutual advantage. Like, you like the same things. Hey! Who thought of that as the basis for a friendship? Genius.

You become interested in and interesting to the people who are like you. It’s not really based on prettiness anymore, or status. It becomes about whole people, and this is totally refreshing. And affirming. The rate of rejection is relatively low, which, you know, ROCK, plus you actually enjoy your time more. No surprise there, but it still seems like a novel idea.

You realize that this obsession with popularity is a blip. It’s a stage. It’s developmental. Children have wholesome friendships, and so do adults, but somewhere in the middle there we lose all sense and fly at each other like dogs – and there is only one bone, and it is golden, and it is called The Perfect Social Life. But you have to rediscover either that it doesn’t exist or that there are a million different versions, once you enter the world of See and Be Seen. Because then, it’s not only about who or what you like. It’s about the consensus about who and what you like. And you can’t escape the pressure cooker of public school, so you get all twisted up faster than you can untie yourself.

Which brings me to the latent effects of this syndrome in the Muslim population. It is sad for me to say it, but some of us are kind of still in junior high. Every girl wants to marry the MSA president (or, if the MSA president is a girl, vice versa). Every boy wants to marry the prettiest girl he has spied out of the corner of his eye in the musallah. Which, you know, to each his own, but (and convert alert here, I’m coming at this from the outside) these impulses seem to miss the point that marriage is about soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more than the ability to give a good speech, or really great recitation, or good looks. Those things, frankly, don’t matter much when it comes to being happy in a relationship (don’t say I didn’t warn you). When was the last time you gave a speech in your kitchen? And let’s face it, people – we’re all going to age. Have you ever seen a beautiful old person? That beauty is from character, and wisdom, and goodness – good genes give way to wrinkles eventually. Now, I’m not advocating for marrying someone who doesn’t appeal to you at all…I’m just saying that when it comes to domestic bliss, in all respects, and thank you for not making me spell that out, a lot more comes into play than a pretty face. I mean, we’re talking roommate for life, God willing. Not only is this person going to share your kitchen, and your bathroom, and bicker with you over window dressings, but you have to share a bedroom, too. And a bed. And the covers. And trust me, you’re not going to care how hot she is if she won’t give you the blanket in January. Trust me. If you’re going to have no refuge from someone, have no refuge from an interesting someone. From a nice someone. From a merciful and loving and patient and kind someone. No refuge from a hot someone gets old pretty quick, if that’s his/her crowning virtue.

So let’s all make an effort to get along. Let’s be mavericks and throw middle school to the dogs! Let’s dig each other for the important things. Things that matter to us. Let’s be nuanced individuals, and be, like, interesting, and stuff. I mean, I know it’s hard, and you’ve all been good, and you feel like your kiss with the prom queen is ten years too late and you deserve it already, but overvaluing the transitory elements of people, allowing yourself to be guided by the intoxicating cocktail of an aching desire and a rich fantasy life, amounts to shooting yourself in the foot. And besides, what happened to the prom queen of your high school? Do you even know where she is now? Do you care? You see my point. Balance in all things. If middle school was raging, repressed hormones, and high school was discovering your angst, and college was finding your niche, be in college. Marry the girl/guy who likes pina coladas (virgin, goes without saying) and taking walks in the rain.

Sometimes I feel like I’m looking around at this plethora of lonely, awesome people, and I feel like: what is our problem? Can’t we hook up, already? It’s all most everyone wants. But nobody manages to pull it off. (Well – some do – and may God bless them all, and bless us poor single folk with the same happy fate! But not enough do it. Not nearly enough.) And I’m not sure this is the solution, but I figure I’ll throw it out there just in case. Fuel the brainstorm, you know. I’m nothing if not brazen. So here are my brave ‘n brazen two cents for the day: we need depth in our interaction, and nuance, and love. We need to let each other be a little quirkier, and embrace it. Join that knitting group! Or dig on your hopscotch! Or whatever it is, rock! Be it, and be it like whoa, and find other Muslims who will do it with you and support you and make you feel like a million bucks. And who knows? One of these days you might wake up and look at that brother you get along with like peas & carrots but just aren’t that into (he’s no Brad Pitt) and think: smokin’.

