Rukhsana Khan's Blog, page 20

One Week Down…

I went to an iftar dinner on Saturday night.

Funny how the topic of weight loss so often comes up during Ramadan.

You’d think with the long days and the not eating that you’d lose a lot of weight during Ramadan.

In fact some people gain.

All the fancy dinner parties.

At this party on Saturday night this rather slim lady started complaining about the way her tummy pooched out a bit. Okay, when she sat, yes, it pooched a bit, but she was by no means fat!

And then another lady who’s down right skinny said, “Oh yes, I’ve gained so much…blah blah blah.”

It actually made me feel rather annoyed.

It’s happened at other times too.

I remember going to a school overseas and the librarian who’d invited me had had two kids, so again, there was the tiniest pooch in her tummy. And she was going on and on with this stick thin lady about how they needed to lose weight.

This in front of someone who really does try and has failed repeatedly to shed pounds!

And who is yes, I’ll admit it, I’ll come right out and say it, FAT!

So I’m listening to these skinny people talking and I’m thinking if they’re so disgusted with their teeny tiny pooch, what does that say about me?

And yet it seems to be a womanly past time to complain about weight.

I confess to doing it too when I was younger and dumber.

Now I’d give a lot to be the size I was back when I was complaining!

Honestly it’s depressing.

And when I’m depressed I just want to say, “Hang it! Let’s eat!”

But these days I don’t and still the weight doesn’t want to leave.

sigh

It’s one of my biggest struggles.

We haven’t been doing the fancy dinner party/iftar thing for a long time.

We spend the nights of Ramadan eating mostly simple food and keeping mostly to ourselves. Praying, reading Quran, contemplating God, that kind of stuff.

My husband has set up a KIVA group called Helping Hands International.

We’re planning on helping a thousand people with micro-finance interest free loans. Finally got a royalty check for The Roses in My Carpets. It took a while to earn out the advance they’d paid me and I made my first loan through KIVA. I plan to make two more by the end of Ramadan, insha Allah.

I’m going to focus on educational projects, helping people pay for educating their kids.

Oh doesn’t it feel good when I click on that ‘donate now’ button.

I urge everyone reading to follow suit. Give yourself the gift of knowing you’ve helped someone out!

And remember, it’s a loan and KIVA loan recipients have a something like 99% repayment rate and you can always get your money back or (which is better) donate it to someone else who needs help!

On another note I got a strange phone call on Saturday morning. A lady was planning one of those iftars and she asked if I’d come and do some storytelling for the kids.

I thought to myself, “It feels weird.”

And yet she was willing to pay my normal rate.

I told her I didn’t feel good about it. That I presented to larger groups.

Now I’m thinking that I should do it in the future. And perhaps just donate whatever money they give me to KIVA.

Then it wouldn’t feel like I’m cheapening what I do.

Wish I had kept her number.

Oh well.

Coming to this decision will come in handy for future engagements insha Allah.

Well it’s 5:20 a.m. and time to get ready to go to the gym. I exercise while I’m still hydrated and then come home and take a nap till noon. The days are long! By the time I wake up I still have about nine hours of the fast remaining.

Oh well.

Fasting is for God’s sake and He says He will reward it.

It’s not about losing weight, although really, that would be nice.

Over and out.

 

 

 

Blessed Ramadan…

Oh how quickly the year has passed.

Mind you it does come ten days earlier than the Gregorian calendar.

It’s funny with Ramadan, I always approach it with a mixture of dread and excitement. And yet, when it arrives there’s such a blessing of peace!

It’s like no other time!

Reminds me of the days I spent on Hajj.

Despite the drama and the effort, Hajj is where I learned to really connect to God during my prayers.

I mean I thought I had connected to Him before, but nope, on Hajj it was at a completely different level, and there are many times when I’m praying that I re-feel that connection, but during the month of Ramadan, it’s so much more pronounced.

There is every reason to feel apprehensive about the month, especially this year. It started a week after the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year, so these are just about the longest fasts we get.

It takes about 35 years to run through the cycle of the solar year, so ever 35 years this happens, that Ramadan is at its longest. So basically this is the ‘worst’ it will get.

It means myself and my family wake at 3:15 am to eat our meal of suhoor, and then start fasting around 3:55 am which is the beginning of dawn.

And it’s so cute how moments before the time to begin starts, you’ll hear the birds outside begin their dawn chirping. There are some hadith that say they pray Fajr in their own way.

