-
Home?
Home has always been a difficult concept. I grew up in the West, during my childhood I remember getting annoyed when my parents called Libya home. I remember them speaking of “when we are going to go home” and get really annoyed, Canada was home. We were Canadian. I remember when we finally “went home” and I was upset, our relatives would say to me “you were eventually going to come home, how long were you intending to stay abroad?”
-
Celebrating Discipline
Islam is a faith like no other in that we celebrate acts of worship. Our main two celebrations, Eid, both happen around two (of five) of the pillars of faith: fasting and pilgrimage.
(more…) -
يستحقون الهداية
لم أكن أعتقد أن الانتقال للعيش في الغرب سيكون صعب، بالأخص أنني لست غريبة على الغرب فلقد عشت أيام طفولتي هنا حتى بداية المرحلة الثانوية وسافرت لدول غربية مرارًا وتكرارًا وعملت مع جهات غربية لسنوات ودرست الماجستير في دولة غربية الخ ولذلك أعتقدت أن الانتقال سيكون شئ سهل وسلس وربما بديهي في التعود. ولكن الواقع كان مختلف تماماً فالاستقرار في الغرب من أصعب التحديات وأثقلها حملاً دون تجاربي مع الحياة. وربما من ما زاد من الأمر صعوبة وبرز الفرق بين الحياة في الغرب والشرق هو تأثير الجائحة والتي جعلتنا نختبئ بين جدران منزلنا لأشهر ونعيش في مساحة ضيقة ولكن في ذات الوقت مساحة مريحة تحمينا من أي شي دخيل او غريب علينا ولذلك أصبح لدي تعود على “منطقة الراحة” أكثر من أي وقت صعبة
(more…) -
You don’t owe anyone anything.
I was talking to a friend this morning and remembered one of the deepest lessons I’ve learnt in the past couple of years: I don’t own anyone anything.
(more…) -
Consciousness
We are in a world that sells to us the idea that we can escape our everyday reality. That there is a way to let loose and ignore it all, as a way to feel – momentarily – better. We see it in pop culture, media, books and anywhere our eyes set upon and through everything we hear: Netflix and chill, binge eating, intoxication, retail therapy and the other multitude of things that take us far from our reality for a bit or make us feel numb. We are constantly being marketed a non-satisfactory means of filling in the discomfort we feel within us.
(more…) -
God Never Promised You Days Without Pain
The title to this post in a line from one of my favourite songs Warrior//Worrier by Outlandish. I was driving on the highway after dropping my daughter at school a few weeks back and as I was driving I was scanning my head for trying to think of something to listen to that would give my spirit a spark. This song came to my mind and I turned it on; from the first line it was like it was the missing piece that tied so many life experiences together into a nice package that made it all make sense. That’s the beauty of art – something I have come to really appreciate in these « panorama » days of our lives.
(more…) -
Barren Walls
I’m sitting in my kitchen somehow too exhausted to finish unpacking but yet with an inspiration to put into words what I’m feeling. I feel a restlessness to write. The light in the kitchen is dimmed and the rest of the house is dark. I can hear the freezing rain pouring down outside while the furnace occasionally starts up downstairs to keep the house warm.
(more…) -
The Year 2020
We have all, without exception, experienced a challenging and difficult year. I too have had quite the experience that I can say has broken me in a way I never could have foreseen.
(more…) -
How to Write a Post-Grad Essay
Writing an essay can be a really difficult task and one that is challenging to even just start. Here I hope to share some tips that I learnt that really helped me with my essays in grad school.
-
Post-Graduate Tips: What I wish I knew when I first started my Masters
Choosing to pursue a postgraduate education is a big step and can be very overwhelming. I would say it took me about two months into my postgrad for my heart to stop racing and to be able to let it sink in. Along the way, over the past year I have learnt many things and devised different habits and skills to keep up with the never-ending reading and writing that the student-life entails. In this blog post, I hope to share with you the things I wish I knew when I first started my postgrad.
-
Back
I have not written in a long time, a little over a year now.
Throughout the day so many ideas and thoughts come to mind which I promise myself I will write about. However, like what happens when you drop any hobby, getting back on the horse is the most difficult part.
After a year of change, learning and excitement; I believe I am in a place to start sharing my thoughts and stories again. I hope that whatever you come across here is a source of enlightenment, empowerment and maybe even inspiration?
Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions.
In the name of God we begin.
-
Do you ever ask yourself who you are?
Every day I find myself asking that question and most of the time being unable to find an answer, hence concluding that maybe I don’t know myself well enough.
When I was twenty I travelled alone for the first time, I went to the Washington DC to spend six weeks there on an exchange program. I remember thinking to myself that this is my chance to see who I am far away from anything familiar that defines or influences me. I was very eager to see how I would withstand the test of just being me alone and far away, I was excited to discover myself. I learnt a lot from the experience, a lot about me unfiltered, uninfluenced and raw.
-
“A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”
– Robert Frost
-
مساحات عامة
لدينا أزمة… أو بالأحرى لدينا أزمات عديدة ولكن هنا أريد الحديث عن أزمة إجتماعية لا أعرف من أين بدأت ولكن لم تعالج حتى يومنا هذا، وهي نقص أو عدم وجود مساحات عامة في ليبيا. أنا متأكدة أن البعض يقرءون هذه الكلمات وفي أذهايهم الحرب في بنغازي وأحداث الأمس في تاجوراء وفشلوم ولكن ما ننساه أن الكثير من هذه المشاكل الضخمة لها أصل وعلينا البدأ من مكان ما في العلاج وهنا أقترح خط البداية الذي ربما سيساهم في طريقنا إلى السلام
-
Thinking of You: Part 1
Thinking of you
Your eyes smiling with amusement
Lips lifted, holding out a smile
Laughing out loud, the Earth’s joy
Flowing through your veins.
(more…) -
Difficulty & Pain Give You Wings
When things fall apart
The golden wings of opportunity swoop down
To guide you. -
My Love; The English Countryside
I have fallen in love with a place I have never been, but nevertheless my love is not shaken by the absence of actually experiencing being there. I first fell in love with the English countryside in my pre-med years, I would spend hours in the school library which was quite basic and overlooked by me in previous years. Most of the books in there are the kind you would find in Salvation Army Donation Stores, leather bound, dusty or with really queer covers and titles. (more…)
-
Being In Control
We live in a world full of opportunity and with each opportunity dozens of options. In the midst of all these choices I have also begun to notice a culture of control, rather than having these options expand our horizons and provide a new sense of freedom, instead I find it nails down our limbs and limits our expectations. We now only expect what we want and are almost never willing to try something different or do something new outside the boundaries of our own expectations.
-
الأمل والإيمان
منذ فترة كتبت الخاطرة التالية: “ليس هناك أصعب من مسامحة نفسك .. وليس هناك أسوأ من الندم”، لا أدري ما هو الأمر عند الرجال ولكن أعرف أن بالنسبة لنا نحن النساء نمر بمراحل عصيبة نتسائل هل نحن نستحق ما نحصل عليه؟ وهل كل ما نفعله كافياً؟ وأهم سؤال… هل هناك ضوء في نهاية النفق؟ والإجابة العاقلة هي بكل تأكيد نعم دائماً هناك أمل ولكن في بعض الأحيان من الصعب على العقل إقناع القلب بهذا الإيمان في الله في هذه الظروف الصعبة (more…)
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Khadija Ali ••• خديجة علي 