apropos of anything

So many of my recent posts have been in the this-time-last-year vein that I feel like 2005 must have been extraordinarily eventful. It’s probably more that the events hit me so much harder, absorbed my thoughts and emotions so completely, that they’ve left a mark I’ll revisit year after year.

This was me a year ago today.

Aasif took this photo of me and Amal the evening of Mumanijan’s funeral. We’re in Mumanijan’s room, which looked strangely bare, having been stripped of the bed and oxygen tanks it no longer needed. I wonder how big Amal’s gotten now.

The thing about Nishat Mumanijan was that she always got it, no matter what “it” was. She never judged you, not ever, and if she didn’t necessarily approve of what you were doing, she made it clear the disapproval didn’t extend to you as a person. She heard the things you said. She heard the things you didn’t say. And she definitely brought everybody together.

More and more people came to visit as she got sicker. For myself, it got to the point where I was spending four days a week in Chicago and only three in Atlanta, consecutive weeks at a time. I remember saying here that I pretty much felt one of the rooms in Naperville was mine, I was in it so much. Other people flew in from all over the country, or drove in from just down state, and we’d sit up and watch movies or have Scrabble competitions or just talk where Mumanijan could hear us and sometimes participate. Amal was a fixture; we loved her. Those are good memories for me. There’s a certain sadness to them, but when I look back, I think more about how we were all there, the entire family, and less about the reason why.

When he dropped me off at the airport the Tuesday after the funeral, Sami Mamujan told me not to stop visiting just because Mumanijan had died. I didn’t plan to, but things were already different. We’d packed up her room, her clothes. She wasn’t there anymore. It actually took me eight months to go back, and even then I had a hard time adjusting to having only one home in Chicago. To seeing the yellow vase in Naperville instead of Wheaton, where it belonged.

In the year that she’s been gone, I can’t even begin to count the number of times I thought, Mumanijan would have understood this. She would have.

As a child, I had a thing for big earrings. I was convinced there was no point in wearing earrings unless everyone could see them, and also, we were still sitting on the tail end of the 80s at the time.

I outgrew the phase, eventually coming to the conclusion that smaller was classier and it didn’t matter if nobody else could see my earrings so long as I knew they were there. Chandelier earrings are the rage now, but while I love seeing them on other people, I rarely wear any myself as the pretty-yet-dangly jewelry is not entirely conducive with hijab-wearing, particularly if you wrap your hijab tightly around your head the way I frequently do.

And then I went to India, where I am the youngest (the only exceptions being my three younger brothers) in a very large clan, which means that nobody really listens to my objections about there being no point in wearing large earrings under my hijab. I wore, under protest, the earrings that were handed to me and paid the price later as my tight hijab caused the earring posts to begin boring a second set of piercings into my neck. But I wore them because in India, that’s what you do.

The second set of earrings they wanted me to wear had a different type of post, one that would hold up well with all kinds of hijabs, so I just kept those on for fear that the next pair would not be so friendly. When it was time to go, I took them off and returned them to their owner… who promptly gave them back to me and told me to keep them. I don’t know if that kind of thing happens all the time in India, but it’s certainly a frequent event in my family. We’ve got the routine down pat now, the giver insisting, me refusing, the giver pulling the seniority card, me caving. It’s a dance we do.

I’m wearing them now. Of all the jewelry I brought back, these earrings that I didn’t really want to take are the ones I love the most. “They were mine, but now they’re yours because you’re my little sister.” Only in India am I anybody’s little sister.

I will likely keep wearing the earrings until I stop missing India quite so badly. Miss it badly I do, despite the horrible plane ride, despite having to watch everything I eat or drink, despite the crowds and the climatic changes, because there are so many people there who have a claim on me, and on whom I have a claim, and because everything is different, yet I still belong.

Sunday morning, after you’ve gone to bed extremely late and woken up relatively early because the phone keeps ringing. You’ve had breakfast, but you’re still sluggish, so you head back on upstairs to the room with the sunlight and the bed that would be the envy of the entire population of three states, if only they knew about it.

You’re not there ten minutes before there’s someone stretched out on the other side of the bed, and a third person sprawled across the foot, and you’re lounging, chatting, catching up, strengthening bonds that are already pretty darn strong.

This is what keep you coming back, despite the expense and the stress, despite the 5:30 a.m. flights, despite sometimes dropping your suitcase and laptop bag down an escalator and bowling over two people.

(Confidential to S.: Do you understand now?)

Empirical evidence from the last few months leads me to believe that my body responds to lack of sleep by expunging all the contents of my stomach in a violent and frequent manner. It may actually explain part of why I was sick at the end of my hajj trip; I didn’t exactly get much sleep the two days before we left.

