half past nomad

She put the book aside and glanced over at her husband and son, both crashed out on the couch. The drowsy heat half filled the house, the fan set to the lowest setting. Smiling patiently, she went and got a blanket and draped the two carefully. As she was leaving, she glanced over at him again and at the last moment, her eyes averted to that spot on his chest. She couldn’t see it but she knew it was there.
Despite how much she tried not to think about it.

She walked back to the kitchen and sat on on the table. Running her hands through her hair, she thought it over carefully. It wasn’t that things were bad, they never were. He had made sure of that. It wasn’t that he didn’t care or loved his family. That was blatantly obvious, especially to her blind son. Esepcially for her blind son. No, it wasn’t that, she never doubted that. Time is one of the best of assurances to honesty, sincerity and loyalty. And she had been with him for time enough.
Not every man marries to literally save you and your children from a possible death.
Not every man gives up his life for a widow from the war torn lands of Palestine.
No. Such men were few and rare, such gifts were few and barely there.

She got up and fixed herself a cup of black coffee. She walked about the house, sipping, from room to room until she finally ended up in his study. This was her 2nd favourite room, to be able to just finger his things, to just touch his books, his maps, his work chair. Pictures of her and the kids were plastered to a small corner of the room, a perfect view from just one unique position. He didn’t like to simply declare it all instead choosing to firmly state his point of view, a rock solid image that he carried with himself, that he-
She froze, her breath momentarily snarled into a jolt of fear.

The small desktop calendar.
His careful small handwriting.
Just barely legible.
The number 14.

Silence cannot quiet keep
but quiet
can make silence weep.

Joy cannot fathom deep
but deep
can make joy weep.

Pain cannot loneliness leave
but loneliness
can make pain sleep.

Some injuries you carry forever, a little plastic bag with a yellow tag. The details in a paper folder, filed under Permenant Injuries in that cabinet in your mind.
Some injuries you carry eternally, unsure of how to cure them, examining them in new light as you read, as you learn, as you comprehend more.
Some injuries, you wouldn’t have, nay, you don’t know how to have any other way.

You’re sitting in your meditation class as the guru sits cross-legged indian style and calmly speaks of his perspective on life and relationships. And though you’re supposed to be listening to him, your mind darts, jumps, shoots off into those endings that you still carry with you, those non-endings that you do not know where to put down at, that you just pray to God about every night in witr.

You think, each time, each and every single time, to pick up the phone and call halfway across the globe, digits that you never wrote down because you never had to, despite years gone.
You think, each time, of re-unions, of conversations that you would pick up instantly, of connections that you could foster immediately, of so much more.
You think, each time, of the promises you made, of the vows you took, of the ups and downs you went through together.

You think, each and every single time.
And in the end, that’s all you do. You think.

Perhaps some injuries are better left uncured.
Because you pray to God to take care of the rest.
Because it gives you one more reason to beg God.
Perhaps.

I’m sitting with my back against the wall, looking over the mosque filled crowd of Isha. Some folks have already started their sunna, others are trying to leave by climbing over those in the back, cutting their salat path and shoving their way to the door. Leave. I didn’t want you here anyway.

It amazes me how many people lift their hands to make dua after salat. It boggles my mind, all these abdullah’s asking away. And I look left, right and shake my head each time, a disbelief of an amazement clings to me, the disbelief amazed itself. Sitting next to me is a young man, a goldsmith, with his hands raised.

“What are you asking for?” I asked
“Me? I’m, um, asking my duas. You know, for all of us, for me, for you”.

I ask my duas anytime I can. The best, the most preferred, are those in sajood. I stand up to pray my sunnah far later then usual, having spent my time simply breathing the mosque, feeling the carpet, the wall I leaned up against and the sound of the fans clicking clicking clicking. I take my time, for that’s how I love to pray.

Afterwards, my dad and I walk back home quietly, our company being sufficient of a conversation in itself. I’m still thinking of all those hands raised in each salat, in each jamaat, in each mosque, in each street of this city. So many people, asking away. Subhan-Allah.

I’ve made a point recently, that in each salat, I would ask my Allah for more then just forgiveness. Sometimes, our mistakes make us pause and sometimes, we pause too long, a sorrow within, a mercy without. So I’ve made it a point to ask Him something each and everytime. My favourite is “Allah, give me a character you would love”. I pray He grants me that.