Yesterday was our first fast, today is the second, and yes, yesterday was difficult.

Missed my coffee like anything! (I’m down to a cup a day.) Got a slight headache of caffeine withdrawal as a result of it.

And there were moments when the day dragged on, but you know what?

There is a LOT of joy in realizing that hey, this is as hard as it’s going to get. And alhamdu lillah, by the grace of Allah, I can survive.

Time will pass regardless. No matter how long the fasting goes, the day will pass.

We can endure it.

And just watch…the month will fly!

On another note, my son said something interesting to me the other day.

He’s the only child I still have at home.

He was referring to my husband and my lifestyle as being kind of dull.

We don’t party.

We hardly even visit people.

Mostly our kids and family.

He didn’t come out and say it but he implied that we were kind of ‘boring’.

Of course my son is young.

And looking at it from his point of view, our life would seem kind of non-eventful. I guess he doesn’t realize how super stimulating it is to go to storytelling festivals and get up on stage and try to tell stories that keep the audiences engaged.

He doesn’t see that aspect of my life.

He only sees me at home, in the aftermath.

And he doesn’t see the journey I spend, yeah, basically every day with my characters and their ups and downs, and the trials of trying to make their stories work.

I have more than enough excitement in my life, more than enough drama so that I consider home time, down time.

But still, I guess it bothered me to be considered ‘boring’ by my son, so I said to him the other day, “You know there’s a difference between ‘boring’ and ‘peaceful’. Our life isn’t boring. It’s peaceful.”

And then I explained that young people might not be able to see the difference, but when you get older, you really do appreciate it when life has no unexpected wrenches thrown into it. And you’re working towards a goal and everything is going well, on an even keel.

When you have been blessed with more than enough, and you have the self-awareness to recognize that and the wherewithal to appreciate it, it can be very peaceful and you can find comfort in that.

It was a teachable moment. One he might not fully appreciate till he gets to our age insha Allah.

Recently I was watching an appearance of Bill Maher on some show or another, and he said something absolutely ridiculous. He said it would be so much better to ban religion and allow drugs.

And I’m just old enough to remember when he actually said he believed in God.

And for a moment I could almost imagine what a life without faith must be like. It would be like living half a life.

*shudder*

And then last night I was watching Oprah’s Master Class (it really is worth watching! I always learn something.) and she had on Barbara Walters who I don’t personally think is the brightest bulb on the shelf but she did talk about the social barriers she faced as a woman in a world of male-dominated news, and boy could I relate. The most interesting moment was when she was talking about her time as co-anchor with Harry Reasoner who was completely hostile and condescending towards her! One night she was just about to go on when she opened up the mail and most of it was horrible and denigrating, and then she got a telegram. And the telegram was a short note that said, “Don’t let the bastards get you down.” And it was signed by John Wayne!

And I thought Wow! Yeah! That would do it!

And of course she went on to prevail.

They showed clips of her dealing with Harry Reasoner, and oh boy, could I relate! Been there, and I’m still there at times!

I’m planning on telling myself that every time it gets to be a bit overwhelming: “Don’t let the bastards get  you down!”

I know that might be a strange note to end a blog post on Ramadan with, and yet, it seems appropriate.

Ramadan is always a time of recharging for me.

It’s a time of turning my schedule topsy-turvy and focusing even more than I already do, on my work and family.

God is kind.

I have so much to be thankful for alhamdu lillah!

And fasting all day with the knowledge that there’s more than enough food to break that fast with, is a luxury that not everyone can lay claim to.

I pray for all those who are struggling. All those who are under attack. May God have mercy on them and give them relief!

 

 

 

Lionel Richie’s advice…

Never try and consciously write a ‘bestseller’, or a ‘hit’.

He says don’t do it, you can’t. Just write something good.

And it’s so true.

Bestsellers and hits come by chance. You just have to hit the right note at a time when people are hungry for it, and there’s no predicting that!

I was watching his session on Oprah’s master class program. It’s an interesting program. I think my favourite was Maya Angelou’s show.

It was also interesting when he talked about the crash so many of his contemporaries underwent. (Michael Jackson among them.)

He got a polyp on his vocal chords at the time, and the surgery he had to undergo meant he left the business for a while, and he credits that with saving him.

He was talking about the accoutrements of success and he said ‘can you survive them?’

Interesting.

I remember seeing an interview with that American Idol winner Fantasia, and how she said that after she won and with all the success she achieved at one point she was ready to kill herself.

