transitions

so my job schedules vacations for us and mine just started today. it feels strange to have time to myself, but at least i'll have a chance to get to jumma. but here's the question: which mosque?



the one nearest my house i've never, ever seen open, but they've got to open it up tomorrow, right? on the other hand, it's been a very long time since i went to the one near work, which isn't all that much further. the one in my town i'm sure i'm going back to anytime soon, as i felt so awkward by myself in the back with just one other woman and half the kutb in Arabic (which i plan to learn, insh-Allah but, hey, it's a language-- i'm going to need some time, right?:: i'm still on "baa" "taa" "thaa"...)



prayer is starting to feel more natural and i'm starting to be able to focus better, spending less time concentrating on trying to remember what i'm supposed to be doing and saying and more time pushing distracting thoughts out of my head and tasting the meaning of the words i'm saying (or, well, the phrases-- i'm still feeling my way through phonetically.) i'm better at being on time and better at setting aside whatever it was that i was doing. my Quran reading is, on average, on pace, although i tend to have good days and bad days. i'm getting better at wrapping my scarves (and have amassed an embarassingly large collection of them) and more comfortable wearing them; it's starting to look like me in the mirror when i'm wearing one. people at work are starting to get used to the sight of me in them and i'm starting to get used to explaining that i'm muslim, that i am native to this country as are my parents, that i'm a convert, and my stand on the scarf thing (that it's a matter of your own personal understanding of what you are supposed to be doing, that my own personal interpretation is that i'm supposed to put a scarf on my head, and that-- so far as i can figure-- the doing or not doing of things that you think you are supposed to do has a big impact on your spiritual life.)

then i usually start babbling on about how i kind of like scarves, because they are pretty, and how, if given the choice, "scarf" would not be in the top ten things that are hard for me to get used to, way behind "no more bacon ever", "no more beer ever", "time to learn Arabic", and the general anxiety that comes from just being new. and when they ask me why i put up with these things, i explain to them how surprised i was to discover that Islam was the name for the things i already believed, how relieved i was not to have to try to believe things i didn't, how grateful i was to read the Quran and enjoy it, and how the more i knew about the Prophet (PBUH) the more i came to admire and love him.