So here’s the deal: Half the family celebrates Christmas and the other half celebrates Eid. Safiyah and I both had our first experience going to Half Moon Bay to search for Christmas Trees on a beautiful and clear winter’s day surrounded by gorgeous Northern Californian hills. We enjoyed walking through the rows and columns of Fir and Pine trees of all shapes and sizes. The smell was gorgeous. It wasn’t a religious event for us (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but more so a family bonding experience that also serves as a cultural holiday. We went home to put up the tree and decorate it with ornaments that each held a story and memory of a relative or family friend. We ate chile quiles and drank hot tea and cocoa. It was something I had grown up watching on TV but never experienced on my own. Its interesting how things work out.

It’s important for us to see the intention behind the things we do (or don’t do). I once heard one of my sufi teachers stress the importance of taking part in special occasions for the happiness of our parents and families. Whether we believe in the religious significance of the holiday or not. My in-laws celebrate Eid with us as well.. and its just beautiful. So all in all. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t all enjoy all the holidays.

You also met a man named Scott in an Art gallery who was talking about the meaning of life. He said that we constantly look outside of ourselves to blame others for the things we don’t want to take power of. Personally, I am trying everyday, consciously, to follow that philosophy. I am trying to forego my habituated response of blaming someone or something for what I am experiencing, and imagining my role in it. How can I change to change the situation? There is much wisdom in this.

As of recent.. your favorite song to sing is Andrea Bocelli’s Time to Say Goodbye. You sing it very well, not knowing all the words, but faking them brilliantly! The other day at Uncle Andrew’s house in SF, you stood up on a wooden footstool (stage) and sang it in the candlelit kitchen. Even Uncle Greg commented on how impressed he was that you were in perfect pitch the whole way through! Your musical talent and ability to mimic a melody exactly has been natural to you since birth, since you first sang your lullaby (hummed it) at 8 months. We were impressed… an entire melody in perfect key, before you were speaking! We’ll see what’s next.. you said that the instrument you’d play if given a chance would be the horn.

Your favorite thing to do is change clothing –especially when you can change into costumes. Favorite costumes:  ariel (little mermaid), spiderman, dhanno (from bollywood classic “Gunga Jumna,” Fresh Beat Band, and Cinderella.

You are now asking me to scratch your back and help button up a new dress for you –4th time changing since we got home about an hour ago.. so here i go. love love love u.

As you are already an international traveler, having been to England, you’ve done a little domestic also. The two of us, mother and daughter duo, went to Seattle recently to visit some family and a friend. While you played with your cousin Madeena’s dollhouse and occupied yourself with her many toys, including a doll-stroller and a miniature cindarella doll (sabella as you called it), your mother had yet another “reassessment” happen to her. This “reassessment” is my conscious name for what others like to call a “mid-life-crisis.” They happen about once a year in my life. I have come to a point in which something is not working for me.. it can be anything a job, a family situation, whatever. In my case, it is my job. So as you can probably guess, I’m going to vent a bit to you. Hey I earned it, dealing with your one year old self. You aren’t exactly easy, but I do have to cheesily add in that I enjoy every second with you and love everything you do. Now back to me. I am basically going through some kind of change. I know that my path is split at the moment. I won’t get specific because that will definitely bore you. And by being a bit more abstract and vague, it may help you more, allowing you to relate it to your own personal dilemmas.

I spoke to my father today. He told me that one of the important things I have to learn is to be confident in myself and my qualifications. The bottom line is that I have to potential to achieve my goals. But I need to match my potential with confidence. If I don’t believe in my own abilities, I can not convince anyone else of them. I have to speak to people as an expert, whether I am or not. Why is this important? Because its like the same lesson we learn from reading “The Alchemist” and reading “The Celestine Prophesy”, and all those other books about allowing the universe to work with you.. the laws of attraction, the secret, whatever you want to call it. They all say this bottom line: If you want something really bad and you do everything in your own power to achieve it, the universe will bend to make that thing happen for you.

