It used to be my greatest fear on conference calls: being caught unmuted. We used to laugh about it nervously—the three moms on the call out of seven team members.
“What if they hear me scream my head off at my kids?”
“Did seven people just hear a toilet flush?” (It wasn’t me, I promise! I was taking my kid to the bathroom)
I could never quite relax while on mute during conference calls. So I would (and still do) conduct compulsive safety checks six or seven times an hour: *6 This line is now unmuted *6 This line is now muted. All quiet on my front.
Every so often, one of us forgot to mute after making a comment, and the others tried to alert the unsuspecting dragon-lady before she breathed fire or blurted out something totally irrelevant to meeting agendas and event publicity. One time I was all sing-songy at the dinner table trying to get two kids to eat up. At least I was in a good mood.
After a silence that is not so unusual on our calls and some vague comments on a lot of background noise, one brother gently dropped the hint.
“I think… the person who I had the pleasure of visiting ... and whom I ate a delicious meal at her house …”
*6!!!
The one time a mom scolded her kids loudly on the call, she dropped off the call and sent a frantic email to the other moms kicking herself and asking how bad it was. Um, not so bad? Beware of the two-edged-sword that is the mute button, conference-call moms. Yeah, we shouldn’t be shouting at our kids in the first place, but it can be pretty rough juggling a bunch of kids during an hour and a half conference call. Don't sing any lullabies either, you know, just in case.
I cuddle with my attention-craving girls on the couch, storybook in one hand and phone in the other. Trying to follow the gist of a conversation on fundraising strategy, I slowly read a story about farm animals waking up early in the morning. Mid-sentence, I freeze.
*6*6
Whew! I did not just mooooo on a conference call.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Journey of the Heart
For all my friends with small kids, here is a reflection told to me by a friend. There is only one day left... no, maybe only a few moments ... but I hope maybe someone who reads this will be inspired as I was to take a journey with their heart.
With our children and homes and meal preparation, the diapers that need changing and the babies that need nursing, the meat that needs cooking, the teasing and fighting and the ever-present messes to clean up, it can seem almost hopeless that we will ever be able to sit down for a stretch of time, as we once used to, and read some Quran with deep contemplation and inner peace. Prayers are cut short by brawling children--and forget about the extra nawafil! After the kids' bedtime, it takes every last ounce of strength to stay up to worship in the quiet of the night.
When I compare what I am doing these last ten days to what I used to do in college or before I had kids, I feel discouraged. I always envisioned my life as an upwards curve, increasing in worship and discipline and understanding as I grew older. Instead, my spirituality had a head-on collision with motherhood and is entangled now with distraction, nerves, and a trace of mental incoherence.
But I was encouraged by a friend and mentor to try as hard as I could, while keeping in my mind that it is the journey of the heart that counts, not the number of prayers or the long hours spent reading Quran. While the physical acts are required and essential--they are the legs upon which our heart walks and without them we are paralyzed--in the end it will not be the large quantity of good deeds alone that will get us where we need to be.
If we can let our heart flee, fly, reach to be with Allah, even if our mental and physical state is outwardly pathetic, then maybe, in His Mercy and Generosity, we will be excused and allowed to catch up with the righteous ones.
With our children and homes and meal preparation, the diapers that need changing and the babies that need nursing, the meat that needs cooking, the teasing and fighting and the ever-present messes to clean up, it can seem almost hopeless that we will ever be able to sit down for a stretch of time, as we once used to, and read some Quran with deep contemplation and inner peace. Prayers are cut short by brawling children--and forget about the extra nawafil! After the kids' bedtime, it takes every last ounce of strength to stay up to worship in the quiet of the night.
When I compare what I am doing these last ten days to what I used to do in college or before I had kids, I feel discouraged. I always envisioned my life as an upwards curve, increasing in worship and discipline and understanding as I grew older. Instead, my spirituality had a head-on collision with motherhood and is entangled now with distraction, nerves, and a trace of mental incoherence.
But I was encouraged by a friend and mentor to try as hard as I could, while keeping in my mind that it is the journey of the heart that counts, not the number of prayers or the long hours spent reading Quran. While the physical acts are required and essential--they are the legs upon which our heart walks and without them we are paralyzed--in the end it will not be the large quantity of good deeds alone that will get us where we need to be.
If we can let our heart flee, fly, reach to be with Allah, even if our mental and physical state is outwardly pathetic, then maybe, in His Mercy and Generosity, we will be excused and allowed to catch up with the righteous ones.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Holding Myself to Account
Motherhood must be the most complicated form of worship on earth.
There is no room for reflection, no time outs, no lunch breaks, no helpers. It requires such stamina and draws upon every reserve of strength in the soul. Constantly on duty, watching, protecting, nurturing, holding, feeding, staying awake--I can make all of this a lifelong act of worship to the One Great Creator. Or, I can be oblivious, go through the very same moments of sweat and tears and joys, and end up with no reward in the end. It is my choice.
