Peace Islands: Coping, Week Two

It's now been two weeks in this new weird world. I started tutoring part time in a writing center. This is the type of job I would have once found fulfilling, but my first day working one-on-one with students left me hopeless. How will these students ever learn how to write? We spend fifty minutes together, and that's only enough time to revise the introduction paragraph. This guy can't focus. This girl doesn't understand articles. At home I blobbed into the couch. What's the point? If half the country is garbage, if it takes people three failing grades to make it out of English 100, if I enjoy pizza date night, but I shove the huge cardboard box in the dumpster. Why are we walking as if everything hasn't been exposed as slop. "This isn't you," reminded Puhg.

As a professor of a city college, I have access to the wellness center, which means free counseling. I called yesterday to see if I could get an appointment. I was offered 9 AM today. My counselor wore a hijab. She asked how I was, "I'm sad," I said, "about the election." She said, "You're not the only one." I've heard normalizing pain doesn't usually help, but in this case, it did. She kept reminding me "More than half of the country feels like you." That encouraged me in two ways. One, at least half the country isn't trash and two, we'd be 100% trash if I (and all people like me) gave up.

We talked about how she was feeling because I asked. Because she's Muslim. And she seemed happy. It was really helpful to hear her experience. A) She did not follow the election. As a non-citizen she couldn't vote and so preferred to not get wrapped up in all the hate Tr*mp was spewing. I don't think ignorance is the answer, but sometimes we must focus on other progressive things besides politics. B) She feels empathy with the US because she is from Turkey. She fled to avoid Erdogan--Turkish Tr*mp (she says). But he's much worse. Not like "it could be worse" is a valid argument, but it can make a person at least attempt gratitude. C) She says she's never been treated poorly as a Muslim. She recognizes she is in Chicago and there are places she probably shouldn't go in America, but as of now, here, people are really nice to her.

She told me I'm not the first person to express hopelessness about the future. She gave me the visual of "peace islands." Maybe the world seems bad. Maybe it is even mostly bad, but there are places of peace, and we should expand those, instead of letting them fall into the sea. I can buy that for today. Tomorrow I might ask, "But what's the point of making peace islands bigger anyway?" But today, okay.

Five Times

Hill: I wonder if at Muslim schools they have special prayer times.
Me: Is it by time, or is it just pray 'five times a day and you're good.'
Hill: Isn't it by sun something? I know I'd be a Muslim who'd be like, 'It's 9:45?! Shit!'
Me: [mimics kneeling to pray five times fast]

I looked it up today. It is based on sun stuff. So the prayer times change. Woof. To be a Mus. It's hard enough for me to remember one obscure meeting in my day, let alone five new by-the-minute times to roll out the God mat. Annoying. But then I remembered, if it's what brings peace, perhaps it should be difficult to remember. Like when you order fries unsalted so they must be made fresh. There is no option for auto-pilot when we are forced out of habit. If something isn't easy and we still do it, it is truly a priority. Maybe therefore or maybe because. Either way. If one abides by the structure, I can't imagine she would be able to shove her spiritual priorities to the bottom of her backpack...down there with the half-cracked sticks of gum and paper clips. She would be a Muslim who studies/works/lives instead of a student/worker/liver first and a Muslim second. Or third. Or nineteenth. With this in mind, it's crazy the 'lims only pray five times a day.

This semester (over in one sweet sweet week--thank all the Muslim prayers in the world) I have had a mantra. It is this: Your motive is love. I have written it on notecards, in my planner, in my phone notes. I  mumble it on my way to class. I state it in the bathroom mirror. And yet I can still forget. Am I dull to my own handwriting? Do I not take enough moments surrounding the sentiment to let it sink in? I could use some strict proclamation appointments. I want to be a lover first. All the other garbage second. Eighty-second. Whatever.