Did you ever notice that the people who are most successful are the ones that followed their dreams, as random as those dreams may have been? Did you ever notice that the people who became successful were passionate about what they did, and focused on that one thing, no matter what happened? Success is not necessarily monetary. Success can be determined in many ways. Many legendary and revolutionary people we hear about today probably never thought they were successful during their own lives. They weren’t rich, they weren’t successful in any worldly sense, but their legacies live on in textbooks and teach people about truth and equality on a daily basis.

I have never wanted to be the person who gives in to doing anything just to make money and get a bigger and better house/car/outfit/toy. I have always wanted to contribute to society in some way, and that is what I have learned from my father and my uncle, and other inspirational people in my life.

The reality though sets in. I go back and forth with the dream and the reality. The reality is that money makes the world go round in this world. Yes, we are in the midst of an economic crash, and almost everyone is hurting right now. Its not about dreams when this reality sets in .. its about putting food on the table. Its about being able to buy diapers, pay the mortgage, and not go into deeper debt. How can we fuse the two together? How can we pursue our dreams, and keep the practical life working? There is a balance.. and the balance comes from being able to fuse the dream and the reality.. or realize that the reality can be seen as a dream. Does this make sense? Its about not taking this temporary life so seriously. Its about keeping one food in this world, while another is set in the mystical world in which nothing exists. Another way of looking at it is like this: we must pull together our worldly and spiritual resources to make something happen. One can not work without the other.

Now I just have to internalize all of these thoughts and make them work for me.

I love my little reader.

Your dad got you your Eid present today because he knows how much you love it.. He got you a guitar. Its so cute. It has a hawaiian design on it. You love guitars and always want to play them, so now you’ll have your own.

Also, you have been really enjoying your “Colors” book. You look at it and take all the cut out animals out and do the motions and noises with them. You also like reading all your winnie the pooh books. My favorite book to read you is Olivia because she reminds me of you.  The ABC’s of the Qur’an book is also a favorite.

Sometimes you bring a stack of books to read.  You love reading.. another thing that I hope lasts your whole life.. because your parents and grandparents all love books and its a gift to enjoy books. You travel without going anywhere. You experience life without leaving your couch. Its amazing.

Lately your father and I have been reading a lot of Eckhart Tolle.. so make sure when you are older that you check out his books and recordings of his lectures. We are trying to practice living in the now.. and experiencing the true sense of our being. Trying to just BE.. and accept every thing big and small without reacting to it. These practices and lessons are learned throughout life. Its a gradual process that takes time.. and has its ups and downs depending on where we are in life. You will see.

You are now about 18 months.. or 1 and a half.

You’ve been throwing some tantrums too.. making a little mad face. Sometimes I have to put you in the corner cuz you have been misbehaving quite a bit lately.

The cool thing is the speed at which you are picking up words! You can say several animal names, people’s names or titles, and things.. you understand concepts and can even put sentences together.. Sometimes you talk on the phone with people in a mixture of english, spanish, urdu, and safiyah-language. Its pretty cool.. we can tell what you are trying to say.. because you totally talk about what you did all day.

Your favorite movie right now is Totoro, the Japanese Anime. You are still pretty into Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Youtube video of Allahu.. and you are still in love with the classic Winnie the Pooh stories. You aren’t allowed to watch more than one thing a day though. You are in love with your Grammy (Grummy) and Grandma (Gama).. as well as your Baba and Gumpa. You call your dad Baba and sometimes Papa.. so we aren’t sure which you’ll settle with. I am your best buddy though cuz we cuddle together in the night.. not to mention i’m the milk lady and thats gotta count for something!

You are so big right now that even though you are 30″ tall and 20 pounds you walk around with a backpack on your back and you act like an adult.. so your dad started calling you “little big kid”. You love to play outside with the neighbors.. your best buds Mina and Samina.

This may be long and boring but I have to do it. I am gonna list all the words, sentences, and concepts you know and say. (As much as I can remember off the top of my head).

I’ll start with signing.. you have a urdu sign for something being finished, complete, empty, or gone. Also, when we ask you about something you’ll point to it. Also, when we say Vehita.. you will make an “old lady” scrunched up face.

Sentences/Questions:

Where’s the ________? (ex: Where’s the Baba)

Here’s the —–.

Its a —. (Its a bug-your first sentence like this-)

He’s stuck.

