All posts by Yasmine

About Yasmine

I like orange sunshine and blue slurpees.

Let’s go to sleep in Paris, & wake up in Tokyo/Then we can land in the motherland

The better to stab you with
The better to stab you with, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

My colleague ducks his head through the doorway this evening on his way out of work and calls out, “Bye, Jasmin!”

“You call me that again, and we are not going to be friends anymore,” I mutter sourly, without turning my eyes away from the computer screen.

His long-legged stride has already carried him halfway down the hall, but he hears me, and turns around to come back laughing. “Alright. Alright, Yasmine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“FINE,” I say.

The office slowly empties out, but I stay on for another two hours, working on an East Coast project so that the folks there can look at it first thing in the morning. It doesn’t hurt that my PC refuses to get with the Daylight Savings drama and switch forward one hour to the new time, instead obstinately changing back to the old time whenever I’m not looking. As a girl who is slightly obsessed with time and dates and documentation, I find this frustrating.

The PC tells me I’m an hour behind, the East Coast project makes me coordinate everything three hours ahead, and when I finally switch off the lights and lock the door and make my way down three flights of stairs, it’s still daylight outside. It’s highly disconcerting, the fact that it’s not dark anymore when I leave work. But the daylight makes it feel like there are more hours in the day, and I don’t mind this sort of trickery so much.

Outside the office, I pass a man I’ve seen before. He’s old and friendly and always nods politely when we cross paths. Today he smiles and says hello.

“Hi,” I say. “How are you?”

“There are 86,400 seconds in one day,” he says. “I just keep reminding myself to breathe through them all.”

I laugh. “That’s a good way to go.”

He peers at me closely. “Are you Pakistani?” he asks, and I blink, surprised. “Yes. And very few people manage to get that right on the first try!”

He leans in, asks in a confidential tone of voice, “How’s the situation over there?”

I pause, then shrug exaggeratedly. “Honestly, I don’t think the situation’s so great anywhere these days.”

He nods. “Just like here.”

“Exactly.”

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Up the hill to home, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I exited the train at my stop 40 minutes later, and the first thing I saw when I stepped onto the escalator and glanced to my right was the moon, hanging like white disk over Mt. Diablo.

I immediately thought of S, our personal superman, whose four-year-old text message is still saved in my phone: Look at the moon tonight, it looks hella beautiful.

In Eboo Patel’s Acts of Faith, he writes about his wife, who belongs to “a brand of Sufi Islam” whose adherents stop to recite the Shahadah, the Islamic declaration of belief, when they see the moon. I remember reading that passage last week and realizing how long it’s been since I’ve even looked at the moon in a spiritual context. When I was little, our mother would gather us to her and have us peer out at the moon through our dining room windows, or herd us out onto the front porch, where we would raise our hands in prayer for the new moon.

When I lived in Pakistan as a teenager, our bebe (paternal grandmother) did the same in the courtyard of our village home. We stood outside one night when my father was briefly visiting from America; male voices drifted out the behtuk door while she and I stood out in the veyra. Bebe prayed in loudly mumbled whispers, and, when we had concluded by saying “Ameen” and passing our hands over our faces, she fondly relayed stories of my father as a child growing up in the very same house – stories my father would, as usual, later discount as Bebe‘s exaggeration and natural flair for storytelling.

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brick courtyard at Casa420
Brick courtyard at Casa420, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

The moon leads me all the way home, where I pull into the driveway and then turn around to park in my usual spot along our street without sidewalks, careful not to scrape my car against the low brick walls dividing the road from our side yard. I never forget to mention the bricks when giving people directions to our home: Continue for about half a mile on the narrow, winding road. Make a left up the hill, and we’re house number 420 on the left-hand side, the white house with all the red brick-work in front. More often than not, they ignore my directions in favor of commenting on my address instead: “420?! No way!” they laugh.

My parking spot is on a slope, and this is the home where, when I returned as a teenager, I first learned how to parallel park on a hill, using “Up, up, and away,” as my mantra, a line that I remembered easily only because it tied right back to Superman, whose comic books and television shows I grew up with, even during those 18 months in Pakistan. Turn your wheels away from the curb when parking uphill. Turn them towards the curb when downhill. Looking back through my review mirror, I see the moon behind me now.

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california is the center of the WORLD
California is the center of the WORLD, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

Over dinner, we discuss moving – as we have been discussing for the past two months. And while part of me is wary yet resigned, another part of me is intrigued by the idea of change. I wouldn’t be my father’s daughter, if it were otherwise. And it is endearing, watching their excitement, hearing the energetic rise and fall of their voices as my mother dreams out loud of a fireplace and new kitchen cabinets and the daddy-o maps out decks and balconies and french-doors. Where we live now is my first home, our favorite home, but even still I’m amazed that Phase2 of our lives here has lasted so long. It’s been 10.5 years since our grand return, and don’t think the daddy-o’s nomadic tendencies haven’t been asserting themselves for a while now.