If my theory is correct, I should start puking any minute now.

The interior of the Midtown Flying Biscuit, even though we ate outside

Sumaiya was in town this week. We went to the Midtown location of the Flying Biscuit Cafe for lunch on Wednesday because she would have to work later in the evening. I talked her into trying their fried green tomatoes, but she wouldn’t take a chance on the grits; I guess their reputation has spread even to Chicago. We sat outside, on the 10th St. side, swatting flies and feebly attempting to people-watch in a city where there are few people and many cars. When she dropped me back at work, I was sure I reeked, in a sat-outside-on-a-hot-day kind of way, but no matter how much I sniffed myself, I couldn’t exactly place the smell. I hid out in my cube the rest of the afternoon anyway, as it’s not particularly professional to spread the (possibly nonexistent) stink.

That night was the quesadilla incident, the details of which involve Drano and vomit, so I’m going to spare y’all. Let’s just say y’all have heard it before. Just imagine in the fuzzy parts and know that I was up later than I should have been.

Thursday I met her and her friend Mohasin, who I actually met ten years ago at Governor’s Honors, at the Borders on Ponce before we headed over to the Virginia Highlands for dinner. I wanted to make my way through my ever-increasing list of books to buy (the ever-increasing part courtesy of the Chicklit forums), and they needed an easily accessible place to meet me, so there you go. As we were getting into the car, a panhandler came up asking for money for his three kids and blah blah blah. I’m not fond of panhandlers, but I also have a hard time saying no to them… but I didn’t actually have anything other than twenties, so Sumaiya and Mohasin, who have no qualms at all about ignoring panhandlers, had to cover me. There are times when I could give even Joey Potter lessons in spinelessness.

	Mmmmmmmmmmm.

I picked the Highlands because it’s a fun part of town, and we could walk around until we found a restaurant to our liking. Eventually we settled on Pad Thai, where the food was not actually very good, but the atmosphere was nice and the restaurant not crowded. It’s next door to Paulo’s Gelato, and how do you skip lemon and cinnamon gelato shaped like Mickey Mouse or a sailboat? You don’t, obviously, although we opted for green apple and papaya, sans mouse ears. The waitress narrowly avoided dropping our ice cream (because she was doubled over in laughter) when I insisted on paying because Sumaiya had already bought dinner and “paid for the man.” The panhandler man, I meant. Out of context, within spitting distance of the Clarimont Hotel… yeah, I should have known better.

As we always do, Sumaiya and I were up late Thursday night, catching up. Day (or is that night?) two.

Tonight was Khurram and Ferheen’s wedding… in Greenville. Because we caught the beginnings of Friday-afternoon rush-hour traffic, the drive there took just under three hours, destroying my carefully crafted plans for a cat nap before the wedding. We had just enough time to dress and rush over to the reception hall to join the baraat as it came in. Fatima and I left around eleven so we wouldn’t get home too late. Also because we were both fading fast, and we had a two-hour drive ahead of us. We were actually fading so fast I’m a little surprised we made it back safely, particularly after I tried to make a u-turn over what I thought was a gore but actually was a grassy median.

And now here we are. Late, and I’m blogging, despite running on very little sleep over the course of three days. Very tired and also worried about the whole no sleep equals ….bad ramifications thing. If I’d any sense at all, I’d be asleep right now, but… have y’all read the Drano entries?

At first, I thought all of the cucumber-milk mixture that was the beginnings of my soup would fit into my food processor. I was in the midst of congratulating myself on managing to move the entire contents of my saucepan into the bowl of the food processor without splattering or spilling — a heretofore unmanageable feat for me, Mistress of Spill — when the milky part began leaking out the bottom of the bowl. Rapidly, even.

There was a period of about thirty seconds where my brain simply refused to function. I stood there, frozen, watching as the liquid began to spread towards the edges of the countertop.

And then I wailed, to nobody in particular as the kitchen was empty, “I don’t know what to do!”

In fact, I did know what to do. It’s what any good five-year-old would do when confronted with a quickly moving spill: grab some paper towels and start mopping. It’s what I did when all my receptors clicked back into the “on” position and I could actually move my hands and feet again.

Mansoor was upstairs praying, as I should have been except that I was wiping up spilled milk (of sorts) in a desperate attempt to move my chilled shrimp cucumber soup towards some state of doneness, particularly as it was almost 9:00 and my dinner was nowhere near the table. Then, because I was worried about texture and a cucumber/milk balance, I heated up some extra milk with the intention of adding it to what remained in the food processor after those remains had been pureed. And then I worried some more.

