A journey of a yoga teacher who has now found peace in a piece of hijab. A surprising discovery of total surrender to Allah and the happiness it brings.
This blog is about expressing passion of being a fashionista by balancing everything else that matters. This is my playground, the love and passion for my favourite people and things ...
THIS IS HIJAB N THE CITY !
Whenever I looked at Minime before, it reminded me of love, pure, innocence, joy and the list go on. She was like this magic furball - she just have to be infront of you and all your stress would disappear. She was different from any cats we rescued.
We found Minime dead today – She was’ hit and run’ by a car at the back of our house. I grief like never before. I just want to grief. For I would not see her again. It was the last meal she had yesterday morning that I gave her. She was our family’s little baby. She didn’t do things to annoy us. She didn’t meow but made a cute little sound. She followed everybody everywhere !! The World was okay with Minime around.
God lend her to us for 6 joyful months and took her back yesterday. I did not ask God why? I just thought how happy she has made me and Pete and Naomi and Innaz. I just thought how loved she was. How happy she was with us.
Minime was different . She was like a little angel who couldn’t do wrong. She loved us well too and she made us loved her very much. Even all our 4 older cats loved her to bits. Spikey especially because we named Minime after Spikey – his Minime.
Minime was buried this afternoon. Her body was dumped at the side of the road by some heartless bastard who sped up ! Housing area is not a place to speed up. I hope Minime wont be cold and lonely outside. I hope God has put her in a nice place for nice little cats.
REST MY LITTLE MINIME – ALLOW ME TO GRIEF ...
IN THE ARMS OF AN ANGEL, FLY AWAY FROM HERE ... :)
I was tested today and I shocked myself. I hate rudeness - people who have no manners and greedy! Sometimes we encountered these people on the streets during our homeless food distribution. Not many of them but there are, nevertheless. For 4 years I have managed not to stumble upon them but today I was tested! I made a point to be at the 5.30pm food distribution at Klang Bus Stand today to greet my friend Angeline and her team from Maybank who were on their CSR program.
( Refer to our work at www.reachoutmy.wordpress.com )
Things were smooth in the beginning but then one chinese auntie started to shout rudely because she wanted to change her nasi lemak ayam to a better one (when they were all the same) and went on and on . ('kiasu' at work definitely!) I lose the plot, screamed back and put her in her place - I was shivering with anger. And for a moment - I went through flashes of moments that I have sacrificed to do this work! For a split second, I asked myself "Is this worth it?". I was tested just before that with 2 young Malay guys who carried Iphone with some stylish hairstyles but have the cheeks to tell me they were jobless and homeless and argued with our volunteers. Grrrrrr!!!!
I went quiet the whole journey home and kept quiet still at home to reminisce the pain I have gone through to make REACH OUT happened ! Satan has whispered to me, has sent his soldiers to discouraged me. I have forgotten the joy, forgotten what I saw on people's faces that we have helped all these years, the wonderful and kind people who are working with us and helped us in many ways. For a while I have forgotten why I do the things I do. Not for me but for what God has entrusted me.
Our street friends have many personalities just like the rest of us. They are human too! No difference! Some are kind, generous, cheaters, liars, drunkards, humble etc - they all have stories to tell but I am not here to judge them. One crazy auntie and two cheeky guys shouldn't be allowed to take my peace away. I pray silently for a bit more doses of calmness and drifted to my moment of silent.
"MAKCIK ANI INFRONT OF HER RESTAURANT - 'SELERA KAYU ARA'" - yummy good food!
HELLO FELLOW BLOGGERS! LONG TIME NO SEE!
Hi friends ! It has been months since I blogged . I have been writing in my head, playing many events and hoping to blog a story but I have too many things to do, and too little time!
And I did miss blogging but well, something happened in July that needed my attention fully, I have to play a part in an evolution and operation for REACH OUT MALAYSIA - refer to www.reachoutmy.wordpress.com (That's another story but today I want to talk about Makcik Ani - my nasi lemak makcik - the supplier of Nasi Lemak Ayam for Reach Out Malaysia. I felt very strong to write about her...