And that makes me remember the ayat of the Quran that said that God doles out success in measure to some people or else it would become overwhelming.

I know for sure that the fact that I didn’t get where I am today, over night, was really really good!

I’ve had just enough success to keep going and enough defeat to keep my hungry!

With summer here I’ve got time to write, and I’m working on projects that are a lot of fun!

And yet I found myself trying to write a ‘bestseller’.

And the old man critic, in his rocking chair, in the back of my mind has been super vocal as a result! “Who do you think you are??? You’re getting mighty full of yourself aren’t you???”

I told him, nope, not trying to write a bestseller any more! Just seeing where the story takes me, that’s all.

He’s grunted some comment I couldn’t quite hear and went back to rocking back and forth, back and forth.

Yup, that’s the way I like him.

Grudgingly silent.

I think I’ll give him a name.

Nah, maybe not. That gives him way too much power.

He’s simply old man critic in the rocking chair. And the thing about rocking chairs is that they might keep you busy but you don’t go anywhere.

Ramadan is almost here.

Can’t believe another year has gone by so quickly!

The days are almost as long as they can get and for the next three years, yup, the fasting will be hard with the solstice falling just before during or after the month of Ramadan.

And yet I’m looking forward to it.

A chance to recharge.

A chance to read the Quran in Arabic and English and reacquaint myself with the beauty that grounds me.

Oh subhanallah!

 

Oops…

Isn’t it funny when you make a joke and then people actually act like you’re serious?

Had to pop by a school in the west end where I had some business left over and I had the pleasure of speaking to the secretary and principal and librarian.

I am SO fortunate to meet such nice people!

And far from just being an office administrator, many times the school secretaries I’ve met are more like Office managers and are integral cogs in the running of the school, all the way from applying bandages and ice packs to signing cheques and attending presentations because they’re curious too!

This office administrator had two grown boys but the way she talked about literature made me glow inside!

She said books like The Giving Tree lasted forever, and she asked to take a look at Big Red Lollipop. And just the way she leafed through the pages…I could tell she loved books as much as I do.

She had read about me in the New York Times and the Toronto Star, she had read about my book Big Red Lollipop and she said how she was sad that she hadn’t been able to attend my session.

Long story short, we finished up the business and as I was getting ready to leave she said she might just buy the copy of Big Red Lollipop even though her boys were in their teens.

I ended up signing it for her son ‘Matthew’ because ‘Robert’ always gets everything.

And then we were talking about the honour I’d received and I made a joke of it, saying that no matter how big I got, I’d never forget the ‘little people’.

And the principal, the librarian and the secretary, all three of them were nodding, “Yes! Please remember us!”

And I thought “Good grief! They thought I was being serious!”

What I should have done was tell them right out that I was joking!

But I was too taken aback.

Don’t you just wish your life could have a ‘rewind’ button, or a ‘pause’ so that you could think of the best way to handle a situation?

I do.

I always think of what I should have said afterwards.

It was a special moment.

And if I do get rich and famous one day, I think I will think back to that moment and insha Allah, it will help keep my head from floating away on me!

 

“Can I just kick you now?”

Apparently universities offer courses in Diaspora these days.

Quite frankly I didn’t even know what a diaspora was a few years ago! And for those of you who might not be familiar with the term either, let’s just say it’s when a community spreads out. Like African diaspora is how the Africans were spread out over North America and the Caribbean, brought as slaves. But there’s an Indian disapora as well. It’s really all over the world and yup, I’m part of it.

I went to a graduation party for the daughter of an old friend today and I met a university professor who teaches about that and what she called ‘anti-oppression’. Basically these were socialization courses which taught people to recognize the oppressive things they think of other groups.

It was really interesting talking to this lady. She had been my friend’s daughter’s teacher, and it was very unusual that she actually started crying while she spoke of the young graduate.

We were chatting away, and she told me about an incident that occurred.

It’s one of those things that when it happens you think, No! It’s too shocking really! People can’t be that ignorant in this day and age!

And yet…

Like in 2000 when I approached my old elementary school in Dundas, the little town in which I grew up, with an excellent educational opportunity.

I had applied to the Ontario Arts Council for a program called Artists in the Schools. It was a subsidized program where I basically worked in a school enriching the arts’ education of a group of kids for five days, and all the school had to cover was $60 per day!

For a total of $300 a school could have a legitimate artist come in and work with the kids for FIVE DAYS!!!

That’s a steal!

I charge $300 for one hour these days!!!

