Today as I hurried across the street to CVS to pick up a pack of cigs before heading home, bundled in my coat with a scarf wrapped 3 times around my throat covering my mouth from the biting wind, I glanced up and squinted into the sky. Normally one can spot nothing except for a thick layer of smog blanketing the city but tonight visible to anyone looking, an inky black sky studded with stars like jewels gazed back. So enraptured was I by this unexpected sighting that my steps faltered eventually coming to a stop. I didn’t notice how my fingers shivered even within the confine of my new gloves nor how my eyes watered from the intensity of the cold. No, instead I stood there like a fool with my head tipped back smiling at the sky. Breathing in the clean air (an anomaly at best) one thought flashed through my head:
The holidays have officially arrived!
Maybe it was the smell of winter in the air, the merry lights that had already started to pop up all throughout the city, or the tinkling of the Salvation Army bell on each street corner. Possibly it was the sounds of carols piped through speakers wherever one went or even the invitations for holiday parties. I think maybe it was that so many people were already walking around with smiles a little larger upon their faces then a few days prior.
Whatever it was, all that and that sky full of jewels meant Christmas. The one holiday I anticipated more than any other, the one holiday that I was desperately in love with but couldn’t truly celebrate.
Let me clarify for a moment. I’m Muslim. A very proud Muslim. I practice my religion with zeal (do not read this as zealot) so why in the world would I get excited over a holiday that isn’t even mine? In order to answer this, you have to go back in time a bit.
When I was 5, I remember with astonishing clarity being in my kindergarten morning class cutting out strips of colored paper, gluing the ends carefully together and linking that with the same small little links. Before I was done I had one long strand of paper links which I almost reverently placed on a plastic green tree that had been positioned in the middle of the room, surely a place of honor. We were preparing for the Christmas holiday.
However upon reaching home, I was perplexed. In my little girl head, I couldn’t understand why my house wasn’t decorated in bright twinkling lights, why we weren’t wrapping gifts in pretty paper with shiny bows, or why my mother and I weren’t baking goodies. Why didn’t the scent of cinnamon waft within the confines of my home like it did the other kids? No, I didn’t understand at all. And worse of all, as Christmas Eve drew near, like all other children my age, I too was excited about the arrival of Santa. No matter how gently my mother tried to explain to me that we were Muslims, that we did not follow the Christian holiday of Christmas, my eyes were too full of anticipation for me to properly hear her.
That night, the night before Christmas, crawling beneath the cold sheets and snuggling down, my mother came into the room I shared with my brother to kiss us goodnight. But sleep was a long way in coming. I stayed wide awake, my eyes open staring at the ceiling. I dared not move an inch in fear that if Santa was in the living room even at that second, surely he would know that I was awake, right? Eventually the only reason I feel asleep was from pure exhaustion.
The next morning, the second my eyes popped open, I was flooded with excitement. Besides the fact that it was my birthday morning, more importantly, Santa had come! Now, as I remember back to that moment, I could have been crushed because my parents were very intent upon not confusing me about my religion vs the society I was apart of. And due to the necessity of making a clear delineation of lines, the possibilities of that morning being extremely disappointing were high.
Much later, years and years later, on another Christmas morning as I sat sipping tea with my mother, my husband sleeping upstairs peacefully, I asked her about that long ago morning. She looked at me above the rim of her own mug, putting it down and smiling softly in memory.
“Why Ammu?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
She took one of her favorite biscuits, dipping it into the liberally milked and sweetened tea, then bit into it with relish. As she brushed the crumbs away, her eyes focused on me and she said, “I couldn’t disappoint you Beta. I couldn’t see my little girl cry on her birthday because of Santa.”
You see, my parents, for all that they worked hard to drum into our heads that to a certain extent we were different and to appreciate that difference and that it made us special and wonderful and that those differences identified us for the individuals we were (and are today), they also couldn’t bear seeing their 5 year old shed a tear because I wasn’t worthy enough for Santa to stop by and leave a trinket.
That crisp morning when I was a wee tyke, I woke up with heart racing and found near my head a beautiful antique doll. She wore a pink gown, had glass eyes, and brown hair piled on top of her head in an elaborate do. She stared at me from her box, her home, the porcelain of her face gleaming in the morning light. My happiness was so intense that it didn’t strike me that the beautiful doll hadn’t been placed in a stocking by a fireplace or that there wasn’t anything other than that one doll. No, I was beyond thrilled and I remember clutching the box and simply sitting and staring at it in awe and wonder until my mother poked her head around the door, dressed in a long nightgown, smiling at me. I looked up at her and said in an almost reverent voice, “Santa was here.”