I have spent a lifetime stuttering when asked the “Where are you from?” question, only because my life has been comprised of shifting roads, different rooms, varying walls and windows. The people I have loved and lost – and found again, or ignored – are manifold. I resurrect old email threads only to unrepentantly archive them without answering the pleasantly surprised recipients, and wince through international phone calls, and let my blank gaze coldly skitter past unexpectedly familiar faces in shopping malls or coffeeshops or on BART platforms, choosing to ignore those people for whom I can’t find words anymore – or those to whom I’d never had much to say in the first place.

Houses may shift and the view outside my windows may change and my question to people may always be a confused, “Where do I know you from?”, but I soothe myself with the fact that the moon will always be there, that I have a good memory – an “uncanny” one, even, I’ve been told – for faces and dates and details, that the sunshine falls the same everywhere, that I can raise my hands in prayer wherever I go.

But the East Bay is not the South Bay is not the North Bay is not the Peninsula is not the City. One can drive for an hour over half a dozen different interstates and highways and still be in the San Francisco Bay Area – and yet not feel at home in one part even while another part is familiar and comforting.

Regardless of its myriad geographies and communities, California as a whole is my favorite, though, and I am lucky to live here, and to not be asked to give this up.

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supplication in sanfrancisco
Supplication in San Francisco, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

Monday, 16 March 2009

I finished writing the bulk of this post in a coffeeshop in Sacramento, 75 miles from home. At one point, I looked up to see a girl I remembered from one of the high schools I had attended. Her blonde hair was now reddish-pink and her name didn’t come to mind right away, but I recognized the smile and the laugh and the slightly awkward knobby-kneed coltishness. I didn’t say hello. A few hours later, driving down H Street back towards 80 West, a man jogging along the sidewalk reminded me of a boy with whom I’d gone to school – but which city, and which of the seven schools I’ve attended, I had absolutely no idea.

On the way home, my sister and I stopped in the university town where we’d lived as teenagers, and where I’d returned for my undergrad. “Dude, I haven’t been back in years,” I said, as we exited the freeway.

“And how does it feel?” teased the sister.

“I’ll let you know when we drive through the streets.”

On a mission to “stop by the new masjid” before heading back to the Bay, our jaws collectively dropped when we drove down the main street and saw the new Islamic center. Inside and outside, it was beautiful, with an inspiring attention to detail. “This place must have been designed by engineers from the University,” I joked, referring to an event we had attended a couple of days before, at which the MC had deadpanned, “This program was put together by two engineers, so it’s going to run like clockwork.”

There was a blue dome. And small blue square tiles embedded in the entry areas, and the eight-pointed Islamic star integrated into the design, and lovely chandeliers and soft, light-blue carpeting. We couldn’t stop smiling. “We used to attend Sunday school at this masjid when we lived here,” my sister said to the president of the Islamic center, who noticed us wandering around the building and unlocked the doors for us.

“When was that?”

“’95 through ’98,” I said, and he smiled and asked what our parents’ names were. When we told him our father’s name, he nodded in recognition, although I don’t think he remembered the face to go with it.

There were yellow flip-flops waiting to welcome me when we slipped inside the marbled, clean and shiny women’s bathroom to make ablutions for the afternoon prayer. And when we stood shoulder-to-shoulder for Asr salah, my sister pointed out that, as travelers, we could technically pray the amended two cycles of prayer. The prayer of the traveler is allowed to be shortened.

“I’m praying the full four,” I said. “It feels like home.”

On the way out, we marveled again at the lights, the tiles, the shelves, the careful neatness with which everything was allocated a place.

“It gives me hope,” said my sister as we were driving away, “to know that there are people who pay attention to beauty and detail.”

Down the street was the Victorian house in which we had lived during those three years – the one with the bay windows. We drove by slowly. “It’s still gray and white!” I exclaimed. The brick walkways and geraniums have been replaced by grass, of which I highly approve. Ten years later after we left, the back deck is still the one we built, and the wrought-iron railing by the kitchen door is the same, as is the old, detached garage, and the city fire station directly across the street.

But not everything has remained unchanged. “Remember that tree the city planted for us?” I asked. “Is that the one?” I gestured towards a tall, sturdy tree at the side of the house.

“The city didn’t plant that,” said my sister. “We did.”

“Well, remember how it was all tiny and scrawny? And look at it now. It’s huge!”

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new paths & pathfinding
Stick to the new: New paths & pathfinding, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I can never manage to tell people “where I’m from,” which is probably also why I never have a good answer for where I’m going. And more than any other word or concept, the idea of “home” has always tripped me up and stopped me in my tracks – and intrigued me the most.

There is nowhere to go. Everything is perfect, says one part of me.

The other says, Everywhere you go will be somewhere you’ve never been.