Oww!! my body's aching! I havent been teaching yoga for quite awhile and my stunt of a perfect shoulder stand infront of my students today has left me feeling like as if my bones were cursing to say - "You have not been discipline! now look what happen!" But as an experienced yoga teacher I have master my body to be my servant and command a perfect composure regardless how crappy I felt! (Roswidah, If you are reading this, I sure have fooled you just now hehe :))
Back to Makcik Ani, she cooked one hell of a nasi lemak, very prompt, discipline and can always be counted upon whenever I needed to buy nasi lemak ayam for the homeless. I always observed the way she does her work - She is calm and collected. She speaks in a single tone, nothing could surprise her and me being the energy reader, is fascinated by her. As I grew older and wiser - I become fussy about people around me - especially those who are doing business with me, be it students, suppliers, volunteers - I watched closely for negative energy and would not compromise. I believe, you are judged by your associates and if business is done with god-fearing individuals, you can find a lot of peace and trust in any dealings.
Each time I met makcik Ani, I would learn a little about her. She is originally from Acheh and has been here with her family for 30 years. I know she worked hard. She owned a simple restaurant in Kampung Sungai Kayu Ara, near uptown. She told me that whenever she made extra money she would help to fund some orphans in her Kampung in Acheh and helped their mothers - she felt she is blessed with her good fortune and her rezqi in Malaysia - (Something I thought a lot of Rakyat Malaysia should learn from - to be grateful to our country and to be the best we can be).
She has been missing for a few weeks so the nasi lemak supplies has been cooked by her Assistant (which is not quite the same, I think! ) - her assistant also informed that makcik Ani's mom passed away hence her absence from her Restaurant. I called her hp today and a familiar voice answered! Makcik ani is back! So I ordered the usual 250 nasi lemak ayam for Saturday's food distribution. Before I opened my mouth to ask about her mom passing, she blurted out (and so unlike her) (This is the point where I wrongly pressed something and lost a whole chunk of writing aaaagghhhh! now I have to rewrite this part!!) Ok I hope it will be as dramatic as the first one.
She blurted out that she just came back from her kampung and her mom passed away while she was there. She went on to tell the story that she came home for her younger sister who has lost her husband and pregnant at the same time and later lose the baby as well. Her mom wasnt sick or anything but as Makcik Ani prepared to go back to KL, her mom stopped her and requested for her to stay awhile because she said it was time for her to go! (huh?? Wow I thought!) To cut the story short, Makcik Ani's mom died while doing zikir with her children and just slowly drifted away as if she was smiling and sleeping at the same time ... what a blessing it must be for everybody in her family. I got to know that even her dad passed away that way! It was also the norm for her and family to read Quran together as part of their routine.
How simple life is for Makcik Ani and family, She did the best she could for her and her family. These people are so simple that they don't seem to miss anything the way normal people do. Some of us who have such a competitive personality , spent most of their lives justifying why they do the things they do. Some of us who pretend a lot spend all their life convincing that they are someone else other than themselves. Some of us who are too coward to stand up to the truth and justice, give reasons that it is none of their business. Such a lame world and such a lame excuse not to be the best we can be or operating from the truth of life.
We are all tested in so many ways - but I do believe, that the one thing we are all striving for is to find peace within ourselves and may not achieved it, if it is based by anything other than God's standard! And if only we know, how the chain of energy work in this universe and how it will cause a karmic effect in so many ways - no one will dare to compromise the truth.
I learned something today which is, if I were to go from this world, I want to be as sure as Makcik Ani's mom who have everything simple in her life but have made such a great impact to her children. I too want to recite Quran as regular as I can so I may die reciting it.
Today I feel small in God's greatness who allow me to learn this - me who have made many mistakes a thousand times and am still blessed in many ways.
At the end of the day, isnt what we look forward to is to find peace within ourselves and to die and meet God, the way Makcik Ani's Mom met her Creator. In readiness. subhanallah.
