On motherhood

The title of this post is On motherhood. I know, it's not for me to talk about. I'm not an authority on this because, um, first of all, I'm not a mother? Hehehe, very funny. :D But hear me out, okay, I would just like to share some thoughts I have about this so that if my future self gets to read this, she'll be able to say, uh-huh, this woman is so cheesy! Yuck. Or she'll say, uh-huh, so this is what I thought about this subject all along, whether or not that future self is destined to be a mother. 

In my circle of friends and acquaintances, practically everyone my age is starting on this path now. The number of single people in my friends list is dwindling really fast! It's crazy and overwhelming but it's always a pleasant news when an invitation to a wedding arrives. I like weddings because they're beautiful and sappy (I like sappy things!). 

But remove all that beauty and sappiness, I think I'll still love weddings because it comes with it a feeling of being settled, of finally knowing that you have these two very specific and challenging roles to fulfill: being a wife and being a mother.

Whenever I hear a friend or a friend-of-a-friend getting married, my happiness (or more like happy amazement!) seems to come from the fact that Allah swt has given her the privilege to raise someone from this ummah, that she will be able to directly contribute to this deen. This is an opportunity of a lifetime! Not everyone is given this chance. And if she goes into this marriage with the proper intention, her future children may be able to open for her the path to jannah! How's that for an ultimate prize, huh?

They say that every single thing we do in life becomes an ibaadah, a form of worship, if we put into it the right intention, which is to please our Maker. Eating, sleeping, walking, every single small thing. Isn't that what motherhood is? An entire lifetime of ibaadah. 

I wish we all become worthy of this privilege someday. And if Allah swt has not written motherhood in our destiny, then I pray we all find the path to being just as worthy of jannah in other forms, like being good daughters to our parents and simply being good Muslims.

The rain

Assalamu'alaikum warahmatullaahi wabarakatuhu.

Hello! I hope anyone who reads this is happy and well. Alhamdulillah.

I'm in a pretty good mood right now so here I am blogging from my office computer! I have a lot of things in my "pending" folder, both the imaginary and the physical one. And I think I might be dragging down the internet speed with this and I might be reprimanded. But... hey, I'll be done with this in a few minutes.

Well, one of the main reasons I'm happy is because of the rain! As I type this, I can hear the sound of the rain outside. It's so beautiful. It's definitely one of my favorite things in this world. It is calming. It makes me feel like the busy world is put into this peaceful pause every time it rains. Yes, there's the traffic, and the flood, and the crazy things that can happen with rain. But still... You hear that? That's serenity right there.

As you know, a severe drought is happening right now in the country. For the past few months there hasn't been a drop of rain at all. Even in a place like ours where it rains even in the summer! The el nino has resulted into mountain fires. Some farmers have resorted to rallies which resulted into killings. It's devastating. So I hope the rain pours into those areas badly affected by the drought. Rain is rizk, after all.

Thank you for reading and for visiting this blog! Enjoy the rain!

PS. See that photo up there? Zoom into it a little bit on the right side and you'll see kids swimming! Under the rain! In that current! Ah, such fun. But also life-threatening. I can almost hear my Omie asking (the air, mostly): "Where are the mothers of these children?!" She would later answer herself, "SLEEPING!"

PPS. If we were the kids in there swimming and then she learns about it, she'll hyperventilate and go into a panic attack. She still doesn't allow us to swim in public swimming areas (as if we have private ones of our own!). She thinks it's very unsafe. This is why none of us siblings know how to swim. It's crazy. Ah, my Omie. She loves us.

The Fish

The fish is a pool of emotions
All fire and ice and in between
The bridges and stances
All tenuous and meager

Among waves are tremors
That it looked for dilution
Atoms quietly scattered about
No motions except for quiet

The fish is ignorant and learned
A strange crossover
Quietly colliding
Catastrophic and wondrous

It reflects on both
And finds both the same
For despite the chilly comfort
Both are nothing but prisons

Word-obssessed

Every year, I draw up a list of resolutions. Yeah. I'm one of those. Years ago, I would put them down, black and white. A nice piece of paper, my favorite pen, my best handwriting position, the room to myself. Ah, I relished those moments. Recently, though, I could only draw up the list inside my head, reasons being: I am very busy on extremely useful tasks, there are just no quality paper anymore these days, my writing hand has metamorphosed rendering it unfit for strenuous writing, my head needs to be utilized more, etc.

