The Healing

by Saeeda Hafiz

  The more confident I became in providing a meal for my students, the more frequently I invited non-students on non-yoga nights to my house for a holistic meal. Sometimes I tried to play matchmaker at these dinners. One night, I invited Anjuli, her brother Sanjay, and Nick for dinner.

  In the back of my mind, I thought Nick and Anjuli would hit it off, both being Indian (I thought) and attractive. Plus, I thought Sanjay was cute.

  Anjuli arrived, but without Sanjay, and then Nick arrived. We started dinner, and we all seemed to get along.

  At one point, Anjuli asked Nick where he was from in India.

  He smiled, swallowed, and then wiped his mouth. I waited to hear the story that included studying yoga with his grandfather.

  “Uh,” he chuckled, “I’m not from India. I’m not even Indian.”

  “What?!” we both said in unison. “I thought you were Indian, like me,” Anjuli said.

  Then I confessed to Nick that I was certain that he was Kashmiri and that I told myself this whole story about his having studied yoga with his grandfather, and that he found my yoga classes good enough to attend, even though it was not exactly how his grandfather taught him.

  Again, we all laughed.

  “Nope. I did gymnastics in high school and college. And I’m half Colombian and half white guy.”

  “Boy, did I get that one wrong!”

  We finished dinner, and I suggested that we have dessert and tea on the porch, where they should try swinging on the old-fashioned porch together.

  Nick and Anjuli went outside, and when I came through the door with a tray of tea and pear tarts, they were moving and swinging. But the chemistry and conversation between the two of them seemed stagnant. An hour or so later, we all said our goodbyes.

  Weeks later, I invited a different group along with Nick to my house for dinner. Right before dinner, everyone called to cancel, except Nick. I thought about postponing, but I was certain that he was already on his way.

  The doorbell rang. I exhaled and opened the door and said, “I hope you are hungry because it is just the two of us. Everyone else canceled.” I didn’t know what he was thinking about the new situation, but the night was enjoyable. When he left, I felt like I had made a better friend that night.

  Nick and I started hanging out more as friends. He invited me to do things with his friends, and vice versa. We would often find ourselves alone, but I never felt any romantic pressure build between us.

  In October 2000, Nick invited me to go to a Halloween dance with him. We went to a place called The Attic. I don’t remember the type of music they played that night, but I do remember his makeshift costume: a bathrobe, a fake sword, and a towel over his head like an Arabian prince. I was dressed in simple black tights, black short shorts, and a gray turtleneck sweater. With a vending tray in front, I transformed into a candy-cigarette girl. Sometimes he and I danced together, and other times we danced with the group. Then it softly hit me during one of our one-on-one dances. I was starting to find him attractive. I could feel myself tense up at the thought. Then I thought, “This attraction will pass.” I chuckled to myself, kept on dancing, and reminded myself that we were only friends.

  Nick and I kept hanging out, at least once a week, and my feelings toward him increased each and every time I saw him; in class, on an outing, randomly on campus, and at coffee shops. My feelings were so strong that I almost felt dishonest not telling him how I felt. I told myself this was nonsense. It was just as nonsensical as my thinking that he was Indian. But each day I couldn’t stop myself from believing that if I didn’t say something I was committing a big mistake.

  So one day, I told one of my best girlfriends that I was going to confess my feelings to Nick.

  “Ooooo gurrrl. You’re brave,” said my friend Holly.

  I explained to her that I wasn’t being brave, since I deeply believed that he didn’t like me in that way. I was counting on him not returning my attraction so that it would be easier for me to stop my attraction toward him. “What are you going to do if he says he likes you, too? Do you want to be in a relationship?”

  I told Holly that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be in a relationship.

  I remembered enjoying the slow pace of my relationship with Daniel and now feeling the same pace with Nick. It gave me a chance to manage any of my relationship fears. Even though I believed I wanted companionship, relationships never really seemed to make anyone I knew happy, and I wasn’t sure one would make me happy. I didn’t mind going slow, since the relationships belonging to my parents, grandparents, sisters, and brothers had never worked out. I guess a part of me didn’t mind pretending that I was dating someone. This way I could have the benefits of male company without being fully invested in maintaining a real and active relationship. In fact, part of me preferred it. Who needs the real thing anyway?

  Then Holly said, “I don’t know, Sy. You better be prepared for more than one kind of answer.”

  * * *

  The night I decided to come clean to Nick, I invited him to one of my favorite Saeeda-friendly restaurants, Kaya. The food was easy to work into my holistic health plan, and the atmosphere was cozy and elegant.

  It wasn’t until I’d asked Nick to go to Kaya for this confession that I remembered that almost three years to the month, in this very same restaurant, I had made a similar confession to Daniel, who had rejected me because I was not Christian.

  When Nick picked me up, we hugged hello. We walked to his car and headed for Kaya. We chatted, but in my head I was replaying my entire relationship with Daniel.

  Driving to the restaurant, my thoughts were interrupted by Nick’s question: “How was your Thanksgiving?” My heart quickened, feeling afraid of that question.

