I am a child of many worlds.
It is a blessing and a curse. Because I know that there are other worlds, I do not accept only what I know, but seek to find out what else there is, before I choose which world suits me best. Even as a little girl, I found my standpoint to be in the middle of the field, uniquely different, and usually unacceptable to most of the people around me. Most of the time, that space I occupy has bits and pieces, the best of all the worlds.
My mother taught me to love reading. By the time I was 4 years old, I had graduated from the Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Rose Red, and the other fairy tales. I started on abridged versions of the classics. Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Romeo and Juliet. Rip van Winkle. Adventures of Oliver Twist. Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Oh yes, that is where the mischief was born.
I devoured the newspapers, magazines, anything written that fell across my path. Mum encouraged me. Occasionally I would come across something that she would rather not have had me read. Most of the time, she’d find me nearly through the material. So mum figured she’d have to deal with it in a smart way.
We shared books and stories. Mum taught me to think through what I read. By the time I was in mid-primary school, I knew to look at things objectively, try and gauge what was realistic, what was not. I learnt from an early age that people have very different opinions, and that everyone has to make their own choices smartly. In high school, when all my class mates were reading Mills & Boons and Harlequins, I found them childish, and much preffered the grit in the books by Louise L’ Armour and James Elroy. I had begun to unravel in my mind, the mystery and unpredictable predictability of the human psyche.
Amidst all that, I understood that honesty, integrity, diligence, dignity, creativity and determination were values that I had to build in myself. They would be my beacon in the stormy seas of life. No matter what my identity developed to be, those values would have to be an integral part of my being.
Mum and I still share books, and movies, and TV series.
My Stepfather loves to read, too. By the time I was 6, he would slide the newspaper across the table and ask me to read a news item. I think my step brothers got quite envious of those Sunday morning debates we had over the large dining table. Up till now, I can call him up, or he can call me up, and we will gab about what is going on around us.
As I grew older, politics and politicians were pushed aside from my focus. It is a personal decision. I much prefer to talk about things that I can have an influence on. I acknowledge the part politics and politicians play in the issues I care about. But I refuse to be drawn into long debates which more than mostly veer away from the law and the country’s sovereignty into ethnic superiority debates, and power plays.
I have met many people in my life, some have just swept through my life like a transient ocean breeze, at times bringing heat, and at other times soothingly cool. But there are those who have stayed in my life, leaving marks of sensibility, honor, honesty and strength. And the link between me and those people almost always involves books, reading and writing.
Khaled. He looked at the world as if he had lived so long nothing would ever surprise him. He taught me to see the world as it is. Made up of different worlds that meet at junctions, sometimes collide pretty hard, but still continue revolving in the path of history. He spoke of Khismet, laughed as he assured me that everything was written in the sands, laughed even more when he contradicted the principle of Khismet, assuring me that only an individual can chart his or her own destiny. He taught me of the beauty of life in spite of unforeseen circumstances, and determined effort. Between examining the motivation behind Jane Austen’s less known Juvenilia, for example, A beautiful description of the Different Effects of Sensibility on Different Minds and going through Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl; I learnt to examine and analyse the human psyche against culture, adversity and time.
My Father. (Adoring smile). I met him late in my life, when I was already formed in many ways. He challenges me. I might have learnt to think for myself, but I might never had to use that skill as much if I did not know him. He bolsters me. With humour, and gentle nudging he has helped me stand on my own, make my own decisions, stand up for my principles, challenge the norm and be accountable for my own mistakes. He has made it safe to be ‘mad, totally mad as a hatter’, in his shadow. Well, at times, I do upstage him. And he bites his tongue, then says, ‘Ready, Set, Don’t go. Alright, go blossom.’
More than anything else, Daddy has taught me to see life in full color. In between joint writing projects, and reading from Pat Califia’s works all the way to frolicking at the comparison of old taarab to Persian and Arabic poetry, conversations have been sparked that I will remember for a lifetime. I have come to discover that life creates in all the colours of the Kaleidsocope, and everyone has their place in this big wide colorful world.
The people I call my friends today, we are bound today by words, books and the love for written words. My team at the PPK, my Inner Circle; all of us, without books and written words we would not know where we belonged in this world. This driving need to explain, examine, discover the world through the written world is not something that can be ignored or cast aside.
So why do I read? Because it is my way of living, loving, learning…