I’m grateful that Aamir did not come to dinner as planned because then I’d have him to worry about in addition to myself and Mansoor, and I’m particularly grateful that Mansoor did not utter one word about dinner being late, except to say, “Um, I think you missed a spot,” when he noticed the original version of the soup had dripped into my silverware drawer, unbeknownst to me.

I’m also grateful that my chilled shrimp cucumber soup, despite being late and malformed and not “chilled” so much as “lukewarm”, looks exactly like the picture, and tastes decent as well, once you pick out all the dill. (I’m not exactly a fan of dill, although I love how artistic the thin green strands look floating on top of creamy soup.)

And finally, I am grateful that despite the spill, there wasn’t too large a mess in my kitchen, and I was able to clean it easily… because then my mother, Mistress of Clean, arrived.

We are from Allah, and unto Him we return.

Or, in Biblical terms, the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

For our Augusta boys that we lost tonight: Inna lillahi wa inna illahi raji’oon. May Allah (SWT) forgive you and have mercy upon you.

I don’t know what else to say that doesn’t sound callow or self-righteous about these boys, who were a part of our extended family, who were over at our house all the time.

Allahum-maghfir lihayyina wa mayyitina, wa shaahidina, wa ghaa’ibina, wa sagheerina wa kabeerina, wa dhakarina wa onthana. Allahuma man ahyaitahu minna fa ahyihi alal Islami, wa man tawaf-fitahu minna fatawaffahu’alal imani. Allahuma la tahrimna ajrahu wa la tudillana ba’dahu.

My heart goes out to your families.

Quick, it’s a multiple choice question! Is the above:

A) My email signature

B) Something Homer said on The Simpsons this Sunday

C) Something I said at our lovely North Carolina hotel this Saturday

D) Not a good sign

E) Both C and D

Those of you who said E, well, you’re just brilliant. Or cheating because you were actually in the hotel with me, and therefore you are disqualified and will not be receiving any charming surprises at all.

But enough about the hotel. The less said, the better, actually, for all our sakes, especially because there was so much more to North Carolina this weekend than our hotel.

	A familiar sight in the South.

Take, for example, the Yankee half of the family discovering Waffle House.

(They claim our fine southern establishment has crept north of the Mason-Dixon line, but I can’t imagine it’s the same up there, where you can only pick from two Waffle Houses in the entire city, while here we have a certain intersection on Tara Blvd. where you have your choice between four, yes four, different Waffle Houses.)

We had one next door to our hotel, so of course we had to go the first night. This particular Waffle House didn’t have vanilla or cherry syrup, nor did they have apple butter that didn’t come in pre-packaged, so apparently there are honors to be won even in the South.

The gas station across the street, however, with its mini grocery store, and its camo hats and hunting paraphernalia, stands in a category entirely of its own.

There was also our trip to the lovely Duke gardens, halal Philly cheesesteaks, ice cream from a family-owned dairy out in the middle of farmland — the ten-minute drive out there was half the fun — and then a frenzied dinner at Mansoor’s apartment, complete with twelve trips to Harris Teeter. And that was all Saturday.

Sunday was the graduation ceremony itself. No fewer than three sources told me I was flayed in effigy Sunday morning when the boys discovered I’d put all the water bottles in Mansoor’s freezer; thank goodness I’m not Debra Messing (with her awful, awful hair), or I’d have felt compelled to do the told-you-so dance in the middle of the muggy outdoor ceremony when we discovered the water bottles had melted just enough to be both drinkable and deliciously cold. Hah.

So, ceremony (with surprisingly good commencement speech courtesy of Dr. Peter Gomes of the Harvard Divinity School), hurried pictures, lunch, and more pictures. To wit:

Just the kids, fulfilling a family tradition on a campus full of traditions.
(That’s the old well in the back.)

We are quite the paparazzi family. No less than five cameras got that shot, and there’s an even funnier one on Sumaiya’s camera of all the photographers going after the same picture.

And that was that. We’re good for another year now, until Rashaad flees the Illini coop.

Tonight when I was mentally telling someone off in my head, I thought (to said non-existent person who does actually exist but was not present at the time), “And if you want to know what’s going on with me, you can just read my blog because I wouldn’t tell you anymore than what I put on there anyway!”

And then I realized that I don’t actually talk much about me on my blog. I discuss politics and television and books. I make references to events I attend, and occasionally even describe one, but I don’t usually mention the more personal details like how I got all weepy at work when it sunk in that Aasif was probably going to pharmacy school in Charleston, six hours (by car) from Atlanta.

