sightings today:
hijabi waiting at the metro station
hijabi outside a restaurant in the loop
two latter day saint missionaries next to me at an intersection
hijabi in a minivan texting at a red light.
according to a friend, it’s raining hijabis. and according to me, that’s even better than it raining men. is it wrong to be a little disappointed the missionaries didn’t try to convert me? though i had my headphones in and didn’t look at them but to check the name badge on their pockets…
Stats for the day:
2 covered women at the serbian orthodox festival (not counting me)
14 hijabis at the mall
1 suspected pentecostal at the mall.
I slept in this morning and debated back and forth about going to Springfield to the mall. I know I don’t need anything, but man, I want to see what’s out. I want a new skirt!
So, I wait around, call a friend. Finally I decide that, hey, since I’m already dressed, I might as well go. I get there, I’m driving in the parking lot and I see a family. Father, pushing a stroller, a couple children walking near him and his wife. Who happens to be wearing a brown abaya/jilbab, lacy brown scarf and a half niqaab tied under the hijab.
It is good that I came today. I’m calling the day a Full House. I ended up seeing three niqaabis and two women in bonnets! They made me feel ridiculously ‘undercover’ in my white-with purple-pink-orange flowered kerchief. Which, by the way, was complimented by the sales lady at New York & Company. She was a very good sales lady. Creepily so.
Plus, I got three sweaters on sale and three tshirts to replace some I bought to take with me to Yemen. Yeah, they were getting holes in them. Unfortunately, I have to go back tomorrow because one of the sweaters I bought didn’t get that security tag removed. What will tomorrow bring?
Okay, wait. That last post might not have come out the way I intended. I have struggles when it comes to headcovering. And in ways these struggles go with ‘fitting in.’ I read blogs of Christian women who cover, and nearly all of these women are married. I wonder if I will ever find a husband, and if headcovering might be putting an extra barrier between me and my future husband. I’m already pretty socially inept when it comes to men, now add a headcovering? What am I thinking? Is headcovering really that important?
There are days when I wake up and I’m having a particularly good hair day and I think “Hm. I really don’t want to cover my head.” On these days, I either end up wearing a kerchief with my hair hanging down beyond it or I do a 180 and say “Screw those people! I don’t want them seeing my hair” and cover even more that I might on a ‘normal’ day.
I guess what I’m saying is I totally don’t have everything in control. I ‘like’ headcovering but I will always have issues, with this and many many other things. The only think I can see to do is take one day at a time. Today I cover. For Today. Tomorrow will come and we’ll see what goes down then.
(This post was written almost immediately after the previous one, but I’m publishing it several hours later, as long as I can figure out how to do that)
So, I was a weekend hijabi. I backed off on Monday. Weakness or intelligent? I’ll let you decide. I think I’ll go back to the hideous kerchiefy things and my homemade snoodish thing for work. I have mixed feelings on the full hijab style wrap anyway, no need to involve any more conflict at work than I have to.
I know I have loved on the hijab style, but my feelings are mixed as in I think it’s the prettiest head covering style around and yet, I’m not fully comfortable in it because of its ties to Islam. Given that I’ve spent a bit of time in the Middle East and study/ied Arabic, it comes off confusing to people who just see me and to people I’m just beginning to meet. I don’t like having to clarify “I’m Christian.” Because people don’t tend to ask and it’s awkward to just say.
I guess I just don’t know what I’m doing. I pray we figure it out as we go along.
So, I have decided to keep on covering, since ‘it just feels right.’ And I did something today that might have been awesome. or it might have been ridiculously stupid. Either way, what’s done is done.
I wore hijab to work. I’ve been thinking about it. I hate hate hate the little triangle kerchiefy things I’ve been wearing. Man, are they ugly. I was thinking about getting a white square hijab online and wearing it tied behind my head, instead of pulled around front, hijab style, but today I decided to just do it. I basically wear hijab everywhere else outside of work. I have been surprised at the complete LACK of comments I get in hijab in public, so I decided that it would just be much simpler if I wore hijab to work.
I walk in and immediately am asked “Are you Islamic?” Okay, granted, that was expected. “Nope. I’m Christian.” One man told me a couple of times I looked like a nun and that his wife wore scarves after she washed her hair and then curled it. I got another “nun” comment from a lady as well. There were several people that questioned me about it.
“What does ‘this’ symbolize?” While pointing around her face.
“Are you dana? Why are you wearing that?”
“Who are you, with that scarf on your head?” Said by a favorite old lady with a smile on her face. My favorite response “The same person I was yesterday, just with a bigger scarf!”
