Ch ch ch Changes!

The book and my life, are undergoing some changes. In fact, there may be more than one book happening at the same time. Not sure yet, completely of the direction but would love your feedback. There is an adventure story, part fantasy, developing right in the middle of the fictionalized autobiography. I'm going back and forth between the two and am in a highly creative period right now, Alhamdulilah. I'll put an excerpt on here soon.

The Hard Stuff

Writing or talking about the hard stuff is...well it's hard. That's the stuff that dredges up old feelings, many of them not pleasant. I have a dear friend who says looking at the stuff that was your past, even the ugly parts of it, is good. Those experiences are what you had to go through to be the you you are today. In a logical sense, of course this is true. And, if I think about it, I have no regrets about things I've done..mostly no regrets. Its the feelings and emotions that go along with the telling. The tears that pour down and seem never to want to stop. Those outpourings are exhausting, leaving me robbed of sleep , with aching eyes that tell the world I've been crying, or tell the least observant that something's wrong, even if they don't know what it is.

Some parts of the book make me feel this way. They are the parts I've been putting off writing about. Yet they will probably become the heart of the book, the parts that touch readers most and make them empathize with someone they may have thought they had nothing in common with. If I were to sum it up, I'd have to say that the hard stuff is the human side!

Back in the Saddle Again

Ok, inspired by several sources, including a new follower, I've decided to try harder to keep up with this. What follows is another excerpt from the book; the one I'm supposed to be writing for publication by some means (self-publishing or other) within the next year or so. This is a condensed version of several chapters. I actually presented this at an interfaith presentation at the Ann Arbor public library. The topic was "American Daughters of Islam." It was a panel discussion that featured five American Muslim women, three converts and two born into the faith.It was very well received by the 100 people in the audience. Here's what I said:

PATH TO ISLAM: 10 MIN OR LESS

My parents and most family members were secular Jews. That means they viewed being Jewish as more of an ethnic and cultural identity than a religious one. This was common among NY Jews of Eastern European descent. The only person in my family who was sure she believed in God was my grandma. I also had a neighborhood best friend who was a Baptist and wanted to save my soul from hellfire when we were both about 12.

I went to Hebrew school and Sunday school b/c I wanted a bas mitzvah, a big party when you turned 13. In the Reform temple it was becoming popular for girls though not as big a deal as it was for boys, especially in liberal Long Island, NY, just a stone’s throw from Manhattan. If you remember the liberal 70’s, it was all about breaking the rules, if there were any, and my parents never explicitly set any, thinking my brother and I somehow had enough common sense to know the limits. He did, maybe. I didn’t.

From the time I was 11 or 12, I was searching for more meaning in life. I kept asking, Is this all there is? Getting good grades, trying to be like the popular kids, dressing well, striving for a Barbie doll figure. Is this all there is to life? I once asked my mother this question and added, because if this is it, I don’t think I want to live. She asked me if I was serious, or just trying to get a reaction. I told her I was just kidding, but that was a lie.

I went to live in Israel for 9 months after high school. I came back and tried to rediscover my roots. But I found even conservative Judaism to be more about the Jewish people than about God. I needed to know Him. Did he exist? Did I have a relationship with Him? I tired TM meditation, much to my parents dismay, and found peace in that for moments at a time, but not enough to sustain a preaceful and happy life.

I attended NYU and hung out in Washington Square Park. One day, while listening to an impromptu concert there, an African American man handed me a joint and asked, Do you believe in God? I looked into his deep brown eyes and answered truthfully, I don’t know. Nobody has asked me that question for a long time. I’ll have to think about it.

The question planted a seed and I did think. The man’s name was Abdullah and he hung out in that park, so I started asking him questions, like How do you know there is a God. He had good answers, and when he ran out of those he told me to go to the masjid and get a Quran. One day, I asked God to prove His existence to me, and He started to do just that. The universe became an open book of His signs. The perfect petals of a flower and the newly photographed rings around Saturn became proof of a Designer’s existence. Allah tells us in the Quran that He will show us signs in the universe and within ourselves until we believe.

I had started to believe, but I needed more. So I asked Mike about loneliness and being alone. There’s a lot of that in NYC apartments, and in life, even if you do have a roommate and a family, right? There is a void in the heart that only Allah (God) could fill. Mike described it as a hotline number 33,33, 34. Glory to God, All Praise is to God and God is Great. I called on that number several times a day and realized God was with me.