It’s been known to happen.

[Comments, please. Stop being so shy. For those of you who have already – thanks!]

The fragile familiar.

Familiar is: being crushed against a chest whose shape you have accidentally memorized over two decades of touching. Being so wrapped makes you think that you will melt, or at least never let go. Remembering yourself with a kiss on the cheek – there is something else to do: you have to be introduced to the friends.

Familiar is telling your mother to stop calling you to check on 1) whether or not you’ve met Mr. Right and 2) your new part-time job every day. Too much pressure for news. And then feeling terrible and wanting to talk to her, and calling back to apologize, and hearing her say: I don’t just call for news. I miss you. I want to hear your voice. And you telling her you can’t make a life out of no life, and her protesting that she is the one who doesn’t have a life, so she lives vicariously through your tiny one. And both of you ending up laughing at the race to entertain each other.

Familiar is the feeling of your niece’s small body relaxing against yours and twitching asleep to your hushed lullaby that is actually a pop song. The tiny sigh when she wakes up and looks at you like a stranger. Little hands wrapped around your neck, and kiss after tickling kiss on your collarbone. Balancing her few pounds on your hip in the kitchen. Her laugh when you hold her against you and waltz. Going down the stairs one at a time, down, down, down, stepping backwards, holding your coffee and her toy in one hand, and engulfing her gripping fingers in the other.

Familiar is the sound of your own voice rehearsing a speech you don’t want to give to someone who is not your friend, and after the speech never will be. Wanting to be wanted and knowing that you’re not. Familiar is realizing that disappointment, like elation, is nothing new. You have survived, and you will again. Your own thickening skin, wishing someone would come along who would make those callouses wither and fade. Knowing it’s a fairytale. Wanting it anyway.

Familiar is the curve of your lower lip left in lipstick on the ten-thousandth coffee cup you’ve drunk from, and piles of papers around you in your thirtieth favorite coffee shop. Late nights of drinking coffee and tea, staying up to write or read, and not caring, not knowing any other way to be. Wishing you were a morning person. Your mother worrying about you being out late alone at night. You worrying too, but reassuring her, because what are you supposed to do? Some nights you have to get out of the house. It’s too quiet in here.

Familiar is the loud clicking sound of your high heels on the street, and the embarrassment of coming home late yet again and making a racket on the tile floor of your apartment building when you walk in. Your silent sorry to the people who live by the mailboxes. Shushing your cat as you come in the door so she doesn’t wake your roommate.

Familiar is the dread in your throat when you get two missed calls in a row from your mother. Your first thought now is: either Grandpa or Dad is is the hospital. They both were, too recently. Familiar is your grandfather’s labored breathing, and his telling you you’re pretty, and hugging him every time as though it is the last – because it might be. Familiar is everyone asking how your father is, because they met him, and they worry about him too. Familiar is your father’s advice, no matter the ailment, to focus on work. You feeling annoyed with him when he says it, and thanking him half-heartedly, and then realizing later that you’ll miss those weird things about him when death separates you for a time. Feeling terrible for every undevoted moment, because you will miss it all. What bothered you most will be endearing in hindsight. Hating that you think about that so much.

Familiar is monitoring your own heartbeat inside your chest, and wondering what makes it go. That feeling of it overflowing with affection for the people who have known you for so long that when you do something, they say, of course you did: the people you trust, and are trusted by, despite differences and time apart and failed plans. The eyes of those people, how they look at you and know you. How nothing can take away how you used to tease each other on the bus, and compete, and how that eventually turned into some sort of bond. How seeing them is wonderful, because you can gush, and it doesn’t matter, because they already know. A guaranteed I love you, too.

