Pens of Fate

Diary-writing aftereffects

I look back at my handwritten diary entry. It seems inspirational and motivational. Only, I am the only person on the face of the earth who has read it.

I have to face the truth, though: little or big, I'm no Dear Auntie, and I don't have any blog. I just write in my notebooks. For myself. Though sometimes I write as if I am writing for an audience, like I just addressed my last entry to "beautiful girl".

I wish I could get Inaya to read what I addressed to "beautiful girl", but like a typical little sister, she's going to ignore what I say. Jasir, typical brother style, will be grossed out by anything girly, and as for our parents, they think my writing away in notebooks is "cute". I have to say, that term is a bit...discouraging.

Inaya and I, we had a nice relationship last Ramadan. It's coming up again in a few months. I wonder what we can do to make it special this time. Of course, it already is special, but our experience of it should be a special one on a conscious level, too.

"What are you thinking about, auntie?" Inaya comes into the room.

"It's on the bookshelf," I reply.

"How did you know I was looking for--?" Inaya is surprised.

I smile at her. "You're entirely readable."

Inaya shakes her head at me, picks up the object of her search, and goes out of the room.

I have to admit, my story is not as supercharged or eventful as Inaya's. Nor as colourful as Jasir's. It's slower and more thoughtful. I like it that way.

Alhamdulillah that Ramadan is coming in the summer this year. That means we kids will be at home at least. Or, according to my siblings, the kids and me, Leena Auntie, will be home.

"Leenie Auntie, Leenie Auntie," Jasir chants when I come out of the room, searching for a pen.

"Yes, Jasir Uncle?" I respond lightly.

"Ewww!" Jasir picks up a cushion and crams his face into it, making vomiting sounds. "I'm no Uncle!" His face emerges from the cushion, his cheeks bright red. "You're still Leenie Auntie though!"

"Alright," I say absent-mindedly, heading back to my room with the pen I had been looking for in my hand.

This gap year before college starts gives me a lot more time to develop my writing voice. Only, there's nobody to listen. I can live with that.

I stop short when I actually lay eyes on my writing space. There's my mother, going through--my diary!

If I were Jasir, I would have screamed until I cried. If I were Inaya, I would have cried until I screamed. Being Leena, I take a deep breath, step forward and put a hand on my mother's shoulder. She looks up at me.

"So you're a feminist?" she asks abruptly.

"Huh?" For a moment, I sound more like my younger siblings. I am usually much more articulate.

"This." She pokes the page of the diary repeatedly. "You took off time from your studies to do...this?"

"Well..." I put the pen down on the desk and look off into the distance. 

"I thought you would turn your hand more towards cooking and cleaning," she continues. "I thought you would groom yourself and improve your looks. I thought you would--"

"Mama." I have to interrupt her. I suppose the abstract idea of one's daughter writing away, and the actual concept of what she is writing, are two different perspectives. "I do all that, you know." I smile at her.

"Yes." It comes out slowly from her mouth. She pauses, as if turning over her thoughts before letting them out. "But if you have time to do this, then you have time to do MORE cooking and cleaning and grooming than you already do!"

By this time, Inaya and Jasir are curiously crowding the entrance of the room, and even Papa is listening in from the distance. How do I know this when my back is to the doorway and I am facing Mama? Eldest child superpowers.

I'll need more of those superpowers before I'm done convincing Mama.

***

Has this ever happened to you? (Someone reading your personal diary?)