Why tonight I thought of that incident, I’m not sure. I think it’s because that no matter how old I am, no matter how jaded I become or how tired, on nights like these when I smell the spice in the air, when I see twinkling lights of far away galaxy’s hanging over my head like those found on Christmas trees, or how, no matter how childish and silly it is, I imagine Santa streaking through that same depthless sky on Christmas Eve, how can I not look up and anticipate the season that I had fallen in love with so many years ago?
The holidays have officially arrived!
Maybe it was the smell of winter in the air, the merry lights that had already started to pop up all throughout the city, or the tinkling of the Salvation Army bell on each street corner. Possibly it was the sounds of carols piped through speakers wherever one went or even the invitations for holiday parties. I think maybe it was that so many people were already walking around with smiles a little larger upon their faces then a few days prior.
Whatever it was, all that and that sky full of jewels meant Christmas. The one holiday I anticipated more than any other, the one holiday that I was desperately in love with but couldn’t truly celebrate.
Let me clarify for a moment. I’m Muslim. A very proud Muslim. I practice my religion with zeal (do not read this as zealot) so why in the world would I get excited over a holiday that isn’t even mine? In order to answer this, you have to go back in time a bit.
When I was 5, I remember with astonishing clarity being in my kindergarten morning class cutting out strips of colored paper, gluing the ends carefully together and linking that with the same small little links. Before I was done I had one long strand of paper links which I almost reverently placed on a plastic green tree that had been positioned in the middle of the room, surely a place of honor. We were preparing for the Christmas holiday.
However upon reaching home, I was perplexed. In my little girl head, I couldn’t understand why my house wasn’t decorated in bright twinkling lights, why we weren’t wrapping gifts in pretty paper with shiny bows, or why my mother and I weren’t baking goodies. Why didn’t the scent of cinnamon waft within the confines of my home like it did the other kids? No, I didn’t understand at all. And worse of all, as Christmas Eve drew near, like all other children my age, I too was excited about the arrival of Santa. No matter how gently my mother tried to explain to me that we were Muslims, that we did not follow the Christian holiday of Christmas, my eyes were too full of anticipation for me to properly hear her.
That night, the night before Christmas, crawling beneath the cold sheets and snuggling down, my mother came into the room I shared with my brother to kiss us goodnight. But sleep was a long way in coming. I stayed wide awake, my eyes open staring at the ceiling. I dared not move an inch in fear that if Santa was in the living room even at that second, surely he would know that I was awake, right? Eventually the only reason I feel asleep was from pure exhaustion.
The next morning, the second my eyes popped open, I was flooded with excitement. Besides the fact that it was my birthday morning, more importantly, Santa had come! Now, as I remember back to that moment, I could have been crushed because my parents were very intent upon not confusing me about my religion vs the society I was apart of. And due to the necessity of making a clear delineation of lines, the possibilities of that morning being extremely disappointing were high.
Much later, years and years later, on another Christmas morning as I sat sipping tea with my mother, my husband sleeping upstairs peacefully, I asked her about that long ago morning. She looked at me above the rim of her own mug, putting it down and smiling softly in memory.
“Why Ammu?” I asked, though I knew the answer.
She took one of her favorite biscuits, dipping it into the liberally milked and sweetened tea, then bit into it with relish. As she brushed the crumbs away, her eyes focused on me and she said, “I couldn’t disappoint you Beta. I couldn’t see my little girl cry on her birthday because of Santa.”
You see, my parents, for all that they worked hard to drum into our heads that to a certain extent we were different and to appreciate that difference and that it made us special and wonderful and that those differences identified us for the individuals we were (and are today), they also couldn’t bear seeing their 5 year old shed a tear because I wasn’t worthy enough for Santa to stop by and leave a trinket.
That crisp morning when I was a wee tyke, I woke up with heart racing and found near my head a beautiful antique doll. She wore a pink gown, had glass eyes, and brown hair piled on top of her head in an elaborate do. She stared at me from her box, her home, the porcelain of her face gleaming in the morning light. My happiness was so intense that it didn’t strike me that the beautiful doll hadn’t been placed in a stocking by a fireplace or that there wasn’t anything other than that one doll. No, I was beyond thrilled and I remember clutching the box and simply sitting and staring at it in awe and wonder until my mother poked her head around the door, dressed in a long nightgown, smiling at me. I looked up at her and said in an almost reverent voice, “Santa was here.”
Why tonight I thought of that incident, I’m not sure. I think it’s because that no matter how old I am, no matter how jaded I become or how tired, on nights like these when I smell the spice in the air, when I see twinkling lights of far away galaxy’s hanging over my head like those found on Christmas trees, or how, no matter how childish and silly it is, I imagine Santa streaking through that same depthless sky on Christmas Eve, how can I not look up and anticipate the season that I had fallen in love with so many years ago?
1 comment:
i love you.
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