This is the new part. You pull away and hear the news: a mutual friend’s father has died. Someone you both grew up with, familiar to both of you. One of you has been home for the funeral. You start to cry. You didn’t know the father, but suddenly he is yours, because you are all growing up together or apart and none of you can help it. Because you remember when the mutual friend was a boy, and you had a crush on him, and he had a crush on you back, and he yawned and slinked his arm around you during a slide show in the fourth grade, and you were both so vulnerable – because that boy’s father has died. Because the father wasn’t sick, you’re hearing, it was a fluke complaint at a physical, that led to tests, that led to surgery, that led to a coma, and waiting, and death. Because a fluke at a checkup caught something that almost killed your own father not six months ago. Because life is barreling ahead, and the eight-year-old you once met, and then knew, and grew up with, is standing before you: a man with a beard, looking in his pockets for a tissue because he feels bad that you’re crying. And you’re standing in front of him, a woman who feels like a girl and can’t help it, a woman who can’t get rid of her childlike heart that wants to wrap her small hands around a neck, and be rocked and sung to sleep by anyone whose touch she has accidentally memorized.

The wisdom of fools.

I’ve been neglecting my writing. Last week, I had the excuse of a midterm. This week, I am ashamed to say that my only reason for staying away was an inability to think about anything other than Jane Austen.

You see, I am jealous of Fanny Price.

Fanny has the good sense that no one around her seems to. At eighteen, she has the forbearance to consistently refuse the man pushed on her from all sides: her rich, benefactor uncle, the cousin she is in love with, her friends, her parents, and all her acquaintance together. He has been a libertine in the past; he tells her he has changed. She is the only one to not believe him, is cast out and called a fool. In the end, he runs away with her married cousin and vindicates her refusal.

It’s possible that I am Fanny’s opposite. I believe the things that people tell me, have faith in everyone’s ability to change (hey, I’m a convert – if not me, who?), and let optimism conquer reason without putting up much of a fight.

These would be admirable qualities indeed – in a world of people who spoke only the truth, changed all the things they intended to, and lived up to expectations. Sadly, this is not the case; disappointment abounds, and it is often mine.

I know many people who are not like this. My brother, for example. He is good and wise, and it seems that he was always so. He is purposeful and deliberate. People more than twice his age seek his advice. Whenever anyone meets the two of us, or hears me talk about him, that person always assumes he is the elder sibling. Always. The reverse is true. It is also true that I am often a fool – so the mistake is understandable.

I once found myself in a situation that was truly pitiful. I fell for a man who (surprise!) said he had changed, and talked about his ability to refine and improve himself a great deal. I was impressed by the commitment to improvement he was always chattering on about. What undaunted struggle! What courage!

What blindness.

My family dutifully raised their objections, as did my friends. All and every one. And I, the loyal lover, defended my man to the last. I defended my own flawed reasoning with logical dances I can’t hope to reinvent. My elaborate maneuverings of love were so impressive and impromptu that when family recounts them for me now, I’m aghast. Really? I said that? Idiot.

A funny thing happened amidst these objections. I noticed that I was unhappy in love.

It would be so great if this didn’t feel so mournful…

Unhappy in love is an unfortunate combination, and is fraught with danger. The danger is that one will say to oneself, I don’t care. I’d rather be with him than without, no matter how miserable I am. Perhaps even more perilous is the suggestion, It will get better. He’ll change. We’ll learn to get along.

I’m not sure why, or how, but remarkably and miraculously, neither of these tempting thoughts won out. I got out. I got out fast, and reflected later on all of the building evidence of my own unhappiness that I did not see at the time. The mounting pile in the corner that suggested, oh so massively, that the man I loved was not actually the one I was involved with, but an elaborate invention we had both spun out of hope and breath and forgiveness. It was so clear in retrospect.

Foresight? We’re fresh out. Try the hindsight store next door; bitterness is on sale, and self-loathing is half off.

I’m seven years older and a good deal more experienced in relationships than Fanny, so what gives? Why does her presence of mind elude me in all the most important ways, in all the most important moments?

This is what I was thinking as I was walking to the post office today. Why wasn’t I just born wise? What is the purpose of all this fumbling towards sense? Couldn’t I have been more like Abdullah? I would have been spared a good deal of false starts and heartaches.

