Salaam, Love

by Ayesha Mattu

  What does it mean to be childless for us?

  “I am perfectly happy helping to rear my nieces and nephews,” says my incredible wife.

  I completely agree.

  We had dinner with my cousin who tried IVF and is also childless. He said the same thing. He has powerful relationships with his siblings’ kids, in which he can hang out with them, guide them, and scold them. In essence, he is reviving an Indian tradition that has faded away amid the nuclear families and individualism in the U.S.

  I see us as “coach-parents”—we know enough of the theory of parenting from our own observations to offer perspective. Send them to our place for winter break. We’ll give them an insider’s tour of Washington. Confused about college options? We can provide some guidance—including how to spot the FBI in your MSA. Challenged by potty training? We have some novel approaches you might fancy, depending on your risk tolerance.

  We also have the capacity and thirst to create a vibrant extended family. Zuleqa and I are helping to plan a mega family reunion of three hundred people over three days. Channeling our energy gives us purpose and meaning.

  What’s more, our experience has taught us that as a community, we need to do a better job of creating safe spaces for individuals and couples to talk about uncomfortable issues without triggering an avalanche of criticism and/or advice. Sometimes what is needed is not a parent but a coach—to provide perspective without judgment, support without pity, help without strings attached. Allah says in the Qur’an that you will be tested in this life by what you have been given and what you have not been given. We have been given POI, which liberates us to take unique roles in the family and in our community.

  The ground is fertile for action.

  On Guard

  By Stephen Leeper

  The first time I met Aliyah, in 2011, we smiled at each other, guarded. The imam had just reminded us during Jumma to have taqwa, to be on guard. Neither of us needed that reminder though: we had already mastered it. Sister Elizabeth introduced us and stood off to the side, watching us build our invisible fortresses. Later, I tweeted, “Met a beautiful Muslima today.” I was terrified at the prospect of getting to know her, but I wanted nothing more.

  It was the second year after I’d moved from North Carolina to California. I had moved to escape boredom and childhood memories, leaving Ashley, my beautiful non-Muslim girlfriend, behind. We had been a couple for a few months, but had known each other for two years. She said she would leave with me “just like that”—she didn’t have to see a five-year plan or a five-digit number in my bank account. My promise was all she needed. I left North Carolina in September 2009 and started making plans for our future. By January, she had left me for her white ex-boyfriend, a blow to the Original Blackman’s ego, a carryover sentiment from my Stephen X days.

  The next year was one of grief and sorrow filled with bitter, desperate crying when I got up in the morning, in my car between meetings, and in bed at night. Unlike with the Prophet, neither my uncle nor my wife had died, but my hope had, and I grieved. When I met Aliyah the following autumn, I had healed a great deal but was fucking terrified of opening up again.

  A few weeks later, Sister Elizabeth invited Aliyah to a community meeting I’d organized at the San Francisco Muslim Community Center. I was a faith-based community organizer with the San Francisco Organizing Project (SFOP) at the time, and relationship building was part of my job description. The meeting’s focus was on developing transformational relationships as the basis of powerful organization for change. My prompt to the group was “Share a time you felt powerless.” Aliyah spoke about her failed marriage. I thought, Holy shit, she’s been married before. The prospects for us began looking slimmer. She was older and had been married; what experience could I offer?

  I closed out the meeting.

  “Great meeting facilitation,” someone said, leaving.

  I looked around to see if Aliyah had left and spotted her by the door. With great hesitation, I walked up to her to schedule a one-to-one meeting. Something we do with all potential leaders, I told myself to lower the emotional risk.

  “Assalaamu alaykum.”

  “Walaykum assalaam, hey,” she smiled.

  I felt the sweat on my torso bubbling underneath my skin and erupting to the surface.

  “What’d you think?” I asked, sticking my hands in my pockets, not knowing what else to do with them.

  “It was great, yeah. I wish more people would have been here, known about it, ya know?”