And if there is one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of being the daughter of a man with nomadic tendencies, a man who so nonchalantly embraces change as “adventure,” it is this: The end is just the beginning, and every point in between.

At least 86,400 points, come to think of it, on any given day.

“I have homes everywhere, many I have not seen yet. That’s perhaps why I am restless. I haven’t seen all my homes.”
– John Steinbeck

By the way/I saw your friends today and they all said you’re great

tangerines
Tangerines!, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

Hi, is this thing still on?

I know. It’s been a long while.

Owl has tried shaming me with harassment tactics, and H (“Yasmin Without an E”) has probably resignedly reverted to reading about immunoglobulins, and Baji’s still holding out hope, and Hashim has given up altogether.

I like when I beat Hashim in things, so I’d say this is as good a time as any to make a grand return.

Not to mention the fact that M wrote on my facebook wall a few weeks ago,

“My son, Ilyas, would like me to convey this message to you:
Update the weblog, or the highfives will stop. I kid not.”

Now that is the sort of threat that makes me quake in my stabbingdagger-pointed shoes. I hope you all are taking notes and picking up lessons from M here. No more highfives from adorablicious toddlers?! That would be just blasphemy.

Hashim accused me a few weeks ago of being “clearly in blog violation.” This, coming from the dude who professes to neither understand nor read weblogs. This is why it’s even more mind-boggling that he apparently subscribes to the RSS feed for my tumblr, mistook it for my real-deal weblog, and observed a while back,

“It looks like all you are doing is copy/pasting stuff from others. You do realize if that’s what I wanted to view, I’d RSS their sites instead. I think you are failing to understand how this is supposed to work.”

Point duly noted. I’m trying to relearn “how this is supposed to work.” Shall we try again?

Here are some updates from my end:

There are tangerine peels in my jacket pocket, and half-a-dozen tangerines piled on a corner of my desk. This is because I’m coming down with a cold, and need all the Vitamin C I can get. Standing on the train platform this morning, I soaked up the (unexpected) sunshine, and munched on tangerines from my backyard, in the hope that they’d bring back my usual 8-year-old boy with a stuffy nose voice (as opposed to the 13-year-old boy undergoing puberty who swallowed gravel voice I currently possess).

I’ve also just finished eating a red velvet cupcake with cream-cheese frosting and I do believe it was amazing.

I’m almost done reading Eboo Patel’s Acts of Faith. He’s a rockstar, and he gives smashing highfives, and he writes beautifully – whether in his book, or his essays on activism, cooperation, and pluralism over at the WashingtonPost. (He’s also an extremely articulate speaker.) A couple of weeks ago, I was amused one morning to find that while I was immersed in Reza Aslan’s No god but God, the woman sitting next to me on the train was reading Infidel, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

I turned 28 on March 1st, and I still feel like I’m really just 8 years old. It being a Sunday, I celebrated at home with my family and a dozen or so of my closest friends. After an entire year away, the Lovely L Lady was back in town for the week, which offered up just the perfect excuse to gather together the All-Star Crackstar Squad and celebrate with our full entourage. Two items of note on the menu deserve a super-special shout-out: We had 1. CHAPLI KABOB! and 2. CUPCAKES! In fact, the following conversation with the parents ensued when I’d returned from grocery-shopping the evening before:

Ummy: Cake mix? You’re going to make your own cake for your birthday?
Yasmine: No, actually, I’m going to make cupcakes.
Ummy: You don’t want to just buy a cake?
Daddy-o: Cupcakes? Cupcakes are for CHILDREN.
Yasmine: Exactly!

My cousins made me a colorful rockstar guitar for my birthday, out of cardstock and construction paper and GLITTER and ribbons and photographs. Did I mention lots of glitter? It’s AMAA-ZING, and makes me laugh so much.

I work in Berkeley now, and take BART (the train) to and from work everyday. Those of you who know me as the self-professed Commuter Child Extraordinaire will understand why my (still new-seeming) train commute makes me so gleeful. I don’t have to waste time in traffic! I read books again! (See above.) Life is so much less draining this way. And the office is right downtown, a mere block away from Gelateria Naia, which means I could run down the street and grab gelato every single freakin’ day, if I felt so compelled. (I do not feel compelled to do so every single day, for the record, but it’s nice to have that option.)

And my colleagues call me “Rockstar” every day. This is even better than nice.

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I’m sure there must be other things I could continue rambling on about, but I can’t think of them at the moment. As Hanife commented so well recently, “The whole world has changed since you last wrote here…” It has, hasn’t it? I have lots to say about the world, too, but I’ll get to that later.

Meanwhile, let’s hear from you, Rockstars Who are Reading This. Any news, dramas, plans, updates you want to let me in on? How are you, and how goes the life, and what are you up to these days?