Then I thought: Because I’m a writer. Because I’m a writer, I was born a well-meaning, good-hearted, foolish girl. Because I’m a writer, I have some comic foibles that entertain more than myself. Because I’m a writer, there is a path to wisdom. If it had been easy, there would have been no story to tell. There would have been no point in speaking. If I were all alone, the Buddha on the mountaintop (to steal from Reality Bites), there would be no one up there to relate to me, and no benefit to all my wisdom. Because I’m down here mucking it out, I get to tell stories that are also, on occasion, lessons. It is a peerless joy, purpose. I can say, Here is point A: silliness. If you want to get to point B, which is marginally less foolish, I have recently discovered the secret to doing so, and it is X.

Actually, it is Islam, but that’s a little tangential.

My current suggestion is to read Mansfield Park. It is an incomparable study on patience, modesty, and the will of God making things turn out all right in the end. It still shocks me. Every time! It all turns out all right. Sometimes we just have to ride out the rough wave of sticktoitidness. Definitely holding to your principles is key. Holding to your romanticism, or your faith in the fancy promises of others…not always a great idea.

I know. I read it in a novel once.

 

Yours always, with awkwardness.

I’ve been thinking about my Atonement post, and I think I’ve hit on something.

People often wonder with wide wonderment why Muslims court in the awkward and roundabout way that we do. I won’t deny it. It’s a bit strange; it has always seemed so to me. Please allow me to elaborate.

“I know, I hate that line…..for real, though, can I text you sometime?”

This is how white people do it: they walk up to each other and say things like, “Hey, baby, what’s your sign?” And then they both wink at each other, signaling that this is a horribly overused line. And then, with a little chuckle, one of them says, “Seriously. I’m guessing you’re a Leo.” They have coffee or lunch or dinner, they go out a few times, leisurely explore each other’s state of dental hygiene, they grope and caress and tackle and tickle. They meet each other’s friends and go out bowling, and then have the post-friend-meeting analysis: “So. Tell me what you thought of her. Seriously. I really like this girl.” They fight and make up, they make each other dinner, see what the other one prefers to wear to bed and learn how to make each other’s favorite breakfasts. They spend Saturdays together on the couch, at the museum, in the park. They vacation together in Peru. They experience together every known thing under the sun, they cohabitate for long periods of time, they wait for it all to be settled, and then one morning one of them turns to the other with a bright sparkly expensive thing in one hand and says, “Baby, I know your sign, my friends dig you, and you always take out the trash when it’s your turn. Nobody makes better pancakes, and you know how I love that little freckle on your nose there. Let’s get hitched.” Then, and only then, does my tribe marry.

Hooray! Bliss.

Now for the Muslims:

“This totally isn’t awkward….at….all.”

Muslim boy meets girl, and nervously looks at his feet. She plays with her skirt and they exchange salaams. Boy and girl continue to stare at their toes while they discuss every potential issue under the sun….in a fairly dry manner. Things like who will get up at three with the imaginary baby come up, things like how to deal with in-laws no one has met yet, things like childcare, how the household income is shared and/or split and spent, where the couple will live, what their best and worst qualities are. It’s all out there, a big, giant, verbal pop-quiz. We quiz each other’s friends: “Is he really that nice? Or just when he’s come round courting…?” We meet each other’s families and extended families, and ask each other how we like to spend our time, what we do on a lazy three-day weekend, and how clean we like the kitchen to be. Anything is on the table for deliberation, and most of it gets carted out for examination at one point or another. We ask each other what we do on weekends but we don’t spend weekends together. We ask each other about favorite dishes, but we don’t share them. We make extra effort to not bond. It’s extremely frustrating, trying, and befuddling. All this….and we don’t even hold hands yet. Not yet. Then, finally, boy says to girl (or visa-versa), “So, um, sister….I think you’re the one for me. Are you diggin’ it like I’m diggin’ it? And is your family diggin’ me too?” And the sister says, “Uh, yeah, brother, my family is a fan. And I guess I’m sorta into you. Let’s do it.” And they get all married and then it’s like,

Gee, what could be cuter than that?

