saadia says: to find what you’re looking for, look around.

I’m trying not to think of next year; trying not to make a decision about the trajectory of my life; trying not to look forward, all so that I won’t look back.  I’m just not ready for it.

Today I packed up my classroom, room 208.  I remember so well the feeling of unpacking it, of walking the four endless flights of stairs in the sticky August heat with box after box after box; setting down each one atop another desk with P. looking at me, exhaustedly after each trip; the sweet, unidentifiable aroma of the second floor in the warmth, a smell that I now know my dear friend Linda is responsible for with her incense cubes.

Unpacking

I remember fasting and feeling desperate for water as I blew dust like dandelion snow and sneezed for minutes afterward, particles stuck in my throat and nose.  One of my students would sneeze like that each day of the year, and I would always think I just never got those back shelves quite clean enough.

I remember the feeling of nervous excitement, of anticipation; the feeling of pride as I hung the painting of the deer, adjusted the placement of my plants, clicked on my two lamps, and watched P. drill holes into my closet door to install the full-length mirror. (A mirror that would become famous among my students – I would often have them come in to “check themselves out” between classes and I would shoo them away, telling them to BE ON TIME!  Several students told me that I’d see a lot of them next year, as I “have the best mirror in the school.”)

Ragamuffins no more!

I remember the musty, yellow smell of the ragamuffin books on the one shelf in my room, the feeling that I needed to bring them back to life, bring the room back to life, bring myself into life.  My new life.  A life in which I would spend most of my week in that very room, with its cornflower walls and squeaky ceiling.  I imagined myself clicking the lamplight on in the early winter mornings in my room, sitting at my desk grading papers, or planning, or eating my daily apple; or, simply being.

But I don’t remember the winter, don’t remember the cold weather.  At least not by smell.  I always say that smells change throughout the seasons; talk about how my parents’ home smells deliciously summerish when it gets warm, a smell that may be old wood expanding in the humidity, or allergens, or sweat, but to me means freedom and peace and long, languid afternoons spent floating in the pool and eating pretzels with pruney fingers – pretzels that always taste better because of the chlorine residue and the fact that mom put them out in the white metal bowl with the blue trim.  But there’s nothing that reminds me of winter in room 208.  Not even those lamps with their 60-watt bulbs softening the bleached fluorescence in the room, nor my winter boots sitting in puddles of former snow near the radiator, nor my thick socks on my curled up toes; not even the asbestos tiles on the floor.  I did sit at my desk on those winter mornings, grading by lamplight, but that’s not what I think of when I think of my room, of my BKHS.

Just your average Wednesday morning

What I do think of are those humid, humid, beyond humid afternoons, my brow accumulating sweat despite the ferociously loud air conditioner (far more bark than bite, let me tell you), and the peace of organizing, of sorting, of putting things where they belong in my little world.  Of finding treasures, like a lock of baby hair in a sock drawer: the letters my students wrote me on the first day of school, or the remnants of school days past; the bubbled handwriting of a now fully-grown student, or the forgotten resume of a young teacher with boyish annotations.  All these I inspect, smile at, regard as sacred.

My little corner of the world

I wonder what of myself will be left behind when I leave.  Who are we in pieces?  What pieces of myself will remain and what will the person who finds them think of me?  Will they find my lessons and think me creative, or neurotic, or neither?  Or perhaps my letter to my students and think me sentimental, or devoted?  Or perhaps they will find the letter I wrote to them, whoever they are, taped to the top of the little drawer in my desk, and understand.

What I do think of are the sounds of boisterous laughter echoing throughout my room when I have said something “corny,” or when someone has made a joke.  What I do think of are the moments when I had to cover my face with a book because I was laughing so hard (usually trying to conceal my amusement at an off-color comment).  What I do think of are my students skipping down the hallways after finding out their grades on the Regents, or having me call their mother to tell them that, YES, they passed!  And yes, you should be so proud.  What I do think of are the moments I felt my eyes well up during writes, and then spilling over when my students read about their families, and the homes they have left, and their broken hearts, and their endless, endless love.  What I do think of are the moments when my stomach would flip-flop over and over, a student in my face and challenging me, and me, fighting with myself internally.  What I do think of are the millions of moments spent sharing life with my kindred spirit.  What I do think of are the looks on the faces of all of my students on the last day of class, when we realized that we had made it.  We had made it to the end, together.