I got a few questions from family members, nurses and oriented residents who probably wanted to ask earlier with the smaller scarves, but didn’t and this pushed them over the edge.
I don’t think I was the most eloquent, and I think the part about “I think this is what God is asking me to do.” made a few people uncomfortable. (one resident in particular would ask a question, I would respond, rather awkwardly — give me a break, i’m socially awkward to beging with and I’m not used to these questions– and she would apologize.)
I’m not ashamed of this. A little uncertain of how to talk about it, but given my history with religion, my being able to say “I think this is what God is asking me to do” to a mere acquaintance is UH-MAZIN’!
While setting up my avatar on a friend’s Wii, I couldn’t help but think, “Hairstyle? I don’t need that! Where’s the hijab?”
So, about four months ago I started covering and at that time I said that I’d reevaluate at Christmas and see if this was something that I wanted to continue to do or if it was not really for me.
And… now it’s (nearly) Christmas and I’m really torn. I really can’t say whether or not it’s been helpful in any religious way. In the beginning I probably prayed more, but now that enthusiasm has gone. In the beginning, I noticed that certain things started standing out more than they would have before. (especially when married couples showed up on the daytime talk shows and how over-lording the women were compared to their subservient husbands) But now, the newness has gone. I may still notice things but I don’t notice that I’m noticing them. How dumb does that sound?
This headcovering thing has become part of me. Even now, as I am seriously considering stopping covering, I’m looking for hijab underscarves. (I’ve been pining for a lacy one, instead of these uncomfortably tight headbands)
While headcovering has become part of me, I mostly just want to stop looking like a freak. This stems mostly from work, where I wear white triangle bandana things for the most part and look like I’m a KrAzEe protestant. Okay, so I might be some kind of crazy and I am protestant, but the combination is generally not how I think of myself. I am not a Bible literalist. I don’t believe in a seven day creation and I’m not a giant fan of Paul. I find myself in direct opposition to most headcovering protestants. I’m not sure where that puts me.
I was talking about this to a friend, and he suggested that I move somewhere like San Francisco, where people just don’t care. I really don’t agree with that. Sometimes liberals are just as closeminded as conservatives. And anyway, I’ve been pretty surprised at how people here just ignore it. I can’t remember any comments from strangers in my local small town areas, neither in my work kerchief or my church shawl. and I’ve only had a couple comments when wearing either the church shawl or hijab in the ‘big city’ an hour away. People generally ignore it. His reaction was “So there! Nobody cares! Do as you please.” Sure, I can see that. No one comments, so what’s stopping me. Heck, I’m oblivious to strange stares for the most part.
The problem is that I want to be normal! Sure, I’m not getting comments or anything, but they know I’m different. I want to fit in! But yet, I know that even if I take this off, I won’t fit in. I will still be my strange bundle of contradictions that other people just don’t get. And I realize that because of that, I should keep doing what feels just damn right to me.
But I’m still torn.
I nearly died laughing when I got to Hijab Don’t #3. Which was much needed. It’s been a tough week.
A multimini update, which seems to be all I can handle anymore. Hopefully it’s just a phase.
I had my anatomy lab practical today, I don’t think I failed anymore. Not quite sure how I did. There was definite cramming going on postwork until about two am when I completely gave up. Even after that, there wasn’t much sleep. I did however, catch my dog when I got home so there wasn’t much cursing at him because of his dumbass barking all night. yay.
Between the lack of sleep, work stress and class and the fact that I carry all this stress in my shoulders, I can now feel my trapezius muscles are tense all the way down my back. great!
I bought this scarf at sears on Friday for a quarter the price I thought it would be and I thought it was half off, so YAY new red scarf. When I was getting ready today, I decided to wear my Rastafari shirt. I put on a green jacket over the shirt and a yellow underscarf with the black headband and red scarf and in the planning stages (really rediculously sleep deprived planning stages) I thought this would be amazing. Red, green, yellow, a glorious combination of Rasta, right? well, except I had a black headband, a yellow stripe and then the red scarf which ended up looking much more German, since I’m wearing hijab style, it looks muslim, add in the rasta shirt and it was almost schizophrenic. for real. and then the yellow was bunching and blah blah blah. sucky head covering day.
Planning a couple of battles with my boss today. Should be fun.
All things got done yesterday. I successfully removed my car battery, replaced it with a new one from Walmart, reinstalled it. Put the spare tire on the other car. later this week I will need to go have the dud tire patched. PLUS I made it to mass. More to say on that later.
peace, ya’ll.
Holy Jesus Snack Cup 