Anyway, one resolution that has appeared time and again in my head-drawn list, like that sneaky ghost that is obsessed with the kitchenware, is to be this:

If I read this word in passing, I would take it meant possession of the otherworldly kind. And so I always veered towards another word. I used this word a lot in my head, too, in various degrees of intensity, as the need applies. Easy. The word is called chill. 

"K, be chill."
"For God's sake, be chill!"
"You really can't afford to be chill, can you? You are hopeless."

And then this word came: SELF-POSSESSED. It's elegant, strong, earnest. A little bit archaic, perhaps, but it sounds very official. I like this word. I want this word. I want to be this word. I am not this word. And so there it is, in my imagined list, waiting to come into being. I imagine myself writing the word in my resume, in my biography, in my life. Look at the example Google gave, "I'm usually pretty self-possessed during an interview." Pfft. Well, good for you, sentence-samples-giver. I am not self-possessed during interviews!

Seriously, though, I turned 27 this year. And when I was 20, this age meant a lot of deadlines for me. Marriage-wise, career-wise, academic-wise, family-wise. So many wise-s. And I was dead serious about these deadlines, too. They mattered to me and I was anxious (bad anxious) for this day to come and I haven't beaten any of them.

Then I really did turn 27. Marriage-wise. Nope. Academic-wise. Not decided. Career-wise. Still working on it. And for someone who thinks being self-possessed is just another resolution on the way to the Recycle Bin, I think I've pretty much arrived to its beautiful, heavenly gates, at the very least. Sometimes I think that as we get older, we develop a better tolerance to disappointments. A higher threshold. It doesn't sound very nice. But that's what makes us adults, right? To rise above our re-routed deadlines with grace. Self-possessed much? I think so.

Absence

Assalamu'alaikum.

Hello! Is anyone here? *crickets crickets*

Well,  I guess... not.

I'm shamelessly writing this post because I thought, for a nanosecond there, it is worth it. All that time thinking that this whole blogging idea has gone out of the window for me and here I am. Embrace me, please. I've missed you. And... nanosecond ends.

I kept blaming the poor internet connection in this side of the earth. But really, that's superficial. That wasn't a reason, that was an excuse. Two very different things. I could survive a shipwreck, get stuck in an island alone, and I'd still find the means to write using tree barks and a stick with bees and squirrels as my readers. Because I really do like writing even it doesn't like me as much most times.

Perhaps it's the idea of constantly having to put myself out there for virtual strangers. I don't think this blog gets much traffic but I got a little paranoid. I felt like I was getting a little too sentimental. I post a lot about my feelings. Unlike most bloggers, you won't find a lot of activities in my life here because I thought that was too personal. So I wrote about feelings, my feelings. The intangible sides of my daily activities, the ones I can't put into snapshots but I can relive through worded descriptions. That was and is the content of this blog. Because more than anything else, inside this image-saturated world we live in, my loyalty still belongs with words.

And then it started getting strange. Because everyone who's everyone is sharing everything about their lives and that was scary... at least for me. An overwhelming display of the nooks and crannies of the most personal moments with their loved ones. And the things, man, actual things! I can sit for two hours scrolling my feed and see nothing but bags, lipsticks, and shoes. It was beautiful and terrifying.

I got scared for myself. It was weird enough for me to share the minutest details of my life. How much more if it was my most intimate feelings? And I had to constantly ask myself if I was using social media the correct way. What is the correct way of using it, anyway? The line is smudged, almost indistinguishable in fact. Everything is correct and incorrect at the same time. Why are people so confident about sharing things about their lives while I find it creepy?  Am I using social media as a tool? Or am I being used as a tool? I overthink everything.