Well, I had to do one of the grants outside the greater Toronto area so I approached my old school in Dundas and offered them the grant. The principal replied, “Oh, we don’t need that multicultural stuff here.”

This was only fourteen years ago!

Whenever I tell people that story they literally gasp!

Especially people in the arts or teachers!

Well, this professor told me a story that had happened to her a few months ago, and it made me gasp!

Because it makes even less sense than mine does.

This university professor was running late one day, to go visit a friend who’d had a baby. So she popped into a bookstore and asked the proprietor if she could recommend a book with a lady in a hijab in it.

You know what the proprietor said? (She was one of two partners who owned the store.) She told the lady, “Can I just kick you now?”

Meaning that she wanted to kick her because she’d requested a book with a woman in hijab in it.

I gasped.

Wow.

Just wow.

I mean this is an incident where a person is SELLING books! And a customer is asking for something and she’s being racist about it.

Even if she’s a racist, doesn’t she want to make a sale?

I mean who asks a customer if they can kick them???

And then it got me thinking.

You go into any bookstore in Canada and you won’t find my books there. You’ll find any books denigrating Islam and Muslims, you’ll see “Infidel” by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other such garbage, but you won’t find good positive stories that happen to be about Muslims.

You won’t even find Big Red Lollipop!

I thought they’d at least carry that one, seeing it’s so popular that a New York newspaper referred to it in the same breath as Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, as modern classics.

And we Canadians tend to be smug and think we’re so much more open-minded than our American counterparts.

I don’t know.

I’m just feeling really disgusted right now.

Give me a bit of time, and I’ll get over it, insha Allah.

My natural optimistic state will return, insha Allah.

For a long time I’ve felt that Americans ‘get’ me better than Canadians.

For sure in some ways my books have been more successful down there. Wanting Mor was up for eight American honors and only four small Canadian ones, so there you go.

But oh well.

What can you do?

Nothing, nada, zip.

Just keep on writing the best I can.

I do think that eventually they just have to notice!

Or not.

But quitting…

nope,

it isn’t an option.

Okay, something clicked…

Yesterday I went down to Kitchener to be part of the Coalition of Muslim Women of Kitchener event.

Did some storytelling a few years ago for them, and they were so sweet! And they asked so nicely, that even though I’m pretty tired and feel a bit burned out by the hectic schedule I’ve been running, I said yes.

It was a rainy day!

They had done something very interesting! Inside the Kitchener city hall, in the foyer, where I had presented last time, they had a live theatre event where local amateur actresses were in character as some accomplished Muslim women of history. They had one lady, dressed in a white ghararah (it’s a type of dress), portraying Fatima Jinnah, the wife of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of modern day Pakistan. And they had others too. Interesting concept.

So a lot of the bazaar and my storytelling was set up outside in the courtyard.

Started raining in the middle of my stories. Had to pull the sofa and cushions in under the tent but things were still getting wet.

And then I was supposed to sit at the “Meet the Author” table for the rest of the event, about four hours.

I think I should have told the planning committee that was too long.

But still, with the weather and everything it was really surprising how good the turnout was!

Loads of people, and not just Muslims, came out for the event!

And one of the most interesting and innovative booths these women had put up was a ‘hijab’ booth, where any woman could come and try on a hijab, put it on in a stylish way, and they’d get to keep the pretty scarf they chose.

I was sitting at the table and this lady in a sort of white suit was walking past, and I guess I was staring because the hijab just looked so nice on her. She smiled at me and said, “Doesn’t it look lovely?”

I nodded enthusiastically! Then realized she was probably not Muslim.

It was funny because after a while you couldn’t even tell, which women were Muslim and which weren’t because some of the Muslim women weren’t wearing it and some of the non Muslim women were.

It felt, hmmm, this might sound kind of corny, but it kind of felt like a sisterhood of solidarity.

And then I wandered into the council chambers where there was a lecture going on by a prominent scholar Ingrid Matteson. She’s a convert to Islam who lives in the Kitchener Waterloo area and who’s had the distinction of leading the Islamic Society of North America (the organization). In her role she’s met presidents and all kinds of dignitaries. She talked about being invited to go on Bill Maher’s program but she thought it wasn’t the right venue to have a civil discussion.

Well she was talking and I came in on the tail end of the discussion, during the question and answer period and inevitably, the topic had turned to hijab!

*grooooaaaan*!

