Writing into the fear
Introducing unfinished letters
Hello and Salaams!
I’ve been reflecting about this space, about the gift you’ve all given me to allow me into your inbox (or come visit me online) and engage with my reality as a Muslim woman in Canada, as a child of immigrants, as a perpetual stranger.
When I started here late last June, I had no idea what I wanted to say, only that I wanted, desperately, to write and be read. I grew up reading sweeping, epic stories filled with tragedy and pain, or else action and adventure. My own life was boring and idyllic, and yet all my teachers kept repeating the old advice to “write what you know.”
This newsletter has taught me that what I know is worth writing about.
I’m thinking about where it goes now that it’s out of the newborn phase and entering into the spunky toddler zone. There are thoughts I’m ready to explore that scared me when I first got started.
I want to be able to bring my whole self here, to have some of these letters delve a little deeper. I want to give my time and my words to topics like Islamophobia and its devastating impacts, sincerity and hypocrisy, the visibility in being a visible minority, the pressure to be perfect. It scares me to put some of this out into the world. It scares me to share whatever’s on my mind, even if it’s still tender and unvarnished. Even if I’m asking questions, not answering them, and the letters I send you are unfinished, a conversation we keep having here in this space.
I’d like to challenge myself, but in a smaller, more intimate setting. This means I’ll be changing up the publishing schedule with a paid post every other Tuesday. If you’re happy with the free content, you’ll still get new writing every two weeks as a free subscriber. If you’d like to come along for more of the unvarnished writing, I want to invite you to upgrade to a paid subscription for $5/month or $50/year.
Whichever choice you make, I’m so grateful to have you here. As my old newsletter name expressed, I am prone to hyperbole, but it’s 100% true that writing here, and making the friends I’ve made, has changed my life.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart,
Noha
You are worth every risk you take, my friend.
How special to have the self-awareness that you have developed to your toddler stage!
As a delayed processor- I typically don't realize I have entered a new phase of development until I am well underway, something I am working on.
I am so interested in your current work & writings to come around being a visible minority.
Cheers, Noha!