What I Never Miss

My blog posts are often thematically linked. Nostalgia reigns supreme. I painstakingly detail the many things I miss, both the tangible and the emotional. I miss my place of birth, I miss the landmarks, and the people. But it's more than just that. I miss the feel of that city, its jaw clenched around its citizens, I miss the peeling pistachio colored paint on the south wall of my neighborhood mosque and the sound of pigeons roosting in its dome, I miss the way the faces of the people I love used to look, the way they no longer look now. Twelve years is a long time. 

But I am not here to talk about nostalgia today. I am not going to trace the edges of my grief for having lost time and people and places and my memory of all of the above. I would very much like to hack into the carcass of things I do not miss, and things I never wish to see or feel again. This is not going to be a lofty post about the misery and misfortune of other people. Instead, it will be completely and most adamantly selfish.

I do not miss the beginning of love. You are the most foolhardy, and also unimaginably sensitive, when you are just beginning to fall in love. There was a study conducted at the Stanford Pain Research Lab where I worked for 6 years titled "Love and Pain." For the study, researchers recruited couples who self-identified as having been in love (in a relationship) for less than 1 year. The subject enrolled in the study was to present the research team with a picture of his/her loved one and that of a platonic friend of the same sex as the loved one. Over the course of the study, researchers recorded the pain response of the subject (on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 = no pain, 10 = worst pain imaginable) to a heat stimulus applied to the forearm. The result of the study showed that the pain scores of subjects were significantly lower for the same temperature when they were presented with a picture of their loved one as opposed to that of the platonic friend. New love, I tell ya. Ask anyone who has been in a relationship for more than the blissful initial period of love, and they will hold your hand and vehemently explain to you, picture or no picture, pain is pain is pain is pain. And don't even ask the women who have had a child with their partner. Suffice to say, again, pain is pain is pain is pain.

There are so many things I don't miss about that early period of love, so many wasteful aspects. Endless hours of rumination. This is true. In the beginning, your thoughts converge on this one person, and maybe more particularly, some inane detail that does not even matter, the stuff of old ghazals and Bollywood love songs. I am afraid to even give examples of said inane details for fear of being judged! It's a waste of time and mental energy. Another thing is attributing significance to the actions or reactions of the subject of your affection (subject rather than object, because this particular brand of affection can be suffocating). In most cases, there could be a perfectly good reason why she passed you by in the hallway without saying hello (maybe she was late for a class, maybe her father was waiting to pick her up in the parking lot, maybe she really needed to rush to an appointment at her dentist's office and was so stressed out about said appointment that saying hello to you was the least of her worries). There is also no sinister reason behind the fact that he didn't hold the door open for you (essentially identical reasons as detailed above).

There is no need to be livid about perceiving you're ignored, and certainly no reason to feel slighted. People are different. Sometimes they feel what you feel and sometimes you feel what you feel alone. And that brings me to the last reason for waging this textual war against the beginning of love (or, let's face it, infatuation, ladies and gentlemen -- that's what we are really talking about here). You are going through it alone. No one in the world understands how you feel. It is impossible and unimaginable to detail all the ways in which you have an emotional and a physiological response to a person who, in the grand scheme of your life, really should not matter. It is devastatingly embarrassing to be so acutely aware of your pulse doing jumping jacks for no apparent reason other than being in the general vicinity of an individual who, again, should not matter at all. It is such a lonely place to be in, such a lonely journey to make. There are so many hurdles, every day is littered with landmines that could be triggered at the slightest provocation. So much pointless, unacknowledged hurt. And there is absolutely no one in the world who can understand or appreciate the sheer depth of your misery. All the while, life must go on as usual, you must put on a brave face and brave the current of each day as it continues to enfold and stretch before your eyes like an ocean. What can you say to your closest friends after all? All manner of speaking about this questionable emotional state is simply out of the question. You realize over and over that you are alone in this limbo until you are recovered...or reciprocated. 