There are many teachers on one’s spiritual path. My next mentors were Muslim students at NYU. It was 1979 and Americans had been taken hostage by Iranian students at the American embassy in Tehran. I, like most Americans, were flabbergasted and outraged that such a thing could have happened. So when I walked by the Muslim Students Assoc. table during student activities day, I stopped and said,. How dare you take our people hostage. Who do you think you are. Your politics stink, but tell me about your religion. The guy at the table smiled graciously and said, What would you like to know.

I had many questions and over the next few weeks my new friends did their best to answer them. They impressed me in many ways. One of the most significant was the way they treated me, an attractive, stylish, single American girl. They did not flirt or come on to me in any way. They were respectful in a way American men were not. I found this strange, but refreshing and non-threatening. They introduced me to some female Muslim students and I began to learn about hijab and hayaa. Covering and modesty.

Most of you view the hijab as a sign of oppression, but in reality it is a sign of liberation, of freedom. Hijab frees you from being appraised for the shape of your body and the color and style of your hair. Hijab demands that someone look at your face and listen to your words instead of running their eyes up and down your body as you speak. Hijab protects women and society from the exploitation of physical beauty.

I began to consider committing myself to God as a Muslim. The word means one who submits to God’s will above his/her own. I started to pray, I put on hijab. I took my shahadah and began my journey toward Allah (SWT) It is a lifelong journey . As Allah SWT says in the Quran, Chapter 81, v. 19 You shall journey on from stage to stage. And in another chapter, regarding the soul’s journey: he is successful who purifies it, and he fails who corrupts it.

So Hard to Keep up with it all!

March 3, 2010

Again, a long time has gone by. I have been caught up in the whirlwind of change that is life. Sometimes it moves at such a rapid pace we can hardly keep up. Sometimes it is more stagnant. But not lately! For one thing, I've been traveling, locally and globally both. I took my youngest daughter to see Paris, a dream come true! Actually we went with her high school. What an exciting city; so much to see and do there! It is important that I write and thank her teachers for their great job. They did an amazing job of organizing and managing 28 students and 6 adult chaperone's. Appreciating what people have done and letting them and their employers know it is an important thing to do. So often, i neglect to do so. And then i complain about how others don't appreciate my work. Do unto others...Also Allah tells us to be grateful to others if we want to show gratitude to Him. "And, if you are grateful, I will give you increase..."

I have a new laptop to work with and am looking forward to getting back to my book and posting some of it here for your feedback. So please give me some when you read. Thanks!

Mary

haven't been here in a while, but here's something new:


Mary

Mary, as a young girl
Did she ever dream
Such an infant would suckle at her breast?

Just the act of suckling is holy
Be it infant or lover.

The angel came with news
Of a miracle.
Jesus would be born!
She backed away in confusion and awe
How, she gasped, when no man has touched me?

Gabriel explained,
Kun fa ya kun
And so it was.

She was young and virgin vessel
Only the purest for such a word
from Him.

In a strange and wondrous way
All humans are virgins
Till hearts break open
Trying to contain His Love.

2/2/10

211 Secatogue Lane

I've been trying to work on a book and have been busy remembering pieces of my life and fitting them together to tell the tale of who I've been, who I am now and who I am becoming on this journey we call life. What follows is another excerpt from childhood memories. I'd love some feedback, especially from new readers! Is this boring or a necessary intro? What could be added, taken away?

The lane I lived on overarched with trees that almost met in the middle. The whole area had once been a forest and large, lovely trees lined both sides of the wide street. Houses had expansive front lawns and big backyards where plenty of the mature forest trees remained, interspersed with recent landscaping of new trees, hedges and shrubs. My house was at the end of the long lane.

Beyond my home lay Willet’s Point, where the road branched into east and west, leading eventually down to the bay on both sides. That was prime waterfront property, much of it on the bay itself. The houses were mostly smaller and more cookie cutter than those on my lane, but they had bay access and docking space for boats. The Great South Bay, with its tiny private beach and rusted lone swing became my go to place to think and be alone as I entered adolescence. I have always craved and carved out a fairly large dose of solitude in my life.

