Amorelicious | Joie de vivre

When Life Gives Lemons

Jan. 22 2012

There are many certainties in life. Every morning, millions of people wake up to glorious sunrises. The Earth twirls in a silent and ethereal way within the glittering galaxies it in encased in. And somehow that bite of dark chocolate does wonders to uplift your mood.

Equally, life sometimes surprises us with its mysterious turn of events. You might meet your soul mate in a public library while devouring your velvety coffee. Patients find themselves miraculously cured after battling illnesses for so long. Others might find themselves thrown in the middle of the ocean struggling to stay afloat. Last Friday, I was thrown from a steep cliff into the unknown.

I was in the mall running some errands when I felt a sudden sharp pain striking my neck and back. So I thought I did a stupid move and expected that ache to go away by itself. It didn’t. The pain was magnified to excruciating levels and it reached a point where I was almost paralyzed and could not move my neck or head in any direction. I felt like an innocent prisoner locked in a dungeon for no apparent reason. After being hospitalized and meeting with several doctors, it turned out I had dislocated a disc in my spine and would require months of treatment.

At the moment when I was conveyed the disturbing news, I knew I had a choice to make: I could choose to make a melodramatic mess of myself or turn this into a positive learning opportunity. When I left the hospital after midnight, I looked up questioningly at the celestial skies. Why did this happen to me? Was I being punished? Why did I have to suffer yet another setback in my life? I was in my weakest moments, thrown in a tempestuous nausea from the medications and aching and worse, I was in despair. I could almost envision my precious health robbed away from me and leaving me crippled and limited with my choices.

This is when my books came to my comfort once again. A few weeks ago, I started reading about the lives of great leaders and achievers, including the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) and I started projecting his life in my imagination. He was an orphan who lost his beloved wife and all his children, save one, during his lifetime. Though he had a strong reputation for his impeccable manners and integrity, he was demeaned as a madman. All he wanted was to spread goodness in the world, and lots of it. Instead, he was faced with armies of enemies striving to kill him. Yet he was protected and elevated to the highest status in our eyes. The prophet Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery. He got imprisoned and was the last to leave, but when he did, he became the grand vizier while his two companions got either killed or made as a servant.

Thomas Edison and Ludwig Van Beethoven had hearing impairments. Napoleon Bonaparte, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Socrates, Theodore Roosevelt, and Vincent van Gogh all had epilepsy. Winston Churchill had speech impediments. Hans Christian Andersen, Walt Disney, Richard Branson, and Leonardo da Vinci had dyslexia. But nothing stopped these people from achieving astounding amounts of success. If you have a great spirit, you can soar to the stars.

Adversities teach us to be resilient and to tap into our untapped power reserves. They enable our souls to become lucid with realization about what truly matters and to count our countless blessings. We can weed out unfaithful people. Most importantly, we feel closer to God in these most helpless moments. It is a marvelous relief to know that despite the world turning its back on you, there’s still Someone who will never forsake you.

So, when life gives you lemons? Make luscious lemon cakes and lots of it. You gotta keep livin’. And don’t forget to count your blessings each day. You may never realize how precious they are until you lose them.

“The biggest thing in today’s sorrow is the memory of yesterday’s joy.” – Kahlil Gibran

You can choose to look at life any way you like

Feel the beauty of prayer in your most desperate moments…

Have fun! Life’s too short to live it sourly

Don’t feel bad for what you don’t have. Instead, feel gratitude for everything you have been blessed so far

Posted in Musings

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The Female Hero

Jan. 07 2012

Living in the Middle East, one can’t help but empathize with the plight of women. From birth, a girl is bombarded with a set of social projections that suppress her talents, clip her dreams, and channel her energy to the servitude of the domestic sphere. If she has been lucky to have loving parents who have encouraged her to pursue her dreams, she is rarely lucky when she is entrapped by a man who puts out that feisty desire. The world weeps when another budding female artist, writer, doctor, philosopher, traveler, and dreamer withers out of existence.