I find it funny because I am not famous. This blog only exists because I find writing fun and therapeutic. And perhaps I was thinking someone may read this blog and relate to me. Or maybe not. It didn't matter. As long as I was writing something. But then this sphere got a little shallow that I felt suspended in the air somehow.

And maybe that's the hidden reason behind all the other reasons I try to tell myself for my absence. I tell myself I have to strike a balance. Easy? Not. Will try? Yes. And... nanosecond ends.

Dreamer

"Writing is saying to no one and to everyone the things it is not possible to say to someone. Or rather writing is saying to the no one who may eventually be the reader those things one has no someone to whom to say them. Matters that are so subtle, so personal, so obscure that I ordinarily can’t imagine saying them to the people to whom I’m closest. Every once in a while I try to say them aloud and find that what turns to mush in my mouth or falls short of their ears can be written down for total strangers. Said to total strangers in the silence of writing that is recuperated and heard in the solitude of reading. Is it the shared solitude of writing, is it that separately we all reside in a place deeper than society, even the society of two? Is it that the tongue fails where the fingers succeed, in telling truths so lengthy and nuanced that they are almost impossible aloud?I had started out in silence, written as quietly as I had read, and then eventually people read some of what I had written, and some of the readers entered my world or drew me into theirs. I started out in silence and traveled until I arrived at a voice that was heard far away — first the silent voice that can only be read, and then I was asked to speak aloud and to read aloud. When I began to read aloud another voice, once I hardly recognized, emerged from my mouth. Maybe it was more relaxed, because writing is speaking to no one, and even when you’re reading to a crowd, you’re still in that conversation with the absent, the faraway, the not-yet-born, the unknown and the long-gone for whom writers write, the crowd of the absent who hover all around the desk."-- Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby via brainpickings.org

Malaysia, November 2012

We should probably just live in bookstores.

Remember how I talked about planning (er, not planning) in my previous entry? Well, turns out fate has something in the works.

I submitted my annual leave last month fully resigned to the fact that I’ll be spending it locally here in Jeddah. But when a glitch with Omie’s visa happened and she had to re-submit her exit-entry papers, my passport fell in the hands of Bapa on the morning of her flight and things somehow just started working themselves out. Anyway, I found myself hopping on a plane with Omie bound to Kuala Lumpur. No plans, no preparations.
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So the first part of these 700 (okay, 200) entries I’m working on is Books Kinokuniya. This Japanese bookstore chain has branches all over the world and when I found out that it has one in Kuala Lumpur, right in one of its landmarks, it definitely was a stop I couldn’t miss.



Basically I just basked in the sight and smell of Japanese and English titles.



There’s a wide collection of Japanese and Chinese magazines. The magazine section dominates a huge part of the store.



There’s also a massive wall of Asian literature. Murakami has an entire shelf dedicated to his books and its many editions. At this point, I was having a hard time keeping my mouth closed.



I could spend an entire day here and it wouldn’t be enough. Lucky them who can just lounge around the store and browse to their hearts’ content.





I found Yasmin Mogahed’s book in the newly released section but it was way expensive than the copies you can order online. :(



I had to consciously stop my arms from grabbing everything in the YA section and running far, far away.



I wish there’d be better bookstores where I live. Or maybe I could just live in a city where there are bookstores such as this! That would be nice.

Anyhow, if you’re one of those creepy people who, in the presence of about five thousand books, feel like freaking out physically and mentally, something I’m totally not guilty of, then this is a must-visit if you’re in Kuala Lumpur.

Books Kinokuniya is located at Level 4 of Suria KLCC.

Malaysia, November 2012, Part 2

I’m finally getting around to this. Yay!

We went to Putrajaya* on the second and last day of our trip. Contrary to my worries belief, it was pretty easy to get there. We hopped on a bus at Kotaraya and it took us right at the city square. I think we just told the driver we’re going to the ‘big masjid’. You have to tell him that because or else he might drop you off at the highway, which is the usual route. It took us about an hour to get there, with a bit of traffic. You’ll get there in around 20 minutes if you take the KL Transit train though, so that might be a better choice.