I wake up every mornin’ and I’m steppin’ out the door

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Change of plans: On a plane to Spain, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

Months ago, when Maryam headed off to Egypt to study Arabic for a year at the AUC, we promised her we’d go stalk her in Cairo. She taunted us with “Maryam is in Cairo” gstatus messages (this screenshot is from late September), and finally, around October or so, Aisha and I decided we needed to get serious about this. “How’s the job hunt going?” Aisha kept asking me. “Don’t forget, you need money so we can go to Cairo in December or January!”

I emailed Maryam: “Please for to arrange a camel to pick me up from the airport, thanks.”

Her reply: “I’ve got a caravan of camels booked to pick you all up from the airport at 6pm, don’t be late.”

Jokes notwithstanding, I never expected any of this would really happen until the afternoon – a mere 2.5 weeks ago – when Aisha took my breath away by delivering the following late-breaking news, completely out of the blue, “Yasmine, Maryam’s actually going to be traveling around North Africa and Portugal and Spain during her winter break. Let’s go to Spain.” I stared at her, wide-eyed, at a loss for words. At random moments throughout the rest of the day, I just kept jumping up and down and shaking my fists in the air in a gesture of SUCCESS!

So. Spain it is. There will be four of us, and we will fly into and out of Madrid. In between, there’s a week in Spain (Madrid, Cordoba, Seville, Granada) and another week in Morocco (Tangier, Casablanca, Fez, Marrakesh). Beautiful Barcelona that I keep hearing so much about deserves another trip of its own, another time.

I’ve wanted to go to Spain ever since I was 13-14 years old, when I used to sit around in the behtuk reading Naseem Hijazi‘s overly romanticized historical fiction in Urdu – re-reading the books so many times that the delicate pages would fall away from the spine and I’d have to continually glue them back in. To say I’m excited is a bit of an understatement. The only reason I’ve barely even talked about it to friends and family is because I still can’t believe it’s happening.

“But why would anyone want to go to Spain?” asks my father incredulously.
“For the history and culture!” I shoot back.
“History and culture? Why don’t you go to Saudi Arabia, then?”

And: “Why Morocco? It looks just like Rawalpindi, of all places.”

And then there’s my sweet mother, to whom I explained that Spain is in Europe.
“Europe,” she said slowly. “Are you going to be near London? You should stop by and visit [the relatives] in Bradford, too.”

“Ummy, I’m not going to England. I’m going to Spain. It’s a completely different country.”

She continued anxiously: “They’re going to be so upset that you didn’t stop by. Maybe you should fly into the Manchester airport.”

“But I’m not going to Manchester or Bradford! I’m going to SPAIN AND MOROCCO.”

Because I myself really know nothing about Spain and Morocco, I turned to the rockstars who do. Zana, Shaista, Lil Baji, and and A proved to be rocking in that department. Brimful directed me to her lovely musings on three weeks in Spain last year, and Baji re-posted her travelogue for me. Between the two of them, I had enough articulate, amusing, and invaluable writing to occupy my train commute for a day.

And an email that – if things had been otherwise – should have been a part of that exuberant ‘We’re from Barcelona’-subjectlined GMail thread:

Dear Imran,
I’m going to Spain! I never would have thought it’d actually happen so soon. If you were around, you probably would have been the first person I’d have emailed for recommendations. Like, where’s a good spot to sit and write in silence? And how can I ensure that my attempts at photography even do justice to the country and its beauty? And where can I find the best tortilla espanola? Someday, we shall compare notes.
fi amanillah,
-yasmine

H requested I remain on the lookout for hot Spanish and Moroccan men for her. Somayya demanded presents. The sister asked if she could sleep in my room while I’m away. And J offered nothing but flattery:

Don’t fall in love and get married to some bali star over there in the Mediterranean, okay!
Also, avoid natives who propose in the first 3 minutes of meeting you, because there will be many!

[+]

So, my internetS buddies, I shall eat bajillions of tortilla espanolas for you all. Meanwhile, you can help me out with a couple of questions I’ve been taking a poll on:

1. Laptop or no laptop? (Carrying around a laptop would be annoying, and worrying about it getting lost or stolen would be nerve-wracking, but the idea of no regular access to GMail – and okay, okay, flickr – for two weeks is already making me twitchy.)

2. Carry-on or check-in? (I hate the idea of checking-in my bag and having the airlines potentially lose it. But carry-ons come with TSA liquid restrictions and drama. I shake my fist!)

I leave this Monday morning, by the way. It shall be grand.

(Also, I’ve not even begun packing yet.)

There seems to be an endless sea of people like us

Poetry walk - Addison Street, Berkeley
Poetry walk – Addison Street, Berkeley, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I am humbled in this city
There seems to be an endless sea of people like us
Wakeful dreamers, I pass them on the sunlit streets
In our rooms filled with laughter
We make hope from every small disaster

-Painting by Chagall (The Weepies)

Conversations from the past week:

H: my English has emproved.
Yasmine: ’emproved,’ huh?
H: as i spell ‘improve’ wrong.

