organised chaos

“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.“

- Erma Bombeck

So don’t take it for granted. Ever. A person has just shown a huge part of himself/herself to you. No mask, no walls, unguarded, all defences down.

That should mean something.

Enough said here.

I’ve read a few novels featuring Muslims as the main characters of the story before, like Khaled Hosseini’s work and one of Jean Sasson’s Princess Trilogy, and yes, even the well-intentioned Does My Head Look Big In This? and I’ve skimmed through some similar materials in bookstores to see what they have to offer.

I’ve noticed a certain trend that writers seem not to be able to do away with in serious novels, which is having the characters commit at least one of the grave sins (Al-Kaba’ir) in Islam in order to have a catalyst for their story. The 2 most predominant can’t-do-without would be drinking al-khamru and committing zina.

Now I know that no Muslim is perfect and we all have our faults and flaws, our weaknesses and failings. Stories of ordinary people like you and I who share our faith and love of Allah, but somehow falter along the way and seek redemption give us the comfort of relativity and allow us to look at our own struggles and remember the always-open door to seek forgiveness and repentance.

The way most of these stories are written however just don’t have that sort of tone. I’m not imposing a monotonous directive to have all writers use the same content and style, but I think when writing about Muslims, what we believe in and why we live the way we do, it’s a responsibility to incorporate the values and principles we hold dear.

Muslims having pre-marital sex is nothing new these days, but that doesn’t make it any less of a grave sin and a transgression. Today though, it’s reached the level of normalcy and if you gasp in shock or scrunch your face in disgust when you hear of such indecency, you’re deemed naive, backwards and not familiar with the ways of the world. I hear about it enough in the real world, now I have to read about it too? That plot’s been used far too many times for my liking, but what troubles me more is the attitude these characters take after their little rendezvous. More often than not, there is no feeling of great regret or shame, only mortal fear because of what the society will think or what the family will do in the name of honour. God doesn’t come into the picture at all. It then grows into one of the driving forces of the story, the thrill of the forbidden act, the dire consequences and the tragedy of a consummated love that goes against tradition and culture.  You know the way it goes. In the end, the reason why fornication outside the bonds of marriage is so abhorred by God isn’t addressed at all, only the supposed unfairness of His Laws that stands in the way between a man and a woman. Astaghfirullah, one wishes for a little more depth and less self-centredness because when you write this way, then there’s really no difference between stories of Muslims and Non-Muslims, only the names and family background perhaps, but everything else stays the same. What then, would be the point of writing about Muslims in the first place if you can’t come up with something refreshing, that offers a different viewpoint from another perspective?

I think we can come up with better stuff than this. Why do we need to paint people who freely do as they please in dramatic colours, which simultaneously puts faith and religion in a cruel, restrictive light? I’m not buying into the idea, and I get frustrated because I see it everywhere. Is this all we’re good for? Having characters do the kaba’ir and then kicking up a fuss about it while the rest of the world look at us and wonder about ‘them funny Muslims’ again? We need to show why we’ve chosen this moral guideline, why it’s pure and clean and simple and why we live by it at all costs. Instead we’ve got novels running along stale, worn out themes which really limits my choices when picking a book to buy.

Maybe I need new references. Anyone care to point me in the right direction?

Enough said here.

One of life’s simplest but greatest pleasure it has to offer is receiving some lovely, personalised post in the mailbox:

From dearest Maddie, when she was in Russia. I actually whooped when I saw it, despite knowing it was coming. She’s now home for the holidays, in time for her birthday today! Happy, happy birthday sweetie!

And recently, this found its way into the stash of post I go through daily,

from a friend only some 30km away. The gist of what she said was that personal correspondences are on the brink of death, so she thought she’d breathe a little life into it by sending a handwritten letter to me. It made my day, seeing my name on the envelope and taking out the sheets of paper. Thank you so much dearie, though you’re probably not going to read this anyway.

We can email and tweet and facebook all we want, but when it comes to really catching up with friends in my book, snail mail rules them all. Nothing can be as heartfelt or honest.

(Postcard to Moscow, Photo by Maddie)

Enough said here.

Aeschylus once said:

‘Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.’

Sometimes though, it doesn’t. And even though we get wary and scared when something good happens, or when we laugh too much or feel too content because something bad usually happens right after (and when you’re so high up, it’s a long way down), sometimes we just can’t help it.

We’re happy in spite of ourselves.

Enough said here.

Enough said here.

I’m always wanting to get away, to break free, to roam, to explore, to wander about, to move move move and to not stop at a place for too long, that I suspect I have an inability to remain stationary. I have to always be in motion. There’s constantly a faraway place I’m dreaming of, to go to, to live in for a while, whether a foreign city/town/its outskirts, as long as it’s Anywhere But Here, and even then, it won’t be for long because soon that faraway foreign place will turn into Here, and I’ll want to get away again.

It’s a strange thing to feel like you don’t belong, no matter where you are. And it isn’t that you’re not trying either. You just don’t fit in because they don’t have a mould your size.

So I look for places to escape to and I make my plans, and it’s thrilling just thinking about it because there’s so much to look forward to; new place, new people, a fresh start.

It’s different when I actually get there though. I take in everything and it is glorious, but somehow chasing the place felt a lot more exciting than actually reaching it. After a while I’ll get restless, ready to take off for somewhere else because I don’t want to stay too long til I get tired and bored of the place, til I realise the Getaway Place still isn’t the answer. I’d rather have good memories, that I left because I wanted to, not because I needed to.

Where I live right now is Home for the most part, almost all the people I know and love are here, along with my things, but never for long. It’s a place I can treasure only when I’m away. And when I return, I want to leave it again.

I’m like a weary nomad looking for the signboard that points to Where You’ll Always Belong.

At my age, shouldn’t I have had all this figured out by now? Geez.

I’m just so tired of drifting.

Enough said here.

For K, and your question that night.

Enough said here.

Enough said here.

I tried to fix a hammer today, which somehow had its head and handle separated. There was a bit of a struggle with it, and I was pushing and heaving at it before Ummi comes along, calmly takes the parts and in one swift uber cool Matrix-like movement fixes it with one hand. She then holds it up, grinning at me and says: “I’m a carpenter’s daughter.”

Mums are so cool.

Today I was given the task of going through all the old boxes we have stored away, and to sift through our old toys and books to decide which we want kept and which we were going to give away for charity. Some of the things date back more than a decade, and naturally nostalgia took its swing at me. It’s funny, looking at history through things. You tend to remember things you had long forgotten. For instance, it suddenly occurred to me today that I played with cars and trucks just as much as I did with dolls and kitchen sets. It kind of shows, the way I turned out. I don’t know if I should add ‘unfortunately’ at the back of that last sentence.

Anyway.

Abah said he expected everything to be done by today, which was insane of course, mainly because I ended up taking out my old toys and…playing with them. We had these old plastic bowling pins with its matching old plastic bowling ball, so you can guess what I was doing for the most part of the afternoon. No playmates though, the organising is my work alone. After that I took out my kid brother’s Doctor Set and Toolbox and pretended I was Dr House and Bob The Builder (though not simultaneously). An afternoon well spent, I’d say.

(Help/I need to grow up)

Enough said here.

PS-I should probably also mention my brother and I have water balloons stored in our bathroom for future use.

My idea.