But what do I know? It was all so long ago, I can barely remember any of it. Be that as it may, I never want to be alone in that dark place again. 

Photos by Rebecca McCue

I Can Only Be My Best Self

These days I find myself wishing to be the woman who writes this blog, not just when I sit in front of my computer but all the time. Her life is pretty good. She is a poet and a clinical researcher. She has an adorable toddler. She has a lovely house on a hill and the ability to watch sunrise caressing the winding trails and roads sprawled below her. She has the luxury to write about things lost and forgotten from a safe distance. There are a few people who like what she writes. Every day, she is able to get at least two uninterrupted hours of listening to audiobooks. She is poised to do bigger and better things. She is so positive in her writing. She talks about seizing the day and bottling up happiness and loving her naughty toddler. She talks about cooking and loving. Her life is pretty good from this vantage point. Pretty damn good. And I want to have her life all the time rather than  during the single hour it takes me to write and proofread a blog post. 


 Yesterday, in a small group of smart and sensitive women that constitute the Desi Writers' Lounge Bay Area Readers' Club, we talked about The Goldfinch. I insisted that several characters in the book probably had personality disorders. Sahar Ghazi, an extremely perceptive member of the group and a dear friend, challenged me on this notion. "Why do you think they have personality disorders," Sahar asked. "We are learning about them only through the main character's perspective. Maybe they are completely normal and going through life on a pretense. Maybe they are not opening up their true selves in front of him. People live their life pretending sometimes," I am paraphrasing, but that is the general arc of Sahar's view. I think I presented a different  and opposing argument, something feeble and completely petulant like, "But I don't pretend. And who pretends? How can they do that?" Puerile - to say the least. 

The fact is, everyone pretends to some degree. Yes, this is the space where I come to be honest with myself, call myself on things that I did wrong, and talk about how wronged I have felt in the past due to other people's insensitivity. But honesty has degrees, too. It has layers and components. Often people reveal part of a fact and it is up to the reader to brush off the sand occluding their vision from this partial truth, and like an archeologist, try to determine what the whole story is. Think about it. We do it all the time. The missing pieces are sometimes inherently present in what is revealed - the tone of voice, the choice of words, the tangent of the neck, the slope of shoulders, the audible sighs, the wistful eyes. The bright smile that is plastered on one's face as a confirmation of happiness has nothing on all these other overbearing signs, and some poor folks are just completely transparent - I am beginning to think I may be one of them. 

I guess what I am trying to get at in a very roundabout way is that we often think our best self is our happiest self. That is not necessarily true. I am a poet - my writing is dependent upon being miserable. The poems I write when I am happy do not resonate with me and probably not with my readers. I need superficial tragedies, arguments, disagreements, hurt feelings, a sense of being wronged in order to create work that has even a whisper of being placed at a lit mag. And though most of the time I bring my cheerful positive self to this blog (and I will not be surprised if you all stand up and say, "But Noor, you are a morose writer and you don't bring your cheerful self to this blog"), that is not my "normal" self. When I write in this space, I emulate the woman I want to be - the one who stands in her balcony every morning watching the sun bleed into the sky, the one who feels a sense of utter and profound contentment, the one who writes about life's little matters because, after all, those are the matters that matter. I wouldn't say that it is an entirely inaccurate depiction of myself, but it is certainly an extension of my character. 

You'll forgive me, of course, for this pretense, won't you? I am a poet who likes to experiment with identity and belonging. This is a natural result of that, you see. In any case, I wrote very honestly just now, and so I must extend my hand towards you in salutation. Hi! Good to meet you today!