You’re thinking what I’m thinking. Why be crazy? Why do we make it so backwards and hard? Well, I’m sure there are a lot of explanations out there, but something occurred to me, as I said, thinking about Atonement. Part of the beauty and security of Robbie and Cecelia’s love is that they have known each other and loved each other in a sort of pseudo-sibling way for their entire lives. Not much is at stake when they finally declare their romantic love; neither one will walk out the door and leave the other high, dry, and not knowing whether to call. It’s safe…because the foundations are already built. They know each other. They respect each other. They admire each other. Now all they have to do is fall for each other, and it is accomplished over the course of one sweltering midsummer day. Voila! Love blossoms, roots itself, grows. A novel is born.

So I think this is why we’re crazy. Despite appearances, it’s not a masochistic or puritanical endeavor. It’s because, well, when somebody cooks killer pancakes, maybe that distracts a little from the fact that she wants five dogs and you want five kids. Because humans are beings of extremes…and while we can be extremely rational, in love, we’re mostly extremely not. So the Muslim wisdom has mostly been to take the fun out of the before-the-wedding part, and make the after-the-wedding part pretty awesome, pretty safe, and purdy dern loving. There’s a lot, obviously, that goes into choosing one’s spouse…a person’s nature, manner, habits, desires, and background all play a part in the decision. And I guess we Muslims figure that if someone can pass muster without all of the distracting (and hey, let’s face it, lovely) day-to-day romance and affection, then adding those last two ingredients will only make a good thing double platinum.

It ain’t a bad hypothesis, now that I think about it.

Bottle it up.

Love…….how glorious and crazy-making it is.

Falling in love is such a curious experience. It’s tempting to miss the heady ignorance of my first time, but the first tingles that come, both familiar and new, allow a sort of anticipatory pleasure that I wouldn’t trade.

Funny thing is that it’s kind of the same for everything. Sure, the first time I fell really hard it was for a guy, but now I’m all kooky over the experience of writing (and people reading it….dear Lord, what are they all thinking of me? Being anonymous – or not – not even knowing which I am at which computer, where…well it’s been less than a week, but I’ll tell you it’s fairly addicting). And over this novel. So that I experience the rest of life in terms of this one thing, and not the other way around. Time spent away from the beloved becomes interesting only in the terms that it will inform our next meeting…the seconds, hours, days, weeks between are grey.

I experienced this feeling too when I first converted, I now realize. Every new thing was something that was happening for me through the new adopted framework of Islam (and I hardly knew what that was), and it heightened, and colored, everything. I cast off everything that might come in conflict with my newfound faith with imaginary impunity. I left a longtime love with a few sentences, proud of myself, clear, free, as I thought I should be. Only weeks later, after the initial euphoria, did I even stop to grieve properly. And even then…my Islam was new, I felt new, I felt a new and better and more interesting person, and there was a whole world to discover, and it was mine.

I think it’s much the same with falling for people. Immediately we imagine a whole life as though it has already happened – it is territory, it is our territory, and the only thing separating us from the thousand mythical experiences is time. We consider the deal sealed with the first taste of mutual admiration, even if we don’t yet admit it to ourselves. Though our lives lie in wait with or without that person, that book, that occupation, it is as though we’ve come out of a long and cobwebby slumber and suddenly, yes! Life awaits!

Of course, it is much simpler with writing, with books, and even with religion. These things don’t require the consent of another party, so it’s much easier to live out the fantasy in precisely the way it is imagined.

I love that we fall in love. I love that we all do it, and still we experience it as the most uncommon, unique, particular and precious experience in all the world. I love that no matter how cynical we are, no matter how hurt we’ve been, no matter how many times we’ve tread the same exhilarating ground before, we experience it as new all over again, as soon as that first glimpse of love is there. I love that we love, and fail at it, and recover and do it again with the requisite amnesia. I love how willing people are to love. I love that we are foolish about it, and I love that with time and experience we learn to temper that with rational prudence: alone again, still giddy, we ask ourselves: is (s)he a sheep, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing? I love that it makes beggars of kings, and kings of beggars. I love that in the first stages we feel we are only the best versions of ourselves, I love that we have faith in that, I love that we let someone else feel beautiful and good and fascinating, and I love that with time we let them settle into their flawed humanity, and continue to love them anyway.

