its not my decision

there is a garden. and in the garden there is a waterfall. and next to the waterfall there are lilacs. and by the lilacs there are blades of grass. and underneath the grass there is a house. and inside the house there is a woman.

and the woman is weeping

she is weeping because she misses something.

but she can’t remember what.

so she cries. and from her tears flow streams. that eventually lead to the waterfall.

i am not supposed to know her.

i am not supposed to hear her voice. i am not supposed to feel her tears.

but i can.

and sometimes i can feel her pain.

when that happens i sit completely still and listen. i can feel her pain graze down my spinal cord. she makes my heart feel so heavy like a twenty pound brick that will just fall right out at the slightest motion..

i am not supposed to know her. i am not supposed to know her and i am not supposed to feel her because when i do, she takes over. she becomes in complete control of me and i become hopeless. i feel hopeless. and her crying is deafening.

but there is one difference between her and I.

i never cry.

because i know something she doesn’t understand.

she is mourning the loss of something. but what she doesn’t realize is this is how it is meant to be. in life we do not decide what happens to us, what happiness we experience or how much pain we feel. we do not choose life, life chooses us. and this separates us worlds apart.

its not my decision. i accept it. i let life take me like the ocean takes the rivers and the rivers take the streams. there is no resistance.

instead she weeps.

Xmas Weddings: You Are All Invited!!

is it wedding season? im not sure. but who doesn’t LOVE looking at wedding pictures??

Well this isn’t your typical wedding. You may have expected to see a beautiful white dreamy gown with a lovely bride in it and big red bouquets of roses.

Yesterday, Xmas eve, I was invited with my family to attend a wedding ceremony by some of our family friends. Actually I don’t really know them that well at all but I’ve met them quite a few times and the girl getting married is super sweet.

being an outsider at the wedding, needless to say I was sitting there checking facebook, twitter, the news, anything to survive. Pakistani weddings are quite exciting actually. There are several different days of events: a lot of dancing, great food, laughter, big families, music, love, color and just super fun all around.

This was one of the pre-wedding events thats supposed to be like the time of your life occasion except i have to say they messed up a bit. I’m not trying to be critical or anything. let me just explain.

there are two weddings which are the main events, the first day hosted by the bride where the actual legal documents are signed and the legal-muslim version called “nikah” happens. This event is taking place tomorrow night.  A nikah is quiet nice ceremony, both the bride and groom are separately asked by the Imam (muslim priest) three times if they agree to the marriage. the bride and groom must answer three times that they agree. then the marriage is complete.

prior to the actual wedding there is one other major event called the mehndi, happened last night.  its everything i described above, fun fun fun.

Sooooo, the party time was at 5:30 pm. This is very early for pakistani-muslim weddings and pakistanis are always late. we decided to follow typical protocol and get there at 6:15. almost an hour later. guess what the bride and groom hadn’t arrived yet. what a surprise.

then we sat around and waited, waited and waited. I played with my phone till i felt like crying or taking a nap and it was like 8:30. BRIDE and GROOM arrive! this is early actually but why the hell did they make us sit around for two hours prior! it could have been three hours had i not begged my mom to leave late! All the guests were hungry and we couldn’t find anything to eat. ( i had actually come with full stomach, but after two hours of sheer boredom, i needed food!)

Finally around 9:30, there was food. and the food Oh My God it did not disappoint. I flippin love food, all kinds, from all over the world and this stuff was incredible. made the night worth it. after about four hours of staying at this wedding, we decided it was time for us to go. we actually ended up missing the fun part, lol, that is the dancing part. But I did get some great pictures..  yea and I missed FOOTBALL because of it. I would have liked to stay but i was just too tired after sitting there for sOoo long. OH AND the venue, next to a cemetery and very creepy.

Enjoy the pictures. I’ll have more tomorrow night.

