Always Standing Steady

Ever The Soldier

070500SJUL16: July 7, 2016. 0500. Topeka, Kansas, United States of America.

No matter how hard I tried, sleeping in was not possible. At least I was in good company. I woke up in the bed that Ezra and I shared in the master bedroom at my usual time. I could hear Ezra in the shower and went to join him. After we got out, Ezra got dressed quickly and headed downstairs for his morning prayers. I took the time to wrap my hair up into something like a French braid with the hopes of taming it once it dried. I put on a pair of black shorts, a brown halter tank, and a green flannel shirt that I cuffed at the elbows. It had stopped feeling weird a long time ago to not match my socks and shoes to the rest of my outfit. The thought of shoes seemed all too foreign now. That was probably a good thing. I put on my running prosthetics last; I did have a pair of prosthetics that looked like feet and could wear shoes, but they weren't great for running. Now there were few days that I didn't have to go running after someone or something.

I came downstairs to see that my team's usual morning routine was in progress. Nazirah was praying on her prayer rug in the living room. As always, she prayed in full hijab. Today that hijab was a cheerful shade of yellow. With it, she wore a long sleeve, blue polka dot maxi dress and a pair of black flats with bows on the toes. Ezra sat next to her to say his morning prayers. This talit was his new one; after so much moving around, he usually lost one every few weeks and had to get another. At one point, his little brother, who wove talitot to sell on Etsy just sent him a new one every few week whether he needed it or not--it was rarely not.

Diego, who had returned to his roots as a Roman Catholic after his first tour--brought on by his lessening conflicts with his parents--usually joined them. He tended to pray in his room or while the coffee maker was running, but this morning he joined Ezra and Nazirah. Diego sat next to Ezra with his mug of coffee in front of him like a sutrah; occasionally, he would take a drink of his coffee to interrupt the prayers. If Diego stalled long enough, he would end his prayer at the same time Ezra and Nazirah ended there's.

"Amen. Play ball," Diego concluded out loud.

Nazirah murmured the last words of her prayer in Arabic and announced her own "play ball" in Hindi.

Ezra, laughing at this bizarre ritual, finished his own prayer and added "play ball" in the same Hebrew. Diego offered him a hand up and Ezra in turn offered Nazirah a hand. The two of them ran back to their rooms to put their prayer rug and talit away then returned to the kitchen. I poured myself a cup of coffee from the pot that Sicily had already brewed. She was busy at stove making what looked like very thin pancakes.

"Beghrir: pancakes," she explained. "Naz and I had them when we were in Morocco. I think I got the recipe right." She poured the last bit of batter into the pan and handed me the spatula to keep it from burning. Sicily put a single pancake on a plate, drizzled it with honey, and brought it to Nazirah at the kitchen table. "Eat!"

I removed the last pancake from the pan before it burned and brought the rest of the serving plate with me to the table. Diego refilled his coffee cup. Ezra pulled the halal and kosher bacon out of the microwave. I took a seat next to Nazirah and helped myself to a beghrir and a few pieces of bacon. Diego only went for the pancakes.

"Did you see anything on your late night, two women motorcycle ride--which I know nothing about--last night?" Ezra asked Sicily and Nazirah, successfully lacking any subtlety.

"Did you two have fun?" Diego asked quickly with an equal lack of subtlety. "On this thing that I know even less about."

Nazirah glanced at me with an expression that accurately summed up the answer to both those questions. It brought me back to a very interesting conversation she and I had while I was in the hospital during which I formally met her and became her wing woman in the space of the same sentence.