Whoever said that religion is the opiate of the masses was a fool. It is love, love, love – and what a fool I sound. I am. I’m a fool for walking around with my little notebook, and a fool for scribbling in it, and a fool for looking forward to a Saturday night in, alone, with only a novel for company. So be it. I’ll bottle it up and be regular come Monday.

(….and hey, I’m sorry about this post. I know. I know how ridiculous I am. I think the headiness of Atonement has really infected me. Don’t worry; I’ll be wry and sarcastic again soon enough.)

A little austere

I’m currently devouring Ian McEwan’s Atonement as though the act of finishing it will be some saving grace for me.

It feels incongruous, wrong, and perhaps that is part of the deliciousness of the novel. The title implies a world, or a life, overtaken by sin, hijacked. I suppose we all dread doing something unfixable, something dreadful and permanent. Something that we cannot come back from. But what may be irredeemable about the story is contradicted completely by the way it is told; I’m still stunned, hours and days later, by small details in McEwan’s prose that cause me to reexamine my own experience: the smell of cow dung is leathery. I find myself pausing and inhaling deeply, trying to remember the farm fields I regularly drive through with the windows down in a town adjacent to my home. I can’t ever remember having made the same association, but I feel renewed, somehow, by it all the same. There is no doubt that next summer I’ll be searching the air for that clean, functional scent among the cows.

And then there is the love scene, the love, the lovers. I remember being struck during the film at how artful it was: the colors, the shapes of bodies against the dark leather of bound books, splayed like giant spiders conquering a wall. And I’m left wondering if that’s not how we all want to be loved, really: for that mole, that scar, to be not a blemish, but an adornment. Something specific and extraordinary, to be kissed and adored simply because it doesn’t exist on any other person in quite that spot in quite that shape or hue. To be familiar and strange all at the same time – to be able to be remade by the beloved. I’m slightly (very) fanciful, but I like to think that we all want that. That kind of intimacy is a very human need. I think we’d all like to be examined, not for what’s right with us, but for what’s there. Acceptance pre-guaranteed, affection secured. And then we lay ourselves bare. It’s so safe – McEwan paints it – or types it, rather, exactly. And without saying so in the crude way I have.

And the smell of perspiration like cut grass. How often I’ve felt awkward to be comforted by the smell of a loved one’s sweat. How fresh and human it feels to breathe it in. How natural. I’m a bit of a hippie in disguise, but I’ve always felt that this urge we’re all encouraged to have (and spend fountains of money on) to smother every innate scent, to smooth every line, to pluck and dye and starve ourselves into severe, gaunt, unanimous perfection is bizarre. One of my favorite scents in the world is that of my sister’s bedsheets. Hers always smelled different than those draping the other beds in the house, and it was between them that I crept after every nightmare, during every insecure midnight of my childhood. Nothing can replace that for me, and it smells like person. And I like it that way. It’s proper. Someone shouldn’t only smell like Chanel, or Polo. We should smell like people. It’s so meaty and personal. Why should we want to stuff it away, ashamed of our failure to be a flower? Roses smell like roses. Let them. I’ll take in the tang of my father’s musty neck, the mildness of my mother’s hair, and be satisfied.

I know I’m focusing on scents here. But I’m so haunted. I can’t help it. This whole novel wound around an obsession with repentance is the most luscious thing I’ve ever held between my two hands. It’s ludicrous. And perfect in its irony. And the feel of reading it is so bracing and wonderful that everything is fresh, every word tormentingly flawless, and I never want it to end.

…On a more personal note (if possible): I’m afraid that I’ll never write anything so beautiful. But that failure wouldn’t be so bad. I could write something that falls far short of McEwan’s mark and still exceed my own hopes. It would be pathetic not to try, but I often feel crushed under so much beauty that has come before. To dream of joining the ranks of the published (and read admiringly, fingers clutched, breath held) seems so presumptuous. But we all have our purpose, and I can’t imagine dreaming of anything else anymore.