2010

I wish you a very beautiful 2010!

I wish for a year filled with peace and health and justice and compassionate for the whole world!

The holidays are coming to an end. Strangely I have the feeling of end of summer, or end of eid holidays, when I had to get prepared to go to school again. A rather somber feeling I did not expect myself to experience again. The good news is that there are still two more days left before the whole new working year begins. And I am resolute to make my career advancement happen this year.

I wrote a few of my resolutions for the year to come on Wednesday afternoon, lying on a hotel bed in Santa Barbara; some thing I do every year. The next day, playing with A by a beautiful fountain in down town I got interviewed for my resolutions. I shared a few and today I found them along with my name in Santa Barbara News Press 01 JAN 10! It is a strange feeling being published, especially when it was all impromptu.

It was nice being away for the new year. Although A slept about four hours before the new year and we spent those hours in the hotel. A has grown much wiser. He talks very politely lately, at least most of the time. He has grown much taller too. He reads newer books now, so sweetly. And he talks with his toys so amusingly.

I hope to get to visit my whole family this year!

HAPPY 2010!

Aashura: Here and There

Here we made some shole zard. I wore black. A wore navy. We rode to the mosque. It was Zohr prayer time when we got there. A snitched a couple mohrs for me from the men's side as there were none left in the women's side. We prayed. All of us Pakistanis and Afghans and Arabs and Iranians and Americans. Then we sent our regards and peace to Imam Hossein and his companions. We prayed for his mercy on us. We had Aash and listened to a few speeches. We did not meet any of our friends there. We left the mosque to the park. A played there while I laid on a bench watching the seagulls and ever changing clouds. Then we played together in the sand box and finally left for home getting ready for our guests. We prepared meals and tidied the living room. We had dear companies for dinner; NA and MZ. We had a good time eating and talking.
M started browsing the net. I joined him to watch photos and videos from there. It was Aashura there too. People were supposedly making shole zard and inviting each other to drinks and meals. People were doing all that I know. And people were protesting too. People were praying but also shouting and screaming, being beaten and beating. People were killed too.
Here we are feeling desperate and guilty for feeling safe.

December 25th

So it is Christmas day, 20o9. Two thousands and nine years ago Jesus Christ was born to St Mary. It sounds really majestic and holy.

Merry Christmas to Every One!

This is the second day of the holidays in our house. Every day we wake up with nothing urgent to be done. A seems really content and we all cherish these days. We are meeting with relatives and friends. This morning I am trying to make a traditional Jello Salad. Just wrapped A's present and the other ones we had bought for our relatives' kids.

During the past few days we received and gave cards and gifts which was sweet and heartwarming. There was one gift that I later realized was really a "giving tin". We were supposed to enjoy the content of the tin, then fill it up with new gifts and give it away. I really liked the idea which was from my CTL. I filled it already and am ready to give it away today. I hope to find a total stranger for this task!

And as always I am reading books, a few at the time. One is my Holy Book with a translation Sheikh Kabir approves of, one is on the subject of management, the other is a story book by my beloved Alice Munro, and the smart book of "Good to Great" SS once recommended. One of them that I read a chapter of every day is called "The Fragrance of Faith" by Jamal Rahman. Such a beautiful soul and name! Each chapter of his book is only a few pages and at the end of some of the chapters there is a section called "reflection" which is usually a few sentences. I was reading a chapter named "Amal" this morning. In the reflection it reads "Practice sending light from your heart to the heart of every human soul you meet ... . This awakens and expands the Light in you". He writes as if we already know how to send light from our heart, as if we know the Light, as if we readily have access to our hearts. I honor his faith in us!

meat grinder

I met MM last week over lunch. He wanted to explain a financial matter for which he used the example of the meat grinder. How at first it seems the output does not seem to match the input and the quality does not feel right. But suddenly it starts flowing good quality ground meat.
I was thinking later it is so true about most adversities in life. At first you feel you are just putting effort, spending your thoughts, providing your emotions, and you do not get the smooth result you are after. But by God there is relieve after adversity.

Staycation

So, not going away means we are going to celebrate the holidays at home and with friends. We are so excited to have company. Especially for the Xmas day and eve. I am thinking about all the possibilities and planning and enjoying my thoughts.