  “Yeah, the turnout could have been better. Maybe you could help get the word out about the next one?”

  “I’m about to start grad school so might not have much time to participate then, but I can help out now.”

  “Whatever you can contribute will help.”

  An awkward, unnerving silence settled between us. I lowered my gaze, and gave myself a silent pep talk. No ulterior motives—just a one-to-one.

  “We should have a one-to-one, a chance to get to know one another and understand what issues we’re passionate about,” I explained breathlessly.

  “Okay, when did you want to meet?” she asked.

  That wasn’t so bad.

  “How about next Wednesday?

  “Sounds good. Should we exchange numbers in case something changes?”

  She pulled out her phone and I recited my number. I stole a long glance as she typed. She had a small round head covered with a long pink scarf, soft cheeks and the pinkest lips I’d ever seen. She had a regal, dignified beauty I’d rarely seen. After punching in my number, she looked up. I shifted my gaze past her as if trying to find someone.

  “Did you need to go talk to someone?” she asked pointing her thumb over her shoulder.

  “No, just trying to see if brother Fareed is still here.”

  “Oh, okay. That’s me calling so you can save my number in your phone.”

  “Sweet, thanks.” It occurred to me that I could have gotten her number from the sign-in sheet. I smiled and wondered if she had realized it too. “Okay, gotta run. See you soon, inshAllah.”

  “Assalaamu alaykum!” she waved timidly.

  “Walaykum assalaam,” I said, strolling away as nonchalantly as I could.

  She wanted to go somewhere beautiful near the water. I drove around San Francisco aimlessly until she looked up nearby beaches on her iPhone. “Here’s one: China Beach. It’s not far from here.”

  It had been a month since we’d met, but we spent so much time together that it felt that we’d always known each other. The parking lot was full, so we parked outside of a huge house with security cameras perched at each corner. The rusting, black wrought-iron fence was covered in spider webs.

  “Wow. That’s so strange,” she said gazing up at the roof.

  “What is?” I turned to look.

  “Those cameras and this big gate,” she replied.

  “Why? They’re just trying to protect themselves.”

  “It just looks paranoid. Like they don’t want anyone here.”

  “Yeah, that’s true. We’re ‘not welcome ’round these parts,’” I said, imitating a Southern accent.

  We laughed and walked toward the beach, stopping to look at the Golden Gate Bridge. We hopped down the stairs like eager schoolchildren and climbed up a massive rock overlooking the water. We sat there for hours alternating between conversation about life dreams and a serene silence filled with the sounds of the ocean. We posed together for our smartphones, immortalizing an experience neither of us wanted to end.

  “I feel beautiful,” she said, beaming, her face turned toward the sun, reflecting its resplendence.

  I wanted to kiss her. I wonder when our first kiss will be. I was too nervous to make a move. When it happens, it will happen naturally.

  I opened her car door for her. She smiled her thanks. She was my lady.

  Later, while telling me how much fun she’d had, she said, “I prayed for someone like you.” I told her that I had prayed, too
, while thinking to myself, but I’ve been wrong before.

  When she said, “I need you,” I felt a fluttering in my stomach I hadn’t felt since Ashley. It was enchanting and terrifying.

  After two months of courting, it felt like we were on the way toward marriage. In September—a few days after my twenty-fourth birthday—she brought up doing premarital counseling in December if “all continues to go well.” Women and their conditions, I thought. She had made her intentions clear from the outset—she was looking for a spouse. I was ecstatic that I’d finally found a woman who knew what she wanted. I, too, was looking for a lifelong companion. We were both African American Muslims whose family histories included participation in the Nation of Islam. As a result, we had similar cultural and religious sensibilities. We had a passion for community. We just made sense. Everyone around us—at the masjid, on my job—agreed. Ms. Pierson—a widow in Bayview who loved to see young people in love—asked when we were getting married. When I told Imam Al-Amin that we were courting, he replied with a jovial grin, “I was hoping that would happen.” My friend Ali supported us from the beginning, as did his wife, Martha.