Where are you guys?

Mama, Baba, Bye Bye.

Yes. Let go. Nooo. Stop it.

Songs/melodies:

Twinkle Twinkle, Allahu/Snuggypooh (lullaby) , Allahu (nusrat), Abc, Totoro, Kayu, La illaha illallah, la la la, and some of her own melodies.

Words:

Bookba (book), Allahu, Grummy, Baba, Mama, Gama, Gumpa, Mamoojaan, Aminami, Addu, Babiya, Safiyah, Saffu, Baby, Boon (balloon), Totoro, Dudoo, Sleep, Bed, Bear (bez), Door, Keys, Purse, Please, Thankyou (tunkoo), Hug (ug), Papoo (kiss), No No No, Hot hot hot, Kayu, Dolly, Mambo, Dance, Percy, Phuppijaan, Vero, bubbles, Jeffry, toys, bath (base), car, water, juice, food, eat, elephant (ebalan), bug, peekaboo, bookapeek, brush, lotion, Kabah, Allahuakbar, Talha, Uncle, Anty, crying, Meena, Nameena (Sameena), sky, moon, tree,

Hello. Ouchie (awshi). Poo Poo (time for potty training). Pee Pee.

Duck, Turtle, Horsy, Doggy, Bird, Bunny, Pooh, Tigger, Wigwit (piglet), Eeore, Christopher Robin, Kanga, Owl, Gato, Color, Yellow,

Nose, Eyes, Ears, teeth, neck, mouth, stomach (numuk), hair, hands, feet, back, socks, shoes, dress, jacket, hat ( awt), glasses, food, eat, eggy, strawberry (tawbish), apple, A, B, C, W,

Safiyah.. my girl, we are so proud of you because you were looking at the ducks in the lake and you pointed and said “Duck” with such clear pronunciation. You know a great many words now. I think you have about 20-30 words in your vocabulary now.. if not more. The ones you actually say are about 15 of them. But you are recognizing concepts and words daily.

Recent words you say:

duck, hu-hu-hu (as in.. Allah Hu), owl, pooh (as in winnie the pooh), this, that, papoo (as in Kiss), bye, baba, mama, du-du (as in milk), please, thank you, dog, cherry (aunti’s dog), gato (cat in spanish),

Other than these words, you know many songs, which I think i’ve already mentioned. Boy I am one of those bragging moms aren’t i. My kid is so smart!!! Intelligent!!! Because you ARE!!! Okay I’ll stop.

So one of the cool things I wanted to tell you about is this stuff they’ve been talking about on the Oprah show. Its not new stuff.. but once its on Oprah people start talking about these things.. it means that a concept has reached the mainstream once its been on Oprah. As for the rest of us, we’ve been knowing about this stuff for ever. So they mentioned this book called “The Secret” about how to use the laws of attraction to get what you want out of life. They had some awesome “self help” writers and motivational speakers come and talk about their stories.

So it reminded me of some of the stuff I was really exploring when I was an undergrad in college. It all started around 1998/2000 ish. So I read some cool books like “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, and “The Celestine Prophesy” by James Redfield, and then there is one I read a bit later by one of my sufi teachers, Dr. Robert Frager, its called “Heart, Self & Soul: The Sufi Psychology of Growth, Balance, and Harmony”.

So the point of these and many many other books is this:

Often what you are looking for in life is already there. Perspective is everything. The old cliche of looking at the glass half full or half empty.. and so on and so forth. Why is this important? Because you will come to a point in life where you think you should feel lonely, depressed, or you are feeling EMPTY. It is not something that you have to live with. No person, or thing will ever be able to fill that empty void. It means there is something you are missing in your spiritual life… in the way you perceive life. Every time you think you are having the worst day-worst life, think of someone who is fighting for their life with a terminal disease, or someone who is living in a war torn country, or a woman who has no independence and never will, or someone who has lost their family in a natural disaster. Not that your problems aren’t important, they are, and they need to be addressed at some point, but they shouldn’t control you or your mood. You can easily step out of it, as if you are simply getting up out of a chair. In essence, you are in control of your mind, your thoughts, and your feelings.

