hawa noor

Undercover dragonfly jotting shit down.

[hawanoorarchive]

May 8 2016

Journal Entry (Unedited freewrite! Excuse the typos)

There is something terrifying about feeling uninspired and directionless. You don’t know where to go, you don’t know exactly where you need to be. You read about having discipline, and creating consistently, and making yourself known, and finding opportunities, but you consistently fall flat and fail yourself and disappoint those around you. You never, actually, give anything your 100%. Instead of putting in your all and having people be proud of you and being pleased with your work, you consistently provide yourself with less than you should, you output less, you don’t give anything your all.

This is a problem.

Learn how to be better. Learn how to be patient. Learn how to be patient. Learn how to be patient. Learn how to see the bigger picture and understand that there are good things waiting for you, but understand that nothing happens overnight. You will have to make sacrifices to be where you want to be. The most important thing, for now, is that you keep creating and keep making and keep learning. It’s okay if you don’t get there overnight.

This greed for success will stifle you. You won’t get where you need to be if you consistently are frozen by the possibility of failure. You will not fail, sis. You got this. You are going to win, inshaAllah. Everything you do, do with love, and you will get there and you will win.

You may not know what you need to write about, but what you do need to do is be disciplined. Every. Single. Day. You have the time.

What you do not have, baby, is the discipline.

Perhaps it’s your depression stifling you and stopping you from making the strides necessary to succeed. Maybe it’s your fear of failure. Maybe it’s that you feel directionless.

Remember how you spent 9 hours a day for a week creating your paintings?

Hours at a time writing pieces? Having them edited? Reworking them?

Creating is work. It is nothing easy. It is nothing that’s going to take you five minutes and some change, nothing that isn’t going to tear open everything that you are and leave you exposed with potentially no fruitfulness to follow [sic].

[hawanoorarchive]

ugly

- one thread of my life has been a continuous series of giving a lot of my inner + outer self to people who don't feel it necessary to do the same. this isn't a comment on them. no one owes me pieces of themselves, ever. the energy they choose to give me is enough. the place i hold in their lives, as long as it's healthy, is enough. it's a comment on me. where are my boundaries? why is it that relationships fall into my life where i share, and share, and share, hoping for reciprocity, only to feel slapped and cheated when the sharing isn't mutual? - my depression is embarrassing. - kenya is a family-driven place, which makes me feel fucked up because family is not something i relate with. families are confidants, givers of advice, supporters, cheerers, people who love you for who you are and want the absolute best for you. family is knowing that you'll always have a corner to call yours in a space, that you are a part of a community, an inner circle, where secrets are shared and respected. i've grown accustomed to building my own families. chosen families. but i always leave, or they leave, or i make mistakes and see point #1. - happiness might not be for everyone.

[hawanoorarchive]

'No one will believe you can do it until you actually do'

[hawanoorarchive]

#16: Catch the Sunrise (25 Things)

i can’t remember if I was shaken awake by my internal alarm clock or if it was the fajr adhan that shocked me out of sleep at 4:55 AM this morning. I set my alarm for 5:15 and settled in to go back to sleep. Something told me to get up and pray fajr instead, so I did. It feels nice to pray on my own terms, when I want to, without being coerced or guilted into it.

I went up to the roof to catch the sunrise. The sky had gone from a witching-hour black to a safer, more inviting navy blue. I was about to settle into catch the sun rise over the ocean, but then I realized that I was a walking distance away from the fucking ocean.

I bolted downstairs, quickly changed out of my pajamas to avoid stares once the sun rose, found my way to the beach in a matter of two minutes. My intention was to walk to a secluded area and sit on the beach, but the tide was high. I found my place on a stone ledge, my feet dangling over the slowly receding shoreline.

I expected to witness a bright orange sun rising over the horizon across me. It was partly cloudly, so instead, I focused my attention on the colours in the sky.

I happened to look behind me, towards where the sun sets, and noticed that it was still pitch black outside. I was completely alone, in the dark, by the ocean, but it felt good. Safe. Comfortable. Welcoming.

So, I sat and watched the sunrise at an empty beach in Lamu. Alhamdulillah, it doesn’t get much more surreal than this, I don’t think.

(Here’s the list of 25 things I’ve set out to do and write about)

[hawanoorarchive]

Things I Am Grateful For This Year: A Growing List

I am at home, in Kenya, by the ocean. 

I am rediscovering spirituality on my own terms. 

My Swahili has improved. 

I always have food to eat. 

