…now I gotta get married again, just so I can wear one of these.
This is what I got married in
But we never had much of a party. inshaAllah I can get one of these for an anniversary party here or in egypt.
Greetings from backhomelandia aka cheesecurd central aka the land of 10,000 Prius. As has become a tradition, I trek across the border to spend the extended memorial day weekend with family.
First up was a visit with my grandma in the land of 10,000 Prius aka Madison, Wisconsin. Seriously people, I should have counted. 3 minutes didn’t pass while we were driving about town when I didn’t see one of these little hybrids zipping around. Ah, my people, my hippy dippy tree hugging people, how I love you.
And now, we shall digress, but I promise this will come back to my grandma and my weekend…
…growing up, I never wanted to rock the boat. I was terrified of upsetting people, so I always laid low and tried to avoid conflict. I ordered always ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, so as not to be a burden on my parents. I never asked to go out, because I didn’t want to bother my parents for a ride. I only hosted parties on my birthday and later when my mom saw that I was a hermit and insisted that I invite friends over. I played oboe in junior high, which requires reeds that needed to be purchased every so often. However, I hated to ask my parents for money, so I went away to band camp with one old reed. It broke 2 days in and I had to beg the oboe teacher to make me one. I came away looking like a fool, all because I didn’t want to upset my parents by asking for money to buy new reeds.
It is with this background that I’ve approached my conversion vis a vi my family. Not wanting to rock the boat, I didn’t tell anyone I had converted. I was waiting, waiting, waiting for the right time.
I transfered schools a few months after I converted, and there I wanted a fresh start. Part of that fresh start was being known as a muslim on campus. And part of that was donning the hijab. One small problem - my sister went to the same university. Granted, there were tens of thousands of students, so the chances that I would run into her were small. I worked my way into the traditional hijab, and switched to a bun style when I had lunch with my sister. One evening, we went to see a lecture by Ben Stein. I wore my undercover bun style hijab, and when we went up to get our books signed, Ben Stein asked me if I wore a scarf for religious reasons. I said yes without even thinking. Crap, I was caught. He asked me what my religion was, and I meekly said Islam. He must have thought that I was nervous, as he is jewish, so he smiled warmly and told me that his best friend as a child had been muslim. Ah, but it wasn’t him I was worried about. No, I was worried about disappointing my sister. She turned out to be cool with it, except for the occasional digression into “OMG, what happened to you? You used to be such a feminist, blah blah blah.”
My parents suspected something obviously, as I started to cover my hair with bandanas when I was at home. Eventually, they snooped in my email over christmas break, found the evidence and confronted me. I sat on the couch, crushed through the confrontation, feeling like crap that I had disappointed them. For years, I was ashamed to show my Islam around them. They pretended it didn’t happen, and I didn’t do anything obviously Islamic in front of them. Gradually, I started to be obviously “muslim” in front of them, even to the point where my mom gave me a beautiful scarf for christmas (ah, how to confront them about the fact that I no longer want to celebrate christmas. but that’s another story).
Circling back now to my grandma - how to tell her that I converted to this religion that she knows nothing about, beyond what she has seen on television from terrorists? My solution - don’t tell her. Sound familiar? She knew something was up when I started covering my hair when I visited during college, but she didn’t say much aside from commenting on my change in wardrobe. She didn’t even say anything when she came to visit last October during Ramadan and we took her to an iftar at the local masjid and I went to pray.
No, it wasn’t until this weekend when she actually outright asked me if I had “converted to the muslim religion.” SubhanAllah, here I am more than 6 years beyond my conversion, and when asked outright, I hang my head and meekly say yes. Suprisingly, she doesn’t say anything about terrorists, or muslim men treating women like shit. No, she continues to focus on my dress. I’ve taken to wearing skirts instead of pants, and will now cover my hair in a more conventional muslim-ish fashion when I go to visit. That’s what bothers her - not the fact that I don’t celebrate christmas or easter, nor that I no longer believe Jesus (as) is the son of God - no, she wonders why I don’t wear pants and why I cover my hair. It could be worse. God bless her.
But even then, confronted with such a mundane little triffle, I can’t express myself well in this regard. When I speak with people I’ve met after my conversion, it’s very easy for me to explain my choice in dress. Covering my hair is an act of worship, and it identifies me as a proud, strong, intelligent muslim woman. I humble myself in front of my Lord every time I put it on, and I shatter stereotypes in my interaction with Joe Schmoe at the office.
But with my family, it’s different. We never talked about God…never EVER. We went to church on Sunday, and that was it. Oh, we went to sunday school, got confirmed, but as a family, we never discussed the Almighty. That child who was afraid to ask for $3 for a reed lest she upset her mom is still very much in control when it comes to interacting with my family. Even with my dear sweet grandmother, I cannot work up the nerve to challenge the status quo, to bring God into our discussions, and to express my devotion to Him in my choice of dress.
