Day 78 of shelter-in-place
We who are hurting
And are so small
Curved and hunched
In protection 
100,000 and more - your breath catches
A sharp intake as the weight of 
These numbers settle into your spine

10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 
The scale of it all ~

Let it be known that in the time of this disease
The first inclination of so many
Was not the firehose
Or the ax
Nor the bullet and the too short temper

It was instead to offer 
Our own unique abundance to each other

To reach for soil 
To sew a garden full of seed

It was in the smallest of things
We found our own holiness

The way the sky darkens before night
A scent of a flower
The careless winged cacophony in the trees
In this we find our humility
In this perhaps
we find our grace 

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 Today is Eid - a celebration that requires fancy dress, delicious food, and glad tidings. A chance to love, to pile it on, to honor and to ask for forgiveness. And yet, I am neither fully faithful nor fully forgivable but I am trying anyway. 
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We who are imperfect, we who watch in grief and sadness on the infinite ways humans find to harm each other. Especially now, in the stealing of land, in the headlines mourning the collective dead, in the hunger and the loss. In the darkness of this all, I am finally coming to the center of this wound. 

Religion was something that was placed upon me, like a piece of ill fitting clothing that manages to itch and scratch and bite all at the same time. It was made worse because of the Desi patriarchical expectations associated with being a Pakistani woman. 

...and yet I believed anyway, I would spend hours praying to Allah (swt), for the angels on my shoulders who would hear my whispers issued at the end of prayer. 

I kept trying only to find that this ill-fitting garment was not where I would find my connection with God. Perhaps religion is like a spiral, where  you walk away only to be coiled back in. Where you feel the rope tug at the core of your belly, a kind of reawakening, where you find God in the flight of a cardinal’s path, it’s red wings reminding you that you and your heart are also allowed to fly.

I am re-reading the Koran for the first time in a very long time. I did not finish during Ramadan, but I will continue anyway. I am reading this with a friend, one who has also wanted to reflect and discuss this Holy Book. I pause over the Arabic, struggling to sound out some of the more complicated verses and then settle into the poetry of its flow. There is a magic to this and it is beautiful.  I read the English translation, something that I was not encouraged to do as a child, and find humor and grace and patience in a book that has been misinterpreted and misused for so long. 

A memory comes to me unbidden but still present in its harm - my father tells me sternly that if I did not pray the night prayer, the devil would come and urinate into my ears. Perhaps he meant this as a metaphor, I do not know. Being a scientific child, I would fall asleep with the pillow pressed to my ear and check for Devil Piss each morning. When informed of my scientific process, my father called it sinful to question his authority. 

I knew then that I would have to walk away from this, from his interpretation that gave him power and made me powerless, because asking questions should never be a limiting factor for spiritual growth.

I think time does not work in the way we conceive. There are moments where we grow, and there are moments where we contract, where we yield, where we curl into something small to make the hurt sting a little less. 

I think love makes time malleable. it takes multiple forms. A small learning - the best kind of love is the kind that changes over time. It strengthens, it wavers. Sometimes it sails by and yet the imprint of it remains, the scent of it indelibly etched into the core of us. 

And so, many years later I am finding my own way, carving my own path spiritually and beyond. I don’t know what these questions will hold, I don’t know what truths they might re-discover but what I do know is that I will love dearly, I will love radically, I will love fiercely in the work that is required to find the child whispering to angels again. I will walk this path that seeks to learn and grow, that finds grace in kindness to self and others.

And this too will take time. And this too will be a celebration. 

To the reader: 
Eid Mubarak
May you be blessed today and always 

Sara

Hi all,

I have been thinking lately about hope and healing, about learning and resilience, about what it takes to get there. I’ve spent the majority of my life in love with learning and trying to share that love with others. So what better time to celebrate it than on a birthday involving perfect squares? I’m turning 36 years old next week and I’m doing a lot of reflecting during these shelter-in days. 

When we were younger, my dad would take us to our favorite Chicago Public Library branch. There, we would spend hours grabbing book after book from the shelves and happily spending an afternoon there. These trips would either be culminated with a trip to Devon for a samosa or my dad’s favorite taxicab burger hole, Mr. J’s, where we would each get a fried fish sandwich and way too many fries. 

Books have always been my first friends, my first loves. It’s there I learned to be an explorer, a dreamer, a poet, a mathematician, a scientist, a scholar. It’s there I pretended to be an astronaut, a wizard, a superhero, a mermaid, a princess (and sometimes a princess fairy mermaid). 

For this birthday, Joe and I are going to build a little free library outside of our home in Little Village. I’m hoping to stock books there that I can share with neighborhood kids and the larger community.

I am hoping you can join me in helping me put books in the hands of kids who need them. So, I’m asking if you could send me a book or two that made a difference in your childhood, that helped you explore and learn and grow and feel. 

Here are some Chicago bookstores that I would love to support for my community library:

• Semicolon - Chicago's Only Black-Woman Owned Bookstore
• Women & Children First Bookstore
• 57th Street Bookstore

Here are some titles that are popular amongst the middle-school/younger set that I would love to have in my library:

• The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
• I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Erika L Sanchez
• The Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo
• Illegal, Eoin Colfer
• Missing Daddy, Mariame Kabe
• The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
• Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix, Jason Reynolds & Ibram Kendi
• Dear Martin, Nic Stone
• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
• Zita the Space Girl Series, Ben Hatke
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series, Jeff Kinney
• Smile Series, Raina Telgemeir
• Monster: A Graphic Novel, Walter Dean Myers
• Nimona,  Noelle Stevenson

Venmo is: @Sara-Rezvi
​profile pic is of me cuddling a baby goat. My 34th bday was spent doing goat yoga at the Garfield Park Conservatory =)

In the comment box, please tell me which book you'd like for me to purchase and I will do so from one of the independent bookstores listed above. Once it arrives, I will tag you on Twitter or Facebook in gratitude. 

Or, If you’d like to send a well loved book from your personal collection or purchase a new one for donation, please DM or email me (rezvi@uic.edu) for our home address.

I’m hoping that through art, through reading, through getting to know each other in the community Joe and I share, I learn and grow myself. Once everything is assembled, I plan on posting photos of what it looks like at our place!

Shout out to the #DisruptTexts community for helping me broaden my own scope of reading and for challenging me to look beyond Western canons. 

With love,

Sara

What does it mean to 
lose a student - 

to recoil in shock
to feel knotted scar tissue
(a perpetually healing organ)
re-open
once again.

what does it mean to 
lose a student - 

a name in your grade-book
a folder in your bookcase
a binder carefully put together
- "Saving for Prom: A Realistic Mathematical Budget"

So proud of you - 
after months of holding you 
to standards you fought against - 
you relented.
It was turned in late, somewhat smudged
but nevertheless
you did well.

 (I knew you could do it)
what does it mean to 
lose a student - 
sequins and teenage angst
I remember the tuxedo
that pride -
"I'm really feelin' myself tonight, Ms. Rez!"
with those locs parted
brilliant smile more luminous than moonlight
and mirror bright dancing shoes - 

What does it mean to
lose a student - 
to know that the heart 
that moved the blood
that moved the vessels
that pushed the muscle
to create that smile
no longer moves?

what does it mean to stand by 
and watch this happen
again 
and again
and again?

What does it mean to lose a student?

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