Z: sigh
they’re saying that eating too fast can give you diabetes
Yasmine: gross! people take the fun out of EVERYTHING
Z: i KNOW
as my uncle used to say, TO HELL WITH THE SCIENTISTS

J: so how are you otherwise
Yasmine: doing well! just stressed out these days, working on job applications
J: yeye!
i love job apps!
especially not doing them!
that is my fav part of it
Yasmine: hahaha!
i wish i could NOT do them, and still have a job and salary!
sigh
money doesn’t buy happiness, i know, but it sure does help
J: but if you shop at the dollar store, you can get a better deal on cookies at least.
that is the secret to true happiness
Yasmine: J, that’s GENIUS

H (again): eat eat!
eat mushrooms like me
you’ll grow taller like Mario
DAMMIT, VIDEO GAMES LIE TO US

Yasmine: Gossip Girl is drahhaaaaamaaa!
and i think this is only the second time i’m watching it
first time was at your place
N: ya it is SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!!!!
Yasmine: i want to STAB that Chuck boy
he keeps trying to do his smoldering model gaze or whatever
it’s ridiculous!
okay, never mind – maybeee he’s going to become a good person after all!
N: noooooo i LOVE Chuck!!!
i find him so hot and badass
Yasmine: HAHAHAHA
i thought he’s supposed to be the bad guy in this show!
N: ya he is, i guess i love bad guys!

Re. the Dostana soundtrack –
A: this one is a “pump it up in the car” song!
Yasmine: oh, those are the BEST songs
music should be listened to loudly
A: absolutely
“this should be played on high volume, preferably, in a residential area”

H (and yet again): omg, you and i should be one person
we would be soo rocking
Yasmine: is the world ready for THIS?!
i do not think so
H: oh yes!
we would be the most awesomeness
that awesome could ever have
THE END!

Yasmine: dude, speaking of amazing, wasn’t my cartwheeling wideo AMA-ZING?!
H: no
that was BEYOND AMAZING
your butt must have had some padding
Yasmine: hahaha my butt TOTALLY has lotsa padding, unfortunately!

Bean: it’s so cold and gloomy in SC today
freezing!
its 68 degreees!
Yasmine: hahaha
it’s 67 degrees here, too, and so gray and gloomy looking!
god, we are SO spoiled!
Bean: 66 now

In other news, today (because it’s so gray and gloomy), I wore the new boots I bought last week for $20. Knee-length black boots with enough straps and buckles to give ’em a rockstar look. The problem was, it took me an extra few minutes to properly put them on today, confused as I was as to which boot belonged on my right foot and which on my left. (“Does the zipper go on the inside? Or the outside? Inside, I think.”) Clearly, it is sad that I’m 27 years old and spend most of my days feeling like I’m seven.

Tight stuff walkin’ through

San Francisco 124
Superman in San Francisco, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

I realized the other day that I hadn’t talked to my buddy S in months – so many months that the last conversation I clearly remembered was back in January. Worse, he had left me a voicemail a couple of weeks ago, wishing me Eid mubarak, and I had never gotten around to returning his call. So, while aimlessly wandering around in downtown the other day, I settled myself on an empty bench, dug my phone out of my bag, and called S.

The details of the conversation aren’t that important; needless to say, I can always depend on S to deliver a good kick in the ass just when I need it. When I whined about how I “need to focus, and I just don’t seem to have any incentive to get my ass in gear and be productive,” I could almost see S rolling his eyes at the other end of the line.

“You need incentive?” he scoffed. “Why don’t you check your bank account. That should be all the incentive you need.”

“I know.” I started laughing. “You’re right. Thank you.”

The conversation continued, meandering through various topics – work and mutual friends and life updates and dramas and finances and family and academics. At one point, I went off on a bit of a rant about something, and S said forcefully, “See. You haven’t changed at all.”

“I haven’t changed? Is that a good thing?”

“Yes. You get it.”

Later, still smiling to myself about the conversation, I looked up the old post I had written about S. It made me even more grateful to have a friend like him – and his bluntness and sarcasm and generosity and text-messaged reminders about the moon – in my life. I think it deserves a re-read, so check it out:

[Shiny smooth automotive goodness, and goodness of another nature]

Brass Crescent Awards 2008

I’m a bit out of the loop with Blogistan these days, which is why I was surprised to realize today is the deadline for submitting nominations for the fifth annual Brass Crescent Awards.

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Info:

The Brass Crescent Awards, a joint project of altmuslim and City of Brass, is an annual awards ceremony that honors the best writers and thinkers of the emerging Muslim blogosphere (aka the Islamsphere). Nominations are taken from blog readers, who then vote for the winners.