 

 

muslim

our world is real

i think at least once in our lives all of us question our own existence.

do we really exist or is everything like a dream, like our eyes are closed and we subconsciously create our world. we cant control everything but we can control our reactions.

i don’t really believe that though. i truly believe with as much certainty as is humanely possible that our world is real. its not  a dream, that something higher more great then ourselves created our world and through this higher power we are all connected by like invisible threads. and the stronger our relationships are with someone else the more threads that are connected to them and how we can empathize so well with others we are close to. almost like a clear invisible umbilical cord.

and through those invisible threads our energies transfer like vapors like perfume. our energies vaporize around us, on our skin and every where else, and whenever we enter a room, we release our energies and these energies can enter other peoples skin pores and cause empathy; share feelings not just mirror -share.

all these invisible threads connected to each other but also connected to the higher power. the source of all the light and all the love.  imagine all the love in the world coming from one source. its so powerful. this beautiful all powerful, incomparable place of energy, we are all connected to.

i think humans are evolving. our understanding is growing and there is even greater difference between us and our primate ancestors because as a whole, our conscience level is greater.

tonight,

every thread connected to me is pulsating

like heart beat

i can feel every human being

bullets like raindrops

 

if you are a bullet, its only natural that you kill something, its not your fault, your intention is not to hurt anyone but thats your whole purpose.

—- —– —– —– —– —– — —- —– —— —— —— —– —- —- —–

my whole life i couldn’t recognize my own name. i mean i knew that when someone said my name, they were talking to me but it always felt foreign, and i could never decide how it should be pronounced. except when he said it. how he said it was perfect. i never taught him how, he just knew. and it didn’t feel foreign, i knew he was saying my name. it was me he wanted, me he called for, me he longed for. he helped me accept myself and put all the pieces together. I mean all he really did was love me but isn’t that everything.

it was the simple pleasures in life that made us happy like rain drops.

rain drops just trickle down, one at a time. they drop on eyelashes and lilac petals and tiny baby fingernails. they are uninhabited. they touch whatever they like and they flow where ever they wish. they are vulnerable and expressive. they do not restrict themselves nor are they intrusive. they don’t hide their emotions.  when they are angry they roar and when they are sad they cry in front of the whole world. they are gentle, kind, honest and trusting, like lovers.

she was only nineteen when she met him. He had beautiful dark brown hair and light skin. And in his dark brown he wore an expression of sadness as if he’d already lived a thousand lives and she was his savior.  when he looked at her with loving longing, it was like his whole soul lit up, like it was glowing.

 

things change so quickly.

 

hell the prelude for paradise

have you ever loved someone so much that you feel as if your heart doesn’t live inside your own body; it lives inside someone else. that your heartbeat isn’t just connected to your heart, its in sync with another and that when they are away your soul is disconnected. like someone unplugged it. it isn’t fair to love like that. it isn’t fair. and when the love is lost, your heart is lost, its missing, its disappeared. and now where the hell are you going to find a new heart? there’s only one place, with God.

God is funny you know. He made hell the prelude for paradise. when life hurts the most, your perspective changes. and when you come out of that ocean after you’ve drowned and stopped breathing, you are different. because you stopped breathing. but you’re still alive and then you simply just breath again. because what else is there to do. nothing, just to breath.

its hard to soak in what you’re looking for when you’re already filled to the brim. anything you try to put in will ricochet off the surface and fall away. when you’re so filled, so heavy, you sink deeper. and the whole time while you’re resisting, you sink harder.

maybe its time to let go of something. let go of the resistance. as your lungs fill with water you stop fighting. you just accept that your drowning. you stop regretting. you stop lying. you stop being angry. you stop wanting. you stop wishing for more. you stop pretending. you stop feeling sad or trying so hard to feel happy. you stop being afraid. you just let your lungs fill with the water, eyes closed, head back, arms and legs lingering on each side, heart beat resting.

that’s when God reaches in. his invisible hand swims through to the ocean bed, where you lay still and breath-less. and he picks you up in the palm of his hand like a delicate dandelion that might break at the slightest of motions. and he places you on the surface. And as he blows air into your lungs, water spits out of your body. and the heaviness is gone. and you aren’t in heaven. you’re on earth. and there’s hot sand under your hands and warm sun kisses on your skin.

