Prolific Immigrant

Editorial Note: The following views have nothing at all to do with either the official staff or volunteers of The Ottawa Hospital, but rather are entirely One Female Canuck’s. Because it is only the later who is dumb.

I love my day job, and for the most part, I admire almost everyone with whom I work. That aside, not all of it is what one could call “soul fulfilling.” Because of this, I have at times become extremely disillusioned, until I can once again lull myself into a state of numb and forge ahead pretending otherwise.

I have some time off this coming month and thought: what better way to spend it than with people who are sick and scared and might be alone?

To begin with, the holidays are a c/ntpunt for many people anyway, and when you add illness and hospitals to this mix, it can be devastating. Even though I have a stupid social schedule, Friday and Saturday night outings are not a must for me. I don’t need to spend Christmas eve with my family, and I am not so much of a party-goer which is amazing because I am so pretty that I have to celebrate the new year anywhere but with a good book.

So, I decided to volunteer at one of the hospitals, and to work with the patients.

I had requested work with either oncology or special needs babies, but they prefer that anyone volunteering with these patients be someone who has proven their worth and volunteered for a while. Which makes complete sense, because these areas are extremely demanding; so with them, inshAllah, I will be volunteering in due time.

At the moment, I will be volunteering with the regular patients. I will be reading them books, and maybe playing games with whomever is interested. I will be chatting with them, making sure they’re comfortable, and just generally: being an attentive new friend.

Honestly? I’m so excited, I could come out of my skin.

Because I am good at helping people. And I think that maybe my gift is — maybe maybe maybe — it is to be kind. And I think people who are alone, and scared and who are sad, they could use kindness. So. I am excited. Like, I haven’t been this excited about anything since I can’t remember when. And I just really hope I do a good job and make people feel like they’re not alone and that there’s one more person who cares about them.

Yay for volunteers!

———-
Photo from CareGiversFrienc(dot)net.

Said Oscar Wilde: “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”

I wonder, do you take yourself too seriously? Like, do you sit around and ponder the fate of the world and think that you will be the one who saves it and changes it for the better? That every word you say holds the weight of gold?

I do. TOTALLY.
In my head, I am usually wearing a crimson cape and with a raised fist. Often, I have a very serious look on my face, and a box of crayons in my lowered hand.

In case you haven’t noticed, I take myself seriously enough that I have A BLOG whereby I can share my brilliance, because where would the world be without me?

Well. Maybe not exactly, entirely.
Though I do like that this place has as its epicenter: ME…and I need an audience like a modern day court jester. Obviously.

That said, I have noticed an abundance of people who really and truly take themselves far too seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I enter a state of hysterical shock when I read what they have written. So seriously, in fact, that I have had to stop reading what they write. And let me tell you that since years, I continue to have regular, personal, in-the-flesh dealings with people who have every right to be full of themselves in this world, and yet they are not. When push comes to shove, they will make fun of themselves because they know it’s one of the only ways to keep their egos in check.

These other ones though, they’re fascinating creatures, no?
We all know at least one.
And if we know one, we know a few, because when they self-fellate, they want someone to hold their hair back and who better than someone for whom they can do the same?

They mobilize in packs (because normal people can’t stand them) and feed off of one another.

So what happens when we take ourselves too seriously? Most of the time, if not all of the time, where we refuse to genuinely laugh at ourselves, we instead lay the groundwork for others to laugh at us as they walk away. Even the nicest among them.

———-
Image thieved from NYPress(dot)com.

Updated 8 Dec 2011: I will not be posting the photos on Prolific Immigrant, but rather here at my flickr page. For quick access, I have added a link on the middle side menu titled #365photos because I don’t have an imagination.
———-
Since the mobile became an appendage, we have all been forced to witness our friends hysterical art projects, often as painful to sit through as story time with infants not of our own wombs.

Most notable  is the “365 photos in 365 days” project, where photos 7 – 363 inclusive are of their dinner. Because I am a sheep, I have been considering subjecting you to this same “project” for a while. Baaaaaa.