I am spending more time with my grandma than I ever have in my life. 

I graduated from university with a good GPA despite how difficult and unpleasurable the academic side was.

I strengthened bonds with amazing women in my life.

I met and bonded with my nephew for the first time. 

I got over a 3 year infatuation that was draining my energy.

I learned that I can swim in the deep ocean.

I learned how to love my hair.

I reconnected with family that I haven’t seen in over 15 years.

I have begun to uncover and work on my shadow self, first unconsciously and now consciously.

I met Ali Kiba (!!!!!!!!!!)

I went snorkelling for the first time

I’ve decided to be true to myself and my goals

I attended my first family wedding where I knew almost everyone who was there on our side.

I participated in my first art exhibition.

I started a blog with another person. 

I went to the Lamu Cultural Festival for the first time.

I was a part of a student union that (I think) did amazing things for it’s members and grew at an excellent rate.

I rebranded the organization.

I designed several logos that are now in professional use.

We put on a play that hundreds of people attended and loved; young Black girls felt connected to the characters and Black adults found the plot hilarious - I had the opportunity to help a very talented director on this. 

I found a Muslim owned tea shop in Toronto and one of the owners is Zanzibari!

I interned for an artist.

I also interned for an organization that caters specifically to Black women.

I attended an artist’s professional development and networking event.

My friend named a hijab in her clothing line after me.

I quit a job that I hated and felt stuck to for over 4 years.

I am healthy.

[hawanoorarchive]

There’s a name that keeps recurring in my life, in different forms and languages, since I was a teenager. Twice in Arabic, Once in Amharic, Once in Hebrew. It’s always attached to important people: Men I pine over, babies who I love like my own, characters in books I pick up after not having read anything sincerely and with abandon in months. I wonder why it keeps coming back to me. I wonder what I’m missing.

i do not believe that coincidences are random and meaningless.

I’m trying to allow myself not to treat my belief in signs as belief in fluffy superstitions. I receive signs everywhere, and slowly, I’m opening up to them. It’s easy to become closed off, though, when people I open up to chastise me for being illogical, or I see a look in their eyes that tells me that they’re only listening halfheartedly, like a dogmatic disciple humouring a passionate preacher of a faith that isn’t their own. 

[hawanoorarchive]

A list of 25 things for me to do and write about

Read a book and write a review on it

Make a work of art and sell it

Apply to a graduate program

Write a research paper

Get published in a Kenyan outlet

Go for a run on the beach

Do something I’ve never done before to my hair

Meditate on the beach

Wholeheartedly apply for five jobs that you don’t think you’re qualified for

Go to an event with strangers

Interview a child as if they were a celebrity

Find a mentor

People watch, note your observations, and write about them.

Swim in an ocean where my feet can’t touch the ground with no aids

Ask someone I think is out of my league for their phone number

Catch the sunrise

Make a Snapchat filter for Lamu

Cook something I’ve never made before

Catch up with someone I haven’t spoken with in years

Walk to Lamu from Shella

(Secret thing to be shared once completed) 

Buy myself a gift

Drink at least 1.5 litres of water a day for a week straight

Do something valuable for someone else 

Go somewhere I haven’t been before.

[hawanoorarchive]

I don't want to have a heavy shadow. My cousin says that in her husband's culture, people whose energies are airy, silent, and ballerina-like are described as having light shadows. The rest of us, people with sticky, thick, always-felt-even-when-we're-tiptoeing energies are described as having heavy shadows. I've always felt that my energy is too weighty. Too much. Too present. My emotions reveal themselves even when I beg them to remain silent. My happiness, my excitement, my embarrassment, my sadness, my discomfort, my distress, my desire. I try to fold myself into a tiny thing, a barely there object that takes up the slightest bit of space, and always fail. In Toronto, I'd quietly slip out of the house when my shadow felt like it would drag the house down. I'd claim an assignment, or a meeting, or work business was keeping me occupied, in the hopes that I was leaving behind a lighter, less heavy home. Other days, I'd slip into my bedroom, heaviness and all, and stay there until my shadow had lighter, brighter things to share. I had the space to hide from myself and my shadow. In Kenya, I haven't got meetings or work or school or a bedroom to slip into and forget. I'm surrounded by family and I am accountable for the way my emotions make themselves known. My inability to come to terms with the weight of my presence, something I've always been able to hide from, is something I constantly need to confront when staying with family here. I'm afraid that I take up too much space, and the contortions I'd perfected in the city of my birth don't work here, at home. I can no longer run away from myself.