For much of my childhood I played outside, with my brother Andrew, my dog, Tiny, a runty St Bernard, and a variety of neighbors. The neighborhood grew up with us. When we first came there, a large woods abutted our property. It must have been the size of three large lots.

Of course, the woods was forbidden territory. Older kids told stories about finding broken beer bottles in there. If there were broken bottles, they reasoned, there must be drunken men, bad men who would kidnap and kill children. Mommy made sure we knew the woods were absolutely off limits.

Sometimes I played by myself in our backyard. I remember it as a huge expanse with beautiful old trees, some flowering lilacs and rhododendron bushes and wonderful green grass that took lots of mowing, first from dad and later from a yard service. That backyard was the perfect place for me to wander, from tree to bush to flower, absorbed totally in my own games and my own thoughts.

Once I could read and climb, the tree by the garage became a favorite perch. I climbed up into the lowest fork where the trunk split off into two thick branches and there I would sit with a book and read, pretty well hidden from the world in my leafy kingdom.

One day, when I was about 5 years old and out in my yard, I noticed the older neighbor boy up in a tree. He was hammering some nails into the tree and building something. I had been fascinated by this older boy, Davey Cross, and wanted to know everything about him, so I tipped my head back to look up at him, way up in the tree and asked,

Davey, what are you doing?
Building a tree house, he replied..

I was very intrigued by this so I stood there with my neck craned, watching. After a few moments I felt a little ping on the top of my head. It didn’t hurt, exactly, it was just unusual, so I reached up to touch my crown with a tentative hand. When I drew it back, my hand was full of blood! A nail head pierced the top of my head. Soon bright red blood was trickling down the sides of my face. The crown of my head began to throb dully as I ran screaming toward the house.

But only our new, Costa Rican housekeeper was there, looking after my brother and doing the laundry. She took one look at this bloody crying five year old and blanched white. Ay Dios!, she cried out and then began muttering to herself in Spanish. Her olive skin turned pale and looked so white in contrast to her dark curls. She was trying to decide what to do and decided to get a comb, of all things, to loosen my waist length pigtails and comb through my hair, perhaps to identify the source of the blood. That made it flow all the more and faster, too, so I screamed a bit more. Then she called dad’s office. Although she did not speak English at the point, she must have asked for Mr, Flowers. Between his pidgeon Spanish and her lack of English, an emergency was declared and he came rushing home.

I’ll never forget the sight of his face, white as a ghost. He scooped me up, blood and all and threw me in the car. We were in Good Sam’s emergency room in 5 minutes flat. I don’t remember much of that but I know I got one or two stitches on the top of my head and was sent home.

Another, much more minor incident in the yard included getting stung by a bee for the first time. One minute a friend and I were playing, crawling around on the grassy lawn and the next, my hand seemed to come down on something that produced a very sharp pain. I screamed and then began to cry as I once more ran toward the house for comfort. This time I think there were guests. The bee’s stinger was still visible in my hand, so mom pulled to out and told me I had been stung by a bee.

When we got Tiny, our St. Bernard puppy, we fenced in the yard. Tiny was often my best friend in those days. I would tell her my troubles and my secrets, especially when I though nobody else understood them. I would bury my hands in her thick fur, smell her comforting doggy smell and think of her as my best friend in a world where people didn’t always understand just what I was crying for or why I felt so alone.

We played less in the front yard, with its high hedges fronting the street and the shrubs lining both sides of the driveway. For years the landscapers complained because dad couldn’t back out in a straight line without veering into the shrubs on one side or the other of the driveway and damaging the foliage. There was a nice island of mature trees, large bushes and stones on the left side of the lawn. My grandmother’s wrought iron bench eventually found a home there.

new work

Greetings and salams to all. Happy New Year! I haven't posted in a while but I'm still writing, both poetry and prose. here's a sample:



Sleep,
Sleep as deeply as you must.
I will keep watch
And try to keep the demons at bay
for both of us.


There is nothing else for me to do right now but breathe
And write this poetry.

Outward breath: La ilaha
Inward: Il Allah
This will keep me sane
Or rather,
Crazily in love.

One of two choices
Are you capable of choosing?
I am not.
Your body must go about the busyness of the world
But are you able to separate it from the whole?
If so, you are stronger than i.

All i can do,

In this fearful moment

Is try to make sense

Through these words

Of what cannot really be said.

S. Flower, 1/4/10