Due to my crippling sloth manner and terror of commitment, I merely thought about it but never actioned it. Until today.

Behold the first of 365 “inspirational” photos:

1/365 — Morning coffee shoppe: “The ceiling is not a place to look for inspiration. You’ll find the ideas in your head.”

In the coming 364 days, expect many eye-rolls, some snark, and the very occasional gem.

PLEASE GROW YOUR HAIR, SAMSON.

Love of God, you’re killin’ me.

xxo
Maha

PS Recently…
M: I need to buy a pair of night goggles.

“Friend”: What? Why?

Why not?

Seriously. Why?

They seem like so much fun. Like…if I could get a unicorn, I’d get one of them too. Not for any discernible reason, but just because. Who doesn’t want a unicorn? Or, like, a Care Bear to always give me hugs?

What are you talking about?

IMAGINE THE FUN I COULD HAVE WITH NIGHT GOGGLES!

Only if you’re planning on taking out insurgents…
(pause)
You need help. Like, so much.

You. You need help. You? You are never allowed to play with my goggles. When I get them. Which…I don’t even know where?

Please stop talking. Adults are coming.

Awesome. They’ll totally know where I can score a pair…

etc.

In The Hands of God from Mustafa Davis on Vimeo.

At a time when y’all are preppin’ to throw down some cash in the name of Baby Jesus (♥ + peace be upon him), please consider extending your definition of family to include those whom you have never met, like Leford Kamoto. If you donate over the coming near three days, via the The Big Give, they will double your donation.

Also, please remember that while you spend many a night feasting this coming month, there remains a famine in East Africa. For those of you in Canada, you may donate through:
Oxfam
Human Concern International
or
CARE

Peace and love to you and yours.

Recently, BB (as always) gave me excellent advice. Basically, it was for me to chill the fk out and stop asking “Why?” because it is an utterly useless question to pose.

Why this and Why that and Why is this happening and Why did that happen and Why isn’t this working?

Arguably, it is this as first question to which our minds default when we are facing a heavy emotional situation. Someone mistreats us, someone tries to cheat us, someone tries to pretend they had nothing to do with our pain, and our immediate response is “why?” Why did this have to happen (to me)?

I think we ask this question because it’s supposed to explain away our pain. Meaning: You are feeling crushed and ripped to pieces because (insert answer to “why”… And where we do not have the answer to this question, we enter into an exhausting near nihilistic state of: You are feeling crushed and ripped to pieces because for nothing… and holy sh/t when this is our answer at a time we are crumbled on the floor incapable of picking ourselves up. The inability to answer this question and all which are derived from it? It’s us, laying on the floor, with the weight of the pain keeping us flat, and then an additional 27 tons of metal randomly plunked on top of our heads.

Basically, not the greatest place to be.

The painful reality is that there is no really concrete answer to why, when it comes to human emotion. Because we are not math equations, and we do not 2 + 2 = 4. In fact, I would say that we, as humans, are maybe an approximation of 2 / 17 = (0.56 + red – a salt and pepper shaker x 712) to the 0.19th power. Or something.

To the extent of our rational capacity, sometimes shit just happens more often than not, and for no discernable reason. This is not to say that I believe in coincidences, because I do not. It is to say that I recognize that humans call things random only because we do not possess the capacity to see and understand and calculate all at once, the kabillions of variables which affect human action and choice.

Then what’s the alternative? The alternative is a variation of BB’s eloquent: Stop asking WHY? and my not so eloquent: Chill the fk out. A variation because the mere act itself is a cushioning to the blow we have just been dealt (and so necessary to a degree), and it is within the space of “why” that we can reflect on our own actions which may have led to the situation in which we find ourselves (and so necessary to a great extent).

I believe that it might be as simple as recognizing the dangers of asking “Why?” Being cognisant that becoming mired in it, obsessed with it, and losing yourself in it is potentially far more devastating than the pain which gave rise to the question. Flagging yourself every single time you ask it and subsequently cutting yourself off when your time spent asking this question is longer than the experience questioned, when you spend more time looking back than looking at how you move forward into a healthier space.