Here is what Gene, my management course prof, wrote us today in an e-mail:
"You win some, you loose some".
Well, nothing new. But in the position I am in time and place it was such a calming phrase.

I was chatting with my mom, the wisest woman I know. Talking about my new challenges at work working with a particular colleague her recommendation was "not to predict his response". So simple, right? "Zero expectation".

December

I am officially one year older now.
So the big day has come and gone and here I am, experiencing a new one.
It is interesting how the holidays are also approaching but I do not necessarily feel like slowing down. There are a lot to be done at home and work and this year the holidays seem to just add to the stress involved. May be that is because we are not planning to go away any where. But I am hopeful still.
A has been very fascinated with Xmas trees. I am thinking about getting him one next year.

Occupation

It was the first time A declared what he wanted to be when he grew up: A teacher.

Contemplation

It is this time of the year again for me. I have been experiencing it for decades now. And there has rarely gone a single year since I started logging in my diaries that I have not written some thing in contemplation of the year that is coming to an end and the expectations I have for my new year. I need to spend an hour with me tomorrow... Just finished an essay that was lingering above my head for a few days to make tomorrow night a free night. This time was spent to the expense of my gym hour, I have only 25 minutes left. I am heading there now...

PS: the essay is related to the first course of the management certificate program I recently started at UC Berkeley Extension. It is a totally new experience and I am really enjoying it. I am paying a big tole of my free time for it too.

Leaf

There were leaves covering the whole pathway, the gold yellow star and heart shape leaves. The pathway wound around a pound, there were ducks silently swimming in the cold water. She found herself calm and content after the long run she had finished thinking about her dreams, her desires, her never possible wishes. She loved the runs, the physical intensity of those personal hours of the week that let her alone, ponder on any thing. She found herself daydreaming while cooling down walking around the pound. The dream she had last night was so strange, so intangible, so wild. She had been missing the past. And she knew exactly what she was missing. That knowledge made her smile at the dream. She picked up a heart shape leaf and put it on the still water of the pound, let it float, and left.

The Hills

The sun had disappeared behind the western hills. She was driving east and north towards another set of hills. The reflection of the setting sun in the sky had lit the wrinkles of the hills in a totally different way. It seemed as if there was no light but at the same time the hills were shaded, gray, purple, green.
She was driving up hill when the music in the car turned into a calming flamenco. And there was God in the orange and purple sky.

Art Deprived

I stood in Costco and watched the especial section layering frames of photos and paintings. They were stacked and I found myself browsing them one by one looking for some thing. In my imagination I chose a couple I would like to hang in a guestroom or in a living room. I walked away realizing a great need unattended: need for new art.

One on one

• Physics one on one: A was dragging his cart on the floor. He had filled the cart with sand. Then he continued walked in to the sandbox dragging the full cart and of course slowed down. I was thinking how he could comprehend the concept of friction this way, first hand, when he turned to me and concluded: "the cart gets heavier in the sandbox"! Well, that's the beginning!
• Culinary one on one: A makes cake for the bees in the park; ingredients: sand and water.
• Fluid mechanics one on one: A was trying to bring water to the sandbox. First he used his bucket and filled it up to the rim, it got too heavy to carry, so he emptied most of it and brought a little water to the sandbox. In his next trip to the water fountain he took his small container and more conveniently brought some water, splashed big drops here and there on his way. On the last trip he took his sieve to the fountain, he had no difficulties bringing that one back!
• English one on one: I decided we needed to speak English in the park to make A and the park environment aware of each other. It helped with A's shyness in responding to English speakers. Today an older girl at the fountain started talking to him like a big sister; I could not hear her but she was demanding some thing or directing him to do another thing. A responded very firmly that he was carrying some water for his cake he was making for the bees. The girl stopped talking!

The Tree

Tonight I came home after a very very long and thankfully productive day and a nice chat with RN while driving. I was happy to be home, talking with A and chopping onions while frying turmeric in the pan awaiting the chicken I had defrosted leaving it in the refrigerator before leaving home in the morning. It felt so nice adding ground pepper to and pouring olive oil on the baked and diced potato in the pot. It was nice to be home with my family. It was still nice having dinner with a loud boy and not being able to talk to M as A fills all the spaces in our evenings.