We began in a circle on an 80-degree day, and ended in a circle on an 80-degree day.

Last day of school, 2011

And I packed and packed today, carrying box after box down the four endless flights of stairs, joking about the elevator being broken, as on the first day of school, packing my things into our hunter green Honda Civic, feeling like I was moving, but not knowing where from or to.  As we pulled away from the school, I didn’t look too hard, didn’t want to say goodbye, didn’t need to.  It’s not goodbye, really.  Only goodbye to this year, only goodbye to the Saadia of this year.  So I did not roll down the window and rest my head on the door as I watched Longwood Avenue recede into the distance.  Rather, I sang to the music in my head, looked long at the man sitting next to me, the one who was with me on the first day, and will be on the last, and was in love.  With the summer, with a teaching life, with the person that teaching makes me.  A better person than who I am without.

So I will not look forward today, nor back.  Instead, I will stop for a moment, and look around.

BKHS

saadia says: goodbyes are hard.

A letter to my students on the last day of school, 2011:

Dearest and most lovely 11^th graders,

It’s hard to articulate a goodbye – hard to say all the things you want to say, need to say, mean to say.  So I’ll try to keep it simple.

First, thank you.  So much.  I wish I could tell each of you individually, one by one, all the ways that you have made this year, my first full year of teaching high school, a profoundly meaningful, enriching, and beautiful experience.  I hope that my actions and words throughout the year, and over the next few weeks when I see you around the hallways during Regents will serve to let you know how special you all are to me – because you truly are.  I hope that you’ll feel even a portion of the love that I feel for each of you and take that with you this summer, and know that somewhere, out in Brooklyn, there’s a friend named Saadia who’s thinking about you and hoping you’re being good, having fun, and loving life.

For the rest of my days, I will carry you with me.  I will never forget your stories, your jokes, your smiles, or your antagonistic behavior J; your portmanteaus and 6 Word Memoirs that let me into the beauty and art of who each of you are; your thoughtful and hilarious American Shore skits that left me ROFLing.  You have each let me into your worlds in some way, and for that I am so thankful.

Because here’s the thing about teaching – and if you haven’t heard this yet, you’re in for an important bit of knowledge – the teacher learns as much from you as you learn from her.  Maybe more. From your courage I have learned tenacity, from your perseverance I have learned hope, from your resilience I have learned faith. And I have been inspired each and every day.  That’s not to say that there weren’t hard times, but I’ve learned from those too.  When you pushed against me, I learned to stand strong.  When you answered back, I learned to be patient.  And when you gave me yet another chance with each new day, I learned that kindness is really what matters.

So, I say, first and last, thank you.  It has truly been an honor to know you, and I expect great things from you all.

Please keep in touch – I’m going to miss you, and I’m always, always here for you.

Love,

saadia xxoo

My favorite moment was when A.R. said, “You know, I never cry, especially not in public, but Saadia…”

I am filled with love.

saadia says: go forth and write.