I don’t open that door because I am desi and we Don’t Do Emotions better than anyone else on the planet. Some things really are too personal, and some things, like work, are better kept off the Internet, but on the whole I think there’s a lot more to say than I’m saying, and I keep it to myself because it makes me uncomfortable to have everyone else know that I am going to miss and worry about my baby brother when he moves away. Among other things.

So I’ll try to be better, but that’s enough of that for now because I can’t be expected to jump right in all at once. The water might be a little cold.

Last night, I had to stop by the halal meat store to pick up some ground beef, and my favorite Al-Madina being both closed and well out of my way, I stopped off at the new store that’s opened on Roswell Road, a mere two miles from my house. It’s very convenient, so if the meat continues to be of decent quality, I have a feeling I’ll be going by there a lot more often. Think of it: No more defrosting meat EVER AGAIN.

So I was wandering around the store, waiting for them to grind my beef when the door to the meat locker opened and out came the owner of Al-Madina. I felt so guilty at having been caught at another store, I promptly forgot that his store isn’t even open on Tuesdays, choosing instead to babble incoherently about how this store was so close to my house! It was on my way home! But when I go to Augusta, I buy from him! In massive bulk for my parents who have a second freezer just for meat! For all their friends and their second freezers too! And by the way, did he own this store as well, so I could feel less guilty about shopping here?

He didn’t own the store; he only delivered meat there, which speaks well for the quality of the meat, as Al-Madina is the best around. Then he was awfully nice to me, heaping coals of fire the size of Cleveland on my head, asking the butcher people what was taking so long and generally being friendly and chatty.

Meanwhile, the store owner began speaking to me in Arabic, which I don’t understand very well, and especially not when it’s spoken as fast native speakers tend to do. He looked surprised when I told him I didn’t speak Arabic, but he promptly switched to English, and they all continued to be chatty and friendly. Then, as he was ringing me up, he asked the standard question.

“So where are you from?”

“Oh, my parents are Indian,” I replied.

He blinked at me. “Both of them?” he asked, as though it obviously couldn’t possibly be true.

I confirmed. He blinked some more. “Well,” he said finally, “you don’t look Indian. You look Arab.”

I grinned and repeated I was 100 percent Indian. After all, what else was there to say? But if I had a dollar for every time somebody thought I was Arab… well, I could at least pay full-price for the new Harry Potter book.

I feel like I’ve been traveling for months. I think that would be because I HAVE been traveling for months. It’s been a long time (read: Thanksgiving) since I’ve had my regular work-home-Augusta schedule, and let me tell you, the nastiness that is my house is simply awful to behold. I’d post pictures, except then I’d have documented evidence that would forever haunt me.

Tonight when I unpack my suitcase and put it away, I’m going to do so with the expectation that it will stay away for the next couple of weeks. At the most, I’m planning to go to Augusta, and I have enough clothes already there that I rarely bother to pack a bag.

I’m looking forward to living in my house and my city full-time again… but I’m very much going to miss the regular trips to Chicago. It’s been good to see family so frequently, to strengthen existing bonds and to form new ones (with baby Amal, for example), and when I say that I had begun to consider the guest bedroom in Naperville to be my room, I am not entirely kidding.

As much as the Chicago visits upended my routine, so also did they provide stability for me. They became a different, albeit hectic, sort of normal themselves. In Chicago, if you remember, we are competitive, we are sarcastic, and we laugh a lot. There is a space for me in Chicago, whether or not somebody else is in my room, and the amount of comfort I take in that knowledge is indescribable. Plus, there are very few people in Atlanta who will play Scrabble with me.

Atlanta’s home. The place where I keep my shoes. However, it’s heartwarming to know that if I ever need it, my shoes and I have another place that’ll take us.

And then there’s work. I don’t think I’ve worked two consecutive five-days-in-the-office work weeks since Thanksgiving either. I took some time in the middle of December for the aforementioned traveling (and also, I suppose, to finish out the rest of my vacation time), and then we had the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, and then I was gone for hajj, and since coming back from Saudi, I’ve spent at least two days a week in Chicago, sometimes working a whole lot, sometimes… not. I’m amazingly productive out of the office, but for some things (like stalking people — have I mentioned I’m a champion stalker?), it’s easier to be at work when you’re working.

Seeing my friends again will be great. Cleaning up my house so it’s not a federal disaster area will be great, and cooking again will be great. Not worrying about whether I need to wear a coat will be super-great. It will be normal. After so many weeks of “abnormal,” though, I’m not entirely sure what “normal” is going to feel like now.