My friend Sharon used to phone me at least once a week, and we’d chat for hours about our families, our Riyadh days, our distaste for much of American society, and our alienation from American women our age because of our lengthy experiences living in the Kingdom. We’d chat about how our children have grown up in ways we didn’t imagine when they were young. We’d chat about how we opened ourselves to Islam and Arabic language and living a Saudi lifestyle, and how our husbands didn’t adapt very well to American culture, when they came, and how our marriages suffered because of that.
Earlier this year, Sharon was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. We talked about that at length, and then she stopped calling me regularly. Several weeks passed, and I was not alarmed, because our friendship did not weaken when subjected to occasional lapses due to events in either one of our lives. We’d always reconnect with some whopping stories.
By the end of summer, when I hadn’t heard from Sharon, I started calling her, but she never answered. I left messages. I left texts. Her phone had not been disconnected. I became alarmed at her prolonged silence, so I left increasingly dramatic messages, such as, “Why are you ghosting me? What’s happening to you?” I even decided to contact her daughters to ask about her.
Then, as suddenly as she disappeared, she called. She told me her symptoms had become worse. Though she sounded like her normal self, she ended the conversation long before I’d had my fill of our usual exchanges. I looked up the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, not for the first time, just to verify whether or not cognitive difficulties could occur. I read, also, not for the first time, that personality changes in this disease do occur. The Sharon I spoke with last was not the Sharon I’d known for the last twenty-three years.
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I have a DVD with three version’s of A Christmas Carol. My mom, brother and I would watch at least one version, often two, every Christmas Eve. My sister would often join us, but she’d fall asleep. We looked forward to this ritual every year. This year, however, we simply did not watch it, did not talk about it, did not even decide to watch or not to watch it. The enthusiasm had evaporated.
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I’d been studying Arabic on-line at Ribaat for nearly two years. I loved the Ribaat courses; I wished they’d have been available to me years ago when my passion for Arabic was at its height. Even now, I loved the learning of Arabic, and I was good at it, until two months ago.
I’d become frustrated with the fast pace, depth of knowledge, and lack of opportunities to solidify new knowledge or to use it practically. Yes, it was aimed at improving ability to read and understand the Qur’an, and yes, it accomplished this goal, but I found myself spending more and more time studying Arabic, and less time doing the other important activities of my life, like doing laundry, sewing, and going to the gym. I decided to finish my current course and then take a break, but I ended up taking a break much sooner. In fact, I dropped out of the course.
I simply lost interest. I don’t know how or why, perhaps because I’d broken my fifth metatarsal on my right foot and needed surgery to fix it. That is the excuse I told my teacher and class mates when I withdrew. Actually, my frustration with the demands of the syllabus caused me to lose interest altogether, and this loss of interest had never happened to me before. In the past, when I’d stopped studying Arabic, the reasons were practical and concrete, never loss of interest.
This time, however, I simply decided I did not want to do a certain assignment, knowing that I would not pass the course without it. The assignment was called “Personal Project”. It was to be an essay written in Arabic. Each course had required such a project, and I hated it each time I did it, because it taught me nothing but how to research words and grammar, and put everything together in a proper collection of sentences. I did not learn enough Arabic to justify the effort I’d put in to accomplish yet another “personal project.”
I’m happier and lighter-hearted without all that studying, and I do not expect to pick up Arabic grammar again. Egyptian conversational Arabic…well…I always wish to learn that, but my enthusiasm for even that is waning. Two of my grandkids don’t speak Arabic at all, and the other two speak it only with their parents.
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I’ve quit going to LifeStriders. This change pained me, but I accepted it as appropriate. I completed the rough draft of my memoir, and retitled it Riding the Pipe Dream. I think it’s good enough to get published.
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My friend Karla started an on-line group called Feeling Muslim in conjunction with her research on women converts to Islam. At first, I dove into it, posting several times a day and trying to engage with the other women. I wanted to connect with female American converts living in America. The only women converts I’d known were the ones in Riyadh, and I had some very nice friendships. I missed those women, and hoped to find similar ones here with whom I could cultivate friendship. What I didn’t know was that the Muslim convert women living in Riyadh were not like those living in the United States.
Karla keeps the group focused on our identity as Muslims, and frankly, I am bored with that single-minded focus. I can study Islam in many ways, and I have done so. I don’t need more studying of Islam, and I don’t need graphs for prayer check-ins, or links to lectures or prayers for Palestine. I need friends.
I realized I would not be making any friends there except superficially and through the screen of Islam.
My understanding of Islam, and religion in general, has evolved further and further towards its perimeters. Rituals and requirements do not impress me or attract me, especially here in America. I can’t talk about this in that group. I want to find other people who have evolved in the same direction as me, but I don’t know where to look. I am in a small minority, so I distanced myself from the group.
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My brother and I will inherit the house. Mom made the change in her will, and my sister was mad as hell about it, bringing into plain site her bitterness and anger at me for not being the sister she’d wanted or needed.
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My daughter Ranya finally snagged another husband, and she has up and transferred her household to Plainfield, IL. I will have another empty nest, and I’m missing those kids already. My job as Grandma has lost its importance. Its impact resides in the past, in what I’ve taught them, showed them. Our lives will not be in daily interaction any more.
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My life tasks — the ones that emerge at this age (seventy-three) — need to be done. I’m attending to them, slowly but surely. I donated all my horsey gear to LifeStriders. I sold my camera and all my lenses. I got rid of all my piano books. I donated most of my Islamic books and cassette tapes to the mosque. I’m working on listening to all those Great Courses I bought years ago, and I’ll donate them to the public library. I gave some of my yarn to a young lady who appreciated it. I need to pack up all those Italian books and Arabic books. I’ll mark the boxes for where to donate them. I need to investigate green burial in this area, and make arrangements.
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I’ve started to wrap my head daily. It’s not an Islamic hijab, though it could function as such, but I love the way it looks and feels. My hair is awful these days, thinning on top, even. I will not cut it short. I will not make myself look like a typical American old woman. I’d rather keep my ugly long hair and wear turbans. After all, my grandmother (Maria) had hair down to her butt, but always put it up in a low bun. No one ever saw her hair hanging down. I think I saw it by accident once. No one needs to see an old woman’s hair. I’m becoming like my father, who hated any kind of hair that wasn’t short, combed, and out of the face. My head wraps are perfect for me, they feel good, and they look good, too, accenting my essential identity as an eccentric, one who doesn’t fully belong to wherever she happens to find herself.
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Saudi Arabia has changed to the extent that is would be unrecognizable to me. The country no longer maintains the strict avoidance of Western public entertainments such as musical concerts and theater. Its new public attractions would give me a good case of cognitive dissonance. I’m not even interested in seeing the country these days; it is not the country in which I spent twelve years of growth, excitement and change. My metaphorical Riyadh still carries more meaning than the actual Riyadh. Have I reached the metaphorical Riyadh? I don’t know, maybe yes, from time to time, but not completely. I am now an old lady, and I am settling naturally into the rhythms of old ladies…
Marahm 