half past nomad

We sat in the mall, FC and me. I had last seen him during Ramadan last.
His newly born son, Taha, is beautiful. Dark green eyes, hercules strength and a love overflowing to strangers in one single glance.

We drank our ice caramel mocha’s.
“Tell me, if you had sufficient funds, what would your dreams be? Let me put it this away. What do you want to achieve in life Waleed?”

The depth of such a question begs the questioned speed walk through the background of the questioner. So I looked him over. He was my first college room-mate. I recall the nights we spent just talking, our cooking gone bad halfway before it even became edible. I recall our jokes, our rooms, our eccentricities. He has a son now, married, responsibilities that I have heard of but never been in. His speech has changed, a slight shift of reality, his reality, overlapping into mine. now.

I couldn’t answer him immediately. What do I want. I want my PhD. I want my knowledge of deen. I want to see my parents live with me and I want to see me be patient with them. I want to go for Hajj, for umrah’s unlimited. I want to go breathe the various airs of Spain, Turkey and Scotland. I want to find a job, I want to earn a living, I want to hold my earnings upto my father and tell him
‘look, look, I earned this. I worked hard too dad. Just like you taught me to. Just for you. Just like you’.
I want to be able to live a life where I can think for more then a passing glance. I want to save up money for my kids, just as you taught me dad. I want to be able to let you finally live a dream or two of yours, though I know you have four dreams that exist, tangible. I know. I want to help out my local muslim community, I want to help out my far out muslim community. I want to sponsor a child. I want to feed orphans, widows, and the less fortunate.

But the thing of the matter of is, all these dreams, all such dreams, are just that. A jumble of dreams, a haystack of ideas, a crumple of notes.

We all have such dreams, a half hazy smoke that exists momentarily in our minds, and then uncurls, unfurls, rings of smokes that dissappates and fades away as it passes through us, memories of it but the slight shade of coloring on the walls of your mind. But in order to contain that smoke of a dream in our minds, we first need a container. To have a container we need to have empty boxes in the backroom first. To have such empty boxes you need to create them, label them and then go fishing for smoke. Comprendez-vous?

I’m try to be more organized, more efficient, efficient-er if you will. In order to be so, I believe my Allah guides me helps me pick out ways to do so. A nudge here, a glance there, a realization within and an enlightenment throughout. Like a rush of blood through dry vessels.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2003 at 2:24 pm and is filed under General Lee.