A middle aged gentleman asked a question. He said, “If that lady over there were to wear a t-shirt that said she supported the conservative agenda and…” here he mentioned a controversial conservative politician but somehow I can’t remember who it was, and then he continued, “…and if her t-shirt said she supported getting rid of all public education or something like that, she would be inviting comments and discussion because of it. How is the hijab any different?”

And Ingrid answered beautifully! She said how non-Muslims and some government entities like Quebec and France, saw the hijab as a ‘symbol’. But that most Muslim women, the vast majority, didn’t think of the hijab in that way whatsoever. We see it as clothing!

Yes, the colors you wear and the styles you wear are an expression of yourself, but the hijab is really just part of a woman’s clothing, and to us it is inappropriate to comment on it, just as it would be inappropriate to comment on the length of a woman’s skirt.

Then Ingrid said how a young girl might be wearing shorts for various reasons. Maybe it’s hot and she wants to be comfortable, but she’s not wearing them so that people will make comments about her legs. And it’s the same thing for Muslim women. And she was absolutely right!

And so there is a dichotomy there.

Muslim women don’t wear hijab to have strangers comment on it. They just wear it to cover themselves and as a form of modesty. Then she asked the audience how many Muslim women had received comments or questions about their hijab, and like the rest of the Muslim women there, I put up my hand.

But something clicked right then.

It might seem obvious to other people, but it never occurred to me. Of course Ingrid was right. They think the hijab is some sort of symbol or provocative political/religious in-your-face sort of SYMBOL!

No wonder they’re so hostile to it!

They think it’s superfluous!

And maybe we’re being obnoxious by wearing it.

Wow!

Just wow!

It doesn’t help that Muslims as a community are so inconsistent about it. Both my sisters didn’t and never do wear it (except to pray).

So they must think it’s optional.

Well, in some ways it is optional in that there isn’t supposed to be any sort of compulsion in religious matters. You’re supposed to obey/submit voluntarily. You’re still a Muslim if you don’t wear hijab, but you’re not obeying God’s command, so how well you’re practicing Islam is debatable.

I wear hijab because I absolutely believe that God, not any man, has asked me to.

It is one of my garments. As essential as my pants or dress for me to feel clothed.

It’s not anything political.

It’s not a symbol.

It’s a piece of cloth.

That’s all.

Just ignore it.

Listen to my words when I’m telling a story or doing a presentation.

That’s all.

And the great thing is, I can tell, that after a while, the kids and even adults, are often so into what I’m saying that yes, they do indeed forget about it.

;o)

 

 

Been fixing up my storytelling repertoire…

A few weeks ago I was invited to tell during the entertainment session of the ISNA convention. That’s the Islamic Society of North America (Canada branch).

Had a great time, went well, but got home and  hubby asked which story I told. When I told him one of them was Dajan Tigh, he said, “Oh no! Not that one again!”

And I felt chagrin.

It’s so easy to fall back on comfortable stories and not stretch into something new!

So I’ve been doing some research. Breaking out some of my short story collections and leafing through them to find some new and exciting stories to tell.

I’ve really become fond of What Should I do? What Shouldn’t I do? a Persian folktale that is about a donkey and a lion. I also really like the Persian folktales about the jackal.

But I thought I should branch out and see what other folktales I could find from the South Asian region. Met an afficionado, with his own private folktale collection recently and he lent me a volume of Bangladesh folktales.

Read the first one and got ABSOLUTELY AND COMPLETELY DISGUSTED!

Imagine a story about a seven brothers and one sister, and one of the brothers makes a vow that he will marry whichever girl eats the first pomegranate from this tree he plants, only it turns out to be his sister!

So he vows he has to marry her and he starts fasting till he gets his way. So the whole family is urging the sister to relent, and she refuses and goes and drowns herself in the river.

Yeah, so far, so good. I’d do that too!

But then somehow she doesn’t drown after all but lives in an oyster shell way at the bottom. And some fisherman’s wife finds it, and sells it to the queen, and every night the queen notices this beautiful maiden coming out at night to sweep the floors.

Huh?

You can obviously tell the story was transcribed by a man!!!

Anyway, long story short, queen and king adopt the girl and they go looking for a young suitor for her and end up with her brother!

Blech!

What do I get from the story?

That the boy’s vow of marrying her, trumps the girl’s vow of not!

No wonder some cultures have sunk so low!

It’s turned me off completely! But perhaps there’s a gem in that collection somewhere but I suspect not.

That was the first story in the collection. And if it’s that weird…just imagine where the others go!