my students asked me today why, when I ask them to write for full presence, I also ask them to write for the full time given, and what, if they have nothing to say, I expect them to write. I told them about writing to think. how important that is. I told them about the times when I sometimes lie awake at night, unsure of the “why” I’m lying awake, but completely conscious of the fact that I am, as it happens, utterly awake, and generally holding a heavy stone in my stomach. I told them about how in those moments I take out some pen and paper and write, steam of consciousness, not knowing what’s going to come out, only knowing that above all else, I must. keep. writing. they didn’t know what stream of consciousness was, so I explained it to them. I shared with them the essence of what I wrote SOC last time I did, and they asked me to read it to them, as though I would have it, as though I live in the closet at school, as though the closet is like mary poppins’ brocaded bag; stick your arm in and everything you could possibly want it right there. unfortunately, I don’t live in that world, or, as it happens, the closet at the back of my classroom, so I couldn’t share it. I told them I would and I also realized simultaneously how completely impossible it is to give into ones self-conciousness as a teacher. I can’t count on my fingers and toes how many times I’ve given into that hollow self-doubt and reticence, shielded myself from the monster that would surely come out of its hiding place the moment I came out of mine. but it’s funny being a teacher, because you can’t recede. you cannot turn off with a slight internal whir and go blank, or bleary, or bye-bye. you have to keep going, forge ahead. so when your students ask you to read something you wrote stream-of-consciousness last Tuesday night at 3:30 am, you say “of course I will” and you pretend to be brave because you hope that in pretending to be brave, you will model the bravery you want your students to internalize for themselves, and maybe, just maybe some of them will be brave enough to write without having a topic and write without knowing where it will go and write and share afterwards, and just maybe, maybe you might actually be brave yourself.

saadiasays: definitions aren’t easy.

Biracial, multicultural, hybrid, criss-cross, diversified, mixed-breed, mutt, mongrel, other.

Being these things presents a particular challenge to one’s identity, which is: no one knows where you go, categorically speaking.  And, categorically speaking, you don’t know where you go either; until, that is, the day you eke out that space for yourself.  But that process takes time, and patience, and self-knowledge, and that’s not exactly what I want to talk about for now.

What I want to talk about now is the situation afforded someone in my position; a situation that, in itself, is precisely the lack of a position: indefinability.  I want to be specific here so there is no mistake about it—I am not referring to one’s inability to define him/herself; not talking about self-definition, but rather, societal, external definition.

It has been difficult to describe, in the past, the feeling evoked—provoked?—in me when others attempt to define who I am.  The questions revolve around race, primarily; an eternal, “Is she white?  Is she brown?” as back-and-forth as tennis.  Perhaps it is my own eternal struggle against the very premise of this sort of questioning that causes my metaphorical skin to crawl; the implied truisms embedded in such questioning that suppose that (1) To be brown and to be white are mutually exclusive binaries, and (2) You must choose one because they are indeed so different; truisms that plague this, our modern world.

“Oh yes,” I want to exclaim, “I am both colonizer and colonized; I have all the power and none of it; I am rapist and raped, pillager and pillaged, plunderer and plundered!  I am both the action and the acted upon!  I am a contradiction in terms!  In fact, I am so enigmatic as to be obscured entirely!  I am simply not possible!”

Because indeed, even the very binaries of colonizer and colonized, the binaries which those who are more progressively and critically inclined have come to take as pat definitions of states of being, are far more complex than those definitions might imply—for there is far more richness to the identity of the South Asian than the fact of her/his colonization, and far more complexity to the colonizer than her/his being a pawn in the Imperial game, despite her/his gains as a result.[1]

We are missing, in these definitions, what is most important, and that, my friends, is humanity.  When discussing individual identity, it is useless to subscribe to generalized political definitions, which is something I find people have a hard time with, resulting in that very, “Is she brown?  Is she white?” debate.

through a train window, india

through a train window, nyc

Clearly, I think politically.  I believe the personal is political and I experience the world as such.  I read the world with a critical eye, understanding the ways in which ideology is the invisible hand that shapes us all—(or if not understanding the ways themselves, at least knowing they exist).  This ideology is usually inherited, and ferreting it out is essentially why I became a teacher.

But I am not speaking about ideology or the world-at-large right now.

I am talking about standing (or sitting) with friends, having them tell me what race I am, or trying to classify me by look, by instinct—by magic for all I know; giving me that head-cocked-to-the-side quizzical look, followed by the irreverent, “Of course I know what you are,” and my standing (or sitting) there, seething, looking back at people I love and respect, wanting to shout in response, “YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO TELL ME WHAT I AM.”  Period.

Because I have spent 25-years of my life trying to figure out whom and what I am and in that moment, that 5-second span of time, you have unwittingly and well-intentionedly manage to invalidate it.

