Prolific Immigrant

As most of you are aware, I’m living with Baba these days. Baba’s a very rational and controlled man – he likes things exactly where he’s placed them and in the way that he’s placed them. He deals with problems head-on and doesn’t wallow, preferring to instead deal with things in as clear and focussed a manner as possible.

Which, for the most part, isn’t me.

Since Baba and I had such a long time of separation, he’s now sort of been forced to hit the Baba Road running and he’s doing a pretty amazing job of keeping up.

I tend to tunnel and then pop up in unexpected places, much like a crazy, possibly blind groundhog. For a man such as him, this is problematic because (a) much like I he doesn’t know in which direction I’m headed as I tunnel & (b) he doesn’t know at which hole to wait for me, so that he may then contain me in an effort to keep me as together and as controlled as possible…or, at the very least, place me in a little glass box with holes in it so that I may breathe as I stare out at him and everyone else in this world. Because, I admit, that sometimes I need a lot of restraint.

Having recognised that, I’m trying to change that about me as honestly and as slowly as possible so that it remains rectified. And I think (& really hope) it’ll work and that I may learn something from it…’cus tunnels aren’t fun and they exhaust both myself and those I love most, even though it’s not my intention to do so. Worse still, they dirty my shoes.

I was hanging out with mama the other evening when I noticed an interesting straw chapeau. It was a rich coffee cream colour with a red trim and an elastic that one uses to strap around their chin. There is a dancing man carrying maracas drawn on to the back of it. He too wears the same hat: the sombrero.

I didn’t think anything of it until I went upstairs to read. Half an hour later, I came back down to make a cup of coffee and noticed that the sombrero had mysteriously disappeared. I searched high and low and considered that the dancing man had come to life, packed up and broke up with us…

Until mama came in from her garden, wearing the sombrero.

Not a little.
Not slightly.
But rather completely, with chin strap firmly beneath her chin.

“It keeps the sun out of my eyes.”
“It’s a sombrero.”
“It keeps the sun out of my eyes.”
“But. It’s a sombrero.”
“Yeeeee, ouf, Maha, who cares! It’s a hat.”
“No, mama — that, on your head, is a SOM-BRE-RO.”
“You think you’re so smart” were the words I heard as a set of sparkly maracas appeared in her hands and she danced her way out of the door and back to the garden.

…must learn to weep.

“If you start thinking about other people’s faults, you’re just a fool. The point is to get rid of your own.”
- Hamza Yusuf
Purification of the Heart, CD 3

I will be away from here for a while. I won’t be responding to emails, either. Something in my heart has been broken and I don’t know how to fix it so until I do, I won’t be around. Please be well, each one of you.