I know with Makcik Ani supplying nasi lemak ayam to Reach Out Malaysia to feed the homeless, we will share her pureness too. Maybe that was why God allowed our 5000 nasi lemak ayam campaign succeeded to 6000 in numbers last month?? Wallahuaklam. Keep me strong Allah for I am just a small being in your great kingdom.
If you’ve not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren’t okay with it, then just wait. You’ll find it’s fine to be alone once you’re embracing it.
We can start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library, where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books; you’re not supposed to talk much anyway so it’s safe there.
There is also the gym, if you’re shy, you can hang out with yourself and mirrors, you can put headphones in.
Then there’s public transportation, because we all gotta go places.
And there’s prayer and mediation, no one will think less if your hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.
Start simple. Things you may have previously avoided based on your avoid being alone principles.
The lunch counter, where you will be surrounded by “chow downers”, employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town, and they, like you, will be alone.
Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.
When you are comfortable with “eat lunch and run”, take yourself out for dinner; a restaurant with linen and Silverware. You’re no less an intriguing a person when you are eating solo desert and cleaning the whip cream from the dish with your finger. In fact, some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.
Go to the movies. Where it’s dark and soothing, alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.
And then take yourself out dancing, to a club where no one knows you, stand on the outside of the floor until the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one’s watching because they’re probably not. And if they are, assume it is with best human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats, is after-all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you’re sweating. And beads of perspiration remind you of life’s best things. Down your back, like a book of blessings.
Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you. Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, they are always statues to talk to, and benches made for sitting gives strangers a shared existence if only for a minute, and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversation you get in by sitting alone on benches, might of never happened had you not been there by yourself.
Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after awhile nobody is dating them.
But lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless, and lonely is healing if you make it.
You can stand swathed by groups and mobs or hands with your partner, look both further and farther in the endless quest for company.
But no one is in your head. And by the time you translate your thoughts an essence of them maybe lost or perhaps it is just kept. Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those “sappy slogans” from pre-school over to high school groaning, we’re tokens for holding the lonely at bay.
Cause if you’re happy in your head, then solitude is blessed, and alone is okay.
It’s okay if no one believes like you, all experiences unique, no one has the same synapses, can’t think like you, for this be relived, keeps things interesting, life’s magic things in reach, and it doesn’t mean you aren’t connected, and the community is not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it.
Take silence and respect it.
If you have an art that needs a practice, stop neglecting it, if your family doesn’t get you or a religious sect is not meant for you, don’t obsess about it.
You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.
"why do you help them?" the question that has always been asked to me - I have no reasons actually, I have struggled to balance many thing. At times, I just wanted to stay in the comfort of my home. As human, I got frustrated when it became difficult, many times I feared if our fund would finish. I have been in tears many times to pick my strength back.
"Why do you help them?" - So, no reasons actually, except for I am doing what God has entrusted me to do, the responsibilities that I have to carry and that I have been given this chance in life and that I have never thought I would be chosen because I am nothing special. And because I am here and all of them are there. It is not really easy for me. My hope will be that all of you will always be there for them :)
As Bono said:
-"God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them" ~
A MUST WATCH! NUR ZAHRA INDONESIA - FASHION COLLECTION
I must say this whole collection is a double wow! I dont agree with anyone who opposed to being stylish and hijabed at the same time... my opinion is Why Not?
As a human being, we have evolved! As a moslem, we have evolved. As a person, we have evolved. We cant really change the essence of who we are as a whole just to suit other people's opinion or interpretation! Everything have to come naturally! Just because you do not agree on something, do you need to force everybody to agree with you or to be like you? Are you putting yourself at the same pedestal as God to judge everybody who go against your believe system? Poof to that !!
I came across some bitchy comments on hijab tutorials that were shown on YouTube on how some people (men and women) could be so nasty in forcing their views across and they ended up looking stupid and less dignified. What those people don't know is that, they could have done it better with kinder words and by being a good example! Which one is more sinful do you think - someone who speak rudely and harsh and his/her way of telling is by shaming the women to degradation and surrendering against her will or someone who is styling her hijab in ways that she feels happy with but not acceptable according to the standards being set up by the moral police? See the logic here?
