Still Learning – Alhamdallah
Another Side of Thanksgiving . . .
My friend asked about my father, and when I told her he was slipping away, losing a little more every day, she said “Alhamdallah!”
I was caught up short. Her face was smiling. I had just told her my father is dying and she says “Thanks be to God?”
I know this woman like my own sister. Her daughters are my own daughters. I am welcome in every corner of her house, I pray for every one of her children, and being in her home is like being in my own home, we are all so comfortable together.
“No,” I said, “You’ve misunderstood what I said!” and she hugged me and said “I understood, but no matter what happens, we say ‘alhamdallah’. If you father is dying, we say ‘alhamdallah’. If Hurricane Katrina strikes, we say ‘alhamdallah’. All things come from Allah, and He knows all things. It is his will, so we say ‘alhamdallah’.”
We are both religious women. My faith says the same thing, to give thanks in all things. In my daily life, I sometimes forget. Truly, in my culture, you would never say “thanks be to God” if someone had just told you something very sad.
Being exposed to the Islamic world has complemented my own faith. No, I don’t need to be a Muslim; I think the differences between us are much smaller than the similarities. But truly, I thank God for all that I learn about my own faith by living is Moslem countries.
I love the call to prayer; nothing wrong with being reminded during the day – and night – to love and honor God. I love living among people who give thanks to God so many times a day, even for Hurricane Katrina, even for my failing father. I love watching the fathers and sons headed to the mosque on Fridays. There’s even a very gentle station with Moslem films in English that I watch from time to time because it is so peaceful, and tolerant and sweetly loving.
My friend took time from her very busy life and made a special trip to the bookstore to buy me a book called Don’t Be Sad. It’s a wonderful book by ‘Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qarni with chapters like “How to deal with bitter criticism,” “Do Not Carry the Weight of the Globe on Your Shoulders,” Do Not be Shaken by Hardships'” “Jealousy is Not Something New” and one of my favorites – “Do Not Be Sad – Do Good to Others.” This book is helpful to me in so many ways, including giving me good sura that are very similar to writings in our own book. This helps me clarify to others in my culture how alike we are, and how similar our faith is. My friend loves me, and I know she wants only the best for me. I give thanks to have her as a friend.
Every now and then, I come across something that shakes me – like when my friend said “alhamdallah” about my Father . . . but in the end, I learn something and my understanding broadens. Alhamdallah!
Qatteri Cat
We were flying back to Qatar after visiting our son. It was December, and we would not see him at Christmas; he was in his first real-life grown-up job and couldn’t get the time off for the long trip to Qatar and back. We were desolate.
I turned to my husband and said “I need a cat.” I expected a fight. “You work all the time, and I need a cat to keep me company.”
He said “I need a cat, too.” His eyes were kind of teary.
When we came to Qatar, we came with a 14 year old diabetic cat. When I arrived at the airport, without the right papers, the customs guy told me he would have to hold her overnight while I got the right papers from the Department of Agriculture. I started digging out all the hypodermic needles, and her insulin, and telling him she needed her shot at exactly seven in the morning and seven at night and he looked at me in shock and said “take her! take her!” and I scampered out of there as fast as I could, before he could change his mind.
When she died, the Gulf War was starting. In the middle of an important meeting, my husband came home because I kept thinking maybe she wasn’t really dead. It was heartbreaking. She was like a member of our family. My husband said “No more cats; I can’t go through this again.”
So it was only 9 months later when he agreed we could get another cat.
I went straight to the vet, who said he had just the cat for me. He was the longest, skinniest cat I had ever seen, with a great big fluffy tail like a fox. I adored him.
When he got home, he wouldn’t have anything to do with me. Every time I came near him, he cringed, and ran and hid. But the minute my husband walked in the door – it was love at first sight. Later on, we met his original owners, and one of the women said “is he still such a naughty cat?” and we said NO! that he was a good cat! The truth was that when he got scared, he would forget and use his claws and teeth. I still have the scars to prove it. It took a long time to teach him to trust again, but now, he is the sweetest and most loving cat you could meet. It just took time.
It took time for him to trust me. Now, he hangs out with me all day, and he loves to curl up with me. I don’t kid myself that this is love – he just loves my warm body and he loves that I feed him.