I’m going to try and do this, which means that I will have to actually cease and desist my relied upon behaviour. And because I am slow on the uptake, this will be a little bit of a challenge.

Godspeed to me, and to you with whom some of the above has resonated.

———-
Photo from the gorgeous family of Atikinka.

This is one of the most amazing things I have seen in a very very long time. I just can not tell you how hard I love this, or the message within.

For me, the messages being:
1) You can not judge a book by its cover (which signals the very critical belief within Islam that only Allah is the Judge, as He is the only one who sees into the hearts of wo/man).
2) That all roads lead to Allah.
3) Islam as inclusion rather than exclusion. Which, I believe, is the message of each of the great faith traditions, until they are manipulated at the hands of humanity to meet political, class, gendered, and / or power ends.

“Since masculinity is defined through separation while femininity is defined through attachment, male gender identity is threatened by intimacy while female gender identity is threatened by separation.” -Gilligan

Women are defined through attachment.

Yesterday, I wrote that there is this thing which weighs me down. And yesterday, this very thing crushed me. This is something that happens from time to time, only yesterday was the first time I chose to write about it. Always and unequivocally, it is triggered by a conversation about marriage with my family. The last time it happened, I didn’t write about it, and instead spent eight days, evenings in bed falling asleep at 8pm. I promised myself I would never let that happen again, because my life is so f/cking blessed as is without a man and a stretched uterus and what a luxury that this is what depresses me, right?

Now. Because it is only when I understand things that I can put them to rest, and because I understand things best after I have written about them, I put fingers to keyboard and wrote about it.

Subsequently, I was overwhelmed by the love that people chucked at my head, and the incredible amount of women whose private messages amounted to shared war stories: “I hear you. I understand you. I too have had to fight this battle,” and also to the slightly more hysterical ones who wrote: “I hear you. I understand you. PLEASE DON’T GET MARRIED BECAUSE OH MY GOD I WANT YOUR LIFE AND TRUST ME YOU DON’T WANT MINE!!!!”

Two particular shout outs: First to SW who sent me statistical information on how most women who are murdered, are murdered at the hands of their spouses. Second, to JJ who very clearly hates her own children, and managed to make this hatred hilarious.

The bottom line is, I am relatively accomplished.

Measured by the same stick used to measure a successful man:
an excellent job and publications,
an exceptional higher education in an extremely difficult M.A. program,
property,
savings,
etc
I am well beyond accomplished.

Measured by the same stick used to measure a successful female:
wife,
mother
I am not so accomplished.

Couple the above measurements with my culture (not to be confused with my Faith), which says that completing our Faith is half of our deen (religion). Said another way: If unmarried, you are incomplete.

Here’s the reality: Islam does not discriminate.
And because I am a Believer, and God knows best, there is no way in hell that God would create such a discriminatory hierarchy within Islam, because Islam is the un-gendered discourse. There is the male, there is the female, and then there is the divine which is genderless.

In fact, there are 99 names of Allah, and the one to which Muslims refer to most, is al-Rahman (the most merciful), within which is rahm (womb). Reflect on that for a second, then get back to me.

To discriminate means to sideline and marginalize those of us who — for whatever reason — have not yet been married, or who never get married. And this is not my Faith.

And if the above logic isn’t enough for you…then how about…
Those who get married and then abuse their partners?
Or those who get married and then cheat but never get found out?
Or those who get married and then divorced and never marry again?
Have they completed their deen more so than those who simply never get married?

The f/ck it does.

As to the “science” which places all women at a disadvantage sooner or later, then to you I send a big fat hey! Remember the time you thought the earth was flat? Or the time you proved that “white people” were better? Or when you were adamant about the classical elemental theory? Or that time you believed ether was a carrier of light waves and radio waves?

One last time: Allah does not discriminate, and on any day, I will gladly take on anyone who speaks to the contrary.