You can be happy in life. You can have what you want in life. You just have to pray for it, visualize it, speak positive, and positive things will come your way. One of the things they mentioned was to make yourself a vision board. Basically it can be a magnet board, a cork board, or a poster board with pictures, words, (magazine cut outs) of everything you want.. everything that inspires you to be the best you and to use your God given talents in the best way possible. Soon, the things on your board will come your way. Keep looking at it every day, and it will become a reality. When you really want something, and you do everything in your power to attain it, the universe and everything in it will bend to make that thing a reality for you. One of our most powerful prayers in Islam goes like this “If this is good for me in this life than bring it close to me and bring me close to it, but if this thing is not good for me in this life than pull it away from me and pull me away from it. The thing is to trust in the divine energy that is Allah. Trust that this divinity that has created you and the entire universe from nothing, knows what is in your best interest, and that when you ask for something you should LET IT GO.. meaning .. you don’t know what is good for you or not.. because none of us has foresight.. none of us can tell the future, none of us can see the unseen.. so leave it up to God to decide if you should have that thing, and trust that if it is in your destiny than you will receive it, if it is not.. than there is probably a good reason for that.

This conversation always leads to the whole “Why do bad things happen to good people” debate. So here’s the deal. Life is a test. Bad things happen to good people.. but more times than not, Good things happen to good people. One thing that is not the most politically correct is KARMA. The reason i say it isn’t PC is because I am talking about families, countries, cultures, and groups of people who have to suffer for something because people that they are linked to in one of these ways screwed it up for them. We can look at it from a micro level before applying it to the macro.. like an entire country. So on the micro level lets look at ourselves. Each of us has several issues to deal with in life, and majority of them come from something our parents or grandparents did (right or wrong, it affects you in a negative way).. almost everyone can say that. However, we can sit there and use blame, and go nuts trying to fix it.. or we can LET IT GO, look to the future and decide what we want the second half of our lives to look like.

Another thing that goes along with this is the fact that negative things of all shapes and sizes can and usually are good for us. It may be a blessing in disguise. Its something negative for us at the moment, but it may teach us something that is valuable. It might be a lesser evil than something worse that could have happened to us. It just may mean that if it doesn’t kill us its meant to make us stronger. Use all of these negative and difficult experiences as opportunities to grow and learn about life.. especially how to deal with things. We can’t act like spoiled babies anytime something happens to us.. we have to have hard shells like turtles and resist these things.. use it as a lesson. (I know, I know, easier said than done.. but it can be done, if you really want to be happy).

So anyway, I won’t preach any longer.. I just wanted to share some deeper thoughts this time around. So other than the Eckhart Tolle book which should be my next read, please leave some book recommendations in the comments section so that my little Safiyah has some inspiring reading to do when she is old enough to read this blog. Merci Beaucoup!

Lately you have been sort of obsessed with having us play this YouTube video for you. You don’t watch it as much as you listen to it. Its Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan doing “Allah Hu” .. your favorite song, and your favorite Zikr all in one. You do your very own dervish dance to it and you ask us to play it for you by saying “Taa?” and pointing to the computer and not letting up until we play exactly that. No other version, no other song, no other video will do. Just that.

You are about 16 months now and you are saying the word “Bookba” which in Safiyah language means Book. You also have been singing the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with the word Bookba. You have been doing a lot more walking. I no longer carry you out to the car. You walk with me, except for the stairs, down which I  carry you. Outside of our  condo is a courtyard with grass, pathways, and a round water fountain lined with what looks like Turkish style tiles. I like the fact that our building, although in the middle of our quite boring town, is a Mediterranean style building, and actually has these impressive tiles in different parts of it. Its not the most amazing looking building, but for this nameless town, its not bad.

I have started practicing Capoeira again. Other than Yoga, it is the sport/martial art/exercize that I enjoy more than anything else. I want to get my body back to feeling more flexible, balanced, and strong. After having a child, a woman’s body goes through many changes, and it takes a while for it to be worked back up to how it was once upon a time. (Not in any way intended to blame you my dear, I am happy to have given birth to you because you are the most beautiful thing in my life. Nothing makes me happier than you).

More to come…