Because of the widespread control of patriarchal forces, even literature about women is suffused with instructions on how to provide domestic bliss to husbands and children. Have you ever paused to ponder how Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty are enjoying their captivities by waiting for a prince to make them feel complete and fulfilled? Or how about the recent examples of women flocking the malls in flimsy abayas, glittering in jewels, and arched with heels simply to lure a man’s heart? Why can’t a woman attract a man with her intellect, virtuousness, and inner beauty anymore? Strong women who refuse such directives are immediately shunned as deviant.

After being told she is defective, a woman is encouraged to be “perfect”. – Carol Pearson and Katherine Pope in The Female Hero in American and British Literature

It is an ironic misunderstanding since, deep within the crevices of our souls, we all seek unconditional love, trust, and appreciation best found in the institution of marriage. However, this ‘ideal’ has been twisted to a deformed version of subjugation and servitude rather than acknowledgement of woman as an irreplaceable part of the family. Being a mother is a thankless job and only noble spirits recognize this. It is the mother who anxiously awaits nine months to give birth to a child (while enduring unbearable pain) for the simple reason to shower him/her with love and blessings. It is the mother who nurtures her children with positive thoughts and fills them with beautiful projections of the lives they are going to have. It is the mother who is the chef, the chauffeur, the doctor, the psychiatrist, the matron, the playmate, the teacher, and the friend. All these occupations synergize into one angelic form of a mother.

So, yes, we womenfolk would gladly do our parts in the happy family image. Yet, that doesn’t mean that is the only role that should be ascribed to us, for we are also beings with souls, intellects, and bodies. All at once, we yearn for soft caresses from our partners, and we desire to have a heated debate on politics, and we want to open our wings and soar. Like any living being, with the right nurturance, a woman can be liberated from the chains within her to convert that doubt into a belief that she is worthwhile and that she deserves a chance to elevate to her true identity, for that is what life is all about: a journey to self-actualization. Though her capacities are latent today, they will explode tomorrow with their beautiful rainbow colors and make the world a better place.

To all the women out there, celebrate and support each other.

To all the men, your Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) said that the best amongst you is the best to his family. So, remove the mask of tyranny and love us endlessly. You will see wonders when you do.

A flower can take your breath away. You could either see it utterly beautiful or just focus on its thorns

Don’t condition young girls to seek approval by physical beauty and ignore intellect and virtue

Bring out the individual beauty of each woman instead of creating lifeless puppets out of them

One of the best feminist works I’ve read

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Savoring 2012

Jan. 01 2012

There is something so splendid about the beginning of a new year. Bookstores display gorgeous 2012 diaries, cafés and restaurants delight gourmands with their festive menus, and the skies are illuminated with fluttering fireworks. It also gives us time to reflect and celebrate moments that were etched in our hearts from the previous year. The author Phyllis Nicholson says, “And what does January hold? Clean account books. Bare diaries. Three hundred and sixty-five new days, neatly parceled into weeks, months, seasons. A chunk of time, of life… those few first notes like an orchestra tuning up before the play begins“.

Think back to your childhood when you still had a sense of wonder and envisaged how your life would play out before the naysayers popped those dreams like arrows piercing multicolored balloons. Is there something on your wish list that you always wanted to do but never got a chance to? Many people go through life mistakenly thinking that to live spiritually means that they cannot revel in life’s abundance. If these thoughts ever crossed your mind, it is reassuring to read the Quran and ponder on the many verses where God encourages us to be happy.

“He it is Who created for you all that is on the earth.” (Quran 2:29)

This morning, spend a glorious hour putting a vision for the upcoming year. Curl up in your sunken sofa, sip a luscious cup of banoffee hot chocolate, and paint a vision of your wishes in your notebook. Go wild. After you finish, take little steps to ensure you do your part in the plan and luxuriate in waiting for God to do the rest, trusting that He is All-Loving and All-Merciful.

My list for the upcoming year is to:

Love God more and get closer to Him by enlightening myself and always trusting that He equally loves me.
Shower my family with unconditional love and blissful times.
Bless the hopeful and cheerful children who are waiting for glimmers of hope, be it through a scholarship, nourishing meals, a library of books, or kind and uplifting words.
Devour books on children’s literature, contemporary women’s novels, travelogues, gourmand cooking, self-help and parenting guidebooks, and historical fiction set in the Andalusian and Ottoman eras.
Handwrite my epiphanies and reflections. Mythologist Joseph Campbell (author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces) says that wonders are revealed in sacred spaces, be they in the form of a garden, a poem, a painting, or a book. My library is my sanctuary.
Set my wanderlust free and travel. Every night, I will cruise in my land of dreams to artsy Barcelona, splendorous Seville, chic Paris, the fairy tale Romantic Road in Germany, and the azure oceans that surround the Mauritius.

