Cyprus – Solicitous Home

I haven’t shared anything in a very, very long time. I am a little frustrated right now, actually, and I am writing from a place of feeling obliged, because my WordPress subscription just got automatically renewed even though it was not due to expire until the end of September. So I am not sure what happened exactly. I never agreed to automatically renew it a month before the expiration date. Anyway. Part of the reason for my extensive ‘silence’ though was having to write a lot for credit classes I’ve had to take through a community college this past year. That included an early US history class, two composition classes, a psychology class and a sociology class, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly but yes, also left me with no spare time to ramble about anything else. Another reason was that I am no longer certain what this blog really represents. It started off with just talking about what I’ve been up to, writing about a few of my prenatal, birth and postnatal experiences, sharing herbalism related stuff, some recipe here and there, occasional creative (lol) writing, or some standalone essay topic, without ever fully developing into anything substantive.

So, because I want to look back at this unauthorized early subscription renewal and say, hey, at least I published one entry between this annual subscription and the next date in 2027, I will just provide a short life update… first off, my beloved grandmother passed away in January of this year, and that was one of the hardest months of my life. I felt very lonely, because I couldn’t share my grief as much as I needed to with anyone except with myself and Allah. Anyone who has little kids knows that they don’t allow you much space to just feel the feels. I was away from my dying grandmother and my close family members who surrounded her in her last days. I couldn’t leave to see her given all my obligations, but it did make me feel better knowing that, if she were able to speak, she would have told me there’s no need for me to physically be there while neglecting other responsibilities she always urged me to tend to with gracefulness. She would have told me, as she always did, that physical distance does not matter because the souls are near.

Second of all, as I just mentioned in this post, I started taking classes through a community college, and while it may take a while, my intentions currently are completing prerequisites for Nursing. So, on top of full-time mom and homeschooling duty, that has kept me very busy, but also very intellectually engaged. Outside of college, I’ve been taking Persian classes since nearly half a year and that has been really fun, too, especially seeing the overlap between Turkish, Arabic (both of which I am relatively fluent in) and Persian and how we use the same words, sometimes in different ways. I have Greek and Spanish on my wishlist too, but I told myself I will spend at least one year on Persian.

Finally, after three months of waiting on babies and weddings in Cyprus (there were only one of each, but for the sake of exaggerating…), we returned to Chicago, packed our apartment in about 9 days and moved into a new house in the suburbs where we are closer to some friends and family, and have a great backyard and not so great tiger mosquitoes that are making me really miss the Cypriot heat. I am excited to officially start our homeschooling year, with our oldest starting fifth grade. Mashaa Allah! And, alhamdulillah, after about two years of consistent tajwid classes and making recitation of the Qur’an a regular daily practice, I am about to embark on my ijaza pathway (in teaching, not hifdh — yet).

Dear reader, I hope that you had a safe, peaceful summer and have a wonderful rest of the year ❤

One thing that I will never forget is how my grandmother would pour the tea from the small istikana into the saucer, to cool it down, before bringing it close to my lips so that I may take a sip. I imagine the room brightly lit from the sunlight streaming through the Ottoman-era shutters in the bedroom upstairs. There is a terrace adjacent to it. A picture of my mom depicts her atop this same terrace, her hair wet from a recent bath. She might have just had my second brother, or the first.

I also remember the long ka’ak my grandmother would dip inside the tea before handing it to me. This bag of ka’ak would usually come from Damascus, either after my aunt or grandmother’s return, or as a gift from someone visiting us in Cyprus. The warm tea would soften the bread, and give more flavor to it. Those rituals are some of my most cherished childhood memories with the woman I most love after my mother. Her mother, and after her, my aunt. I spent so much time with my aunt growing up that she’s become inseparable from what defined me as I grew into who I am today. I don’t call her as much as I should, after we both left Cyprus.

We often think of ourselves as weavers, weaving with the threads that we gather throughout our journey on this path called life. And the carpet we weave is our masterpiece that tells a story, our story, from our perspective. But could it be said that we are a woven piece ourselves? Woven by those who come and go, or remain, in our lives? If I were to be woven, then I contain many threads woven into me by my aunt in the first rows that make up the piece that I am.

Everyone passing through our lives can weave into the loom holding us, with their unique colors and different qualities of yarn. Some come with beautiful vibrant colors, others are masterful in their little touches, while others add a mending touch… with colors that may appear simple, or with threads that disappear between the intricate patterns, but in actuality holding together the rest of the strings to prevent a deep hole from peeking through.

Solicitous Home

Solicitous Home

Tag: Cyprus

Hi.

istikaanat chai | a small cup of tea