I don't know when I stopped praying.
A few weeks ago, I came home for winter break after my first semester away. Nothing felt different, really. I noticed my younger sister was more open and my older sister more hopeful. I was in our too-cramped kitchen making myself some tea when I felt it. That eye of judgment. From our kitchen, you can see right into the living room where my mother likes to pray. She stood there in the purple abaya that fit well enough on anyone because of its clingy jersey fabric (I would know; I'd worn it a few times). She looked at me with that tugging frown that always seemed second nature. Naturally, I looked away.
Only a few hours ago, she had asked me to pray. Begged, really. And I brushed her off. In that way, where you can't really reply or argue because we both know it's a dead end. I poured the hot water into my mug and snuck a glance behind my shoulder to see if she was still looking. Instead, I saw my six-year-old brother standing next to her, hands folded over his chest, stumbling through repeated Surahs. In an instant, guilt took hold of me. This is what she wants isn’t it? The picturesque muslim family that prays together and has long conversations on the mat about devotion and Allah. I feel sorry that I can't give it to her. I feel sorry I can’t have it myself.
It started in little ways. After school, I would come home, and she would remind me that it was time for Asr. I would get my sequined, polka-dot khimar that my dad bought for all of us on his trip to Saudi. I would pray where she does now and beg her not to look because “I can’t focus!” Eventually, I migrated to my room, where I would put out the mat, throw down my khimar and the skirt my mother made specially for me, haphazardly, to look like I had really prayed. She caught on eventually, of course, but by then it was too late.
Prayer always felt like a chore. It isn't supposed to be. Prayer is one of the few times when you are meant to feel close to God, feel light in His wisdom and path, and know that even if you are going through hard times, it will be okay. Now, compared to then, I am okay. I am away from the daggering silence that always kept at least one of us at its edge. Yet the devotion never made its way to me. I definitely believe in what I was taught, and though I don’t look the part, I still take pride in my identity. I take pride in our message. Maybe something got dislodged when I stood in the dark, chanting Arabic through tears as my father watched. Maybe I am just really, really bad at routine.
I am getting ready to spend my first Ramadan away from my family, and I am uncertain. Not eating or drinking is the easy part. I don’t know if I can push myself to do what is so simple, so intrinsic to being muslim, and that is an uncomfortable feeling. So I sip my tea and watch my youngest sibling press his small forehead into the ground in prostration, and I walk away. The heat of shame and the whispers of devotion follow, and maybe one day I will be six again. I hold my mother's hand and smile up at her on the prayer mat.
Photo credit: Pinterest