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Living a Little Festively

Dec. 16 2011

There was a man who traveled across the Atlantic on a cruise ship but never ate in the dining room. Instead, he would go off in a corner and eat cheese and crackers he had brought with him. Near the end of the trip, another man asked him, “Why don’t you come into the banquet hall and eat with us?” the traveler’s face flushed with embarrassment. “Well, to tell you the truth, I had only enough money to buy the ticket.” The other passenger shook his head and said, “Sir, the meals were included in the price of the ticket!” - Joel Osteen

Many of us go through life with an uptight mentality when it comes to enjoying life’s abundance. The question remains: what is preventing us from experiencing a piece of Paradise right here on Earth as a way of luring us to the eternal abode filled with unconceivable delights?

Wanderlust is the elixir of life. How often have you watched the globetrekkers on the Travel Channel amazed at the bustling floating market in Bangkok, or delighting in a peach gelato while equally feasting on the marvelous views of Lake Como, or take the time to understand the process of making the most famous brands of chocolates and cheeses in factories residing against the backdrop of a sleepy Swiss town?

This season, I decided it’s time to live a little festively and join the year-long carnival of local delights. An Italian professor friend of mine recently invited me to a screening of an Italian film at the Dubai International Film Festival. I joined a flurry of film aficionados at the glittering venue amidst the oasis of Madinat Jumeirah. The film, Terrafirma, is directed by Emanuele Crialese and it recounts the story of a Sicilian family and how they deal with the illegal African immigrants who land on their island during the touristy summer months. The warmth offered to the immigrants, one of them delivered a child at their house, was a beautiful rendition of the universal goodness innate in people still. It was also a fresh move away from the superficial Hollywood movies.

If you want to fly to Paris for a couple of hours, the L’ateliers des Chefs in Dubai offers an array of culinary courses. I had the most fun in the mouth-watering Macarons and Chocolate classes.

Posted in Experiences

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Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Dec. 05 2011

I’ve long taken an interest in period features and historical novels and during my recent trip to London, I managed to get my hands on a collection of BBC adaptations of classics, one of which was Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. In it, I found transcendent themes of love, femininity, justice, and a story that will remain etched in my memory.

The film opens with a picturesque scene of a May Day Dance, and Tess joining in the festivities with the locale. She is beautiful in an ethereal way, innocent, loyal, kind, and aspires to pull herself out of the working class life by training to become a teacher. The author chooses this spiritual and festive moment to introduce Tess to a man named Angel Clare, a man who will become part of her life forever. This is one of the most beautiful scenes in the film as it sets the theme for pure love set against the pristine countryside.

Tess’s father is stopped by a parson studying ancient aristocratic families in England and is informed that he is a direct descendent of the aristocratic D’Urbervilles family. Seeing this as an opportunity for assistance in their time of misfortune, Tess, as the eldest of her siblings, is forced to go to her D’Urbervilles relatives at Tantridge to claim kin and seek their monetary support.

Instead of meeting with Mrs. D’Urbervilles, Tess meets with her miscreant son, Alec. Portrayed by the dark and handsome Hans Matheson, the reader and viewer can instantly sense a feeling of distrust in his diabolical character. Born bad, as he states so himself, “I suppose I am a bad fellow – a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability”, he begins stalking the innocent Tess against her will. Though she tries to resist him with grace and patience, he eventually gets the better of her during an opportune time and rapes her.

Tess is left in a numb and self-loathing state and returns to her family’s cottage. She later gives birth to a son whom she named Sorrow and as her father castigated her for shaming the family, he refuses to have the baby baptized. The baby, however, is sickly and dies within a few weeks. Tess is given another blow when the local pastor refuses to allow the baby to be buried in the church’s graveyard and she decides to leave the village in search of employment and possibly start a new page in her life.