Photos by Rebecca McCue

Reflections That Matter

I had a long conversation with a friend of mine today about something that matters a lot to both of us. Evidently, it matters more to her than it does to me. And how do you quantify something like this? I used to think you couldn't. But I learned otherwise, and here's a story to tell you how I did so. For a long while I did not speak with my father - familial differences and those of perspective, too, no doubt. I never stopped loving him, though, and being a parent now, I know that I could never love him the way he loves me. But in his Shakespearean way, he often complained to my sisters, "You girls, you don't love me at all, and that eldest one doesn't even think of me." "No, no," my sisters would rally back. "She does, too, so, so much. She thinks of you all the time. And she writes about you constantly." "She doesn't write to me," he'd reply. "How am I to know how much someone loves me if I don't see it." After learning of such conversations I would fume for weeks. Trust my father to be very much the King Lear in our lives. "So young and so untender," Shakespeare whispered to me  with the inflection of my father's voice in moments of weakness and guilt. 

But I get it now. How am I to know how much someone cares for me if their feelings don't translate into action? This is the very line I employ when I nag my husband. "You say you're sorry about putting the wet towel on the bed again, but you're really not, or you would listen and stop doing it." Cue in the emotional blackmail, "You don't even love me enough to do this simple task that I have asked you to do a million times." It doesn't work on him anymore, but I have already milked it beyond its worth. Essentially, we need to see reminders of caring and love and friendship and feelings to know they exist. 

Circling back to my friend and the thing we both care about - something lifted today. I was able to not just see but also recognize that what she was telling me was absolutely correct and had merit. How can I claim to care about something if I don't show with my actions that I do? Flashback alert: When I was eight or nine years old, I asked my father for a new pencil case. Some girls in school had ones with magnetic clasps, and I desperately wanted one. To this day, my father has never let me ask for something twice. That day, too, my request was promptly granted. We went to a stationary shop and he bought me a beautiful pencil case. When we came home, I arranged my pencils and erasers in it. A few hours later, my father called me to the sitting room and showed me the new pencil case lying forlornly on the floor by the sofa. I had forgotten it there. He didn't say anything. Instead, he waited for me to be embarrassed of my carelessness. He didn't have to wait long. I tried to explain that I would have put it in my school bag before going to bed, but that was not the point. I had been given something I desired, and I had discarded it after the novelty wore off. I would like to think that I have not forgotten this message, but that would be a delusion. Such messages often times need reinforcement.

I used to invest my feelings in people and things and endeavors. I still do, because this is something I cannot help about myself. I am not happy unless I am dissolved in something: a project, a birthday party, a family member's health, et cetera. But I have also started to reign in my enthusiasm for getting carried away with my feelings when I encounter new interests. I depend on people's appreciation of my efforts for encouragement, even sustenance. When my effort and attention go unnoticed, I become angry. I build fortresses around myself. I turn away, turn against, turn around. It didn't used to be this way. I did things selflessly. I did things because I wanted to, because they made me happy. Somehow, over time, my happiness became associated with what people were thinking of my efforts rather than the effort or the act itself. This is a weakness, and I am lately stunned by the inroads it has made into my character. "You transplant yourself into every conversation," my husband told me the other day. "You make everything about yourself. You like to be the martyr." Others have called me a "drama queen," in jest, but probably with a degree of seriousness behind the assertion. 


I realize that they are right. They are all right - my friends, my father, my husband. And it's all connected, but there has to be a balance! I believe that credit must be given where it is due. The kindness and generosity of people must be acknowledged and praised. Similarly, care and love must be shown in actions and behavior for the things and people that you claim to love and care about. However, I must strike a balance in my personality. I need to be alright with what I see in the mirror without embellishments. I need to ground myself in the belief that I am fine with or without anyone's appreciation. I am still me. I cannot and must not expect that everyone will acknowledge all the good I have done. Indeed, I should not do good with the vain hope that someone will see it and appreciate it. I should simply do good. Do what matters to me. Do what matters. And trust that it is enough.

