You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2010.
The blog, Muslims Wearing Things, is a gorgeous, fun, and creative response to former NPR analyst Juan Williams’ inane comments regarding ‘Muslim garb’.
It’s also been nominated for Best Media Blog at the Brass Crescent Awards. The polls close tomorrow night, so don’t forget to vote – many races are extremely close this year.
We are each walking anthologies, living collections of our own stories, as well as every one we have ever been told by others.
I was reminded of the power of stories this past week at two events in San Francisco: a benefit for Voice of Witness and an evening hosted by World Pulse.
Each of the organizations focuses on unheard stories, the former collecting oral histories from the displaced people of Sudan, undocumented workers in the US, and Katrina survivors; the latter amplifying and connecting women’s voices from around the world.
Voice of Witness’ next project is to document experiences of the 9/11 backlash and publish it before the 10th anniversary of the attacks next year.
The project is looking for stories from Middle Eastern/South Asian/Muslim Americans and other communities related to 9/11 and its aftermath, especially from people who live outside the US coasts in middle America.
You can contact the editor Alia Malek at: alia [at] voiceofwitness DOT com directly with your story or referrals.
Please spread the word and have your story heard.
It’s always neat when my 9-year-old niece and 5-year-old niece & nephew come to town. They show me life from a completely different perspective – shorter to be sure, but also joyous, rambunctious, silly-funny, and completely lacking in social inhibitions.
I also love how Bean blossoms in their company from a quiet, serious baby into the tiniest member of the gang, screeching rapturously at the sight of them, and pulling their patient hair in delight.
My sister and I took the kids to the Lawrence Hall of Science in the hills of Berkeley with stunning views of the bay and beyond on an utterly gorgeous November day that makes you forget it is ever anything other than golden summer in California. Sister + kids + view of San Francisco gleaming in the distance = utter shukr (gratitude).
We also took them to the Golden Gate Park Playground with its beautiful old wooden carousel. After listening to (but not intervening in) hair-raising negotiations for swings between my shy niece and the two girls already on the swings I came to the understanding that it’s a Lilliputian Lord of the Flies out there.
Later, sitting in a silent corporate office while we ordered custom-made jeans that we scored a bargain on, my 9-year-old niece turned to me & asked in the high-decibel volume that children routinely use even when you are sitting right next to them, “So Khala Baraka, have you ever drank your own breast milk?”
The question echoed across the room, my eyebrows froze in place, and though no one turned toward us you could feel all ears perking up for the answer.
Questions like that will wake an office up faster than any afternoon coffee break.
I love these kids.
The blog Not My Naseeb swept Facebook this past Sunday. The author shares excerpts from messages she receives on matrimonial sites. Simple concept, but totally cracks me up when I get the blog post in my e-mail every morning.
She also takes reader submissions – check it out! 
The clothesline is hung with early morning dew as we sit breaking bread together. This is a life I never imagined, or, rather, dared not imagine. And yet, here you are at 8-months-old, declaiming over bananas and applesauce, and batting an empty egg carton onto the floor before turning to me with expectant eyes. Your presence still surprises me, every day.
In the dark before we gather ourselves up from bed, you nurse and then sit, singing up the sun, nuzzling or scratching at my closed eyes, ready for the day to start hours before I am. You laugh and throw yourself backwards repeatedly in full confidence of soft landings.
I haven’t got a thing to show a world that expects productivity in tangible form. And yet, I have never been so happy, so rooted in the now, so at peace with life unfolding as it wills. It is like walking out into a garden every day completely absorbed in and aware of each rose blooming. Before you, when was the last time I paid attention like that? When was the last time I noticed the minutes, heavy with grace and gratitude?
This is my life. The one I dared not imagine, each slow-quick day an unexpected blessing.
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