Light trickles into the room, peeking through the soft gossamer curtain in bursts and patches. Gold, umber, bright light shines like a disco ball; spinning and shifting but never standing still.
I like it like this. I think this is a portrait of me, sometimes. A dark room, cold and empty but with brilliant patches of light that shines through like a surprise. Like a gift. Most people value the consistent source of light, the room with the large bay window fully brightening even the darkest recesses of the room. Not my room. In my room light dances, light glitters. But there is a competition between the dark and the light. Between my dreams and my anxieties. Between my fear of not being enough and my hope in myself still.
Lately I’ve been reading a lot. Novels, poetry, dua, hadith. Anything and everything. Is choosing joy a daily task? Absolutely. But then, so is choosing hope. Hope is a seed, and without watering it, no fruit can be borne. A negative mindset becomes an arid desert in this way, sucking the nutrients from the seed itself like a parasite. Don’t kill your hope. Protect it from yourself and others. Guard it with your life.
Too often, we wait for something outside to provide what we need. Too often its people, a position, material realities. These are the trappings of happiness, they are what you attract when you live your full life. None of these alone can produce your happiness.
I’m a romantic by heart, in the classic sense. This means that I often have a very idealized way of viewing things. Not romantic in the relationship sense, but in the way everyday things carry more meaning. The little moments shared in the late sunset between myself and the sky, sitting wordlessly on a mat and gazing out into the day’s end. The cup of tea made while the house is yet to wake, made sweeter by silence. The morning drive that is unexpectedly both beautiful and peaceful. The phone conversation that reaches a quiet, but content lull towards the end. Where both parties are lost in their own thoughts and enjoy that brief moment of reflection before conversation continues.
This is what it means to be romantic. In other words, its la vie on rose. My closest friend asks why I cry–or sob really– when something amazing happens. I couldn’t giver her an answer at the time, but the truth is I react the same immediately after I hear both the best and the worst news. I sob. I used to be embarrassed to say this, but now I understand. Sobbing is my relief or release, essentially. Sometimes you cry as a form of releasing grief or sadness. And other times, sadness is a waterfall of joyful relief.
I also worry a lot these days. Worry that my time on this earth has benefitted no one but myself, and even that; marginally. Worry that my spiritual connection is not growing, and feeling guilty if I do less than I have before. Worry that the people I care about don’t know I think about them, pray for them, hope for them. Worry for their future and their happiness. Worry.
But when I am not worrying, I remember to love. Worrying is just love expressed through anxiety. I tried to play jaded, to play unaffected like many others but I just can’t be. To me, everything is love expressed differently. Silence is love in healing. Distance is love with lessons learned. Closeness is love in euphoria. Anger is love in protest. Everything begins with love, and ends with love. I used to believe love was retractable, like a needle it could pierce you then leave you. That you could withdraw love whenever you felt like it.
Then I realized that the source of all love, the Loving, does not retract love. Does not retract forgiveness, does not kill hope. and His Love is love I would be lost without. So I recalibrated to understand that love does not die, it simply changes form.
I will end this meandering post with a poem by Rabia al Basri, called Eternal Love.
“O God! If I worship you for fear of hell, burn me in hell,
and if I worship you in hope of paradise, exclude me from paradise.
But if I worship you for your own sake,
grudge me not your everlasting beauty.”
I hope you find some love, hope, light to hold onto. That you believe in the power of those things, believe that they are central to our experience. Don’t choose cool-ness if it means deadness. Marry your darkness and your light, for your fears and anxieties are the product, as well as the double edge of your love and hope. Nourish them. Believe in the latter, and you will soon grow to understand the former.
Me, Myself and Thine 