  “It was low-key,” I responded. I had spent Thanksgiving with the international students working on their PhDs, students who had stayed in the area for the holidays. “How about you?” I quickly changed the subject, for fear he would judge me for not spending it with my family.

  “It was good. Good to see family and friends.”

  To take my mind off my fear, I looked out of the car window and absorbed Pittsburgh. We drove through Lawrenceville, sometimes called “Little Italy.” In this small section of Pittsburgh, on Liberty Avenue, you can often find a chair on the street in front of someone’s home. This chair means, “Don’t park here; it is my spot for when I return home from work.” I often wondered, how do they get away with it? I chuckled as I looked out the window. We glided along Liberty Avenue, and then went over a small bridge, to end up on Smallman Street.

  We arrived in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. While Nick was parking, we talked about the famous Primanti Brothers pastrami sandwich, with coleslaw and French fries right in the sandwich. We laughed about how I don’t eat like that anymore.

  When I got out of the car, I thought about Daniel and felt defeated. I also thought about how I needed to get my attraction for Nick off my chest. I slammed the door with purpose.

  “Whoa,” Nick reacted. “Gentle.” We both smiled.

  All through dinner Nick and I talked about different things, both trivial and deep. I remembered him saying how bold it was that YWCA’s mission was to empower women and girls by eradicating racism.

  Just like with Daniel, during dessert, I mustered up some courage to say what was on my mind. “Umm. Nick…I want to bring up something that might seem a bit strange.” I exhaled through my nose purposefully. My throat tightened. I took a sip of water. I started talking again, but my voice was scratchy so I cleared my throat and said, “I realize that we have been hanging out a lot as friends, and…and I’m starting to realize that I have feelings for you. The weird thing is…that by not telling you, I feel dishonest. So I just want to get this off my chest.”

  Nick looked up and had a big bright smile on his face. It felt overwhelming. “I feel the same way, too. In fact, whil
e I was at home, I was talking to my good friend, Laura, about you. She said, ‘You sure do talk about your yoga instructor a lot. Why aren’t you dating her?’ Then I realized that I liked you, too.”

  I drank a sip of my tea, and thought, “This is not going according to plan.” I spoke up and said, “Oh, I thought you were going to say, ‘Besides, you’re my yoga teacher, and I just don’t see you that way.’ ” We both laughed.

  Nick and I finished our dessert with the same kind of conversation that would have taken place when we were “just friends” thirty minutes earlier. We talked for another half hour, and then he drove me home.

  I leaned in to give him a hug, like all of the other times we had ended our platonic dates, and said, “I can’t kiss you yet. I wasn’t prepared for you to say that you like me, too.”

  I opened the door. Happy. I waved goodbye and said, “Please don’t act weird in yoga class on Monday.” He smiled happily.

  * * *

  Nick and I started dating officially. There was one date I will never forget. We hugged at the door and then started walking down the hill to the movies. Then he reached for my hand. His hand was so soft and gentle, yet strong, just like his demeanor. I had a hard time believing that these were the hands of someone who had been in the Navy, in the Iraq War. In this relationship, I was the one with the rough hands. I felt a bit insecure about this. I said to Nick, “Some time ago, when I was on this date with another guy before you, that guy picked up my hand and said, ‘Wow, Saeeda, your hands look like they work hard.’ ”

  “I told him, ‘I have the hands of my ancestors. They were slaves, you know. And I got their hands. These hands are the hands of people who picked a whole lot of cotton.’ I held up my hands to the guy, turned them up, and over, so he could get a good look, and then I said, ‘These are my hands, and they come from a long line of people who have struggled.’ ”

  Nick never said anything about my hands being rough, but when I told him that story, he was quiet. He just held my hands tighter and rubbed them tenderly.

  That night he held my hand in his. We walked slowly, not saying too much. In my head was an affirmed message of certainty. “You will be with him for a long time, but not forever.” And then I looked up into the sky and saw my first shooting star.

  * * *

  I was taking my time with Nick because I looked at him as a potential long-term boyfriend. Therefore, I felt no need to rush our sexual relationship.

  “What? You haven’t slept with him yet?” My friends Sarah and Holly both said at dinner one evening. I had made the girls a healthy meal, introducing everyone to brown rice night.

  “Saeeda, how can you be with him six months and not have any nookie-nookie?” Sarah asked. Sarah was the first woman I had known who could talk about sex and still make it sound fun, romantic, playful, joyful, innocent, but never dirty. She was probably the one person in my world who was über-comfortable with her sexuality. She was my group’s Samantha from Sex in the City, but her innocent way made everything feel delightful and charming. I definitely wanted more of that in my life. “It’s not like you don’t know him. You have been friends and have known each other for two years?”

  “More like, eighteen months. And besides…there’s still lots of mental and physical intimacy.”

  “That’s riDICKulous,” Sarah said. Holly and I cracked up laughing. “I need to go slow. Nick is letting me take my time. He said that because he was married before there was no need to rush into anything or anyone. Besides, we do some stuff.” I paused, and then said, “I just have to make sure that this relationship isn’t about being with the black girl, or the yoga teacher, or the time-when-I-was-in-grad-school girl.”

