ether

and other reflections from my last trip

here,
i can almost the touch
water coalesced into opacity veiling the earth
like you, it softy caresses the webs between my fingers

or so i imagine

it’s easy here
to feel unlonesome, a tile in the neat mosaic of strangers
even easier now
to trace your eyes peeking through adjacent sliding windows
shaded into a drowning slumber

and that is when
the confessions profess themselves into taciturn notes
leading questions marks
and if i could ever be certain
i’d certainly write to you

i’d wipe the dust off the typewriter in the attic,
in these skies,
to trace my fingers along the frigid metal keys,
warm to colder hands

i’d turn these breaths of pressurized air
puffing goosebumps beneath thick denim
like mountain winds that flush your face
into blooming wildflowers in a dream

here,
the sun shines like a lone star over the clouds
thinning the air with rays of sweltering heat
like rods holding the mast of this ship
floating the skies

i’ll write on the canvas held taut in violent winds,
stitch together fragments into quilted storylines
how the sun feels too close
to intoxication
that the light vaporizes you into breaths i take

or so, i imagine

we eat fruits with our names traced beneath,
you rise against turbulent air,
biscuits suffocate to crumbs in our pockets
we’ll imagine the sweetness in the sips
before it draws to bitter

when the soil welcomes me again,
i’ll miss the air
cooling ablaze hearts under a wistful daze
i’ll miss these quiet tales
written under the lazy eye of this setting star

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my thoughts:

i studied chemistry in college and still love it a lot (even though it felt unreciprocated). i’m also paranoid about accidentally getting intoxicated when working with ether (especially because i had a record of inadvertently breathing substances i should not be breathing in). i also love words that have two meanings, especially if they are very different from one another. one day, i heard someone use ether in a context not referring to a polar aprotic solvent and was intrigued to find that it does have two meanings. i also went on my first solo trip last month to visit one of my best friends and i sat by the window on the airplane staring down at the clouds, wishing to never get too old to gaze out the window in awe. i scribbled this poem on a piece of paper on the flight thinking about altered state of mind that exists when you’re looking down at the clouds instead of up.

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random pictures from the trip from moments where i felt content, connected, or inspired. a. random duckies in a random pond next to a statue of a man riding a horse with like a bunch of cows and stuff. the ducks were just minding their own business. b. eyeball where i ran into a girl that had a trip to japan planned but realized she didn't have her passport the night before. c. i loved the murals in deep ellum, i think this was my favorite. d. broken typewrited in a book store. i want a nonbroken typewriter someday inshaAllah. e. i love public transport f. i forgot to take pictures of the food before we started eating but i get the hype for tx bbq

i was having a conversation with a friend (very talented writer and a gem of a person: check out her work at The Imperfect Idealist ) last night where we were reflecting about our childhood. a lot of mine had been tainted with a smear of loneliness. maybe from being an only child, or one of the only muslims in my neighborhood and school, or from having moved across the world as an eight year old and suddenly everything that was normal about you became the reason you stuck out like a sore thumb. and though i have some very happy memories and was surrounded by brilliant people, i cannot truly say i was a happy child.

digging into why has never proved to be productive. but how does it manifest into who i became is recurring theme in my life. i kept escaping into my head through it all. when struggling to make friends, it was easier to imagine people that genuinely enjoyed spending time with me. when things were rough at home, i’d imagine a happier family where i felt loved in ways that i wished to be. i’d rehearse conversations in my head. imagined myself doing cool things i believed myself unworthy of. until it became a coping mechanism for any stressor i would face. real life was messy. unpredictable. people could hurt you. imagining it was comfortable.

and when the stressors that made you grasp onto these unhealthy coping mechanisms disappear, they don’t take the habit you developed with them. even when having supportive friends who are there for you, having attended one of the best universities in the world, having strengthened your faith so that uncertainty doesn’t shake you the way it used to — none of it seemed to undo the patterns of your brain seeing any stressor as a danger it must escape through a story it creates. that even when you live in a quieter house your head thinks the squeaking hinges are a precursor to an explosion, even if you know at every superficial and deep level that it is not.