[hawanoorarchive]

On Independece (Or A Lack Thereof): A Rant

I’m spoiled.

As an employed student who lived at home with my mom, I foolishly called myself an independent woman. I worked and took care of the portion of my tuition that was not covered by student loans, spent most of my time and ate the majority of my meals outside the house on my own dollar, and payed all of my own bills.

Being a recent graduate in a country that is essentially new to me, there are a few things I’ve lost that make me realize how completely clueless I was for ever thinking of myself as independent:

One of the most heavy financial burdens that exists for many young people, rent, was a non-factor for me while I was in school. 

I was uninhibitedly mobile.

I had steady, guaranteed sources of income and flexible work schedules.

Now that I no longer have the luxuries that I so easily took for granted, I feel completely, totally, and overwhelmingly lost in the fucking sauce.

Now:

I have to regularly ask my mom for money for the first time since I was fifteen years old. Nothing feels quite as embarrassing, defeating, and irritating.

Thanks to the immense generosity of my family, I still don’t have to pay rent, but I feel like a burden for not being able to contribute for my ass being parked on bed(s) and drinking up electricity and hot water.

My inability to cook even the simplest of meals is very grating. I am useless in the kitchen.

My constant tuition payments were cushioned by steady paycheques, however meagre they may have been. My last tuition payment ate into the tiniest bit of saving I had done and again, for the first time, I have no savings.

Creativity feels impossible when my mind is constantly on money. 

My mobility was contingent upon my ability to “support” myself (huge air quotes - can’t thank my family enough for the roof over my head). It depended upon financial security and a comfortable environment.  

Before this month, I was secure in my ability to roam and discover my strengths, to meet new people and make connections, and to flourish in any environment I was in. I was allowed to be broke and squatting - I was a student. Now, I can barely make it to the corner store without practicing Swahili sentences in my head six times before proceeding, and I’m overly conscious about my inability to contribute financially.

This trip, if nothing else, is shaping up to be self-reflective. I place a huge amount of worth on my independence. On my ability to exist and support myself without being a burden, without being too much. Now that I no longer feel like that is real for me, I need to begin nurturing love for myself that goes beyond the material. I need to learn how to creatively support myself. I need to learn how to hustle. I need to learn what it means to live as an adult.

I’ve been so, so, so, blessed, and this difficult learning curve is essential.

[hawanoorarchive]

I’m Uncomfortable

I’m finally in Kenya, and I’m uncomfortable here. 

I’ve been thrown out of my social category (I’ve moved from being an employed student to an unemployed graduate), I am broke, I’m living in a village I know absolutely nothing about, I struggle communicating complicated ideas in Swahili, and if I’m being honest, sometimes the sound of the ocean while I’m falling asleep gets on my last fucking nerve.

As much as I wanted to leave Toronto and come to Kenya, I’d created a comfortable routine for myself that is proving difficult to break out of. I’d cultivated a community and moved easily throughout the city. I’d unconsciously created a feeling of home, even through all of the cold, unceasing weight of discontent that cornered me at every point in the city. I miss Toronto’s community, the artistry and creativity that is evident everywhere from parks to tea shops. I miss my mobility and ability to move wherever I wanted, whenever I needed to. I miss my chosen family.

Even before I got here, my anxiety was overwhelming. It still is, sort of. I feel restless, I feel nervous, and I’m fucking terrified.

It’s possible to be completely uncomfortable and out of your element and still feel like you are exactly where you need to be - I know this because I am experiencing it. My cousins are hosting me in their beautiful home and have allowed me to be involved in a company that they are working with (special mention to @swahiligal - Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter - for inadvertently taking me under her wing and acting as my mom-away-from-home, allowing me to take over her room, and holding my hand everywhere). I drink fresh fruit juice more or less every single day, seafood is never frozen, everyone speaks my language and my difficult-to-place ancestry is the norm (hey, Swahilis). The ocean is literally outside of our window, the village is tiny and spotless, the people are hilarious, I’m right in the centre of my mother’s part of Kenya, a lot of people here speak kibajuni, and I get to skip from island to island without much trouble. 

The most beautiful thing about Lamu, though, are the people and the art. I can’t wait to nurture new communities and find my home here. I’m finding my comfort and learning, after twenty-two long years, what it means to be gracefully uncomfortable. 