Don’t get me wrong: my identity is not fragile.  It will not break, shatter, or disintegrate.  In fact, my identity is as strong, as buoyant, as elastic as it is because of what it has been through in its creation.  It bends, and bounces back.  It is a muscle, not a bone.  It is, specifically, a heart.

But when I say I am brown, and you say back, “No, you are white,” not comprehending that brown is a shade on a spectrum, that race is a socially constructed fallacy, that I have spent a quarter-of-a-century figuring out who I am and what to call who that is, you are causing us to walk backwards.

Because I have been defined as different—have been defined as other, throughout my entire existence, except to the four others with whom I share my blood.  And in our society, brown is other; throughout history, brown has been other.  In this country, on this day, my being Muslim (synonymous in this country, notably, with being brown) is other, and, sharply, virulently under attack.

Should I, then, define myself as white when I have consistently been defined as other, as brown, for my entire life?  It is now, in my adulthood, that I have come to claim my identity, and it is now those around me who want it back.  Is this fair?

Shall I mention here the One Drop Rule?  Do you know what it is?  Do you remember?  Because it was not so long ago, and it is not yet the past in which we held these things to be true.

Or what about the concept of hypodescent, wherein any children of a mixed-race union are automatically prescribed as members of the “lower” race?

The histories of these concepts and, more important, lived experiences are long, and also short.  They are what we believe to be in the vicinity of the past, naively forgetting that the legacy of the past is the very present in which we reside.

But I have never meant to chide, or provoke defensiveness, for there, nothing can be achieved or communicated.  I have, however, meant to invite hesitation, self-consciousness, doubt.  No, not in the, “Oh, I’m horrible for having said such things,” but in a, “Hmm…why did I say such things?”  I do not wish to ever silence questions in my frustration, rather, to encourage them over flippant, unqualified definitions.  I was inaugurated into society uneasily, and I sincerely hope that foundational uneasiness will return to society and evolve into inquiry.

So when you ruminate over the question of, “Is she white?  Is she brown?”, ask me what I consider myself if you care to know.  I will gladly tell you, but be prepared to walk with me a ways.

---

[1] I know the more complex treatments of these terms & issues do indeed allow for more nuanced analyses, but I am specifically referring to interpersonal discourses and interactions, as opposed to theoretical and textual ones.

saadia says: this is the reason my life is over (and somehow, is just beginning).

I’ve been pretty remiss when it comes to writing lately.  In fact, I’ve barely written anything (other than my syllabus) in over a week.  There are so many things I want to write about now; so, so many things, but that takes time and time is a thing I do not possess.  In fact, just the opposite–it possesses me.

Today was Eid, and I couldn’t be more thankful than this year–celebrating with my family, for the first time at home, having a barbecue, kids running amok and green and white cupcakes shaped like an Eid moon–rather than being stuck in a restaurant, only being able to talk to those sitting immediately in front or next to you, and having your father spend half-a-grand he doesn’t have.

I promised, 30 days ago, that I was going to do a good deed per day of Ramadan, and I think I by-and-large succeeded.  I want to document more of them, and I will, as soon as I get a basic footing in things school-related.  In fact, in addition to a good-deed-a-day, I also decided to not spend any money (other than on moderate food supplies)–because as I figure, if I have money to buy a new pair of pants, I have money to send to Pakistan for flood relief.  I’ve just found it too hard to have lately–and I don’t know what to do about it.

Teaching helps.  And putting my heart into what I’m doing helps.  And my family helps, too.

Speaking of teaching, that’s what I’m spending all of my time, energy, and life’s blood on right now.

Staying afloat is what is important at the moment, but I hope that will change soon; morph into doing some deliberate good.

Here’s me, 3 hours after the end of the school day.

welcome to room 208!

I am exhausted, but exhilarated.

More to come soon…right now I must get to bed because I’m taking my 5-hour driving class tomorrow morning with my little sister and my two cousins.  Girl power!

saadia says: and behind door number one….!

If you were a pre-teen girl living in the US in the 90’s, chances are you read Seventeen Magazine.  (Okay, that’s not what one would call a “cold, hard fact,” but let’s go with it.)  If you were one of those girls, you probably remember the TraumaRama section that inhabited the first several pages of every issue, featuring readers’ most mortifying anecdotes, which made you think: “Thank God that’s not me!”  Or, conversely, as was my usual response: “Um, that’s supposed to be traumatic?  Try walking a mile in my chuck taylors.”