Photos by Rebecca McCue

My Writing Life

­I have been told by a very loyal Goll Gappay reader several times to do a post on writing – why I do it, why it is important, and what’s my process. The reason I was very reluctant to write this post is because I thought it would be presumptuous. Who needs my opinions when there are real writers out there whose words on these topics actually matter? Do I think I have more to add to the ongoing conversation about writing and the writing life? Me? When I don’t even have a consistent writing routine? Then I realized that even this line of thought, all on its own, was impertinent. What gives me the audacity to even ask the questions I have listed above, to even compare myself to real writers? My thoughts became more and more convoluted and self-critical, and I stayed far, far away from this post.

I want to circle back to it, a rather abrupt development, because today I opened up the first draft of a story I wrote several weeks ago. I decided to get started on the second draft. I tabled it long enough that upon reopening it, I was able to slash weaknesses and modify the plot, whereas when I first wrote it, I couldn’t even dream of making any changes. This was how I had conceived the details of the story, the mechanics, the characters, and this is exactly how it would unfold on paper. Before getting started on this rampage of editing that is quickly shaping up the second draft of my story, the working title of which is “Alone in Each Other’s Company,” I was completely lost. I had no idea how to approach it, where to start, what to do. It wasn’t until I was in the thick of it, and I mean knee deep in the story, in the middle of the characters' conflict and walking all over their emotional space, that the writing happened. The writing did itself. It’s ironic, you see. I waited for weeks for something to come to me, crawl on deft spidery legs and climb up my arm, send my fingers into a flurry of motion over the keyboard, but it wasn’t until I actually made myself get back into the story, back into the act of writing, that the writing actually happened.

I experienced a similar incident a few days ago. I have had a pretty dry spell. The last poem I wrote was in October. It’s hard for me to absorb this, but yes, three months ago was the last time I was able to write a poem. I was waiting. Waiting for something, anything to appear. Waiting for the muse to start whispering to me. Waiting for a word, a phrase, an image, anything, dammit. There was only white noise. This has happened a few times before and will continue to happen, I expect. Whenever I go through something like this I tell myself, “This is it.” I convince myself that I am not a writer (of any level) - I have done all the writing I had in me and am all dried-up now. I fall into a depressive state characterized by general moroseness and bad temperament. So, I don’t know what made me sit down with the intention to write a poem – any poem – a few days ago. I sat and stared at the blank screen for a few minutes. The cursor blinked and blinked and blinked. Then I wrote a line. Then I wrote five stanzas. Then I had a draft. And a second draft. And a third. Then I sent the poem out into the world.

I learned some things over the last few days, things I had already known to various degrees of certainty, but never acknowledged. I may not be a successful writer in terms of the number of sales I have made, but I am a writer. I am a writer deep in my bones. I am a writer because. Just because. There is so much promise in that word. Because. It’s a heavy word, pregnant with possibilities, a carrier of reasons and excuses and qualifiers and justifications and arguments and declarations. Because. I could never not be a writer. I was a writer when I was born , I was a writer when I was eight years old and I wrote my first poem, I was a writer when my father said, “Here is my eldest daughter. She is a writer. And isn’t she beautiful.” He said it so often and with such conviction that I believed him with all my heart back then. And then I forgot. It’s a journey, you see, winding up and down through known and unknown lands. You fall. You lose hope. But you get up again. You are used to the life of a wanderer. It could be no other way. You must keep wandering, and finding and reaffirming yourself in the process. So I am doing just that.

I am more myself when I write. I am pleasant and mild-tempered when I write. I am happy when I write. It pervades every aspect of my life and relationships. I need to write – to feel completely like myself. If I don't write, I stop recognizing who I am. I lose a part of my identity. Who are you? I am Noor. I am a writer. I am a writer. I am a writer. I am my father's daughter and so I am a writer. I live so I am a writer. I am a writer because. Just because.

I also learned that I cannot sit and wait for inspiration to come to me. It’s fickle. I have to go and grab it by the neck, wring some sense into it or caress it into submission, and carry it back to my desk. It’s a rigid beast, but surprisingly compliant with the slightest effort. I’ve got it by the neck now. And I am not letting go.

Photos by Rebecca McCue