Magic

The ability

To

s…t…r…i…n…g

together

A

piece

of

thought

With another

                                                                                                That has no connection

To it

On the surface

But when placed

In just the

Right place.

Means

What

                                       the tiny Voice in my head

Wants it to mean.

                                                     That is Magic!

A Splatter of Thoughts

I take the quill from my hand

And drop it in the space

Between the sheet of pristine white paper

And the edge of my desk.

Tiny drops of ink

Splatter

Across the white of the page

Forming a path of thoughts

As they congeal into place.

If words are nothing but splatters of ink

Arranged in a way that we have all

Determined to mean a thing.

Does not this splatter

Define the vision of the thoughts?

Of my thoughts?

Of my frustrations?

And so

With a sweep of my hand

I declare that these will be my words today

This splatter of ink

Across the page.

When the devil’s locked away

I’m a Muslim. This bothers some people, because on the face of it, I don’t project “Islamism”.  That fact bothers a lot of Muslims.

See, I’m an equal-opportunity bias-enabler.

The month of Ramadan is here. So, for this whole month, every day, from dawn till dusk, we don’t eat, drink, have sex, lie, cheat, steal, backbite or take candy from babies.

It’s a month to build a better relationship with God. To ponder our existence. To take stock of our lives.

It’s a month to try to get as many brownie points as we can by being good to others, by thinking of the less fortunate, and by counting our blessings.

In this month, God locks away the devil. Yup. He’s in lockdown for the whole month; so any actions we take, are all on us. We can’t claim falling for Satan’s charms.

And there, for me, lies the catch.

See, I enjoy blaming Lucifer for all the bad in me. So what do I do when Iblees can no longer be held responsible?

Where can the finger point when I swear someone black and blue when they’ve cut in front of me in their car?

Or when I lose patience with my son and scold him when all he has failed to do is a math question on a sunny summer day?

When I curse someone under my breath for having a different point of view.

It’s a terrifying reality.

Made more terrible by the realization that this is a part of me.

Every year, I promise myself that I will seek Allah’s mercy, and beg for forgiveness. That I will take stock of my life.

And every year, I find myself naked, striped of justifications. No Satan, no early childhood traumas, no excuses. 

Just me and my reality.

I think the devil is more important than we realize. If we were forced to look at ourselves naked for the whole year, would we ever be able to live with ourselves?

Is there a person out there who is completely content with how they have lived their life? With every action they have taken? With every word uttered?

Is there a person out there who has never tried to convince themselves that “that wasn’t the real me, I just succumbed to the catalysts of the moment. I’m really a nice person”.

The devil, or temporary insanity. Call it what you will. We all hide our evil side behind the patina of “it was his fault” – even if just to ourselves, even if just for a moment.

So, when the devil is locked away, and you are stripped of your excuse, look at yourself.

Really look at yourself.

If you can, then you are blessed.

Ramadan Mubarik!

A Not So Pleasant Truth

I’ve discovered something about myself that I don’t particularly like.


I’ve always had the lowest tolerance for people lying to me, or breaking my trust. I do not forgive people who do so.


This was never a conscious decision. I didn’t wake up one morning and say to myself, you know what, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive or trust a person who has fallen short of my standards.


God! That sounds so pompous, doesn’t it? I don’t mean to be. Maybe I’m just shy :P


Anyways. It is just that events in my life have taught me to distrust.


But now I guess I’m adding another item to my list of … Peeves? Issues? Negative triggers?


Betrayal.


And not the deliberate kind either. But the “it just happens that this step I’m going to take for me happens to betray you” sort of thing.


I dissect my reaction into two parts: The logical. The emotional.


The logical part says, “I understand, I even applaud. It makes complete sense, and just because it is ‘me’ at the other end of the stick, I’m not going to let it affect me in any way. We will stay to each other what we always were.


And then there’s this damn emotional part of my being. The part that says, “So, that’s how you treat me? I’m that expendable? It’s so easy to walk away? Fine. See if I care! I’ll leave you to it then.


Did you hear the teenage in me?


I’m sure there was something that triggers this reaction in me. Some pent up residue from my childhood.


But do I really care about the reason?


It is who I am. No apologies. No reasons. No excuses.

Coming back into myself

As the night descends into its depths, and the images and sounds that remain get just that much more clear, one can begin to hear the gentle breathing of ones soul.

As I view the bright lights of the wallpaper on my desktop, I think over why I have forsaken my words for so long.

Yes, I have had a second child, and yes, two children are ten times more work than one. Yes, I am working, and trying to keep up with my life. But must I forsake all I hold dear?

My words used to be my life, my reason, my definition of me.

Yet, caught up as I was in the daily routine of living, I had abandoned them. Was it an abandonment of me? Had I forsaken myself?

Last night, as I lay beside my sleeping baby, I wrote some prose in my head. It wasn’t amazing, or great even. But it came spontaneously. And I recognized it as my own work.

But I did not have the physical strength at 2:00 in the morning to get out of bed and put it down on paper. And I knew that if I left the side of my baby, he would wake up again, and my 90 minutes of hard work would go to waste.

And so I lay there, trying to hold onto those words, trying to commit them to memory. And when I opened this Word document just before midnight today, my intention was to commit last nights’ words to my computers memory.

But I couldn’t even remember the theme of my words, the rhythm, the sequence.

I mourn the loss of those words.

I promise to try to never forsake my words again.

Awareness

Have you ever been the only person awake in a house filled with people? Or at least, the only one you know is awake.

It usually happens early in the morning after a late night, or late at night, after a hectic day.

And usually, you are also in bed, but unable to sleep, and that is where is begins.

A strange sort of awareness.  A strange sort of handicap.

You hesitate to get out of bed for fear of awaking anyone else. Why? So as not to disturb their rest? Or so that no one will intrude into your peace?

You turn the tap so that only a trickle of water flows into the glass. Rushing water might attract attention. And then you drink that glass of water as if it were the only thing standing between you and the desert.

You can’t read because you can’t turn on the light. If you are lucky, you are near a window, and so you hesitantly pull back the corner of a curtain, and try to catch a few rays of light on the pages of your book. But unless the book is why you are awake in the first place, that fascination seems only to last for a moment or so. You gradually let the curtains fall back into place.

And then you hear a creak. A footfall. And you turn around and pull the covers back over your head.

Why allow anyone else into your peace? Why intrude into anyone else’s? 

Changes in the human thought process

Changes in the human thought process.

What we think is mean and despicable one day, we excuse the next.

Which state is reflective of wisdom? Which is reflective of truth?

Are raw emotions brought upon by distress, anger, or extreme joy not the bare truth? Is it not so that once we start filtering them through the folds of rationality and thought, they become tainted by logic?

Do we follow the soul, or the mind?

Which state is more truthful?

Or are there different versions of the truth? Different times for different truths?

Then is truth a state of mind; a state of soul?