But despite all the traumaramatic moments I experienced in my (pre)-adolescent life, what happened to me today is probably the worst.

Let’s back up for a moment, though: I haven’t shared this yet, but last Monday, I got a job.  Yay!, right?  I’m completely jazzed about it—it’s at a wonderful school (albeit over an hour from our house), and I’m pretty much loving everything about it—from the staff to the mission to the curriculum and flexibility.  Awesomeness all around.

This week we’ve got lots of PD (professional development) stuff going on, and today was the first day of new-teacher orientation.  Though I’ve been experiencing a lot of anxiety about this school year and how little time I have to get everything sorted for myself (I am ALL about organization and preparedness—like, overly so), I was actually feeling good about the whole day.

(You know it’s coming….)

Until.

After we had all of our morning meetings, the time came to go and meet some of our incoming 9^th graders and their families at a lunch gathering.  So, we filed out of the classroom we had been working in and all took a bathroom break right outside the main office.  I was last in line, because I was being a chatty-Cathy, and vowed to rushy-rush so that I wouldn’t keep anyone waiting.

I suppose that was the mistake I made.  Because, in my hurry, I apparently didn’t caress the finicky lock to its heart’s content, and as a result, it only half-latched.

I sat down on the toilet, and about 30 seconds later, I heard a voice outside the door and the turning of a knob.  I don’t know if I went mute in that moment—either that, or he couldn’t hear me yelling, “no, No, NO!  I’m in here!!!!” as I squirmed into a ball to preserve my modesty—but my principal, yes, my principal, was standing at the open door.

Everything moved in slow motion and there was a distinct and harrowing delay between the opening of the door and the moment he realized I was in the bathroom—he was having a conversation with someone in the hall—and perhaps if I had thought more quickly, or, as P. put it a few days ago, if I “actually had reflexes,” I could I have made a jump for it and pulled the door back shut, but I didn’t, and my principal saw me sitting on the toilet on the first official day of my career as a high school English teacher.

I really don’t think it gets much worse than that.

All I could say afterwards was, “I think I want to die,” over and over again.  And I did.  In fact, I was fairly catatonic for quite some time there.  Luckily, however, I didn’t see my principal for the rest of the day, and hopefully by tomorrow we’ll all have been mortified into silence.  For now, however, I share with the world the dangers of an improperly locked door, and the calamity that is, and has ever been, my life.

saadia says: so, you’re entering the english ed program?

I was asked by a Teachers College affiliate to write a short introduction to the English education program for an upcoming department blog.  I was honored by the request, but didn’t know that I would have anything to say.  Yes, I went to Teachers College; Yes, I learned a lot.  But say something to those who are just beginning?  Me?

For whatever reason (and I can parse it out some other time) I suppose I didn’t feel qualified enough to say anything of interest or importance.  I’m just starting out in this world of secondary ed.  Sure, I have a few years of experience with Kindergarden and 1st grade–but I’m just getting a hold on what it means to teach adolescents.

But let be honest: I’m not one to turn down a request, particularly when writing is involved.  So, I sat down to write.  I thought, again, “I don’t know what to write.”  And then, “How can I begin?”  And so I began.

…

It is difficult to put into words all there is to remember, all there is to savor about the next few semesters of your educational life.  So I will begin, then, by saying that there is much to remember, much to savor, and hope that you will consider this at the start.

I began at Teachers College knowing just a few things about why I was there: I knew I wanted to teach, desperately, that I wanted to be involved in Social Justice work, that I wanted to dedicate my life to service, and to compassion, and to critical inquiry.  I knew that I wanted to work with youth, that I wanted to give something back to my community, to this city that I love so much, where I was born and raised, and thank it, in some small way, for all it has given me.  And, I knew that Teachers College was the best place for me to learn how to achieve these goals, because of its prestigious history, but also because of it’s future: its dedication to improving the quality of education for every generation of students that is to come.

