Archives for 2005

There are those mornings when you wake up feeling like the skin on your face has been rubbed raw and your eyes are red without reason. These are the days when it seems that cold morning dew clings to the streets even at noon, and the knowledge that your sense of time is badly skewed makes you queasy, makes you narrow your eyes at the damp grey light that squeezes its way through the pale blue sky. Continue reading this entry »

“You heard about [her] mom, right?”
It’s just an IM, but my stomach gives a sick lurch.

It wasn’t uncommon for S. to absent during high school, because she would be with her father, on his many hospital trips. S. was never one to tell people things, but we knew he had a severe respiratory disease. To this day, I don’t know if it was cancer or not.
In grade 12, her father died.
The day of his funeral the mosque was crowded with high school students.

Today I found out her mother is in hospital. She’d had an accident while cooking and was burned.

And all I can think is Oh my god, why.
Why would you test her this way, why?
Sometimes, as it seems that our own lives are stretched too tight, my mother will say something like, “This is only temporary. Things will get better.”
I say nothing then, because I suspect this is no novel where there will definitely be a happy ending. Things can easily get worse.

I think of her, driving back and forth from the hospitals.
I remember the hospital visit I made three years ago. How I never went in to see her dad, only sat outside in the foyer, jaw clenched, not knowing what to say, how to hug, who to look at.
There is a terrifying mirroring going on here, across time and across lives.
And all I can think is God why.

I should be in Toronto this weekend. That was the plan before I heard about this, and if anything gets in the way of it, I’ll have to make other plans to be there anyway.

And now I chastise myself, thinking of all those spare minutes I could have collected, could have used to just send an email, make call, just a few words.
Because it’s been months since I’ve spoken to her. But I’d always told myself that she was one of those select few with whom I could resume friendships as though they’d never been put on hold.

God why.

It appears that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will be Liberia’s newest president. There have been allegations of fraud from opponents, but international observers have said that the preliminary findings indicate the voting was fair.

Now the thing about Johnson-Sirleaf, in case you haven’t noticed, is that she’s a woman. And so every report on the polls is heralding her as Africa’s first female president.
Let’s break this down, this issue of female leadership, to numbers and locations. Continue reading this entry »

Sometimes I don’t write because it seems the experience in question would not stand the insult of being expressed.

There was the second day of Eid. This was the day when I set off, initially unwillingly, to Richardson Stadium, there to be greeted by great expanses of grass, green in defiance of November forebodings. And here, away from the sombre upward reachings of bricked buildings, the sky gave itself to a playful blue, an innocent flirtation with winter and year-end greys. Continue reading this entry »

On Friday afternoon I spent some time, for a Biomechanics 353 project, with one of Queen’s quarterbacks. He was quiet, 5 o’clock shadowed, and smaller than I’d expected, but tall enough to dwarf my 5’4.”
This, pathetic though it seems, was my first brush with postsecondary football glory.
And I found myself, in between making notes under the afternoon sun, observing him and turning inward. Continue reading this entry »

Here’s the thing: I usually spend Eid sleeping. Predetermined holidays are not my thing, because I never know how to conduct myself without falling into a meaningless rut: so I fall into my own meaningless tradition.

And it’s partly a family thing; we seem to lack creativity that way. Once I (finally) get my driving licence (oh how many of my sentences start with this phrase) I intend to change that. Continue reading this entry »

We are standing on a hill, our shadows behind us and therefore invisible. Except that our sight created this scene, we have nothing to do with the action below. Things unfold before us and we can only watch, being powerless to touch or to influence.

Closest to us is a man tilling a field, his horse and plough creating concentric furrows in this piece of land overhanging the sea. This sloping staircase of grooves stretches to the left and out of sight, disappearing into the shadows of the trees, now only regaining their leafy glory. Continue reading this entry »

I posted this 35 minutes too late for the Blog Quake Day deadline of Oct 26, 2005.

On a regular basis now I am confronted by the grooves in the palms of my hand. The scab on the inside of the knuckle of the second to last finger of my right hand, the birthmark at the base of the thumb of my left hand, the pale crescents of my nails poking over the tops of my fingers, the crookedness of my fingers, all these things get in the way of my talking to God, so during these predetermined times of prayer, I am at a loss for words. Continue reading this entry »

I’m writing a piece on Eid for the Journal, but decided to cut out the part below. Still, because I haven’t yet forgotten Mr. S., I decided to post it here. Continue reading this entry »

It has become increasingly self-evident, so that even I, who am most self-oblivious, cannot ignore it: my avoidance of the media, formerly unthinking, is creating a disconnect between my perception of the world and the reality of it that is wider than even everyday complacency can justify. Continue reading this entry »