On returning home, we were informed that my sisters’ mother-in-law had just passed away in St Louis. Her son, by the Grace of Allah, was there to spend the weekend with his parents. Now, his parent. In his pain, the father tells us “Bhai saab (my father), today my entire universe has collapsed around me”.

So I ask You again. Oh Allah! You are the most forgiving and love to forgive, so forgive her her sins. Oh Allah! You are the most caring, and so I ask you to protect her from the punishment of the grave, from the fire of Hell and grant her Paradise. Ameen.

For today, my brother-in-law lost one of his greatest treasures in life.
For today, he lost one of the greatest mercies from Allah.

“I have a theory that all writers have power issues. Well, maybe not “power” per se, maybe just “control,” but issues none the less. We’ve got to be in control of our work and we’ve got to be found in the words, whether by accident or on purpose. It’s always been said that every work of fiction is actually a work of nonfiction, that no author can keep himself and his own life out of his work. We’ve got a serious need to be in control of our work, our reputations, the way people perceive us, and how involved we actually are. We change names and places, we make circumstances more comedic and more interesting, but under the adjectives it’s still just a story of our lives.”
-Sarah Hatter

One would think that a simple minimalist design that looked good wouldn’t be so hard. But it’s very hard. I hate that people can make such nice looking designs with so little.

What is worse is that now my free time is pretty much used up so I have to start doing constructive work rather than toil away on useless designs.

Blah.

It was good.
The water was warm and cool at the same time.
The wind was brisk and friendly simultaneously.
The people were also half nekkid and I didn’t like that much.
Hey, you don’t see me nekkid do ya buddy so put on some clothes or let me buy you some from The Salvation Army.

All I did was stand in the water and snap picture after picture of anything and everything with my new digital camera. Now, if I only knew how to use it as it should be. My mom sat in the water, just letting the water caress by and high. My dad paced the entire beach in excercising efforts, then came panting to us. He felt better.
Me…

I knew I felt good. I grew up on this sea, more then half my life spent in a house facing the sea. I remember this sea, the salt water and all, the plants and all, the fishermen in their tiny wooden boats y’all. I remember most of it, I do.

And I knew that this sea knew me too.

We live in circles, driving round and round, amongst errors, victories and life.
We live in racetracks, driving superfast to get to an end we’re clueless about.
Here’s a language unspeakable again.

In an effort to say nothing, you almost blurt out everything.
In an effort to say something, you mumble out anything.
In an effort to say everything, you barely say nothing.

All this in an effort; yet the actions remain whisper quiet.

uff.

When Nomad came to being two years ago, my first entry discussed names. Briefly. That this blog would have none, except a thousand, a million that I would call it by. It still doesn’t. It’s a blog extraordinare, it’s mine after all and to me it is as such. It’s a million journeys in a single pair of shoes and it’s true, I’ve walked them all and far far more. It’s tiny little taglines that I felt like calling it, petnames if you want and it responded well to them all. But never just a single name, no.

But for ‘blog’.

There will be a complete case study as to why WordPress, features of it, and the many benefits from such a program. I think that when any of us learns something invaluable and worth sharing, well, it should be shared.

In the progress of trying to learn everything and then release HPNv2.0, I decided to release something and just keep working away on everything else. Many readings over at fellow bloggers have prompted me to cut down to as much simplicity as possible. The background design is still in a possible beta stage, depending on how much imagery I would like; Pakistan taught me how horrible my website is on a slow dialup and a switch to maximum CSS and minimum graphics is the result of such torture.

Whilst browsing around all this, I did discover many wonderful tools. One of them is for all you Blogger users who also have a FotoLog. Fotolog servers are slow and I still haven’t seen a full album of any user there. Instead, go try this. It’s free.
And good. It’ll take your images, crop them up and post them on your blog at Blogger. Done. Over. Period.

Browser compatibility is a huge issue. How to make this site look the same across all platforms and browsers. Dreamweaver MX 2004 comes to the rescue, with a very useful built-in validator.

Meanwhilst, here’s a blog I typed out real quick whilst working hard to figure out what to do with v2.0