To
realize that exactly one year ago I was in Syria, having lunch with my
grandparents around that table that houses more memories than any wall on
earth, is painstakingly difficult. To realize that exactly one year ago, while
in Syria—calculating how many more minutes before we’d have power again—I was
no longer thinking about my divorce or experience, is surreal. I thought last
year, in that three-month journey, I was given an opportunity to heal. So much
so that upon my return, it was already time for Ramadan and I had taken this
leap into rejuvenation long overdue. It seemed as though the sun was finally
rising on my dark days and I believed I was reconnecting with the God I had
unfortunately and unknowingly disconnected to. Naively—or maybe not—I felt like
I was on track, returning to who I was four years ago. Four years ago, simply
24 hours before I met my ex-husband. Heck, I’ll take even an hour before I met
my ex-husband.
Back
then, at the age of 23, I had my life planned out. Yeah, yeah, I know, there’s
something called destiny and blah blah blah, but that’s not what I mean. I mean
that I knew who I was, what were my religious capabilities and limitations, my
social standards, my ethics, my visions, my life goals and so on. It’s not that
I had a set timeline because I knew that is eternally in the Hands of God, but
I at least knew that I was going somewhere in life and that I was moving.
Insert destructive relationship.
Suddenly
I was 24, suffering sleep disorders, contemplating suicide, drowning in
insecurities I never had but he created for me anyway, losing my religion, my
family, my sight and myself. Death seemed easier and safer than breaking it off
with him. The Arab society seemed adamantly eager about telling me how “proud”
they were of me that I secured a man—unlike their lack of pride when I
graduated with a Bachelor’s at 19 and followed it up with a published book and
then a Master’s at 22. If anything I faced disgust for those accomplishments.
The same girl that put her nose in the air at my book, couldn’t stop talking to
me when I had a fiancé. Our Muslim & Arab community ladies and gentlemen!
For the
first year after my divorce, I’ll admit I was bouncing between abhorrently
angry and strangely numb. There were no good days, as I think I mentioned
somewhere once before. The days were either really bad or just bad and those
latter days were the more tolerable, up until I quit my job and found myself on
a plane en route to Beirut.
The
numbness persisted until the moment I crossed the border into Syria by car, saw
the smoke from the explosion I heard 45 minutes prior when getting my passport
stamped. That’s when the waterworks erupted. Suddenly I was alive and I
remembered vaguely I used to be someone I loved. Being with my relatives,
working with the displaced Syrians, walking down old roads I hadn’t seen in six
years was bringing me back to life and I felt something that resembled hope.
Faith. I was talking to God again, reconnecting with my mother and my
brother—who were the first victims of my ex’s attempts to dislodge the most
significant parts of my life from me.
Had this
trip not been therapeutic for both my mother and I (and truly my grandparents
who were ecstatic to have their baby and their baby’s baby at home), it would
have never gone from six weeks to three months. Returning home was hard and yet
exciting because I felt like I was now ready to get back on track. I had the
tools right in front of me to rebuild Dania, and then something happened.
Something
legitimately life altering that I am 137% sure (yes, that is a random number
but it sounds more statistically significant than 100%), had I not been a
divorcée, would have never happened. For months I was at a loss of words until
finally I was able to put it into a poem where I describe the experience as
this:
I had
just barely finished gathering my shattered pieces, putting them together where
I thought they used to belong, the glue had not yet even dried, and then this
tsunami came in and tore down everything I hadn’t even relished in for
rebuilding. Defeat became my only friend on that cold pavement where I decided
to stay.
This
only paved a way to a path I couldn’t help but find myself walking down, and it
seems like it’s in opposition to the path I thought I found after Syria. While
talking to a friend this week however, I had an epiphany I didn’t even realize
was making its way through me. I told him I’m beginning to recognize that I’m
never going to go back to who I used to be, and while that is probably the most
disturbing news I have ever received, it’s even more ridiculously disheartening
if I remain idly in this position, chasing after a mirage that is no longer
attainable.
Do I
like who I am at the moment? Honestly, I’m torn. Between lavishing in the
discovery of all these new elements and complexities that may have unknowingly been
within me all along, and somehow still yearning for the peace I lavished in
four years ago, it’s a slight battle. Throw in five full time classes, two and
a half books to write, trying to maintain family relations, managing various
events and exploring new social networks, you get a fiesta that lacks
legitimate siestas!
I’ve
been told to “get over it and move on” since the day after my divorce and I
think I’ve been trying to take that unfair (and terrible) advice rather than take
my time.
A few
months ago a new friend reached out to tell me about a play she was putting
together, based off the memoir written by a Lebanese woman, sharing her
struggles of being an Arab woman in today’s culture. When I first signed on to
help her promote the event, I assumed I was just helping out a friend with a
fantastic project. You know, women empowering women. However, the closer we got
to show time, the more apparent it became this was all a destined part of my
self-discovery journey.
She
invited me to attend an evening of rehearsals, where the author of the memoir was
present to share her insight, and that was the night where I felt the first electrical
shock to my heart—a defibrillation in action to the heart I barely recognize.
See, I had reached a point a few months ago where I wanted to give up on
writing my memoir, on the PhD. pursuit and just live in the moment versus my
previous planned ahead lifestyle. But then, when this writer was talking about
her life, her journey of publishing this book, and the heat she still battles,
I felt an indescribable invigoration. Then, right after I watched the rehearsal
of the play, I found myself in shambles of tears because it was as if someone
was making me watch my life on stage. The story of an Arab woman activist,
writer and poet, simply wishing she lived in a world where she could embrace
her spirit, her sexuality, her honesty, and her talents, and finding that that
wish is far from coming true.