  One day in early October, a former colleague, Kisha, called me. She had accepted a job offer in Kenya but was homeless for the week prior to leaving. She’d been couch-surfing for weeks so I agreed to let her crash on my couch for a night. I forgot about it completely until the night of the stay. Aliyah and I were leaving an SFOP meeting at my office. She had become a volunteer leader in the organization after the initial meetings at the mosque, which gave us a halal excuse to spend more time together. We had yet to so much as embrace and hug; the sexual tension between us was palpable.

  I parked in front of her place in Hayes Valley. She dreamed out loud, painting a picture of our life with emotional and hopeful words. I didn’t feel the need to speak most of the time because she spoke for us both. This was the highest possible level of nonphysical intimacy. Our bodies ached to touch each other. She began stroking my hands and arms softly. I started to get hot and bothered. It was uncanny how cathartic the simplest touch could be, she said. I agreed, trying to conceal the bulge forming in my pants.

  My phone buzzed. It was a text message from Kisha, “Hey, I’m on 22nd and Mission. Can you pick me up or do you want me to meet you somewhere else?” Ah shit. I totally forgot about that!

  “Hey, sorry, I gotta go.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “I just forgot I have something to do.”

  “Oh . . . who was that?”

  “My friend Kisha. I promised I’d let her stay on the couch for a night because she doesn’t have a place to stay.”

  “Oh . . .” she said, taking her hand away, “I guess I’ll see you later then.”

  “Hey, wait. What’s the matter? You seem upset.”

  “You never told me about this,” she said, tensing up, “I’m thinking, Was he trying to hide this from me? Who is this girl?”

  “Whoa,” I said, hands raised. “First, I wasn’t trying to hide anything. If I was, I wouldn’t have told you where I was going. Second, Kisha is a former colleague; she’s my mom’s age.”

  “Why does she have to stay at your house?”

  “I thought it was the Muslim thing to do to provide shelter for her, so she doesn’t have to sleep on the street!”

  “Wow. I’m gonna go, but you need to talk to Imam Al-Amin about that,” she said in an accusing tone.

  “Talk to Imam Al-Amin about what?” I shot back.

  “You just need to seek counsel on that, because I can’t be the one to inform you.”

  “What are you saying? That I’m a bad Muslim for trying to help someone and I need to get guidance from the imam before Allah, in his wrath, smites me?”

  “No,” she let out an annoyed laugh, “just talk to the imam.”

  “All right, whatever.”

  She looked at me, mouth agape in surprise.

  “Can you help me get my bike out of the backseat please?”

  I got out of the car silently and walked her to the door. She thanked me and closed the door in my face. I was overwhelmed with guilt. Was I wrong? How could I forget to tell her? Is it over just like that? I told Kisha the story on the way home. She said that God had someone in store for me who wasn’t insecure.

  The next day, I asked Aliyah to meet me at Peet’s Coffee. I ordered her a tea and a few madeleine cookies—her favorite. She sat with her hands over knees, looking aloof and prudish.

  “I wanted to see how you’re feeling about last night.”

  “Fine,” she replied. “It’s just a mental note that I’ve made.”

  “Are you thinking any different about us, because I still feel the same about you. Kisha is just a friend.”

  “My ex-husband knew a lot of women who were ‘just friends.’ Later, I found out he was taking them out.” Her eyes shifted, never resting on me.

  “I’m sorry that happened to you. But I’m not your ex-husband.”

  “I’m not saying you are. I’m sure you’re telling the truth. All I’m saying is that you have relationships with a lot of different women and I don’t—”

  “What are you talking about?” I interrupted. “Most women I know are back home. I have hardly any friends here.”

  “I think we should take some time apart to work on ourselves. As I told you, I’m in graduate school and that’s what I need to focus on.”