A friend of mine, RD, sends e-mails to me and my other friends once in a while, the sort of e-mails people forward to most other people in their list. RD's e-mails are selected wisely and sent to appropriate list of people. So it is always nice to read her forwarded e-mails.
Once she forwarded the story of a man who came home every night stopping at the tree in front if his house and every morning stopped there leaving home . He was asked about the pauses at the tree side and he responded that every night he left his work problems at the tree and every morning he picked them up but every morning there seemed to be less problems remained than what he had put there the night before.
It was an intriguing story I was contemplating on again today.

Taste of Childhood

French toast was his treat, my dad's. He never made one failing to remind us a scene or two from "Kramer vs. Kramer".
I made us French Toast this morning and I left a couple soak too long, accidentally. Later when I tried to put them on the pan they just collapsed, so I put them aside to serve myself while serving my beautiful family the beautiful ones. At the table I took the first bite of the too-long-soaked one and aahh... it tasted just like childhood ...

role

Sitting on the bench she looks toward the sky and inhales all the autumnal fragrance inside. She closes her eyes thinking about thoughts feeling a shooting head ache. She knows that she needs to think stuff through and clear up her mind but this inner struggle to clarify decisions and decide on clarity has become very strenuous lately. She has always been the strong sole who could manage any halter and this seemingly weakness is a newly defined stress by itself. For the first time may be, she feels overwhelmed by the burden of choices on her shoulders. She feels like running away from all this but she does not move a limb as if she is frozen on the bench.
The golden leaves are falling from the tree opposite the bench and covering the still green grass. She needs to define and choose her role: a tree that naturally sheds and regrows, the green grass well maintained year round, or a golden leaf fallen to perish.

Cell-phone

I turned off my cell on Wednesday at 7:44 PM and it is still off. I still want to check my purse for it feeling some thing is missing; dreamt about it twice that I had missed texts and messages. I am beginning to get used to it now that I am leaving back to California in 13 hours hopefully. I think it needs a week to really get used to life without the high tech and to really start to relax.

Today I met a couple old friends I had not talked to for a while. We met really short but it was still nice to just be able to meet up even for a real friendly chat about every thing.

From Edmonton

It is nice to be away from all that fuss going on every day back home (i.e. where I live). It is great being with my mom and sister. A is with me, all cuddly and lovely and now that he is sleeping I feel like missing him so much. M is what we both lack. But Canada is welcoming as always with very polite and to some extend even apologetic people.

Life is resumed

About two months ago we were walking by a Theatre. The big boards carrying the name of the movies and the timing were so appealing to our eyes and suddenly, in a crisp and fresh moment, we decided to step in, all three of us including A! The first moment we got inside a familiar smell flew upon us, awakening a lost pleasure in depth of the years... we watched Ice Age III. A concluded that we were in TV!!

Later, two days ago we left for Yosemite National Park for the first time since we came to Bay Area three years ago. We had all the camping stuff packed the night before but had no reservation. Leaving at 4:35am we were by the park entrance at 7:59 am, yet were not successful in reserving a first come first serve spot. It was disappointing. I really wanted to camp; not only to feel connected again with my true nature loving adventurous self but also to prove that the life can resume the way it was with our family of three. We hiked for the day and had lunch in a picnic area and headed back still hoping we would be able to find a campsite to accept us. None was achieved but we persevered. We ended up by the forest somewhere down the main road among other people who could not find a spot inside the park and camped there; it was not a campsite, not even a picnic area, but it had land to settle on. M emphasized the importance of land at this point and we did camp, happily and triumphantly.

It was amazing how A was fascinated with first had experiencing the night and the day skies. He wanted to listen to the story of a star at bed time and then the planet Earth. It was really amusing for me to listen to him asking questions about the sky and relating that to the Earth. As if he had comprehended the space the sky and the Earth are in.

In short, the life has just fully resumed!!

The source of attraction

All the girls in the park want to play with A when he is in the green field kicking his playing ball. I am not sure if that is because of his lady-killer charm or the playing ball he chose at Toys R Us. The ball he chose was pink!

To M

I received my Graduate Certificate yesterday thanks to M for all his support and encouragements. He believed in me more than I believed myself. From so many angels this certificate is all his.