To make motherhood worship requires a tremendous exertion of mindfulness and watchfulness. That mental and spiritual state requires such courage and necessitates so many changes to my habits that I resist and fall into habit. It is so much easier to go with the flow, react instead of initiate, live second by second and just wait for bedtime.
But, in this time of reflection and preparation for Ramadan, I am trying to think of ways to improve that aspect of my life; ways to increase my watchfulness, dedication, and self-awareness as a mother.
I can't let all of this to go to waste.
There is no room for reflection, no time outs, no lunch breaks, no helpers. It requires such stamina and draws upon every reserve of strength in the soul. Constantly on duty, watching, protecting, nurturing, holding, feeding, staying awake--I can make all of this a lifelong act of worship to the One Great Creator. Or, I can be oblivious, go through the very same moments of sweat and tears and joys, and end up with no reward in the end. It is my choice.
To make motherhood worship requires a tremendous exertion of mindfulness and watchfulness. That mental and spiritual state requires such courage and necessitates so many changes to my habits that I resist and fall into habit. It is so much easier to go with the flow, react instead of initiate, live second by second and just wait for bedtime.
But, in this time of reflection and preparation for Ramadan, I am trying to think of ways to improve that aspect of my life; ways to increase my watchfulness, dedication, and self-awareness as a mother.
I can't let all of this to go to waste.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
What happens?
I was reminded by my sister-in-law of this poem. One of my favorites.
Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.Or does it explode?
Friday, August 1, 2008
Please, Poppa, Come Home
This morning, Moona marched into the kitchen, opened the dishwasher, pulled out a soup spoon and a ceramic bowl, and marched out. I was on the phone but was cut off by some terrible clanging from the front at the house.
I ran to the dishwasher, pulled out a small frying pan, and replaced the bowl with a more suitable, less breakable clanging item. Moona commented as I walked away,
"I am helping Abee. I need to help abee." She had opened the blinds in the living room at the front of the house and was looking expectantly out of the window. BANG. CLASH. WHACK. CLASH. SMASH.
Still on the phone with my mother, I did not try to make sense of this and moved away from the clammering.
It continued interspersed throughout the day. In between dancing, reading stories, dumping the bathroom wastebaskets, lathering little sisters' dry hair with conditioner, and baking bread, Moona every so often told me she had to help abee. And she picked up the frying pan and spoon, walked to the front of the house, and started clanging.
"I have to help abee. So abee comes home."
And then the seemingly meaningless activity dawned upon me and became the cutest little gesture I had seen in a long time. Two weeks ago, at my parents' home, we watched a very clean, nice movie Love Comes Softly about a family living on the prairie. In one of the scenes, the father has to go out in a blinding snowstorm to find his wife. He gives his daughter a gun and tells her to shoot it in the air if he doesn't appear in ten minutes (so that he can find his way back to the cabin through sound). The daughter waits ten minutes, then opens the door and shoots the gun into the air until there are no more bullets. Panicked, the girl runs into the house, grabs a frying pan and the spoon and starts frantically banging into the wall of snow outside her door. The father, carrying his unconscious wife, appears a few moments later.
I started chuckling, called my mother to tell her the story, and we had a good laugh. Then I pulled Moona to me and explained to her that Abee knew how to find his way home.
I was surprised that she understood the meaning of the girl's actions in the movie, and that two weeks later it was so pressing in her mind.
I ran to the dishwasher, pulled out a small frying pan, and replaced the bowl with a more suitable, less breakable clanging item. Moona commented as I walked away,
"I am helping Abee. I need to help abee." She had opened the blinds in the living room at the front of the house and was looking expectantly out of the window. BANG. CLASH. WHACK. CLASH. SMASH.
Still on the phone with my mother, I did not try to make sense of this and moved away from the clammering.
It continued interspersed throughout the day. In between dancing, reading stories, dumping the bathroom wastebaskets, lathering little sisters' dry hair with conditioner, and baking bread, Moona every so often told me she had to help abee. And she picked up the frying pan and spoon, walked to the front of the house, and started clanging.
"I have to help abee. So abee comes home."
And then the seemingly meaningless activity dawned upon me and became the cutest little gesture I had seen in a long time. Two weeks ago, at my parents' home, we watched a very clean, nice movie Love Comes Softly about a family living on the prairie. In one of the scenes, the father has to go out in a blinding snowstorm to find his wife. He gives his daughter a gun and tells her to shoot it in the air if he doesn't appear in ten minutes (so that he can find his way back to the cabin through sound). The daughter waits ten minutes, then opens the door and shoots the gun into the air until there are no more bullets. Panicked, the girl runs into the house, grabs a frying pan and the spoon and starts frantically banging into the wall of snow outside her door. The father, carrying his unconscious wife, appears a few moments later.
I started chuckling, called my mother to tell her the story, and we had a good laugh. Then I pulled Moona to me and explained to her that Abee knew how to find his way home.
I was surprised that she understood the meaning of the girl's actions in the movie, and that two weeks later it was so pressing in her mind.
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