I guess some folktales really deserve to be forgotten!

Never fails…

Just when you get some time off…some health problem surfaces!

You get a cold, or allergies or the flu or something starts aching.

Been dealing with some stuff over the past few days, not fun, and yet it feels really good to get back to some projects!

I really can’t believe that half the year is practically over already.

I guess so much of my life revolves around the school year and by the end of May, you see the grade threes towering like they’ve grown a foot! And forget about the grade sixes!

They grow up so fast!

Did that project with the grade 3-5′s at that school and something is leaving me feeling very restless and dissatisfied.

Not sure what it is but perhaps it’s Facebook.

It seems to be part of my regular morning routine now and I have no idea how it became such a necessity.

My technosavvy son in law, the one who fixes all my computer glitches, and whose wisdom I’ve come to rely on, warned me about Facebook.

He said that it had been found to cause depression in people and I wonder if that’s not what I’m feeling.

It’s really strange to be reading about the accomplishments about so many people, the way they wave them around like brightly colored flags, and you do your ‘liking’ and maybe you even put in a comment, and then it feels like a let down.

And then you can’t help but compare yourself, and up till then you were thinking you’re doing so well, but the VOLUME isn’t there.

You don’t have the shout outs and the likes and the comments back and you think huh?

It’s so very artificial.

And bothersome.

One thing I’d decided to do from the very beginning was NEVER EVER play any of the games!

I have successfully weened myself from Spider Solitaire, I really don’t need to get addicted to something else, thank you very much!

I don’t know, I just find this society we live in is so obnoxious in the way that if you don’t blow your own horn people assume you have nothing to celebrate.

And yet real confidence doesn’t need to advertise.

I remember a schmoozing event I went to way back where I had the intention of going around and meeting all the people I could. Introducing myself and handing out my cards! Goodness I was so gauche!

And then I was talking to a friend of mine who works as an executive assistant. She always had dreams of being an author but her parents were immigrants and couldn’t see it happening so she suffered from a lot of confidence issues. But she was a pretty good executive assistant and she spoke about her husband who was at some event. Now he was some sort of electrical contractor. Very quiet. While they were at this business event, some brash young guy comes up and starts shaking hands and introducing himself and loudly talking up his accomplishments.

As soon as he left, the guy her husband was talking to asked him, “So what do  you do?”

He told him about his electrical business, and then he asked him for his card and he gave it to him and  yes, he’s the one who got the job.

Confidence isn’t loud and flag wavy, it can be pretty quiet actually.

There’s a time to shine.

I’m just looking at my life and thinking, Alhamdu lillah, I’m doing pretty well!

Whenever you can make a comfortable living doing what you love…

I mean who can complain?

You can always find someone better off and you can always find someone worse off.

Now if I can just appease that old man critic at the back of my mind. He’s been very vociferous! Keeps telling me I’ll never write anything good again!

And I’ve always found the best way to shut him up is to not even ‘try’ to write something good. Just to write something ‘sellable’. That’s how I always shut him up in the past.

But the funny thing is, get a bit of success under your belt and it gets really intimidating!

You just have to ignore it. Each story just has to stand on its own.

*sigh*

Easier said than done, but I’m working on it.

Feel like I’m in the midst of a learning curve.

Not easy.

Not always fun.

But there’s no choice but to keep on.

 

Darn it, I keep forgetting I’m ‘weird’…

Last Saturday I had two presentations at public libraries in Milton.

Now with increased immigration and the flocking of these immigrants to big cities like Toronto, it seems that white people are moving further out to the suburbs.

According to that book Boom Bust and Echo, this is a normal stage of the baby boomers life cycle. They went out there to raise their families etc. But then as immigrants establish themselves they move out there too.

Anyway, Milton is a small town about 45 minutes outside of Toronto with a pretty big Muslim population.

So I get to the library bright and early and I speak to the person who had coordinated my visit. I like to know how people have heard of me and how they came to book me so I ask her if she’d heard of my work.

She had not. Apparently it was the school boards who had funded my visit. She said out right that they had no funds to bring in an author. And when she’d contacted my artist representation agency one of the ladies there had recommended me.

Then she said an interesting thing. “Oh it’s so nice to celebrate May as Asian Heritage Month but really, it’s so hard to find anyone good.”

Interesting. I couldn’t even blame her honestly. I’ve seen some of the other Asian authors present, and why would she think I was any different?

It’s so hard to get people to give you a chance!