And then there's this blog (unfortunately it is originated from my country) about 'how a woman shouldn't dress this way and that way while wearing a hijab, how their body parts were shown through the tight clothing etc, how they enticed the male species because their blouses or hijab were not long enough to cover their derrieres. Why did you look in the first place , sir/madam ,may I ask? While I may agree to some of their allegations, what is their business to create a blog and followers based on these subjects? Sadly, because it was based on religious issues, some men decided to join in the crowd and added more insults. This is just to show how horrendous religion has been used as their rights to shame and to humiliate. Islam does not teach that and even if you need to do it, speak with kindness and/or respect and that particular person then have to walk the talk! Having a foul mouth was not one of Rasullullah (SAW) characteristics from what I have been taught when I was 7 years old!!
My argument is this, shouldn't it be fair if attention is to be given in setting up a blog on 'Why men shouldn't abuse women because he has too many wives and children to take care of?' or 'Stricter law on men who left children behind because he is after a new wife?' or 'investigation of bribery in big projects' where some officers were known to ask for girls as their bedroom companion/s and under-table money in order to approve whatever projects they may have. Create a blog to stop people from gossiping about others (to lessen their sins!) (well, never happen) Now, hold on! I didn't accuse anybody here other than this is just a fine example of hypothetically speaking subjects ...
Err..so where was I just now? Ah yes! fashionable hijabs! Let just say, my decision on wearing a hijab some few months ago were based on my love for God and the respect I have for some men who have proven to me that there are still (though about to extinct) many men who are respectable, knowledgeable, kind, loyal and protective and still respect women as a whole and not threatened by their intelligence in any way.
How many men out there who forced hijabs on their wives but at the very same time look at other women (who are not covered and even having affairs with them?) Now, what I have been taught when I was seven, sin is equaled between a man and a woman. That sins are still counted as sin and not lessen because you are not a woman. I am not against men! Oh no, not at all! A woman is more often to be the one who destroy another woman, generally. So there !
Okay, let's go back to how wonderful is the NurZahra Indonesia's fashion Collections are !!
I think I am in the right mood to write tonight. I was watching 'The Time Traveler's Wife" on HBO. It was my 2nd time watching it and both time I was crying. It was quite a sad movie...though I know no one who can time travel, this movie is so recommended for people with feelings (duh!). It sounded weird but I was seldom seen crying in public. Some may call it tough but it was my surviving technique! I never liked to show my emotion in public so I cried and reminisced during sad movies!
Well, this is what I have been reminiscing and analysing ...I have stopped thinking about the future quite some time ago. I only lived for the present moment and tried to do the best I could do everyday (At times may not be the best when I got into a zombie lazy mode!) . Some may think I am lacking in ambitions (for they think striving for money and status is a must!) ... but then again, I never ' in want' for a bigger car, or a bigger house or a big diamond or lots of money. I just dont know how to... I dont want to be the best or the fastest. All I wanted is just to be me. (That was the thing I strive so hard)
I have done good in wanting to be just me. I have done that all my life... At the time when all my school mates went on to search for their dreams to be among the acceptable professional high-flyers, I went flying too but as an 'Air Stewardess' and left a good job as a Project Assistant in Tokyo. No I didnt plan it. It just happened. I know some of you may think 'aah an air stewardess! a high class waitress or a flying prostitute' but that was because you didnt get the chance to do that! (Because people said bad things like that when they couldnt have it!) But those were the best years of my life! I went around the world, jet setting, plenty of money and NO! I didnt become a flying prostitute! I was nice and full of integrity. See? If I cared what people said, I wouldnt experience anything at all.
Fast forward, I quit being an air stewardess to be a mother. Ahhh my life is like a movie. Full of surprises. I did things on impulse! At one point of my life I became a single mother with two little daughters. Life has been decided for me. They were my priority. Never mind I was still young at that time. I did it my way. I created a name on TV, I became a Yoga Icon. Not many people knew my griefs as a single mother because I told no one except some very close friends. I refused pity, I refused anyone who wanted to treat me differently. I moved like a ghost - so quite like the wind. People only know my success story but no one seen when I grieved. They were many happy times though! I discovered many things about me , I discovered I was stronger than I thought. My children were my anchor. I couldnt be irresponsible because I hold the 'amanah' from God.
