Temporary

I woke up at 9:00 a.m. and did something a little different. Despite my heart's uneasiness—the urge that drives me to go, go, go and do, do, do to distract myself—I went to the washroom, brushed my teeth, and then went back to bed to continue reading The Beautiful Struggle. I am living and feeling two lives at once: the past of Ta-Nehisi Coates and the present of mine, which, for a moment, intensifies this feeling in my heart. Is this feeling anxiety, or is it something else?

I’m still learning to identify and name the swirls inside my heart. I suspect that each swirl is unique, each with its own identity and name. But my emotional vocabulary is limited to one word: anxiety. Maybe anxiety is a collection of emotions that add up to this name? Maybe. One thing I’ve learned over the past couple of years from surfing and the ocean is that no wave waves forever. Each wave has a beginning and an end. Some waves you ride, others you let pass, and some waves will knock you off your board into nature’s washing machine, where you can only pray to come out on the other side in one piece.

I feel like that in this moment.

The other side is yet to come. I’ll be swirling around in this for the next few weeks or maybe even months. But I have learned to come out of these moments a better "surfer" of this body of water called life.

I am the moon, and my life is the ocean. I am both the cause and recipient of these waves. Whoever and whatever I am, I know that this moment—however much it may feel overextended and seem like infinity—is, like all others.

Temporary.

It can only last forever if I try to control the vibration of the pebble I skipped across the still lake. It, too, will settle but will never be the same again. When it settles, all will be anew, inside and outside.

It’s only been an hour. It feels like hours have passed. I got a lot done: laundry, dishes, brunch, a little maintenance of my place, and of course, some writing. No music, no media, just the sounds of domestic instruments and the hum of vehicles outside my window. This is my nature at the moment. Not the sounds of insects and birds in the Amazon, or the ocean waves of the Pacific and Atlantic, or the markets in Spain, Morocco, and Nepal. In this moment, my nature is surrounded by industrial sounds—the nuts and bolts of the Western world.

I would be lying to myself if I said Ta-Nehisi Coates has not inspired me to move closer to my dream of being a full-time writer in the months to come. This is my dream. To travel and write with a partner by my side. This is my dream. Like Paulo Coelho and Haruki Murakami, Ta-Nehisi Coates is unlocking and activating new parts of me at a cellular level, one sentence at a time. His words, his story, are a key to the tucked-away and locked-up memories in my internal basement. What a gift. I’ve been searching and waiting for this over the last few months, maybe even years.

Inspiration.

We all need it from time to time. At least I do. I realize that I’m fortunate and lucky to have come across this angelic being who exported this book, The Beautiful Struggle, into my consciousness. I’m surprised that despite all his interviews promoting his new book The Message over the last couple of weeks, including the one on CBS, people still haven’t heard about him. This is mind-blowing to me, and it’s also a reminder of why it’s important for me to keep sharing my work, my writing, and my experiences. Why? Because I still carry this thought that the wisdom I’ve cultivated over my 47 years is of little to no value to the outside world because it’s old news. This thought is subtler now compared to the past, but it still likes to visit unannounced from time to time.

Everyone of color, particularly Black and brown people, should at least know his name, even if they don’t read his work. His interviews are powerful and inspiring. His ability to do what others in the soup haven’t—open up a platform for the voices of the suppressed and expose the hypocrisy and naivete of the American public—is remarkable. Yes, there are others speaking out, but Ta-Nehisi Coates seems to have broken down new barriers and reignited the flame of discussion for the Palestinian people.

Illusion? Perhaps.

Nonetheless, we truly cannot stop speaking about it. This is not just a fight for the Palestinians; this is a fight for the soul of humanity and the soul of our mother. I don’t know when we’ll come out the other side, when this washing machine cycle will end, but I know there is another side. Karma is brewing, and that bitch is going to cum hard. It seems like an eternity on our clocks, but in the time frame of the divine, it’s right on time.

Faith and a deep knowing keep my hopes alive. I see beyond to the other side, and I see a sunshine and the rays of a new sun.

Sabur. Sabur, Sabur.