And then I thought about it, and I remembered how I dressed (honestly I do forget at times that I look any different!) and I thought, “Duh! Of course they wouldn’t come!” Here’s this middle-aged fat Pakistani looking woman in traditional clothes…

So she showed me the room in which I was to present. It was just off the children’s area, a nice little room, very airy with lots of windows.

But ten minutes before my session there was no signs of an audience.

So I went over to some of the parents in the children’s area and told them that I would be doing a presentation, etc. They seemed very friendly.

They nodded like yeah, sure.

They made an announcement over the p.a. that an award-winning author and storyteller would be presenting…blah blah blah. But I thought maybe I could punch it up a bit, so I asked if I could invite them in. And I tried, but nope, it didn’t work.

And then when I was about to start, there was one one brown guy in his mid forties and two pre-teens sitting there, all of them looked Muslim.

None of the white people came in, and I don’t know why, but I felt deflated.

Just for a moment.

But then again, I remembered how weird I was, and I thought never mind.

Then I thought, what the heck, why should I care? Respect the audience who did come to see me! So I started by telling Ruler of the Courtyard and while I was in the midst of the story, more and more brown Muslims came in, a couple of gentlemen and some mothers as well, and something told me to change the focus, and just talk about what it was like coming to Canada. An entire audience of Muslims in Milton, about twenty to twenty-five people which was EXCELLENT on a bright and sunny, WARM (the first warm Saturday) day of May! (I mean who would want to be inside listening to an author on such a day, right?)

Thing with library visits is that the audience can be miniscule! I’ve heard of really good authors presenting to two or three people! It’s happened to me too!

So twenty-five people is a really really good turnout!!!

The librarian came in a couple of times but didn’t stay to watch. She tried to pull some of my books off the shelves but darn it, they were all out!

And the enthusiasm of the people afterwards was remarkable!

And it turned out one lady had actually come all the way from Sarnia to see me! Sarnia is about two hours away! She’d seen the program brochure and had made a note of coming!

And then I found out why the turnout was so good! There was a mother who told me that she’d seen the brochure and she’d photocopied it and taken it to the mosque, put it in the men’s and women’s sections! Urged all her friends to come out! And I thought no wonder we’d had such a good turnout! And then she said, but it’s so hard! They say they’ll come…

And I finished her sentence for her, “But they don’t know if it’ll be any good.”

She laughed and nodded.

And then one of the gentlemen came up to me and told me how much he’d enjoyed hearing me talk, especially about my father and our family’s struggles when we first came.

I urged the people to tell the librarians how much they’d enjoyed my presentation (if they had) so that the librarians would be encouraged in pursuing programming that would reflect their needs.

They were so enthusiastic that I had a hard time leaving them to go to the second venue! There was an hour between presentations, and the other library was like five minutes away, but even then it was a rush, getting a bite of lunch and making it there in time!

Same thing happened there! The librarian had put about ten chairs in the program room, but he had to keep bringing more and more as more Muslims arrived to hear me!

It was lovely!

And then later someone called me a fat a** and to be completely  honest I couldn’t even argue with that.

Live in the truth, no matter how bitter. That’s my motto.

And once again I thought I have no right to be confident in what I do, and yet once they’ve seen me…

Like at this school I did a program at. It’s called Universality in Folktales and we explore how some stories are universal and I teach them story writing and storytelling skills so that they share a story from their cultural background.

It’s kind of cool. And yesterday when I told the kids, “Today is my last day.” They all said, “Awwwww!”

They absolutely loved the program. It was through a Toronto District School Board initiative called Dare 2 Create, where we were trying to get the Toronto kids to see their city through creative lenses.

Part of it involved me and the grade fives coming up with this found poem about live in Don Mills, where this school was located. It’s next to the Don Valley Parkway and a commercial shopping area, so it combines wilderness and city, and we wanted the poem to reflect that.

Here’s the poem we composed together:

Walk Don Mills

See the sculpture teeth

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Growing trees,

Walk the path

Chirp, squawk, tweet

Down by the river

See the rainbow bridge

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Through the swearing tunnel

The banks of the Don River

Ducks,

Salmon if you’re lucky,

And then…

A great blue heron

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With a turtle in its beak

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Get as close as I can

But it still

Flies away

Maple helicopters

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Whirr to the ground

Like flying tadpoles

The smell of pine

Like Christmas

In the sky

A red tailed hawk

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Circles

Dives

A rabbit screams

The hawk will eat

I’m hungry too

Leave the valley

Past the library

To the shops for

Beaver Tails

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That have no beaver in them

And poutine.