I wasnt perfect at all. I made many, many mistakes. I couldnt afford to pretend to be somebody I wasnt. At one point of time I didnt have anything much so do you understand now when I said materials and money mean nothing much because it didnt mean anything to me as at that time I was too busy keeping my children and me safe.
Fast forward that, I built a business. I was a 'taiko'. Building my dream, the yoga studio and a business that came from a fantasy. I did it my way again! But, I learnt certain thinga the hard way again! . It wasnt easy handling business. My life wasn't mine anymore. So I moved on to do the things I love.
Nowadays, I am blessed with my husband Peter, the children and the cats. To me having Peter and my family (the cats too) worth everything I have gone through. I got the second chance of happiness. Well, I still don't have much. I refused to spend all my time making money even though the business I am in right now is quite lucrative if I put my everything there !But I rethink my priorities. To others, small things mean nothing but to me it means everything!
"But I know so many less lucky than I ..."(caption)
I treasure all the small things because I used to live without them and it wasn't really pleasant. Nowadays, I am just truly grateful for Allah and his mercy and forgiveness.
I personally think success didn't just come in the form of money, positions or materials. It also come in many areas in life. I gave a talk for a group of people last week on 'The Art of Yoga'. I felt on top of the world when they came up and said it was a wonderful talk and that I brought light to the room! I beamed when my yoga students marveled on how their life improved positively learning from me. Yes, all the good and bad experiences make me a good counselor today. I can read your birth date too. Without meaning to feed my ego, I am a quite sought after numerologist and Yoga Specialist. (That came from testimonies, I didn't make that up)
Sometimes things just got hard and it was harder to remind myself of my blessings but I tried to remember them always ... I started the street feeding program with my husband few years ago as my thanks to God and as a reminder of how blessed my life is and naturally feels very sad when the program was hijacked by people who became too greedy with their own agenda and ego . ahh well let them be!
I have made known of who I am to some people who matters. That I am just a human being and not perfect in many ways. I am aware there will always be someone better than me so I surrender to Allah and his glory because I am just one of his many creations and to have him sometimes paying attention to me and the gifts he has bestowed on me make me humbled. It is enough to be just happy to be me...and I forgive myself for my imperfection! I may not be the best, the fittest, the richest, the strongest but WHO IS?
The secret of a happy marriage might be nothing more complicated than the wife being slimmer than her husband.
A four-year study suggests that, in the short and long term, both partners are more contented if the woman has a lower Body Mass Index.
Initially men stay in the relationship because they find their thinner partner attractive, researchers concluded.
Further down the line, women feel confident and loved because they know their man still wants them.
The study could perhaps shed new light on the break-up of Jennifer Lopez and her husband Marc Anthony, who announced last week they are splitting up after seven years together.
The 40-year-old singer is admired as much for her generous posterior as her music while her husband is noticeably thinner than her. Other celebrity matches could also back up the theory.
Model Heidi Klum – who has retained her svelte figure – married singer Seal in 2005 and they have repeatedly renewed their vows.
David Beckham and his ever-slender wife Victoria also show no sign of losing the shine from their union 11 years after the event.
The study from the University of Tennessee selected 169 married couples aged under 35 and asked them to fill in questionnaires every six months for four years.
They discovered that men who had a higher BMI, which is calculated from height and weight, were happier at the start of their marriage and stayed that way.
The same effect was true for the women – by the end of year four wives with a lower BMI than their husbands were significantly happier than those who weighed the same or more.
Lead author Andrea Meltzer said: ‘The great message from our study is that women of any size can be happy in their relationships with the right partner.
'It’s relative weight that matters, not absolute weight. It’s not that they have to be small.’
She added: ‘There’s a lot of pressure on women in our society to achieve an often unreachably small weight.
‘One idea is that attractiveness and weight are more important to men. That might be why we see this emerging at the beginning of the marriage for husbands, and their dissatisfaction might be affecting wives’ satisfaction over time.’