At Teachers College, I became immersed in both the reading and examination of educational theory in my classes, and the practical realities of teaching in my student teaching classrooms.  These two facets of my education as a teacher—the theoretical and the practical—were powerful because they occurred simultaneously, linked like a pair of hands.

Paulo Freire, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, writes, “Human beings are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in action-reflection.”^[1] As a teacher, the value and balance of action and reflection—of practice and theory—resonates deeply.  Freire continues, “if one is sacrificed—even in part—the other immediately suffers.”  This action-reflection—praxis, as he calls it—is at the core of the Teachers College Teaching of English program, and is the single most important thing you will learn how to do.  It is not enough to simply know how to plan a lesson or a unit, but to know why you are planning that way, and to change it if your experience tells you it doesn’t work.  It is not enough to simply learn a new method but to know why you are learning it, why it works, and whom it works for.

During my time at TC, I often met colleagues who wondered why they were doing so much work with theory, why it was necessary.  They were anxious to learn practical techniques, skills they could use in their classrooms.

I say: savor the reading and parsing of theory, especially now, for this time will not come again.  While you are dealing with the practical concerns of your very own classroom, as soon as one year from now, you will find yourself with little time to find out those crucial whys and hows, but you will plan your lessons and deal with management.  These things will come, and there will be a community to support you.  I am not by any means diminishing the importance of learning practical techniques, but echo many of my mentors (quoting Kurt Lewin) when I say that there is nothing so practical as a good theory.  Theory is the foundation upon which we build our practice as teachers.

Read all you can; don’t just read what is required in your classes, but if you can, without going crazy, read what is not required, also.

Ask bold questions about race, and gender, and class.  While the other two topics may come up frequently in your classes, don’t forget the last—it is the most often overlooked of the three, and of immense importance.

Make yourself feel uncomfortable during these conversations—that discomfort is the first step in dealing with something you don’t know, or something that scares you.  Take the opportunity of being in a space as safe as Teachers College to figure it out.

Take copious notes; keep a journal; write everything down.  You will undoubtedly need it some day.  Don’t just write down what you’re learning about teaching, either; write down what you’re learning about yourself, too.  It will be a lot, and perhaps more important later on.

Find yourself in a teaching community: there are people to help you, mentors to be guided by, advice to be gotten.  A teacher’s community is what gets her/him by every day.  They make you smarter, they make you feel better about the myriad of mistakes you will inevitably make, and they will buy you coffee when you are on the verge of falling asleep in class on a late Thursday night.  They will nurture you, and you will nurture them.

Learn from your students—they are your best source of information, and your most powerful.  Let them tell you their stories; listening to those stories is why we are here, doing what we do.

Don’t be afraid to have a bad teaching day.  In fact, there is no such thing.  Mistakes are the best way of learning what to do next time.

Forgive yourself.  Your students will.

Remember that studying at Teachers College is an opportunity and a privilege.  Do not take it for granted, and let yourself be humbled by it.

Finally, have fun!  Really, there is so, so much to have.  Despite your late nights and your early mornings, there will always be reasons to laugh—I mean really laugh.  Those deep, belly laughs that turn achey at the end.  Let yourself laugh.  Demand it of yourself.

So, again, I say to you: savor this time.  Relish it.  Be proud of yourself, and all you’re accomplishing.  You are doing something important.  Remind yourself of that every night before you go bed, regardless of how exhausted you may be.  You are doing something important.

Good luck, friends, and welcome to the neighborhood!”

---

[1] Freire, P. (1997).  Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York, NY:  Continuum. p. 69

saadia says: tgff (thank god for figs)

i pick you.

When I moved into my apartment five years ago, I didn’t go into the yard much.  It was overgrown and unkempt, as the previous tenants didn’t care for it except to create a space for two plastic chairs where they would sit during the summer to drink their PBRs.  They had allowed the space to become an uninhabitable, weed-filled, creature-haven.  I still remember the day we cut down all the growth along the fence, the tens of tiny field mice scurrying about, and I, in my panic, trying to block the door to the house so none would enter.