the world is filled with light.

its time to live again.

anger

when i feel it, my heart starts to burn a little and my body feels heavy and my blood flows faster and my tongue and my mouth speak with out my brain even being aware of what they are saying.

last night i felt angry. anger is my least favorite emotion, in fact i hate anger. until last night, i had not felt angry for at least three months. well not the kind of anger i felt last night anyway. i have felt annoyed or frustrated in the past few months but its been a very faded passing feeling, that goes away within minutes or doesn’t have any real affect on me.  but last night i definitely felt angry, not to the extent that my body temperature began to rise but enough that i felt disturbed and i stopped doing whatever else i was doing to focus all my energy on it.

i hate that. that feeling of being angry or being around people that are ready to snap at any moment. i dont know what it is, is it the food we eat, too many hormones in our food that make us feel this way. we are such angry people that we do not even have enough patience to let someone cross the street while we wait in the car. are ten seconds of your life to extend a common courtesy to someone really going to kill you?  what’s killing you is sitting in front of the TV for hours mindlessly watching something that doesn’t mean anything. i mean i get it, television is an escape from everyday problems, your in the zone, your mind is deactivated. but is that really what we want? for our minds to be deactivated for hours and hours every single day? but i guess we are American and we like instant gratification. no need to solve our problems when we can just delay them for later. why not just accept the unhappy situation and fill it with the television. yes television therapy. this is great. until you look back on your life and wonder what the hell happened.

anyway back to anger. anger the indestructible fire that burns everything in its path and also itself, that is, the person exhibiting the anger; the person being used by the anger. i mean have you ever really thought about this. we think we are using our emotions to express ourselves but  maybe our emotions are using us. yes maybe anger is like a bacteria that uses human beings as a sponge to feed on and the more attention it receives, the more it grows and thrives.

not only is anger destructive but in Islam anger is “haram.” haram mean forbidden, illegal, unacceptable. However to me haram means that which God doesn’t like and more than that, that which isn’t good for you. because the idea of forbidden doesn’t make sense to me. So many times in religion we speak of things that God forbids, but the word forbid means for something never to occur. if God wanted to control us completely, why would we have choice? therefore my understanding of haram is anything that is not good for you especially in excess. maybe a little anger creates passion and drive and motivation. but too much is clearly destructive.

so this is why i do not like anger.  anger and i are not friends. its just not good for me and it hurts.

i used to be very angry. everything made me angry. every little thing bothered me. i don’t know why, maybe because i have always been such an intense person. and maybe i hadn’t grown enough to control myself and maybe i hadn’t grown enough to understand myself. but im healing now.

i heal through prayer. and i pray a lot, i pray “namaz” as is the muslim way. namaz is a specific prayer in arabic  to be performed five times a day at various times. i usually google prayer times according to where i am in the world to know exactly at what time I am supposed to pray. the first prayer is right before the last ray of sun rises and the last one is right after the last ray of sun disappears.  i don’t pray because i have to or because I am required to but I pray because I love God and I want to please my creator who has afforded me so many blessings in my life. I find that I need prayer. Prayer calms me down and helps me find peace; its my form of meditation. when i pray everything is quiet and no one disturbs me; instead i speak with God.

after i perform the specific arabic prayer, i pray in the traditional sense as is customary for all muslims and we ask God for whatever it is we need.  i ask God to accept my prayer and to forgive me for my imperfections. i pray for my family and my friends that God keep them safe and happy and  healthy. i ask God to bring me closer to God, to the light, to guide me to the right path, to make me a better person, and to help me understand and accept whatever life has to offer. when i was younger, i would pray that i could be nearer to my mother again because i lived away from her.  sometimes, i feel so overwhelmed or emotional when i pray that i find myself crying, weeping even.

and then i heal.