Society however? Men and women will gladly create such a hierarchy, if only to make themselves feel better, while making others feel less. And men, as has been proved time and again, will decry it as their fitrah to shun the women with whom they are most compatible for those whose t/ts sit higher. But God, my God, the God who does not discriminate, and the God who does not favour one gender above another? He would never.

Those of you who believe that He would, then you need to re-situate and re-evaluate. And you need to ask yourself what part of your nafs it is that your perspective feeds, because my guess is it ain’t your piety.

So on most days I believe that, and I internalize it at a much louder frequency than the other side of that coin. But yesterday, the other side took my feet right out from beneath me.

Usually, unlike yesterday, and because I do believe that Allah knows best, I believe that whatever He has in store for me, it will be precisely so that I might reach my full potential. And the reality is, that my full potential may have absolutely nothing to do with marriage or having a child.

To be even more frank, looking at nine out of ten couples around me (Muslim, Arab, and not), on most days, I am pretty relieved I am not married. Because men? Well…they’re not all they’re cracked up to be when they perceive a woman disrespectfully as their property. And I would hazard that less than 5% of all men carry women in their hearts as Allah intended and instructed.

I wanted you to know this, because so many of you are worried about me. And though I was desperately sad yesterday, I am like one of those Bozo the Clown inflatable bop toys, filled with enough air to bounce back harder and faster than most. Only, I am prettier. Obviously.

Thank you.
Love you.
Owe you.

This morning, I woke up an underachiever.
Who still has not accomplished much of anything worth discussing or worth feeling good about.

This morning, I woke up worthless.
A useless bit of space not contributing to anything, or adding any sort of value to the lives of those around me or to my own life.

This morning, feeling like sh/t, I walked to work wiping tears, and catching my breath and repeating over and over and over “Allah knows best.”

And this morning, I thought about how I every day fight to live my life doing good and being good and respecting the rules and living within a toxic-free heart, and I do it out of nothing more than a love for Allah. And when I fail, it is because I am short on strength, not because He is ever short on Love and Guidance.

And this morning, I woke up confused by those who have not lived well and yet, they have been graced with the one thing — the only thing — I wish to have.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about that one time my cousin told me that women who don’t have children? Something changes in the composition of their brain. That they’re not “normal.”
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about the biological imperative that men wave around: That they are naturally built to be attracted to young women.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about the fact that I have loved wrong but at the right time, and loved right but at the wrong time.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking about all of the times I have been told don’t laugh so loud, have less of an opinion, pretend you don’t know, don’t argue even if he’s wrong, be less of what you are, look to the floor, do not aspire, stop at a Masters degree. Because most of the men of my culture? They do not like these things in women.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up thinking how everything above culminates into one single reality: That I have not yet found a partner with whom to play scrabble. And because I do not want a man of my culture, but rather a man of culture, because the men of my culture have made me feel less, too old, too strong, too opinionated, too Western, too this and too that, then this must mean I do not really and truly cross my heart and hope to die want to find my scrabble partner.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up recalling the advice that I should just get married, get pregnant and who cares about the rest? Because there are only two measures to successful living: A partner in my bed, and a used uterus.
Because Allah knows best.

And this morning, I woke up fighting all that I hate and all that I have internalized, thinking how I carry a weight so heavy that it crushes me on days like this, and on top of my own expectations I must also bear the weight of the expectations of my family because I need to be crushed a little more.
But Allah knows best.

Because Allah knows best.
Because Allah knows best.
Because Allah knows best.

So this morning I woke up battling myself, half as written above and half encased in “Allah knows best,” a suit of armour, a mantra of internalized glue to hold me together.
AlhamduliLah.

==========

The follow up article to the above is: Alright Bein’ The Single Non-White Female. (Trust.)

==========
Photo from employscoop(dot)com.

Do you love women? Do you respect women? Are you against sexualized violence? Abuse? Hate? Manufactured realities? Profit over people?

Then you need to watch the following riveting two part video, and you need to internalize every single thing said by the brilliant Jean Kilbourne, and then you need to share this with everyone you know.

Please find Jean Kilbourne here.