What are the Brass Crescent Awards? They are named for the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights. Today, the Islamsphere is forging a new synthesis of Islam and modernity, and is the intellectual heir to the traditions of philosophy and learning that was once the hallmark of Islamic civilization – a heritage scarcely recognizable today in the Islamic world after a century’s ravages of colonialism, tyrants, and religious fundamentalism. We believe that Islam transcends history, and we are forging history anew for tomorrow’s Islam. These awards are a means to honor ourselves and celebrate our nascent community, and promote its growth.

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Nominations close today, so go get some links in!
My favorite part of the Brass Crescent Awards every year is discovering new weblogs. More links to add to my ever-burgeoning GoogleReader list! (Dude, so much for trying to be productive.)

We don’t care about the young folks/talkin’ bout the young style

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We were waiting for you, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

TODAY:

one. Went to the post office, and was surprised – in a delighted way – that the smile on the man at the post office reminds me of my friend A‘s.

two. When it came time to pick up my drink order, the guy at the coffeeshop called me out by name, even though I’ve been there only once before in my life.

three. Also at the coffeeshop this afternoon, I made new friends with a woman who was working on a drawing. The conversation meandered through a series of topics that included bookstores, drawing and photography, theater, earrings, and our respective love-hate relationships with email and phone. I haven’t taken an art class or drawn anything in eight years, and yet, once upon a time, I wanted to be an illustrator of books. I’m grateful to that woman for inspiring me to sign up for a drawing class sometime soon.

four. Saw the full moon hanging breathtakingly large and low in the sky this evening, and was reminded of my rockstar buddy S, and how he once texted me with, “Look at the moon tonight. It looks hella beautiful.”

five. Composed a long, ramblingmonologue-style email to a friend who “listens well,” and felt so relaxed and happy after I pressed the Send button.

six. Emailed H about her friend who teaches swimming. This was supposed to be the summer I learned how to swim, but somehow that didn’t happen. (Even the yellow post-it on my laptop’s Dashboard says, in all-caps: LEARN HOW TO SWIM THIS YEAR. This is how strongly I felt about this goal, back in February.) It’s fall already now, but there’s still some sunshine I could make good use of. H, in turn, emailed her friend and cc:ed me on the note; I’m excited to see what comes of this. Finally, I will learn how to swim! And maybe dance! And cartwheel while fully extending my legs! [That video is finally up on facebook, for those of you who need to know such things.]

seven. The sister sent over a beautiful email that cheered me up so much and pretty much made my day.

eight. A tall stranger at the grocery store noticed me balefully eyeing boxes of cereal stacked all the way up on the top shelf. As I placed a foot on the bottom shelf and stretched up my arm, he reached up easily and pulled down a box for me. I laughed and thanked him, and thought to myself about how rocking it would be to have a tall personal assistant follow me around all day and pick up things that are placed above my eye-level.

Nobody said it would be easy now/we live in a lucky town

Basically, I have a slight obsession with bright colors and leading lines
Public library, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

It’s afternoon, and I’m sitting inside a coffeeshop, right beside the large window overlooking the street. I’ve been here for hours, watching the way the light shifts and feeling the sunshine and shadows spill across my table.

The two men sitting right outside my window seem to know nearly every other person who walks by, and I’m intrigued and a little bit jealous. It’s a mid-size city that they’ve managed to imbue with a small-town feel, just in the past couple of hours of sitting out at the sidewalk table. How do they know everyone, and seem to fit in here so seamlessly? Ten years back in this city (wow), and I have only one friend who lives here.

Note to self: Find some good food places around here, and stop hanging out in Berkeley so much.

Actually, ignore that part about Berkeley. Not happening.

“Things that will get me disinherited in short order”

I posted the following link/letter to tumblr a few days ago, via Anjum and Preeti. You should be adding our tumblr feeds to your RSS reader of choice (because we are awesome, clearly), but, in case you neglect to do so, here is the awesomest email ever, in its rocking entirety, written by Karion. All my Rockstar Links & Things are posted over to tumblr these days, but I feel this deserves to be shared here, too – and totally merits a smashing HIGHFIVE.

[+]

preetalina: And I say it as a simple American. :)

anjum: That email? Thank you. I say that as an American, & as a Muslim.

robot-heart: cvxn:karion:

Some context: my mother forwarded an email that had the “Obama is a secret Muslim, look at all his Mulsim friends, also a terrorist in his spare time” type of crap. I kind of lost my shit and sent the following – as a reply all (everyone in her address book).

Maybe this is difficult to see from your perspective. Let me give it to you from your kids.

This email is bullshit – all of the claims are demonstrably false and all are just a thinly veiled racist slur against Obama. Fifteen minutes of independent research will tell you that. The argument that “this is the other side” is downright pathetic, for if this is what ‘the other side’ has to offer, it is nothing more than racist, hateful, fear-mongering bullshit.