Experts also suggested that men and women were happier in relationships where men are the ‘more powerful in a benign way’.
‘The good news is there are many dimensions that symbolise power for men,’ said couples therapist Susan Heitler.
Such signs could include income, intelligence, education level, height and weight, she said.
‘Those signs of bigness lead to a subconscious feeling within the woman of more security and, in turn, more marital satisfaction.’
Relationships expert Jean Hannah Edelstein added, however: ‘I would be sceptical that most men would really reject their partners on the basis of being overweight if there were no other issues.’
ERR... Stop your stare! I was not the writer! However I do know the best way to lose weight in 3 months and certified by Scientist and Doctors!! Ask me how on the next article !!
I came back home with Pete at 4.15 am last Sunday morning from the REACH OUT homeless program. I thought I wanted to blog about my journey right away but my eyes shut off without me realizing it. What a long day (and night)
Only 6 of us tonight on the midnight run me, Pete my dear husband, Jeff, Amin and two students from England Harriet and Jenny (who came here for a visit for some student's program)There were lesser volunteers tonight. Fortunately, we were never short of volunteers, some nights we have as many as 60!
But I was fine with lesser people tonight. Remind me of the good old days when we just started. In the beginning we did the feeding only on Saturday late afternoon. One day me, Peter, Kuji and her husband Zakir decided to go out in the middle of the night to check out on our homeless friends and where they slept (sort of doing the recce on our next project). The first stop was Pudu Bus Station at 1 am. There we saw people lying on the benches. I looked around and my heart sank. The reality of it all. What I couldn't erase from my mind was an old Malay couple about 70 years old. The wife slept on his lap while he sat on the bench. He looked around presumably to guard his wife and what little they have. He caught my eyes and I
smiled. He nodded and I looked away and started to cry quietly and I imagined, what if they were my parents... all the four of us were speechless that night.
Zakir and Kuji went on to continue their street food program every Wednesday for their company's CSR Program and Peter and me together with the Reach Out Volunteers added on more days for our activities. As Allah planned it to be, we are his soldiers who execute his plan.
That was the history of our midnight run about 2 years ago , not many people knew about this story though. I am also permanently on midnight run on Friday or Saturday or both days . So for those volunteers who kept on asking "Hi! are you new? never seen you before? or "are you still active?"..well, I am on the midnight run shift aka the vampire shift and I have the privileged to do so as a married woman because my husband needs to supervise the midnight shift, he is also needed in the afternoon shift, and whatever functions we are required to do or attend for REACH OUT . So I need to be the one to balance everything, as we both have a full time businesses. Let me just keep my big involvement in a very low profile mode ok? In other words, you will not see me very often during daylight for REACH OUT job.
That night, I walked around to meet my 'clients' as Pete so fondly called them. Met one 'Abang' (brother) at Masjid India. He came forward to get his food pack and lingered a moment so I asked how he was and where he came from. He started to open up and told me he is from Kuala Lumpur itself. He has no job because he got sick very often. He has been living on the street for the past 21 years and his family shunned him because he is a HIV positive. His only wish is for his family to bury him should he die. He said he got the illness from the syringe he used during his younger days. The Abang is 51 years old. I let him rumbled. I also know that I am one of the very few people who let him. I gave him extra food pack later so he has some food to eat for the next few days (Although it is a rule to give a pack per person)
I do not feel I am a better person than he is instead it is my privilege to be reminded and to be thankful for what I have. I will be reminded when I start to want more. Bigger car, bigger this, bigger that. What is enough? Peter always commented on how the street people opened up to me easily but I love to do it. Putting a name to a face. Knowing they too have a story to tell.My job as a Numerologist Counselor helps to make it easier for me to interact with people.
Doing this together with my husband is another blessing. It may not look easy but to us, it is done without question because we both know Allah has make it easier for us and we are repaid is some other ways. Plus we got to go on a date every week on the street till wee hour in the morning (not everybody can say that) ! In my eyes, Peter my husband is a warrior and my hero! He treats a CEO of a company and a homeless with the same treatment and respect. At the end of the day, we are all the same in God's eyes ...