[hawanoorarchive]

deliberately used pencil crayons to make something for the first time in years and in typical millennial fashion, i shared it all over the internet

[thotluxury]

i have really talented friends shot by @itssetti ❤️ for the @the12mm calendar 2016

[hawanoorarchive]

!!!!!! ! !! !!! mashaAllah tabarakAllah

[hawanoorarchive]

Not sure if this makes sense but I wrote it a while back when I was feeling the feels. __________

I’ve been trying to understand how my soul can feel so many conflicting things at once. How does gratefulness occur at the same time as discontent? How is it possible that my heart is full, bursting, but still conspicuously empty?

How is it that I can expect so much from you, that I can gratitously and consciously mold you into an idealistic trope of everything that I want to rest my head on, and be shocked and frustrated when you sit, back turned, speaking to others in a language that I don’t understand? Why do I write so much about you? Why is it that when you remember even the most insignificant details about my reality, I become unable to speak? That no matter how long I stare, and I stare, and I stare, I cannot begin to make sense of the poetry that others, if you were their muse, would impose - no, implant - on your features?

[hawanoorarchive]

Sometimes I forget about the Africa that other people see. Sometimes I forget that an Africa even exists. When I write home (I don’t write ABOUT home, I simply write home), I forget about sadness and poverty and hardship and all that is expected. I write about life, about ocean waves twice my hight crashing at twice the speed that my legs can take me, about letting the waves wash me to shore; I write about boys talking to me at 12 years old, girls telling them “haja zowea” when I’m shy and I stumble; I write about viazi vya saa kumi, how we would walk the half an hour to Mama Asha’s house in the middle of a shamba because no one made pili pili ya maembe quite like she did; I write about the clubs and beaches and pools and dirt streets demarcated where the cement began. I write home. I don’t know how to write the Africa that they see.

[hawanoorarchive]

My Kiswahili betrays me as an outsider at home.

I’ve borrowed heavy, honey-dipped D’s, J’s, and L’s from the drawl spoken in older parts of Mombasa,

Curious phrases like najaoooo! from Malindi,

From Nairobi, I was tought ku-invent frankenwords by prefixing English with Kiswahili.

I sing sentences from Faza that bounce and dip and find their ends turned upwards like questions,

And recite prim Kiunguja phrases from Zanzibar that found me by way of Moshi.

There is no home in how I speak. I pretend—I harden my D’s, J’s, and L’s when talking to friends from the capital, flatten the ends of my sentences so as not to inspire laughter in Mombasanians, and carefully select my words so I don’t slip and say ‘jibwa’ instead of ‘mbwa’ to my cousins in Tanzania.

Ah, Hawa, unkuwa mzungu mweusi kabisa!

[hawanoorarchive]

you have my grandmother’s cheekbones.

high, 

round,

almost undetectable until your lips part, curve, and defy gravity, tugging and tugging until the rest of your face follows, coaxing a sphere to form on what was formerly flat.

when i was young in malindi, i would soften the dirt ground under the first floor staircase in my auntie’s apartment with handfuls of water, and i would dig and dig and dig using only my fingers, and i would scoop out chunks of red-brown clay (the fruits of my labour), and i would roll it and roll it and roll it in between my palms until a globe that i was pleased with took shape.

my clay, your cheeks, 

bibi wangu

none of it is a coincidence

they say adam, too, was molded of mire

[hawanoorarchive]

I’m Afraid

I’m afraid of saying the wrong thing to him, of jumping too high on the trampoline lest I break my teeth, of running and of dancing and of singing, that I’m no longer able to express myself through dress, that my clothes feel inauthentic, that my bruxism will ruin my favourite part of my body (and that I might not be able to afford to fix it), of never being desirable, of finding out what my illness(es) are/is, of making eye contact, of smiling too hard or too long, of sharing, of not being good enough, of losing my mother, and my brother, and my father, and my aunt, of ending up alone, of not amounting to anything, of the possibility that I don’t write well or draw well or do anything well, of the possibility that I might not be a creator, of never being able to go home, of the rituals that I cannot function without, of not having enough money, of dying in the same place that I started, that I don’t know what I want, that I will never grow up, that I might find myself 20 years from now on the same bus in the same borough, that I’m wasting my life, that I’m unhealthy, that the lump in my throat will never disappear, that I will never know what happiness is, that I will never find peace, that I am inauthentic, that I am weak, that I don’t have a backbone, that I can’t always leave others knowing that I’ve left behind warmth and the memory of a smile, that I am not a good friend, that I am not a good sister, that I am not a good daughter.

I’m tired of being afraid.