But from our family’s perspective, it is much worse that you are passing this shit around. You and Dad have lived in Muslim countries for almost all of your 30 years abroad. In that time, you have not been persecuted, harassed, harmed or otherwise molested for being American or being Christian. To the contrary, you have prospered. You have been able to worship in countries that DON’T have a free exercise of religion clause, and you have been able to do that without any harassment. Do you not realize that you have been a foreigner in these countries and been permitted to live as Americans do? With little regard to the local culture and customs and laws?

So when you pass along these utterly bullshit, racist, fear-mongering emails, you are kind of thumbing your nose at all of that and playing into the worst part of our country. You are spreading the “fear the Muslim” thing, even though Obama isn’t Muslim and even if he was, you both know better. You have lived it. You have lived with Muslims for nearly three decades. You haven’t been burned at the stake for being Christian. Dad hasn’t lost his job because of an infidel. Your house wasn’t burned down for Christmas lights. You have been privileged to live a Christian life in some of the most Muslim countries in the world and no one has harassed you for it.

Why on earth you cannot take your “Christian” message of tolerance and your 30 years of experience and not call bullshit on this type of political rumor is completely beyond me. It is, quite frankly, horrifying. How did your four kids learn this and you didn’t? How did we all learn to independently research and inform ourselves while our parents forward these junk, bullshit emails? How is it that we can all see this for the ignorance that it is, and yet our parents, who are supposed to know better, don’t?

Look, I can understand Dad’s support for McCain, given the Naval Academy thing, although I suspect if Dad actually read about McCain’s time at the Naval Academy, he would be pretty disgusted. I see no similarities between McCain and Dad whatsoever, and I am really proud of that. I doubt you’ll read this, as it is longer than a People think piece, but you should read this article in Rolling Stone. It is remarkably well-sourced, but it is also ten pages. That is longer than the attention span of most people who forward these kinds of emails:

Make-Believe Maverick: A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty”

Mostly, I just wish the two of you would actually use some of your experiences over the past 30 years and speak up. I am not saying support Obama, but just think critically, and denounce the kind of bullshit that you are forwarding. Write an email denouncing Obama using objective facts if you are so inclined. But don’t be part of the ignorant class. Your kids expect so much more of you.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is

I don't know exactly what a prayer is
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is, originally uploaded by yaznotjaz.

My Ramadan in disjointed pseudo-bulletpoints:

Just before Ramadan began, Anjum started a “Ramadan mubarak!” email thread. Hoda replied, “RAMADAN MUBARAK, EVERYBODY! I’m stoked!”, to which I added, “I’m kinda not stoked. Is that BLASPHEMY? (I think it kinda must be.)”

To which Anjum, being a smart one, had this to offer: “I think thats the point of getting stronger during Ramadan.. to get to the point (&beyond iA) where we are really *stoked* that it’s here and really *bummed* when its gone.”

The night before the first day of Ramadan, I wore my pirate t-shirt to first taraweeh, the nightly, congregational prayers held during the holy month. “Don’t you mean tarrrrrrrrrrrrrrraweeh?” queried Z via GChat, and I had to laugh and shake my head for not having thought of it myself.

The first day of Ramadan, A pointed out that I wouldn’t be getting lunch updates from him for a month. This is the guy who, all the way from Toronto, used to look up Zabihah.com links for me so that I could have lunch while working in Silicon Valley (“Did you have lunch yet? There’s a halal deli close to your work. Not sure if you know that”), and who IMs me almost daily with messages like, “I had chicken teriyaki and sushi for lunch today” or “I had seafood fettuccine. Where are you going today?” or “Chicken shawarma platter! Halal!”

I spent a lot of time sitting in cafes and coffeeshops during Ramadan, working on getting things done. Who knew that fasting during the day – and, thus, not constantly contemplating what to eat next – would open up so much free time for productive pursuits? Amazing! I also somehow managed to spend far too much time at the grocery store. And I am here to tell you that shopping to re-stock your refrigerator and pantry while fasting is never a good idea.

While at the grocery store during the first afternoon of Ramadan, the girl at the checkout counter kept glancing at my t-shirt. “The Kite Runner!” she finally exclaimed. “Did you like the movie?”

“I did,” I said. “Not as good as the book, of course, but I thought they did an amazing job with the casting.”

“Just like in The Notebook! Did you see The Notebook?”

“Mhmm,” I said noncommittally. (I hated that movie.)

“Wasn’t it so awesome?” And here, her excitement clearly knew no bounds. “They left out some scenes from the book, though. Remember that part where Noah and Allie…[blah blah blah…] …” I grabbed my groceries and hurried out of the store as soon as I could.

Later in the day, towards the end of a getting-things-done session at a local coffeeshop, the man across from me looked over as we both began gathering our possessions together, and said ruefully, “I hope you had a more productive afternoon than I had!”

“I wish,” I said, wincing. “I’m really too good at distracting myself.”

