You look out the window and spot the howling trees and the sunlight that is waning slowly but swiftly, the way wintery days go.
You scroll mindlessly through Facebook and view all sorts of depressing articles on Trump, a Muslim ban, and more.
But there is hope. You know there’s a protest going on at the airport, a protest to welcome refugees and immigrants. A way to take a stand.
You are not just the daughter of an immigrant.
You are an immigrant.
You know what it feels like to be neither here nor there.
You know what it feels like to reach a new country where even the air smells different, the birds sound different, the water tastes different.
You know what it feels like to feel painfully out of place.
You know what it feels like to slowly grow roots in a new country. To slowly unfurl and blossom once more.
You feel for all the people hurting in this topsy turvy world right now.
But right now it’s not your turn to go to the protest because there are two little ones who need you right now at home. There is hair that is wet. There is outside wind that is chilly.
There is a simmering daal that is stubbornly cooking on the stove, angry and refusing to become tender soon enough.
There are people protesting outside, angry and refusing the ways of the hard world, begging for tenderness to come now.
You look at the faces of your children who know bits and pieces of the world around them, but who do not know that the world is hardening around them. They do not know about the deep and dark struggles that people are undergoing around them. They do not ask the questions of worriers yet.
You need to ground yourself and find peace.
You know what to do.
You preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
You pray with them when sunset seeps in around you.
You melt butter, mix in sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, a smidge of salt. You accidentally forget the vanilla.
Your daughters’ smiles are sugary. Their fingers buttery. Their cheeks floury. One of their hair braids is floury. Or salty. Or sugary. You can’t decipher yet.
Later, you will show them a picture of their grandmother and grandfather protesting and tell them how we welcome people. No matter who they are. No matter where they are from.
Your heart will warm when you see the protest photos, the numbers of people who care. People of all kinds taking a stand.
You will read your daughters this book and talk about the tumultuous journey of a Syrian refugee boy, a boy who misses his pet birds he left behind.
The boy will befriend new wild birds at his camp.
The world will befriend immigrants and refugees.
You will hope and pray that for now it is enough.
O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of God is the most righteous of you. Indeed, God is Knowing and Acquainted. (Quran 49:13)
