Bone Tired
I was supposed to write you
an essay
about the beautiful words of my faith
about the difference
between
insha Allah and
masha Allah and
astaghfir Allah
But
I spent the week
living
that is to say
I spent the week
cooking and cleaning and laughing with friends
and praying in community
and sleeping very very late
and shuttling children to and from
soccer practice
and seeing words in the sky
in the air
dancing before me
And reading the holy book
and thinking of the stories and the parables
and the lessons and the memories
I was supposed to write you some beautiful words but
I can hardly
keep my eyes open
and the jumble of blankets on my bed is beckoning
and I may nap
until tomorrow.
When we were little
my sister and I
would stay up giggling and whispering
late into the night
Her on the old wooden twin bed
Me on the mattress I would drag in every evening to
her room
Whispering
until my body was so tired
and so cold and so desperate for sleep
that a rattle would rise from inside me
and shake my bones my skin my teeth my fingers
trembling
a low vibration that would crescendo
no matter the summer heat
My body begging to rest
my mind refusing to let go
the conversation
too glorious to relinquish.
Thank you for reading Letters from a Muslim Woman. I share the joys and challenges of being a visibly Muslim woman in a sometimes-unfriendly world.
A paid subscription is $7 a month. If you’re enjoying my perspective and want to support me, consider upgrading to help me spend more time on writing and share a voice that isn’t often heard.
If you can’t commit to a monthly subscription, but still want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee below. It helps me more than you realize.
Let’s chat in the comments:
Do you go through phases of intense activity followed by exhaustion?
Do you remember staying up late as a kid? With friends or siblings?
Are there times you can’t get to your daily habits and rituals, but you’re not upset because the things you got to do instead were meaningful?
I’m continuing to share resources about the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. This week I’m sharing a few posts related to the forced starvation of Gaza. Aid trucks are lined up outside of Gaza for miles and the amount being let in by the Israeli government is a fraction of a fraction of what is required. As all of Gaza has been bombed, there’s no way for people to grow their own food. Over a million people are on the brink of starvation. Turning this around is not as simple as letting in the aid, which will be an enormous undertaking in and of itself. A starved population needs to be monitored medically as food is reintroduced. We need to keep pressuring our governments before hundreds of thousands are killed by this manmade famine.
Noha, this brought back memories of Ramadan when I was still a kid. This year is the first Ramadan I'm fasting after a 20 year relapse (I'm both proud and ashamed, and urgh, I am having so many feelings - hand me the Kleenex box please 🤧) but it has already propelled me into creating my own little community and finding myself in things I had rashly abandoned decades ago in my youth. But the act of LIVING: the cooking, the prepping, the sharing, the reminders of all the blessings we have, and the prayers that others may have them as well so we are all better for it. Thank you for this.
Ramadan Kareem! Between the fasting and spiritual observance of Ramadan and the full moon lunar eclipse yesterday, you were right to honor your body and rest. I’m glad that much of your exhaustion is from laughter and being together with loved ones because that’s how it should be. May glimmers of happiness continue to shine on you and yours.