  “If he has stuck around for this long and hasn’t hit it yet, you needn’t worry about him using you,” Holly said. “He genuinely likes YOU.” I refreshed everyone’s plates.

  Holly went on to inquire if I thought Nick was gay or not. She refreshed my memory by bringing up Frederick, who I had met at the bank years ago. Then I started thinking about Frederick’s marriage proposal. I paused and said to Holly that I wasn’t sure, but believed he was not gay because I had asked him straight out if he was.

  Holly and I reminisced, filling Sarah in on my relationship, or non-relationship, with Frederick.

  “Oh, my God! Falling in love with a gay guy is the worst,” Sarah said, as if she’d had some experience with this kind of situation.

  “Tell me about it,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And that is why having sex too early in the relationship doesn’t work for me right now, not that I ever had sex with Frederick. Besides, if Nick and I do end up together, we will have our whole lives to have sex. I need to see who I am with him and who he is with me. Nick is like my brown rice. I want to cook it slow and have the energy last longer. I hope.”

  CHAPTER 18

  I Love You

  IT WAS DECEMBER 2000, three weeks before my thirty-fourth birthday. And for the first time in my life, I was officially in a relationship that had momentum. I felt like a woman who had started out at one place and was taking the necessary steps to end up at a different, and better, place. Maybe I was an old maid, but at this point, my age didn’t matter to me. Maybe it was because I never felt rushed to have a baby, or maybe because I wanted to be more healed and less damaged. I didn’t feel like I needed to rush.

  It felt unnatural to be openly invited to parties and functions as the official girl who was dating Nick, but I did take a quick liking to it. It felt even more unnatural to have others refer to us as a couple, since I was so used to being an independent woman, both in my family and in the world.

  Nick and I did normal date things together: dinners in and out, movies, parties at friends’ places, long chats on the phone about any and everything—especially race, spirituality, food, and business. He found it funny that I was often turned on when we discussed strategic business logic. I might have been turned on, but each date ended in the same way—cuddling, massages, and sometimes a sleepover, but no sex. The anticipation felt amazing, but one of the things that made him attractive was his patience with me, especially when I explained to him that I wasn’t ready for a sexual relationship. He explained that, because he was newly divorced, he understood that life is complicated and we didn’t need to rush anything, especially if I wasn’t ready.

  He had many attractive qualities. He was a great listener. He could straddle various cultures, political arenas, and socioeconomic classes. He was wicked smart, yet he wasn’t arrogant. He was very unassuming. And, mostly, he had a kind and tender heart, yet there was something about him that made me feel that he could protect me. Wow! A man protecting me, instead of hurting me! I know that shouldn’t be a rare dynamic, but it was for me, and I liked it.

  One night, we were out at a party at our friends’ house. Pittsburgh wasn’t as cosmopolitan as my soul desired, but I found a comfortable niche of international people with pizzazz who knew how to dance into the night, without drugs, and were still able to get up the next morning and accomplish the day’s activities. No slackers in this group.

  As we danced, Nick and I bumped up against the other partygoers. The songs transitioned from German punk to Turkish techno to African American funk, and Nick and I moved closer and closer to each other. Our noses rubbed together and then our cheeks touched. We whispered into each other’s ears. Petra, one of our hosts, came by and said, “You two have such great chemistry.” We smiled at her and then at each other.

  I was in love and starting to lower my guard. I consciously let myself fall in love over the next few months, especially inspired by something my spiritual teacher had said: If you have the opportunity to love, meaning loving from the heart unconditionally, you win. Even if that love isn’t returned to you, you have opened yourself up enough to love someone, and feeling that feeling alone is a win.

  So when Petra could visibly see the chemistry Nick and
I had, I felt like a winner. This public display of connection meant so much to me. It was nice not to be hidden. I felt celebrated. Nick and I were enjoying ourselves, even when we disagreed. Our disagreements felt safe, the way I’d imagined normal people disagreed about points of view. In this relationship, I felt like I had grown leaps and bounds from my family’s world of chaos, where it was still reported that my dad, then age sixty-seven, frequently beat up his longtime girlfriend, once landing her in a neck brace. I felt like maybe I would be spared such childhood horrors; but still I was afraid.

  My fear of being mistreated came out in strange ways. For instance, in February 2001, Nick went to a job fair in San Francisco. He explained that he might meet up with some old friends. I knew that he had casually dated a girl named Pam, who had also attended my yoga classes. I knew that I wanted to have some input into this situation, but wasn’t quite sure what to say. Then one night I figured it out.

  “Nick, do you think you’ll see Pam when you’re out in San Francisco?”

  “I think so. I asked her if she would be around.”

  Then I said something that surprised me. I told him that if he slept with Pam, I’d understand. I said that I was not at all encouraging the behavior, but understood that it could happen. I painted him the picture of two former lovers seeing each other after a year has passed and, unbeknownst to them, romantic sparks are still flying between them. I said to him, “Who knows what can happen between two lovers, both under the influence of a few glasses of wine and…”

  Since we had only been dating for about four months and hadn’t had any sex yet, I could understand him wanting to enjoy a hanky-panky night with someone familiar. I reiterated that I wasn’t endorsing that kind of behavior, but could definitely understand.