My
friend had not only launched a fantastic project, but she brought to life a
remarkably necessary movement for women (and men!) with such a talented team to
support her and I was utterly grateful to have crossed paths with her.
Suddenly
I felt awakened, renewed, like I was meant to become this broken, jagged, maybe
experimental, new woman, even if it didn’t fit within the category of
stereotypical appropriateness. I won’t apologize that I’m not your rosy-colored
glasses wearing woman. To be honest, I never was even before my ex-husband. I’m
your realist and it’s about time that everyone accepted that or at least
accepted to respect my lifestyle choices the way they matter-of-factly assume I
accept theirs.
It took
me a few days to awaken from that slumber the show left me in. I started
replaying the past four years of my life, and then, the prior 24 years before
those. Should I be thanking these men and these experiences and these haters
for breaking me open? Were there things buried deep within me that needed to be
flushed to the surface? That I needed to taste? Maybe one needs to relish in
the darkness for a while before coming back to light?
Someone
asked me recently if I believe in love. Without hesitation I found myself
immediately replying, “No,” that it took me a moment to process it. She was
shocked but the more I thought about it, the more I understood my subconscious
didn’t speak out of place at all. I believe in the love I have to offer, the love of my family and friends, but that
supposed love from a man? Ha! Bahaha! I’m in stitches right now and I’m done
carrying hope. Everything is unfolding so awfully before me I don’t have time
to linger in hallucinations of a decent, educated, attractive, eloquent,
charming, established man falling in love with me, and then staying in love
with me.
How am I
to believe in love when the men who ask to sleep with me are the same men who
would never marry a woman that wears a head cover for its “tarnishing”
impression on his public image? Wait, wow, look at how I even worded that
question! Let me rephrase that. How am I to believe in love when Muslim men
have stooped to the level of being those who nonchalantly ask me to sleep with them? Or—yes this
happened—asked me if I had any “sluts” available to hook them up with because
their “horniness level” has escalated to a point insatiable by masturbation.
How am I
to believe in love when the conservative yet open minded Muslim men (who are so
god damn rare) still discredit the value of a woman in a head cover because it
um, well, covers her head? At one point I realized that the only men who prefer
a woman in hijab are extremists or ultra conservative religious men who would
never in a million years be compatible with me. I’m screwed!
Non-Muslim
men respect the headscarf more than Muslim men (and women) these days. They are
the ones who prohibit themselves from drinking alcohol around me out of
courtesy to my faith while my Muslim friends re-route the entire plan to find
avenues to get some booze, making me feel like I’m the problem for not
following suit. It becomes a challenge when you’re forced to choose sides
between extremely religious social networks and extremely unreligious social
networks, hence my decades of being minimally social and maximally busy.
I’m not judging
my Muslim friends at all. On the contrary! The beauty of Islam lies in the
freedom of choice it gives us. To each their own and all I ask is that I not be
judged for whatever the hell I choose to practice (or not practice) the same way
I never judge others for choosing not to practice (or to practice) whatever the
hell they want. I want to be seen as a human being—which is essentially the
reason why God ordained the headscarf in the first place: To educate men (and
society) that a woman is to be valued for her core. The physical aspects of her
are hers to enjoy and she is not to be discredited or disregarded for that.
I can’t
believe I still need to continue justifying elements of the hijab. I’m freaking
exhausted. What makes it even more exhausting is that I’m justifying it to
Muslims! At least when those of different faith backgrounds approach me with
curiosities and questions, I know it’s coming from genuine interest in
understanding the rationale and purposes behind these practices. But when I
have to deal with Muslims arguing with me about its potential validity because they find it unappealing, when I have to
deal with Muslims who automatically create false presumptions about women in
hijab, it becomes a daunting chore I no longer want to deal with.
Women in
hijab are painted as either saints or sinners, as if there’s no middle ground
called human. You know, the individual God created to walk her path, even if it
includes mistakes. It’s tiring to be forcefully carrying the weight of Muslim
assumptions—men assuming I’m either this prudish angel that is brainwashed to
think my Godly duty is being my husband’s slave and am therefore easily
manipulated or this fake Muslim because I wear the hijab with stilettos and
jeans while performing bold poetry about love, death, divorce, sex, domestic
violence, politics and more.
I could
go on and on about this reality that women of all religions and cultures seem
to eternally face, but I’ll close with an excerpt from a new poem I recently
performed, which was preceded by this very talk. It was a night that enabled me
to accept that moving forward, with all the ugly that comes with this
metamorphosis, I will need to love my evolution regardless. So, here we go.
To be a woman in an
undeniably man's world is difficult
but it makes being
rebellious even more exciting.
It makes being the
deviant even more seductive.
It makes being
labeled the headstrong opinionated
scandalously
outspoken stubborn high standard honest fierce creature
all the more an
aphrodisiac to the lustful desire I have to live,
and to live a life of
defiance
because being this
bad feels oh so good,
better than any man
has ever made me feel.
And tell me,
what good have all
these years of being good, been?
Decades of building a
foundation for the world to take for granted.
Coated with hearty
kindness everyone expects will be there
with or without
theirs.
Oh honey, no.
Not anymore.
Think again.
Do not use your
remedy
on my wounds.
I am not you.