So when I took it upon myself to reclaim the territory, it was with much tenacity that I began—there was no other choice.  I pulled hundreds, perhaps thousands of weeds.  I bagged heaps of garbage.  My hands were calloused and sore, back achey, and body covered in insect bites.  I tilled soil and planted seeds.  Bought shrubs and perennial flowers and planted them in the freshly turned earth.

I discovered the remnants of a fig tree fighting to survive.

I had never had any experience with fig trees—or figs—before.  I wasn’t particularly interested in them.  But when I saw the once stocky trunk, now gnarled with the teeth marks of a dog, the shoots emerging from it, fighting for their lives, I found myself inspired.

I learned that the tree had once been large and bountiful—my neighbor to the West, a 90-year-old man we call Doc, told me.  It had been like his, but for the color figs (Doc’s white, ours purple).  Doc’s tree is enormous; its broad leaves create delicious shade, shelter for mama cats nursing their babes, and, until Doc fell ill last year, hugely plump white figs.  Last summer, his daughter told me that though the tree produced hundreds upon hundreds of figs, not one had turned ripe that year.  I was not shocked by the news, as she was.  I had seen Doc, for three years of springs, summers, and falls, out in the yard every day, pruning and tending and watering and caring.  Then, suddenly, he was house-ridden.  The figs would not ripen without him, and I understood their reasoning.

our fig tree, 2006

When I came upon that trunk, I was resolved to tend to it; to bring it back to health.  By late in the spring, the tree had already perked up; with the additional space, lack of weeds fighting it for the same water, it had sent out growth several more feet into the air.  I was encouraged.

That fall I had no figs.  Figs were forming, though not early enough to reach maturity before the frost.  “No matter,” I thought.  “Next year.”

our fig tree, 2007

The next year, P. eagerly helped me tend to my fig tree.  We started in early spring, with the same routine—extra weeding, giving it space, monitoring it.  I continued to work on the yard; my shrubs grew, flowers bloomed, I hung the prayer flags I had bought on my trip to Nepal, P. and I bought a kiddie-pool to cool us off on the particularly hot summer days.  That was the year it became our fig tree.  And by the end of September, we ate our first figs off the tree.  Just a handful, but they were cherished.

The following year, our fig obsession grew.  In April, during P. and my trip to the Balkans, we spotted hundreds of fig trees—both cultivated in city and countryside alike—but also growing wildly, as weeds.  We found them growing in the hills of Macedonia, in the cracks of war-demolished rubble heaps in Bosnia, in the backyards of houses everywhere.  P. knew enough about fig trees to know how hearty they are; how they can grow simply by having one of their branches placed in dirt.  So we took some cuttings.  We have fig trees from Mostar and Ohrid growing in our yard now, too, thanks to that trip.  That year, we had figs at the beginning of September, and more of them.  We shared what we had with my mother, who loves figs, and it felt good.  Our garden was growing too, as P. and I cleared more of the yard for planting.  We grew tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, strawberries, spring peas, runner beans—P. is a prolific gardener, and helped transform our yard.

In 2009, our yard was worlds away from what it had been just three summers prior.  P. and I decided that we wanted to make more of the yard planting space, so we demolished a 12’ x 12’ concrete portion of the backyard to plant grass.  We did this, with the help of our friend/roommate Judy, with just one sledgehammer, one crowbar, and our six hands.  We carried out the debris ourselves, to a dumpster we had rented and parked in front of the house.  In the process, we discovered 5 giant conch shells, a cast iron bathtub, numerous coffee cans and mussel shells, a toy soldier, several rooms’ worth of tin ceiling, lamp bases, piping, chicken wire, and a rusted revolver.  Yes, you heard me correctly.

The fig tree grew (and grew and grew), and in, what seems a matter of moments, came to expand over the grass we had just planted.  That August, we harvested enough figs to fill us, enough to share with our families and our friends, and celebrated it as victory in figginess.  P. made a batch of rustic fig preserves, I made a fig crostata, and we ate and were merry.

our fig tree, 2010

This year, the harvest has been earlier, and far more plentiful than ever before.  For the last week, every day, I have been going out to the yard with a bowl (or pail!) and collecting figs from the ever-widening branches, some of which I can no longer even reach.

in the middle.