Putrajaya is the federal state of Malaysia. It’s where the administrative offices are, including the Prime Minister’s. I think the name P.M. Mahathir Mohammad will ring a bell for everyone. Well, he was all, There are just too many people here in Kuala Lumpur. Why don’t we build an entire city? That would be fun!
Except they started the project in early 1990s and until now, they still continue to develop it. I think that says a lot about Malaysians’ take on excellence aka If you want to do something, do it right.



The bus dropped us right in front of the stairs overlooking the Putra Bridge. The overwhelming greenery was a nice way to start the sightseeing.





From the stairs, we made our way through Cruise Tasik terminal. The cruise takes tourists on a sightseeing by either standard cruise boats or ‘perahu’ boats.



Since I Miss You Like Crazy still holds the record for my favorite local movie, I cannot not mention that this was the cruise taken by Bea Alonzo’s character, Mia, as she lamented on her fate in love. Haha.



The perahu boats looked way challenging to me. And while Omie was game enough to try it, I chickened out. Because… we had no time! Okay, despite my desire to feel the Malaysian wind brush against my hair (er, tarha), just like Mia did in the movie, bodies of water are not really on the list of my interests.



And until I get over that, I would have to be satisfied looking at them. It isn’t so bad really. The Putrajaya Lake is manmade and also serves as a cooling system for the city.



At this point, we also got a good view of the Seri Wawasan Bridge. As it seems, they’re really into bridges here. I think this one is the more common of the sites you’ll see in tourist photos.



We also passed by the Souq Putrajaya where they sell souvenirs.





Next we headed to the Masjid Putra. The cleanliness and order in this masjid was phenomenal. Absolutely no shoes allowed anywhere inside the huge grounds.



If you’ve seen photos where people wear those pink robes, this is one such place where you have to be dressed appropriately.



The construction of the masjid alone cost USD 80 million!









After dhuhr, we headed downstairs to the food court for lunch. There are a lot of food choices but since almost all the seats in front of Nando’s are occupied, we figured it was probably the rockstar there.



We weren’t wrong. Apart from the rice serving being super small (I like rice!), it was pretty good.







After lunch, our final stop was the Perdana Putra or the office of the Prime Minister.



We passed by very business-y uncle tourists.



And others who were also enduring the heat of the sun at mid-noon! It was worth it though. Notice those cars in the background…



We wanted to explore the building but we couldn’t risk being run over by all those cars passing by in groups. There was probably a session during that time because despite them running in relatively slow speed, there were so many of them, like in a convoy!



Finally, we ended up at the Putrajaya Boulevard.



It’s the longest boulevard in Putrajaya and is the main entry towards the square. Through this, you also get to pass by the other structures that houses each Ministry. The one below is the Ministry of Federal Territories which we only got to see from afar.



So that marks the end of our half-day trip to Putrajaya. When I was reading about the place online, I remember a photo blog that said there really are no room for bad photos in the place. Every single nook and cranny is worth capturing. And that is quite true.



There were other sites that we weren’t able to visit because we didn’t have our own transportation. Although the structures at the square were enough, it would be nice to have a private car that can take you to each place outside of it. If you’re taking the train from Kuala Lumpur, some taxis can be hired at the train station and they can tour you around for a per-hour rate. I read, though, that they charge so much more so I guess you can take one of these cabs only if you’re willing to shell out a couple more ringgit.

We headed back to Kuala Lumpur by taxi. We wanted to ride the bus again but we were told that there were no buses stopping at the square. Hopefully, they weren’t trying to fool us into it.

On a different note, I just realized how tedious long entries can be. I have mad respect for people who regularly post entries that are THIS long. Thank you for reading this image- and text-loaded post! Now I’m off to bed. -.-

*By the way, I just Wikipedia-ed all the basic information here about Putrajaya.