True love is when my husband comes home. Qatteri Cat can hear him coming long before he opens the door. He will leap from wherever he is sleeping and run for the door, and sit there waiting like a dog until my husband comes in the door. His body quivers with anticipation. He leaps for joy, and runs like a crazy cat around the house, scraping all the carpets into piles as he tries to get a grip on the marble tile floors.
When my husband showers or bathes, the Qatteri cat is there. When he works at his computer, the Qatteri cat is on his desk, or at his feet. He is content just to look at my husband with utter adoration.
And then, in the morning, when my husband leaves, the Qatteri cat cries. His cries would break your heart. He sits by the door and asks why my husband has abandoned him, once again. And then he goes and gets his babies, one by one, and puts them by the door. Who knows what this cat is thinking?
Philippa Gregory and Catherine of Aragon
Being sick has one advantage. . . you can catch up on some of your reading. Philippa Gregory is one of my favorite writers of historical fiction.
To my great shame, I have a very difficult time reading history. Unless it is vigorously written, it puts me to sleep. It is particularly embarassing when my husband has a degree in History, and his eyes light up discussing battles and strategems and who said what to whom and why it matters. It has to do with my hard-wiring, it’s not even a gender thing.
So I gravitate toward historical fiction; give me people and motivations and interactions any day, and I can remember it. Sometimes, I even learn something. Philippa Gregory never lets me down. She researches, she documents, and she might speculate, but you always have a clear idea what is real (historically documented) and what is a good story, putting meat on the bones of the history.
Out of sequence, I read The Queen’s Fool and The Other Boleyn Girl. Each of these books is peripheral to the story of Catherine of Aragon. The first features a woman chosen to be a Fool at the court of Queen Mary, Catherine’s daughter. She is of Jewish descent, hiding as a Christian, escaped from the fires of the Spanish Inquisition. She lives in fear of being caught out in her deception. With her father, a printer, she tries to secrete and maintain many of the books of Moorish Spain, the knowledge of the ancients, which the church begins to declare heretical in England. The second book, The Other Boleyn Girl, is about Anne Boleyn, but told from the perspective of her sister, Lady Mary, who was also mistress to Henry, King of England, while he was married to Catherine of Aragon. The Boleyn girls are portrayed as mere pawns in the great game of power in the English court.
So this newest book, The Constant Princess, opens in Spain, as Queen Isabella of Castile, Catherine’s mother, and King Ferdinand of Aragon fight to eliminate the Moors and to unite their lands into one Kingdom. The little girl, whose mother is the chief strategist and who fights in armor alongside her husband, learns battlefield tactics at her parent’s feet and in their camps and learns diplomatic skills in their throne rooms.
We follow Catherine to England, married first to Arthur, then after Arthur’s death, to Henry. She assures them her marriage to Arthur was never consummated, that Arthur was too young, and impotent. Gregory assumes this was a lie. We don’t know. I would guess that it was one of those lies that nobody believes but was convenient to all to pretend to believe, for money, for power, for alliances.
We stand with Catherine as she sends Henry off to fight the French, then leads her own troops up to vanquish the Scots. We agonize with her as she strives to become pregnant, to carry an heir to the throne full term to birth, and as she loses a seemingly perfect baby boy to infant death. We sit with her in stragegic councils, watch her balance the budgets for court and state, and scheme to protect the English borders against all threats. Whew! Being a Queen of England is hard work!
The book ends with Catherine facing the eccliastical trial as her own husband disputes the validity of her marriage to him and seeks to set her aside for his freedom to marry Anne Boleyn.
I don’t review every book I read, but I was captivated by the cross cultural threads in this book, and by the fact that while we all know the basic facts of the story – Henry divorces Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boeyn – Catherine’s history, her talents, her strengths and victories were news to me. The influence of her upbringing in Moorish Spain and the influence it played on her growing understanding of the world is a golden thread woven throughout the story.
Early in her first marriage, the young princess tells her beloved husband of her childhood in Grenada:
” . . . We walk in their gardens, we bathe in their hammams, we step into their scented leather slippers and we live a life that is more refined and more luxurious than they could dream of in Paris or London or Rome. We live graciously. We live, as we have always aspired to do, like Moors. Our fellow Christians herd goats in the mountains, pray at roadside cairns to the Madonna, are terrified by superstition and lousy with disease, live dirty and die young. We learn from Moslem scholars, we are attended by their doctors, study the stars in the sky which they have named, count with their numbers which start at the magical zero, eat of their sweetest fruits and delight in the waters which run through their aquaeducts. Their architecture pleases us: at every turn of every corner we know that we are living inside beauty. . . . We learn their poetry, we laugh at their games, we delight in their gardens in their fruits, we bathe in the waters that have made flow. We are the victors, but they have taught us how to rule. . . .”
