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June 27 - June 27, 2022
They learned about love from a distance. This is the truest love of all, when two people must wait and build up great ideas about each other until the passion becomes so unbearable and deeply rooted that they must have each other. That is how love becomes the most desirable and lasting. I wanted this love more than anything.
Yet wasn’t that the greatest part of love, to talk?
The life I lived there has never left me—it’s planted so deep in my soul, it’s as much a part of me as the blood in my veins. I learned to dream there. I also learned that not all the good dreams come true. My search for love and hope would be a long one.
I could become anything I desired. This was freedom.
a Siddiqui—an ancient family that traced its ancestors back to a relative of Muhammad, Abu Bakr
The years between 1965 and 1978 were the times of the greatest democratic and modern reforms in the history of Afghanistan. Mother always talked about the freedom we had under King Zahir Shah and then President Daoud Khan.
Within the Circle The moon is most delighted when it is round And the sun is the vision of a pure circle of gold That had been refined and surfaced in flight by the creator’s lighthearted kiss And the different kinds of fruits rounded to swing freely within the circle From the branches, it appears the origin of a sculptor’s hands And the pregnant belly curved and shaped by excellent of its kind by the soul within And the plants and the round surface of the universe and Mother Earth itself I have gotten the creator’s hint There is something within the circle the creator loves Within the circle
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God had put me in the wonderful city of Kabul, part of a nation of good people, and this was only a fragment of the giant circle of the Beloved. And inside that larger circle were spaces of kindness and love and hope with my brothers and sisters and parents. I was part of the circle of life, and I could rest in the gentle arms of the Beloved. I believed every word of that poem, that good things enveloped me as they had my parents and Shahnaz and her happy marriage. My life in Kabul wrapped around me, a full circle of love and hope.
“She had to let him go. She didn’t have any choice.”
mujahideen, the freedom fighters in the mountains.
That Americans didn’t care about the Afghan people, but only what they could steal from them. The Americans would rape the land of its minerals and wealth and leave the people with nothing.
“You were a little lion today,”
When we were in the cave, we all pretended we were in another place, a fairy kingdom or a magical realm, anyplace but a country being torn apart by bullets and bombs.
“I hope for the freedom of Afghanistan,” he said. “I am not afraid, even to die.” I watched them march single file into the night. They went willingly into the darkness with only the hope that their sacrifice would mean something more than spilled blood alone—freedom for their children and for me.
God created the circle the same way he created the stars and the planets. It seemed so simple. If that were true, then I was part of his great cosmic plan, and someday I’d return here.
“One
cannot exist with a heart torn in half between two loves, two decisions, or two worlds, because it will eventually break in two.”
Their actions were motivated by hate. Hate is not from God. People who use religion to hate can’t love God. It is impossible.
An even deeper mystery I wrestled with was that I believed we existed in the hands of God. He evidently carries us with a light touch. He does not clench his fist around us and force any of us to hate or love—these are choices.
Pray Somewhere in this world— Something good will happen.
“If you look for love and hope in this world, you will find it. Look around you.
He shook his head. “This situation, I know, is difficult to understand, but I believe it is as the poet says it is: ‘This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.’”
“What you see is what love looks like. They can touch each other, yet they don’t irritate or enrage each other. All throughout the world, love speaks to us, what it means to cherish and be kind and to respect each other. If we miss the message, we will get lost. We will lose out on what’s important.”
The images of the mothers and daughters in the mountains of Afghanistan grieving the death of sons and husbands had soaked into my being. Tragedy was the only memory I had of so many women in Afghanistan.