  “Okay, Aliyah.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it”

  Aliyah was finished talking. What happened that night was something to be filed in her “mental notes” folder somewhere in that incomprehensible brain of hers. Graduate school was all she had time for and she felt it best that we “work on ourselves” (read: get your shit together, brotha). We had let our guards down because when we looked at each other we saw ourselves—wounded and afraid, longing and hopeful. Now, they were back up. The Kisha incident had set off all kinds of triggers in both of us. We began doubting whether the other could be trusted. We saw each other less, spending our time bickering, mostly about how I was too young to understand how life worked.

  The end came late one night during an exasperating argument over God knows what.

  “Would you listen for once? The key issue is that you aren’t willing to meet me where I am.”

  “You’re right. I’m not,” she shot back.

  “Wow . . . so I guess that’s it,” I said, stunned.

  I got off of the phone and cried.

  The New Year rolled around and here I was lonely and depressed. I returned to bong rips and pipe hits. Wake and bake, lunchtime liftoff, and evening equalizers became my daily routine. I had quit smoking weed after meeting Aliyah. She’d helped me see the upside of things, reminded me to turn to my Lord in times of crisis. I’d started praying again, studying Qur’an, and reflecting on the bounties of my Lord. Her leaving felt like a star’s guiding light had burned out. It was also the two-year anniversary of my ex-girlfriend’s betrayal, and I’d been abandoned in the dark again.

  In February, I went to North Carolina to see family and found only chaos. My brother had started selling drugs. I didn’t come home for this shit, I thought. A friend told me this could be a sign from God. I organized an intervention, prepping everyone, setting an agenda, a date, and a time. We sat in a circle in the living room where our high school graduation pictures adorned the wall. Everyone offered an emotional plea for my brother to stop. He agreed. The next night I went over to a friend’s house and got high.

  That trip was a watershed moment. During the intervention, my stepfather broke down and cried about his own past drug addictions in a plea for my brother to save himself. For the first time in my life, my stepfather was vulnerable to the point of tears. Seeing this moved me to tears, helped me understand him better, and, above all, emboldened me.

  When I returned to California, I asked Aliyah to meet me in Golden Gate Park. I didn’t really know what to say. I just
knew I wanted to say something that would help her to understand me. As we walked together I felt tranquility descend onto me. Our conversation was light and jovial at first.

  “Can I— Never mind,” she began.

  “What?”

  “I’m embarrassed,” she bowed her head.

  “You don’t have to say it if it makes you uncomfortable.”

  After a brief pause, she asked the question on her mind. “Are you seeing anyone right now?

  I laughed, surprised. “No! Why?”

  “If you were, it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to be in touch like this.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Okay,” she replied, repressing a smile.

  Silence. But it wasn’t the awkward silence that made me want to crawl out of my skin. It was a sacred silence in which the joy of each other’s presence was enough. The sky became overcast and the wind picked up. We began making our way back to the car for refuge from the cold.

  “I wanted to get a few things off my chest. I feel that our challenge has been that we do and say things, not realizing how it might trigger past experiences—”

  “I feel like you do that a lot. I was going to bring it up earlier—” she interjected, defensively.

  “What were you going to bring up?” I asked, curiosity piqued.

  “You say things and I’m like, Why would he say that?”

  “Can you be more specific?” I said, annoyance creeping into my voice.

  “You tweeted something about your ex stripping—”

  “What in the world are you talking about?” I pulled out my phone and started looking through my Twitter time line. “When was this?”

  “I don’t remember. But when I saw that, I unfollowed you because I said, You know what, I don’t need to get upset. I have the power to not look—”

  “Oh! Those were Drake lyrics. That wasn’t about me. I’m not seeing anyone.”

  We arrived at the car and stood beside it arguing, the wind tossing her scarf across her face and making me shiver.

  “Right, but did you ever stop and think, How would this affect her if she read it?” she shouted. Her eyes began tearing up, face reddening.