I crawl into the middle of the tree, stepping lightly over lower branches, moving stealthily towards the ripest figs.  P. has been gone for most of this year’s harvest, and it’s become a bit of a meditative ritual for me over the last seven days.  I think of others who have come before me.

I think of the old Italian man who planted my fig tree in the 1930s, how he must have labored with the same care P. and I do, with the same care Doc used to; imagine him testing the dusty puce figs for ripeness, checking them for nectar, gingerly plucking them from the tree, tasting one, two, three, bringing them in to his wife, the two of them eating them together, she later cooking with them some recipe that would remind them of their home across the world.

fig harvest 2010, day 1

Because figs are special.  They can survive the journey.

fig harvest 2010, day 2

I imagine my grandparents, my great-grandparents eating figs—generations ago in Sicily and Calabria and Naples—as children from the tree, or in the same kind of preserves P. made that time, or baked in dough made by their mothers, or later, in homemade fig wine. I don’t know if they really ate figs like this, but whenever I’m at my fig tree, I feel closer to them in the imagining of it.

I am building memories out of figs.

fig harvest 2010, day 3

And I am also building thankfulness out of them.  For everyday, as I stand, enclosed by the prolific branches and leaves and fruit, I thank God from the center of my being for creating the fig tree’s plenty; for creating fruit, for creating figs.  Thank God for my bowls filled, brimming with fruit, and the fact that it was grown, in my soil, loved by mine and P.’s hands.

fig harvest 2010, day 4

I think of the water washing away the farms in Pakistan, washing away families’ livelihoods with it.  I think of how they may miss the planting for next year, how they will not have plenty, they will not know fullness, they will only know scarcity, need.  I think of all this, my heart heavy, and protect each fig as if it were my last.  I bake furiously as to not allow even one fig to perish, and when I find that several forgotten ones have grown a layer of fur approximating that of a young mouse, I am disappointed in myself.

fig harvest 2010, day 5

I am learning to be less of a consumer, and more of a creator, conserver.  I have made a promise to myself that I will not buy a penny’s worth of anything I do not need, at least for the 30 days of Ramadan, and if I can extend this fast from buying further, I will.  Short of food, I do not need anything, really.

I have begun taking cold showers, and have been relishing them.  I feel the coolness running down my extremely mosquito-bitten legs and feel relief.  I think about the fact that I have running water every day, more plenty that I enjoy without having done anything to achieve it.  I see the power of our fig tree—we created whatever we consume there, or, at least, revived it. (I fancy us just one generation in its long, long life.)  I see the power in not just taking in this world—I don’t want to be a taker, and my fig tree reminds me of that each and every day.  There are ways to give.

At my aunt’s house, having just broken fast, I watch my family eating the fig cake I made.  I am thankful for that moment, too.

saadia says: sometimes sisters say it better.

I’ve been trying, for the last month and a half, to get my sister to post, publicly, what she wrote the day after we found out Data Darbar was bombed, and finally that day has come.

Whereas I found myself unable to put words to the ways I was feeling, she poignantly and eloquently cut through the pain and wrote something beautiful and incisive. I am proud to share it with you now.

Data Darbar, full as always, 1990.

She begins:

“What do you do when you find out that the neighborhood you spent a good portion of your childhood in has been attacked by a suicide bomber? Specifically, the mosque that is the center of that neighborhood, the heart. More specifically, the mosque your family has been the caretakers for the last, oh, few centuries (at least, until the government took over official caretaking duties); the one where the 29th great grandfather is buried? Even more specifically, the mosque where many impoverished people essentially live because there is practically 24-7 charity going on there, people spooning up dal from enormous dekhs, folding it into roti. What do you do? …”

You can need to find the full text here, at her new blog, smallthingsgrow.

saadia says: a late-night thought

a moth is playing in the streetlamplight
and I wonder about happiness;
about the things toward which we gravitate
and why