Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Youth

I’m sitting in the masjid in Surat. The peacefulness of this place is deafening. There’s so much here. So much history and in an obvious way somehow it feels like a massively important place for so many reasons.

I’m overwhelmed here, but not by the importance of this place. I am overwhelmed by memories of this place when I spent a few months here as a teenager a long time ago. I have memories of people and places that are a bit fuzzy and super clear at the same time.

I have so many memories of sharing a room with a bunch of people and spending so much time together doing a whole lot of nothing. There was one random Billy Joel album that I listened to at least a thousand times. I am terrible with lyrics, but I still remember every word and every song of that whole album 22 odd years later.  I wonder what Yusuf and Nooriya will remember.

Taher, don’t underestimate what’s important to them and choose your words carefully. They may remember them exactly in 22 years. 

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