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An interesting week…

I’m trying to figure something out.

There seems to be a sort of disconnect between my writing and my stage persona.

And yet there shouldn’t be.

I’m still struggling with it.

Needless to say I’ve been very busy! Still busy, but I’m not complaining. I’m musing.

Had an interesting presentation for 0-4 year olds at a daycare!

The toughest audience, bar none!

Omigosh!

Had to look at my books and stories and think what would be appropriate.

I thought let me do Little Rooster and the Diamond Button. It’s actually a Hungarian folktale and it’s a bit mean to the Turkish Sultan but it’s such a good story, and darn it, there were a lot of mean Turkish Sultans! But even that story had to be toned down!

Definitely Silly Chicken. I did that with them, and they were listening and engaged, but their little eyes got too round like they were scared. And I definitely glossed over the fact that the chicken gets eaten by a dog. Instead, I assured them she ran away!

But they did love Big Red Lollipop! That one is definitely gentle enough!

And coming home I thought about the books they’d had on display. Very very gentle, mostly non-fiction picture books. And I got a real glimpse into very very young concept picture books and started composing some stories in my head, and then I questioned what I was doing.

Do I really want to write for such small children???

Is it ego that I think I must be all things to all ages???

What the heck is wrong with focusing on a certain age group and letting others excel at the younger kids???

And then I was thinking about this other interesting interaction I had with some kids.

I’m doing my old Universality in Folktales program with a bunch of kids from grades 3-5. Not my favourite age group (I love the grades 7 & 8 best!) but a good age to work with nonetheless!

We were brainstorming a poem that described the region of Toronto they live in (Don Mills) and some of the suggestions some of the kids were giving were ridiculous, and instead of trying to be ‘encouraging’, I cut to the chase (blunt person that I am) and said, “Nope, nope, that doesn’t work!” And answered another kid with their hand up!

Didn’t think anything of it until I was chatting with the teacher in the staff room. Apparently the new teaching pedagogy says that you never do that. Even if the kid suggests something silly,  you try to see a positive in it even when there is none.

She was really surprised though because the kids were perfectly fine with me coming out and saying bluntly, nope, that won’t work! Even the kids who had done the suggesting didn’t take it personally. And I’m thinking maybe it’s just my tone of voice. It’s matter of fact, and blunt and not personal, where my tone clearly says, “I don’t think you’re less, but no, that suggestion really doesn’t work.”

The teacher called it refreshing!

And another chimed in saying how limited and politically correct they had to be these days in their assessments and on the report cards. They couldn’t come out and say a kid doesn’t ‘get’ a concept that is part of the curriculum, they had to say, ‘is working on understanding…’ and as a result the same kids’ parents get a completely skewed idea of how well their kid is doing. They’ll come to them and say things like, “Oh I’m so relieved that my child is doing so well!” When they’re actually not.

The funny thing is, I’ve been doing writing exercises with a group of kids, trying to find a tighter more powerful word for a sentence and the kids get so excited they start yelling out, and waving their arms frantically!

To the point where I had to turn my back to them, and tell them I wasn’t going to turn around until they’d composed themselves! LOL

Don’t get me wrong, it is lovely to have them so excited about verbs, but c’mon, we need to control ourselves!

And that bring me back to my original musing, why do they act like this with me???

How come I can get in front of almost any group of junior and intermediate kids (grades 4-8) and just have them for the whole hour?

Not sure.

And once they’ve heard me, they clamor to read the books, and they love the books, but it seems they have to hear me first.

I need to get it to the point where they can get that feeling just from the books themselves.

And yet…get a group of preschoolers together and I’m the one left feeling intimidated.

But then they really are so YOUNG!

Babies really!

And yet I’m good with babies! For goodness sakes I have ten grandchildren and the oldest one is seven! Lots of babies and toddlers and yet I can interact with them so easily! We sing songs and play clapping games like This Old Man, and Pat a Cake, and we do the Hokey Pokey!

They don’t look at me with big round kind of frightened eyes!!!

Is it the dress? Possibly.

Didn’t help that the chair I was sitting on was one of those modern designed ones and it tipped forward and deposited me on the ground in front of them! Omigosh! How embarrassing!

People helping me up asking, “Are you hurt? Are you okay?” And me saying, “I’m fine! Just embarrassed!”

Yeah, give me the teens!

They are SO much easier!!!!