2014: Make it Good

Welcome 2014

There isn't much difference between 23.59, December 31st and 00.00, January 1st. I stopped up last night (typical) and ushered in the New Year. It was a quiet affair, at home reflecting on the celebrations being broadcast from around the world. I can't say I felt different from one year to the next.

This past year gone has been a work hard year. I'm reaching that stage in life where I know that I am caught between personal ambition and responsibilities. The latter appears to dominate and one of the reasons I appear to have opted for regularity is because the external pressures around me have grown. Responsbilities to others I believe in, to a point. but an honest confession would be that the head and the heart conflict on this matter, so I wonder what the future holds. As I get older I know that there are fewer opportunties, but ultimately we restrict ourselves don't we? 

We are just microspecs in the universe and yet we are still surrounded by too much conflict in the world around us and in our personal lives. Hope remains my favourite word because it allows our dreams and motivations to thrive, and prayers are made to Allah Almighty. 

Where we are responsible for controlling the events in our own lives, I want to begin 2014 with one simple thought. 

Make it good.

Fuzzy Sense of Something

Finding the strength and the energy to deal with the many changes surrounding a person is never easy. I am, by all accounts, not exactly the most flexible person that I know (I think), but here I am several weeks after recognising and accepting fate, bidding farewell to the part of the world that has been home for several years.

Take this week. Being a primary teacher is about relationships - with the children and with colleagues - and I really do care. To that end, I am sad, however, my last days of work brought a sense of release. I have found it incredibly cathartic letting go of material possessions and looking forwards. Not sure to what I've been looking, however. I just know that I wanted to pass over the job that I was doing, take a fresh look at myself and press on with whatever Allah has scribed for me. As I write this, I'm still figuring things out that all my life have eluded my sometimes fuzzy sense of focus. I do not guarantee that I will be any closer to knowing.

Confused? Sure. Here are some select lines that "speak" to me from a poem by Rumi. It fits a common theme of questions I ask and finishes with a line I often contemplate myself.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.  I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense.

Rumi

Oh, and I posted my tutor the first draft of the dissertation that I am writing. I'm not completed, but really want to be. More on that another time.

Life's A Journey

We traverse through this life we are living as a gift from Allah. It is a journey for each of us - a unique and very personal journey; one that touches upon the paths our lives travel. No two paths are the same and each one of us is living a personal experience with our life. 

This year has had me and those that I love and care for shuttling back and forth between East and West, moving between time and cultural zones in order to bridge gaps, leaving a trail of experience behind us. Last week I was in Yorkshire, this week I am in Abu Dhabi.

I have sensed change for some time now, and whilst I have often thought it wiser to allow myself time to explore my innermost thoughts within the safe sphere of myself, invariably there comes a time when we begin to outwardly express our apprehensions and hopes. 

I know that in this journey of life, we press on. Much more I will not say now, except to return to that very first post that I made here in which I considered life to be a journey and myself to be a traveller on that journey. With every step may I be guided by Allah. Ameen. That is my deepest desire.

"To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours is wisdom." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reflection and Introspection

Here in the UAE, we have the largest population of Pashtoons outside their homelands - Pakistan and Afghanistan, so everyday, I see plenty of people who are, as they say, rather familiar.

However, of late, I have found some things a challenge - separation from those you love and care about is foremost. There is something of a kind of hollowness to some parts of the day. Mealtimes for instance. 

It isn't the first time that I have been 'forced' to work away. In fact most of the Pashtoon guest workers here in the Gulf live just that kind of existence. They live, several men to a room, toiling their shifts to feed their families at home. Over Eid, for instance, I had that experience. I visited a cousin in Sharjah and had a couple of beautifully restful days, listening to people in their deira which serves as a hujra and enjoying their melmastiya. I met with my mother's first cousin (an uncle) and my great-grandfather's grandson, which of course would also make him, in the Pashtoon tapestry of things, an uncle.

I know that I am lucky. I belong to a slightly different social demographic so my 'struggle' is much more comfortable. Still, the heart is cruel.

There are aspects to my job that I very much find positive. I feel that I give and gain trust, but there are constant hurdles which slow down my aspirations.The hours are long and this leaves me less downtime - so here's my criticism - education which is supposed to bring hope and inspiration can end up bleeding that very hope and inspiration of those who work so tirelessly to make it bear fruit. I find myself in that place. 

I have learned a lot this past year and whilst I'm not sure of what happens next, I feel change. It is not yet winter and here I am, at a crossroads, looking, left, right, forwards, backwards and introspectively. 

The Road Not Taken

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

taken from the last stanza of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken
from The Mountain Interval, 1920

Crossroads

I'm at a crossroads - I ponder, quite often, where I will be next. I don't mean where I will travel to, although that does come into it. But what I mean is where in the world, does someone like me consider home? I'm really drawn to do something positive for my people - so I would like to make a positive impact in the Pashtoon heartlands. But I'm a British oddity and I think of things like career and schooling for the children. I'm also very affected by the security situation and the availability of basics such as electricity and clean water. Where exactly, can I find my bit of spiritually - to whence do I belong?

The places that I wanted to travel to this summer - Swat and Afghanistan - I am now being warned against going to. With the war, I am affected again. I had hoped to spend time in the villages in Lower Swat, to take in the environment, to give my children the opportunity to keep up with their Pashto and to look, interact and learn. Of course, the same can happen elsewhere, but this was going to be different.

This summer is something of an open-book. The Swat refugee crisis created something of an emergency so the wedding that we had intended to attend in the valley was brought forward and took place in Karachi last week. My wife and daughter flew there for a couple of days - it was her brother's wedding after all. I still intend to travel to Pakistan, and our initial plan is to stay in the family home in Karachi. I'm still keen on going to Afghanistan, but will need to judge the mood. In any case, very shortly we will be travelling to Toronto, Canada where I intend to "land" as an immigrant.


... InshAllah, a whole new chapter awaits to be written ...