Tess eventually finds employment at the Talbothays dairy farm and she is surrounded by a loving community. She meets Angel Clare there once again and they fall madly in love. As their love blossoms, Angel starts idealizing the image of Tess as a pure goddess since she comes from the countryside and he being the son of a well-off clergyman. This puts pressure on Tess on whether to confess her shadowy past to Angel or not. Angel eventually proposes to Tess and for the first time, it seems that her fortunes are starting to brighten. However, on their wedding night, Angel confesses to his dallying with an elderly woman in London and naively assuming that he will forgive her previous misgivings too, she tells him all.

“The woman that I love is not you,” says Angel after Tess finishes her tragic tale. It is ironic that after trying so hard to persuade his parents to accept his choice of Tess as a wife, he would leave her for something that was out of her control. We may wonder why Tess, living in the nineteenth century even risked telling her husband about her past, “I love him. It would have been a sin to deceive him”, demonstrating her purity of heart.
Angel decides to leave for Brazil to pursue his farming ventures and tells Tess that he needs time to think over their relationship and that he will contact her in due time. Returning home with little money, her mother reprimands her for her stupidity, yet Tess is hopeful that if Angel truly loves her, he would not castigate her for something that was against her will. Forced to work again, Tess “jumps from the frying pan straight into the fires of hell” and goes back to work during a brutal winter season. Coincidently while walking next to the farm one afternoon, she sees a travelling tent and is shocked to find Alec preaching to an audience.

This is where the plot gets interesting. Upon seeing Tess, Alec loses his weak spiritual façade and starts pursuing Tess again. Tess wrote letters to Angel but didn’t hear from him, so she assumes that he is not coming back. In one of her letters, she writes, “O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and I can never, never forgive you! You know that I did not intend to wrong you – why have you so wronged me? You are cruel, cruel indeed! I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at your hands!”
At this point in the story, I am torn apart as Tess unwillingly succumbs to Alec’s pursuits and his promises of providing enough for her family to live comfortably, especially after her father dies. I am still hopeful that Angel, her guardian angel will come to her rescue.

Meanwhile, Angel was recovering from yellow fever and heeding the advice of a man who says that he shouldn’t blame his wife for something that was in the past, he starts seeking out Tess in various locations. He finally finds her in the posh resort of Sandbourne, where she is known as Mrs. D’Urbervilles. Heart-broken, she cries out to Angel, “It is too late for me now, I’m already dead.” Angel leaves without a fight, probably ashamed of forsaking her in the beginning.

Tess goes back to the room to the selfish and abusive Alec and after a heated fight, she murders him and rushes off to find Angel. She finds him in the train station and they hide away in the countryside until they can find a port on which to sail away. Tess and Angel share a few days of uninterrupted bliss in a rented house that they had broken into before being discovered by the cleaner. They run away again and eventually arrive at Stonehenge and spend a night under the stars before being surrounded by the police in the morning. “It couldn’t have lasted,” Tess said, “Too much happiness.” The last scene of the book depicts her execution and Angel walking away, heart-broken.

I was too shocked for words to make sense of why the author chose such a grim ending for his innocent protagonist. According to Tess’s friend, Izz Huet, who concluded after speaking with Angel, “Whatever she’s done, she doesn’t deserve this.” Perhaps the author wanted to talk about the realities of rural life and the injustice cast upon women by the patriarchal order. Her father, for example, was an unwise parent who has absolved his responsibilities of sheltering his daughter from harm in several instances. No mention was made of him seeking justice when his kin, Alec D’Urbervilles, had raped his daughter nor any compassion is shown towards the baby and his eventual death. I also believe that Hardy wanted to portray Angel’s role in Tess’s fall by creating unrealistic expectations of his idealized partner to the point that his misdeeds should be forgiven by her but not vice versa. It is also interesting to note why Tess, in the final scene where Angel shows up, couldn’t have simply walked away with him and left him to protect her from Alec? Why did she have to kill him?

Throughout the story, I kept looking for glimmers of hope for poor Tess. Maybe some stories do end up tragically and perhaps sadness is a better instigator of action towards alleviating women’s plights worldwide. But maybe, just maybe, a vision of happiness could have been a far better source of inspiration for us readers and potential advocates of human rights.

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