I can hardly wait for a trip to Spain!
Sweet, Sweet Luxury
My husband whisked me away for the weekend yesterday, a break we both need badly. We arrived early, checked in, had lunch in an old favorite restaurant, and took a driving tour around Doha, our former home. Whew! Little Doha is all grown up! Continuous building of high rising towers on the Corniche, huge road building and traffic improvement program, and of course, amazing new construction for the upcoming Doha games. We joked that we would love to have had the contract just for the signage for the games – they are awesome, and they are everywhere.
(I forgot to bring my photo-uploading-stick – I will upload some photos when I get back.)
And then, back to the room, to continue enjoying the sweetest luxury of all – time alone together. Just for today, no dinners with friends, no planned activities – we have the books and magazines we have been intending to read, there is a spa and great masseuse here, but best of all – just time together, time to catch up on all the little conversations we haven’t had time to have, time to dream a little about the future, time to give thanks for what we have.
Today, we will attend services in our former church, meet with old friends for brunch and then again for dinner. These are the friends who walk through the tough times with one another, who laugh together and cry together, and who know where all your skeletons are hidden – friends you can trust, friends who wear well over a lifetime. Tomorrow, a big charity bazaar and an evening event. In between – more time together. Thanks be to God for the luxury of time and for our good friends!
Doha Dhow and Skyline Before
Little Diamond
My neice is blogging! She started just as I did, without telling anyone. When I saw her on Friday, she very casually mentioned it in passing. Woooo Hoooooo! She is beautiful, and articulate, and always full of amazing information, and a lot of fun. Her website is A Diamond in Sunlight.
Kuwait’s Ms. America
It was a loooonnnnngggg trip. There were what we call “travel mercies” – blessings. On two very crowded flights, I had an empty seat next to me. I ran into some really caring cabin crew members, people who looked like they really like what they are doing. For a trip with a lot of potential for disaster, it went well. As my husband says – any time the number of successful landings equal the number of take-offs, it’s a good trip.
The flight into Kuwait had a majority of two kinds of people – Dutch soldiers, who came onto the plane already drunk (and REEKING of alcohol) who were drinking all the way to Kuwait, and tired businessmen, who sacked out – I was surrounded by a symphony of snores. I didn’t mind that at all; I am betting they work hard and have families waiting for them, and just needed to catch up on a little sleep before getting back to Kuwait.
We all have our little pet phobias. I have a horror of airplane lack-of-cleanliness, and I have little slippers I put on as soon as I get on the plane. Arriving in Kuwait, I changed back into my boots, but horrors! My toes feel all cramped up; I am so used to wearing sandals. I think my feet swelled during the flights!
Everything goes smoothly, even another line opening up as I get to immigration, and my bags come off the flight right away, customs doesn’t ask me any questions, not even about the canned Alaska smoked salmon – now these are more travel mercies! But then, with my poor little feet screaming in dismay, I have to make the long walk down what I think of as the Miss America runway.
For those of my readers who do not live in Doha or in Kuwait, who have never visited me and experienced this for yourself, I will explain. Imagine, when you arrive, as you exit customs, you have to walk about 100 yards to where you will be met. Imagine along the route, there are hundreds of people waiting for others to arrive. Their full attention is on whoever is on the “runway” at the moment. My toes behave; I will NOT limp as I stride down the runway, refraining from doing a queenly wave at those along both sides of the the parade route.
But I can’t help but have a big goofy grin on my face at the hilariousness of running this ordeal at the end of a long trip, skin alligatored by hours of moisture-sucking airplane air, feet swollen, clothes rumpled, make-up worn off . . .now this is where having an abaya and veil makes a lot of sense.
And the greatest travel mercy of all, my husband waiting at the end of the long walk, the car nearby, and a quick exit and trip home. It is well after midnight, but we have so much to catch up on, even though we talked twice a day while I was gone. Today, I slept until noon and I am making a very very slow start on the day.
“We Don’t Judge You By Our Standards”
It’s never a good thing when a sentence starts with “we don’t judge you by our standards.” You know that whatever comes next isn’t going to be good.