SubhanAllah, I’m so ashamed. I’m 26 years old, and I’m more afraid of my family than I am of Allah (swt). That scared little child inside of me won’t go away overnight, but inshaAllah, she needs to start heading out of town. I shouldn’t be ashamed of my deen and it’s requirements. If I cover my head, so what? If I stop and pray 5 time a day, so what? If God is a real and important part of my life, and I want to talk about Him, so what? inshaAllah inshaAllah inshaAllah I am going to quash this shame, and be proud of my faith, with everyone.
Whew, that was more than I’ve talked about hijab in a long time. I wear it, but I don’t obsess about it. Heck, I’m even pulling back on my online window shopping sprees. No more hijab talk for awhile inshaAllah.
Still to come in my backhomelandia series:
There are times when I’m not happy that I’m an assistant. Such a bright future, squandered by not going to law school.
However, today is not one of those times. It’s Administrative Assistant week, and the firm is going all out. $25 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble, breakfast, popcorn, chocolate, raffles, the works. Our vendors are also trying to suck up as well, and what do you know…one of the vendors gave everyone pashmina scarves. I got a pretty lilac one. I’m thinking about offering to buy unwanted scarves from people with no use for them for $5. I could get a whole rainbow of colors :D
Meh for this blog server. Yes, it’s nice ya’ll are moving to a new server. Yes, it’s nice that you’re getting more bloggers. But what about those of us who have been around here for awhile? Wouldn’t it be nice to give us dedicated bandwith, rather than let our blogs be down 9 times out of 10, and when they are up, everything is all messed up? I’m contemplating a move to wordpress. *sigh*
Yay for women only gyms! Turns out, lots of women like to work out in a single sex environment, not just muslims. inshaAllah I’m going to be joining one tomorrow. It’s not some Curves circuit only place. No, it’s got cardio and weight lifting machines up the wazo. I’m still on my runner’s high from this morning’s workout. And I’ve reached a conclusion - I sweat a ton if I run while wearing hijab and long sleeves, and I sweat a ton if I run in short sleeves sans hijab. Heck, I could probably run naked (not a pretty picture), and still sweat buckets. Still, it is nice to work out wearing “normal” workout clothes. I already have cute stuff picked out at Target to bribe myself as I lose weight. My days of wearing bulky, oversized men’s clothes to cover the behind and hips are numbered. Once I get within my normal weight range, I’m going to pair a running skirt with regular pants to cover the behind and hips area, and then top it off with a cute women’s cut long sleeve shirt. Then I’ll look absolutely fabulous as I train for a marathon, rather than this fat chick drowning in clothes that are way too big as she waddles her way around the lake. Ok, I’ll probably still waddle, but at least I’ll look awesome in the process.
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+ appropriate scarf = hijabi running diva
I rarely blog about hijab, unless it’s to document my internet window shopping, but this Reuter’s blog piece caught my eye:
Turkey’s covered women fed up with politics over their headscarves
Yup. That just about sums it up for me.
Now, on to more important things…is it a fashion faux pas to wear the same scarf two days in a row? I set out my outfits the night before, so as to not disturb the husband who gets to sleep in a wee bit later than me. Alas, I neglected to set out a new scarf, so the only one available was the one I wore yesterday, lying crumpled on the coffee table. And it’s not even a neutral scarf I could perhaps sneak under the radar. Nope, it’s my splashy, eye catching orange splot scarf. No comments on it yet, but it just feels wrong. Ah well.
In honor of the quasi lifting of the hijab ban in Turkey, I present my favorite online window shopping destination: Tekbir. I’m not liking their site redesign, especially now that I can’t right click and save the large pictures, but the clothes are still beauuutiful.Â
You can view some of their past lines if you google “tekbir.” This site in particular has a ton of turkish fashions all in one place.
 
I’ve always had this fantasy of going on a wild shopping spree in Turkey, but alas, that was dashed recently. A sister on a hijab email list informed me that stuff in Turkey was quite expensive, unlike my shopping experiences in Egypt, where everything tended to be cheaper than buying over the internet or from stores in the US. *sigh*
Does this jelbab remind anyone else of a Jacqueline Kennedy dress or jacket? I’d so get it, except jelbab usually look horrendously boxy on me, and the shipping from egypt from IB is too high. It would look nice in a law firm setting though, wouldn’t it?
 
I’m torn. On one hand, I love the fact that Shukr is producing new styles more often. On the other hand, I can’t keep up with all the stuff I love. Seriously, aren’t those sleeves gorgeous?
 
All outfits today from jelbab.com. There are some gorgeous embroidered thobes, but I didn’t include them, as they only sell size 1. Um, yeah, it will be a long time before I loose enough weight to fit into a size 1 again *side tracks to enter calories eaten at lunch on sparkpeople.com and to kick self for surfing the web at lunch rather than going for a walk*
Got my Thanksgiving outfit from Target, and if I do say so myself, it’s quite cute.
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