why do i bring this up?

when i went on this trip last month, i inadvertently ended up spending a lot of time with myself. my friend had just started a new job and couldn’t take pto in her first few weeks so half the days of my trip i spent with myself.

yet, being alone, a state that would usually make feel very anxious, allowed me to be present and truly interact with a new places i had never seen before. in the past i would’ve maybe escaped into daydreams where i explain my brilliant analyses to someone who would’ve cared. instead, i found myself narrating my observations to just myself. i wrote them, if i found them that remarkable. i talked to baristas at the cafes i sat in. i watched the people come in and out and eavesdropped on the tidbits of their lives. i saw kids scurry to school in the morning. i watched the delinquents loiter in the afternoon. i walked around a pumpkin patch all alone. piles and piles of squash like a sea of cool flames around me. i watched a monarch butterfly skipping between roses. i realized i had never seen one before. it was beautiful. it never stayed still long enough for me to take a picture. i still remember it anyways.

in these days i didn’t need characters conjured in my head when there were so many beautiful ones around me.

it’s easy to be a traveler. when a place is so new to you, it may as well not exist. you spend every moment there knowing that at some point you have to return to your real life, so you savor every moment there wanting to draw out the sweetness. restaurants messing up your order doesn’t bother you as much. the haste in your footsteps is not from a rush to ritualistically go through daily motions, but rather a fervor to experience as much as you possibly can. it is the closest thing to imagination, but tethered in reality. it might as well be imagination. the only difference: you relinquish control. you allow yourself to be surprised by murals on the street. to find familiar eyes littered on the faces of strangers. bricks and cobblestones you’ve seen before but not arranged in this permutation. coffee order that you’ve never tried before. stores you’ll never enter again.

coming back home only made me realize i’ve lived more of my life in my head than through my experiences. that i’ve spent more time with projections of people than their actual selves. imagining accomplishing more than i believed i was capable of. i realized that i mistrust not only myself, but what is familiar to me. and though i’d argue my ability to imagine so vividly is what allows me to be creative, when out of moderation, steals from the time i truly live.

yet, what is different from a short trip with an expiration date known to me, and my life which has the potential to all change any second? in the former i allowed myself to move through every possible moment where in the latter i stay frozen allowing the time to flow past me. (not really a swiftie anymore but “did you hear about the girl who was frozen, time went on for everybody else she won’t know it, she’s still 23 inside her fantasy” is playing in the back of my head as i write this rn)

if you’ve had a conversation with me in recent times, i’ve probably said something along the lines of “coincidences don’t exist.” i think that if you believe that God has orchestrated carefully every single moment and event that happens (one of the articles of faith in islam: qadr, or divine decree), there is no room for the randomness of chance to hold any power. you may not see the connection, the wisdom, the meaning, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

and so when reflecting on this, it reminded me of this hadith:

and i’ve had heard this hadith so many times throughout my life. yet, it was not until Allah gave me the opportunity to travel with a lot of time with myself that i truly understood what it meant.

it was a short trip to a rather insignificant place (if you’re from dallas, tx and disagree please tell me what i missed out on and maybe i’ll come back). it turned out different from what i perhaps had expected. and still beautiful.

and going back to the threads of loneliness that had woven together the times of my childhood/adolescence: learning to discern the states of solitude and being lonely is what truly became my catalyst for reflection and growth.

when you’re lonely, there is an absence that feels like a gaping hole somewhere that you keep tracing with your hands and its edges cut you every time that you do. solitude is the silence of contentment, a rejuvenating slumber following a tiring day. nothing feels missing at the time, that you’re not truly alone and Allah is with you, and you accept that it is simply your current state, and like any state, everything is subject to change.

(to be continued… maybe)

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1. when writing this, i remembered SabrGirl had a piece on maladaptive daydreaming and prayer from a while ago that i not only found helpful but keep coming back to

   maladaptive daydreaming destroyed my khushoo in salah

2. jeri lee | جيري wrote a piece this week about her feelings of loneliness and journey to islam. very beautifully written and really had me reflect as well.

   The Loneliness in Becoming - Part. 1