- REACH OUT volunteers having coffee before midnight run
I am a new blogger. I am an accidental blogger. I am a confused blogger. I am a slow blogger.
I am all of the above... But hey I am a blogger! Can you believe it?? I still couldn't believe it because I couldn't stay still for a long time and I hate computers, laptops, whatever ... they are troublesome, technical and I thought oh so difficult to learn! ( I am not ancient okay!so please do not assume! I am just a woman who occasionally enjoy being floozy as to get things done for me and the furthest I would go on technicality is to use my galvanic spa to keep me looking like a 28 years old for another 10 years!)
So how in the world did I start to blog?
My house was robbed in the beginning of May..and the thieves took away my small laptop among other things. 2 weeks prior to that, I did a whole load of backing up of my files onto that small laptop. Every memories that I kept there was gone with the laptop. Just like the wind. My files, my work, my presentations, my photos, everything was gone!! I was cool at first, answering questions from the police etc. Alhamdullillah my family was safe! Towards the end of the day, I started to cry.. I felt violated in my own house . (My husband Peter said I got the 'after effect syndrome' - he used to work as a Police Officer in Hong Kong so I supposed he knew better!).
I became a bit out of balanced after that incident and I got sick. (flu, sore throat, the works!) To make matters worst I lost my voice completely! Yup that's right, nothing came out from my throat not even oohh or ahh ... I was hoping God wont take it completely for some reasons or could it be he wanted me to know how a dumb person really feels without a voice so I would appreciate my voice better rather than wishing it sounded more like any kids from Glee ... I couldn't speak so I couldn't do anything, I took off from teaching yoga and all my other businesses. I couldn't answer the phone too. What could be worst?
That was how i ended up blogging! I observed the other bloggers, how some of them have so many followers, booming businesses, this and that. Hey maybe I could do that! So if I lost my voice I can do my business through blogging, perhaps?? So my first article came out but nobody followed me ...not good! Time to force my husband and my daughters to follow me so as not to look unpopular! Sent invitations to FB friends - only 10 followed! Okay, let's resend ...hmmm still nothing! Ok got the hint!!
Naomi and Innaz - my blog followers
Eventually, thanks to my other fellow bloggers from all over the world who have been following me and do not make me feel so lonely. (Thank you! thank you! thank you!) Some of the unexpected genuine encouragements from some new found friends on how much they enjoyed my blog. Few friends who took time to vote and drop a nice note or two and comments! It was so lovely, really!
On second thoughts, maybe I am 10 years too late to hype something new (Did I say 10 years? I mean 2 years! ) Looks like there will not be another Hana Tajima Simpson or another hijab shawl blogger which has a thousand buyers! Maybe I could treat this blog as a hobby and who knows one day I may create something. What I do know, I have managed to touch some souls! That should be good enough.
Well, Hijab n the city is a glimpse to my soul especially for those friends, who share the same birth year as me but whom I have not spoken or seen for a long time! Don't we all changed? Assumptions are not the truth. For those who think I was still a timid unpopular little girl in school and would not amount to anything. Well guess what? wrong again!! Wish we could know each other better but not!
Boarding school could screw up anybody's head, I guess! (Boy! am I getting into trouble for this?) But what I taught my young students and my daughters, being a bully, would scar you in later life... If you pride yourself as being beautiful and stubbed your thumb to others in school, remember that you may not be able to retain your looks too long... Straight A's do not mean you are the best! Different individual are not weird, they are just different.... That was me in school - different! Believe me, it is true! For my dear friends who stick with me through thick and thin ... I love you guys (even if you murder somebody, I will still love you and visit you in death row)
I got my voice back eventually and start work:( I realized too that as a human being, simple things like being able to see, touch, talk, walk, hear and taste are the greatest gifts and assets one could have! These have been given by Allah in his mercy for us all to use and to be the best we can be .
WELL I HAVE A BLOG NOW AND THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS !! YEAY!!
Meet Me By The River: From The Heart: "Sometimes you just need three little letters to make a difference. Y.E.S. That's all. Just three letters. I finished the late run with R..."