It was our favorite time during Arabic studies. We were sitting around in the majlis room, sprawled against the cushions. We had finished all the lessons of the day, practiced new verbs, done all the dialogues to death, and we had a few minutes left before classes ended. Our teachers were really special women, and during these last minutes it was always question time, when we could ask them anything, anything, and they would answer, even if sometimes to laugh and tell us it was none of our business. We had so many questions!
“When we go downtown, ” I had started, “we have a good time. We laugh and we talk and chat among ourselves as we shop. But when we see local women shopping, we see you in groups, but you aren’t laughing or chatting. Is there some prohibition against it?”
There was a long silence. I really liked this teacher, and she really liked me. I knew, as the silence dragged on, she was seeking for a way to be kind. Finally, she spoke.
“You know, we understand you have other ways, not our ways. We don’t judge you by our standards. . .” and she gave a little sigh.
“In our culture, for a woman to laugh out loud in public . . .it would be taken as lack of self control. People could criticize. It could keep a young woman from making a good marriage.”
You could hear the collective gasp. Although it was said with great kindness, it was a serious blow.
When you are first learning a new language, and a new culture, it can be intimidating, but mostly, if it is well taught, it is fun, exciting, and stimulating to be mastering a new skill. The women at this language center went to a lot of trouble to insure that we were entertained while we were learning. They taught us Ramadan customs, they prepared an Iftar supper for us, they brought in all their jewelry and produced a bride. They henna’d our hands, and poured us tiny cups of qa’wa and chai with milk and spices. They took us on field trips. They treated us like sisters, or daughters. They were so kind, and babied us along as we struggled with the new language.
I give this teacher a lot of credit. She could have finessed the question, but she didn’t. She considered her answer, she knew it could offend us. And she chose to answer us honestly, trusting we would deal with it.
I had a physical reaction. I wanted so badly to “get” Arabic, to understand all the customs . . . but to give up laughter? I went through all the stages of grief, staying longest with denial and anger. I thought of all the times I headed for the souks in a gaggle of laughing women, and I felt ignorant, and ashamed, and also angry. It was a real struggle for me, a blow to my pride, an embarrassment. I felt sick to my stomach, and stayed depressed for a couple weeks. I didn’t want to change. I didn’t want to have to give up laughter.
And then one day, somehow, it stopped mattering so much. Time did its work. Life went on. The teacher kept teaching, we kept learning. I no longer go downtown in groups of more than three, and we keep our voices down. We’re still our loud, noisy selves most of the time, among ourselves, but in public – we don’t want to be thought of as women who lack self-control.
The Golden Crown
I was folding the laundry, and I could hear my Dad scolding my Mom in the next room.
“Those health care workers are for me! They’re not supposed to be ironing, or vacuuming, or helping you, they are supposed to be helping ME!”
She had just finished asking him for a check, so I could take her out to buy a couple new pair of pants. Back in the house now, he is busy retaking lost territory and asserting who’s the boss.
In the car, she weeps.
“What am I going to do?” she asks me.
Inspiration strikes.
“Mom, remember the golden crown you wore at the rehersal dinner, the night before the wedding? I saw it on the top shelf of the linen closet when I was putting things away.”
She looks at me like I am out of my mind.
“Mom, when he talks to you that way, don’t talk back. Just go get the crown and put it on. Don’t say anything, just wear the crown.”
She starts to giggle. Good. Got her laughing.
“Why would I wear a crown?” she demands.
“Because it will drive Dad crazy. Eventually, he will have to ask you why you are wearing the crown, and you can just tell him it reminds you of a time when you were treated with respect, and you were happy.”
At this point, we both dissolve in giggles. I don’t think she will ever put the crown on – she has her own ways of dealing with Dad. But at least she remembers that things have not always been this way, and she can hold her head high.
My husband reminds me that one day, we too will be facing the challenges of being, we hope, very old. He says we will probably be nasty and angry, too at losing control over our lives, at losing independance. Having that kind of input is one of the benefits of having been married to the same person for a long time. Hope someone gives me a golden crown.
Cousin Time
We met up at the nearby Barnes and Noble; he got stuck at the office and called to say he would be late. Leaving me to wander in a Barnes and Noble is like leaving an alcoholic alone in a room with an open bottle of Jim Bean . . . I had a bagfull of books by the time he got there.