“Hey, The Kite Runner!” he exclaimed. “Nice t-shirt. Did you watch the movie? What’d you think?”

“Good movie,” I said. “Rocking job with the casting. I highly recommend you check it out, just for that.” Then, I ran away really quickly before he could begin talking about The Notebook.

If there was one single thing I learned over the course of the past month, it was this: How to bend my torso at a nintey-degree angle to the rest of my body. This was something I’d been meaning to perfect for a long time – not just half-heartedly hunching over during the bowing portion of the prayer-cycle, but actually bending in such a fashion, knees unbent and back completely parallel to the ground, so that one could, as is often said, rest a glass of water on one’s back without spilling the water. By the end of the month, I was so limber that I could almost touch my toes.

One thing I didn’t perfect, however, was how to gracefully rise up again from a sitting position without feeling wobbly or brushing my hand(s) against the ground for balance. Sometimes, it worked; sometimes, it didn’t. If you have any tips and tricks for this hands-free-return to the standing position, let me know. Really, I’m serious! Is it about rising up so quickly that you have no time to catch yourself off-balance? Is it about briefly rocking back and then up? Is it about bracing your hands on your knees or thighs on the way up? I must know. You. Tell me.

In Ramadan, my mom kept making chapli kabob and pakoriyaan to go with dinner at the end of the evening, and nothing makes me wrinkle my nose more than the thought of heading out to congregational prayers while smelling like spices. But then I would remember how much I love breaking up the chapli kabob into little pieces to go with my salad, and I would sigh and eat and eat and eat. One evening, I had an epiphany: “Where are those croutons I bought weeks ago? Do we still have them?”

My dad laughed. “They’re probably in a cabinet somewhere, with the bag knotted up and tied inside another bag and placed all the way in the back of the shelf where no one can find it until it’s past the expiration date. Isn’t that how it always is?” I laughed, too, while the ummy didn’t so much as crack a smile. (She doesn’t always think we’re funny. And making fun of anything related to how she runs the kitchen is never funny.) A few nights later, I did indeed find the croutons in the cabinet. Sea salt and garlic! O mein Gott!

During the course of Ramadan, I learned to recognize people in prayer by their feet. It got to the point where if, in the middle of prayer, my new favorite taraweeh-buddy, M, came to stand next to me, I knew it was she by the look of her toes, with the glimmer of a recently-scrubbed-off pedicure.

One of the things I loved the most about the taraweeh is hearing Quranic verses I recognize. On the first night, I particularly recall hearing Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon and Innassafa wal marwata, min sha’a irillah. On the second night, I heard the Ayat-ul-Kursi – which made me smile widely in prayer, and tear up a bit – and Amanar rasoolu…

Another one of the things I loved the most about Ramadan was the synchronicity and unison I felt in the nightly congregational prayers: How everyone, men and women alike, would hum, “Ameeeeeen,” at the end of Surah Al-Fatihah, The Opening, recited during each of the twenty prayer-cycles. How we would all bow, then stand, and then hear everyone’s knees crack in unison as we fell into prostration.

One of the things I disliked (it must be said) about the congregational prayer was performing the taraweeh directly behind tall people who couldn’t seem to properly fall into line with rest of their own row. Instead, they’d stand enough inches behind their line that they’d hit me in the head with their bum every time we both rose from prostration. This aggravated me. A lot. Much inaudible sighing and gritting of teeth ensued.

All that said and done, the last day of Ramadan was about this prayer. As I told erstwhile blogger Faiza when she IMed me about the post, “I kept thinking to myself through Ramadan, ‘There’s something missing. I can’t put my finger on what I’m supposed to be asking for.'” The morning of the last day, I remembered that piece on “authentic prayer,” and scrambled to print it out, then spent a bit of the day sitting quietly and reading through it a couple of times. As a result of pasting that link into my GChat status message [“remembering some duas i could still be asking for while there’s this little sliver of ramadan left”], I ended up having at least half a dozen unexpected and beautiful conversations, regarding prayer and faith and that post, during the course of the very last day of the blessed month. I am humbled, and honored, that a prayer that is so deeply personal to me has managed to resonate with so many others as well.

One of my favorite professors in college, herself nonMuslim, once referred to Ramadan as a time of “witnessing without judging,” and a period of “heightened consciousness.” It took me until Ramadan was nearly over this year to realize that I’m too good at witnessing without doing much of anything, and that I spent the month talking about physical hunger but depriving myself of spiritual sustenance.

In re-uploading the above photo (of the Islamic Center of San Diego) to flickr just now, I found a post I had written during Ramadan five years ago, and felt an unexpected lump in my throat for the month I nearly wasted this year. How could I have forgotten all this that I was seeking? And how is it I’ve remembered all these longings and prayers only now that Ramadan is over?

I’m re-reading my favorite lines from Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day, as both consolation and a kick:

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?