My beloved friend,
I have so many things to say to you. I'll simply attempt to say as much as i possibly can. I'm so sorry to hear about your zemed, and i can only imagine what it must have been like to hear about it, and what it must have felt to think of the never sent splenda packet. Oh mitisha, i want to tell you how much i love you for being able to write so well and in ways that i can almost hear you through your writing. I'm not kidding this gift of yours shall not go to waste and i'm certain that it won't. I can almost hear you in it and even within the sadness, i smile imagining how you would pronounce every word. All this to say, i love reading you!
Mitisha, active love - with these simple words come so many emotions, i choke. It hits me do deep that i may even consider a bit about what exactly i'm saying while i'm typing. I can't imagine what your zemed must have endured. We are constantly failing to realize how much the emotional part of ourselves needs, just as much as the physical. I think for me the love being "active" is the issue. Sometimes it becomes issue enough for me to question even my ability to love. Remember that doctor Dostoevsky mentioned, who loved humanity but hated the individual? In a somewhat related... but yet again unrelated way... - i love humanity - Alhamdulilah - i love people and that has been a blessing in my life, and i love individuals also, but i wonder so often if these individuals know it, or even understand it. I lack that ability to show them constantly that i do in fact love them even though it may be behind my laughs, my jocks, my 'easy goingness', my 'i don't' mentality....
Mitiye, my work this summer has been a blessing. It has thought me in a much deeper level what it means to smile at a person, what it means to give another person the time to hear what they had to say, to show them they you care and that they matter as an individual. Oh my love, what a smile does! what being real means? What a wonderful feeling to be unselfish, no matter how seldom that feeling comes. The other day i had this idea of writing all the people i love a letter to show them what they mean to me. Of course i would never go through such a thing - abeso enen abedech belew amanuel yelekugnal. Even though i thought of all the smiles it would put on so many people's faces, i refrained hoping that they somehow new.
But, there is one thing i want to say - one thing that we both need to work on is our chelegnanet. Agu always use to warn me - yet yedersal yalut zaf kebele koretew honesh endatekeri. These very small things we do end up meaning the world to the other person on the receiving end. I've caught myself so many times missing opportunities, so many of them. I think this should be something we should keep in mind, but moments like these do come - where it really does become too late to do what we could have done, to say what could have meant the world to someone.
I'm learning in so many levels how hard life can be. Sometimes the way to deal with it is to embrace this very fact. Do the best you can do and them have the ability to to let go. I just finished the book by Ayan Hirsi Ali - i loved it. She did a great job. But you know what was so wonderful. I disagreed with most of her beliefs and ideas. I believe one of her aims in writing this book, and i think one of her aims of her career is to make Muslims question their beliefs and possibly "liberate" them from that very belief system. Mitiye, i finished that book with even an even stronger understanding of why it was that i was a Muslim. I was proud of myself for having matured enough to read such a book and not having responded in an emotional manner, because she was attacking the very idea that my being rests on. I somehow understood where she was coming from, but, for me, her arguments where not strong enough for me to even begin to question my beliefs. She simplified something which was much more complex. For the sake of bringing out a coherent argument, the answers to the questions she raised turned out to be too general to even begin to actually convince me of what she had to say. She raised great questions, she is a strong woman, to say the least, but there were many instances where i thought she had reduced a lot of what she thought to be Islam to her own personal experiences. I can easily get to a different conclusion by using different examples of whatever positive experiences I’ve had as a Muslim. But God help her, especially coming from a culture such as hers... how do you cut of your entire family and go out into the world on your own? Can you believe the guts you need to have? Try to imagine it for a second. I just pray that it would be worth it. Ya Allah, how about all the beating she and her sister endured from their mother? Can you imagine what it would be like if this mother was able to write a book of her own?... Becha...
As you know my summer in Michigan is coming to an end, and i have to say i'm excited to be starting school in a couple weeks. To be in my dorm and have time to myself and think... oh and i'm so looking forward to our Sunday brunch. Please Nafi'n astenkekiat to not abandon me on those mornings, at least not too often. Mitisha, i am no where near to being done with everything that i have to say, but i believe i need to stop right about now. I still have a couple things, especially today had been a very thought provoking day and i wanted to share most of them with you. I don't think i've done a good job of replying to your blogs but i'll do that in my next couple of blogs. For now i'm simply typing as thoughts flow in my head... i'll stop now and tell you that i love you and thank you for the millions time for being the person who understands my very heartbeat. I love you.
Akbarish,
Rihana
P.S while i was typing about active love to you Tony called me... you know what he said? - "Just wanted to tell you i love you" - my heart melted.
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