As we were discussing the problems of dealing with aging parents, I told him about the bank manager I met with earlier who had looked me in the eye and said “it’s an epidemic. People are living longer, but while not demented enough to be declared incompetant, they are making bad decisions.” My Dad, while wheelchair bound, has a phone and a computer, and could, if he chooses, do a lot of damage to himself and my mom.
My cousin and I have always been on track, from the time we were very young. He and I scored one point apart on our SATs, we researched the same family issues, we have kids the same age – and he was the first one I called when we had a concern about a family matter.
He leaned across the table and grinned. “The problem with dealing with paranoid people is that it forces the loved ones to do exactly what the paranoid is accusing them of doing!” We both laughed. He is exactly right – we have to go behind and see what checks are being written, we have to listen at doors to hear who he is talking to and what he is saying, and the very worst – we have to talk about him behind his back.
If you looked at my father, if you talked with him for a short time, you would think him very smart, and even charming. And he is all that.
If you are with him a little longer, however, he will start talking about dreams he has been having – vivid, very wierd dreams, very scary dreams. Because he doesn’t hear very well, he might accuse you of saying something you didn’t say, and get very angry with you. He is not quite tracking. He gets angry. If he weren’t so weak, he might be violent.
My cousin and I have other family members who have lived long enough to enter into dementia. It haunts us to think we might end up the same way.
The Fraud Syndrome
When I finally got to graduate school, I was in shock. There was me, one other woman, and a classroom full of men. It might sound like heaven, but it was testosterone-city. We were studying national security affairs, a sub-group of International Relations, and most of my classmates were in different branches of the military.
My professor, a former military intelligence colonel, was knowledgable, and good at presenting his lessons. He was very professional, very businesslike. Not exactly cold, but neither was he collegial.
In any graduate courses, there is a whole new vocabulary to master. I felt like I had grabbed onto a train that was leaving the station; I was holding on for dear life. I read all my assignments, made sure I copies all my notes, and . . . never said a word in class for the first two weeks. I was too scared. All the guys were blah blah blah and I just hoped they wouldn’t figure out that I barely had a clue.
One of my fellow students came up to me on break. He was nice. He asked if I had seen a recent article in the paper on The Fraud Syndrome, and I said “no” that I hadn’t. He just happened to have a copy of it with him, which he gave to me.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the Fraud Syndrome:
The Impostor Syndrome, or Impostor Phenomenon, sometimes called Fraud Syndrome, is not an officially recognized psychological disorder, but has been the subject of a number of books and articles by psychologists and educators. Individuals experiencing this syndrome seem unable to internalize their accomplishments. Regardless of what level of success they may have achieved in their chosen field of work or study, or what external proof they may have of their competence, they remain convinced internally that they do not deserve the success they have achieved and are really frauds. Proofs of success are dismissed as luck, timing, or otherwise having deceived others into thinking they were more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. This syndrome is thought to be particularly common among women, particularly women who are successful in careers typically associated with men, and among academics.
When time came to take our first test, I studied and studied. I knew I wasn’t getting any credit for participating in class, so I really needed a good grade on the test. I did my best. I hoped to pass.
When the professor gave us back our tests, he put the scale on the board. The lowest grade was a C-. I had passed! Even if I got the C-, I had passed! Then he started talking about all the mistakes, including one really bad one – a person who had used a quote, and the quote was not accurate.
My heart fell. I had quoted George Kennan on deterrence, quote marks and everything. I thought I had it word perfect, but I must have screwed it up. I was so embarrassed.
One paper, he said, had no red marks on it. He said he has never had a paper before on which he didn’t make a single correction, that this was a first in his history of teaching. I barely paid attention – I had passed, even if I blew the Kennan quote.
Yeh – the paper with NO red marks was mine. I thought there must have been some mistake, but the professor held me after class, and told me that for my next homework, he wanted me to speak up in class. And he congratulated me on the test. Only one guy guessed it was my paper with no corrections – the same guy who had told me about the fraud syndrome. Through our two years in grad school, we became good friends, and would share notes with one another if one of us had to be out of town on assignments.
It was October. I remember there was fog on the road, and a great big full round white moon glowing through the fog on my drive home. I had so much adreneline pumping through me that I howled “Wooooooooo Hoooooooooo!” at the moon that night.
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