SOCIAL MEDIA

I have been staring at my screen for quite some time now, not sure where do I begin. Elif Shafak, I came to know the name when people was talking about her Forty Rules of Love so I googled her. But it took 2 years to finally read her book. Drawn by the title, The Three Daughters of Eve. It felt, befitting at that time. That’s how I always operate on my reading. I picked everything I read on a whim. An emotional reader, after all.

Heavy. That’s what I felt. Through and through. But I need it. Question upon question about God, faith—you can’t simply throw such questions and expected it to be just a simple layer of literature.

💬 Summary 
Peri, a married, wealthy, beautiful Turkish woman, is on her way to a dinner party at a seaside mansion in Istanbul when a beggar snatches her handbag. As she wrests it back, a photograph falls to the ground—an old polaroid of three young women and their university professor. A relic from a past—and a love—Peri had tried desperately to forget.

Over the course of the dinner, and amidst an opulence that is surely ill-begotten, terrorist attacks occur across the city. Competing in Peri’s mind, however, are the memories invoked by her almost-lost polaroid, of the time years earlier when she was sent abroad for the first time, to attend Oxford University. As a young woman there, she had become friends with the charming, adventurous Shirin, a fully assimilated Iranian girl, and Mona, a devout Egyptian-American. Together the three are the Sinner, the Believer, and the Confused. Their arguments about Islam and feminism find focus in the charismatic but controversial Professor Azur, who teaches divinity, but in unorthodox ways. As the terrorist attacks come ever closer, Peri is moved to recall the scandal that tore them all apart.

💟 What I love

— This book also exposes Istanbul, both the city and the conflicts. Between East and West, religious and secular, rich and poor. This one invoked so many emotions in me – I could really relate to this but at some point, detached. It is a thrilling experience indulging in this one. As a Muslim, and a woman – I was deeply resonated by the issues thrown in this book. Where is God? What is God? How – God? 

It almost surreal a book could affect you this much.

I grew a serious love for this book and the author. She has become amongst my favourite author of all time, further cemented after 10 Minutes and 38 Seconds in this Strange World –that, is the story for another day. Being a Muslim woman in this testing time, is proved to be a challenge and Shafak, wrote it all down for me in her beautiful prose. I thank her for that. Safe to say, I’d be collecting her books from now on.

The Three Daughters of Eve

01/06/2020

 

"Sometimes you need to scorch everything to the ground, and start over. After the burning the soil is richer, and new things can grow. People are like that, too. They start over. They find a way."
I finished this mini-series last night, honestly –it was beautiful. 
It was based on the book by the same title, by Celeste Ng. The book has been on my TBR list like..forever. 

Little Fires Everywhere touches on motherhood, also dealing with racism, choices and the worst: Teenagers. 5 mothers, different way of mothering. 

Upon watching, as a mother, I couldn’t help but to question myself; 

What type of mother would you be, Dids?

If anything, my mom was the Tiger-mom, always ready to fight, always ready to whip whenever it deemed necessary. Will I be the a Tiger mom? In my almost 3 short years of experience now, I slowly being one –but truthfully, haven’t morphed into completely –yet. Strongly suspect, I would be a complete one when my eldest turns a teenager.

My mother-in-law is kinder, softer in her approach. Her anger justified, lengthy words calculated. I couldn’t help but scoffed for a few times, if it were me in her shoes –I’d throw fit. Serious fit. Her patience awed me big time. Often I think, I could never, ever, be that calm.

Both me & my husband’s siblings turned out fine-ish, I guess. Both were brought up in quite a strict household so we’re a bunch of rule breakers with few whip marks, enough to tell our kids some fun stories one day. 

I don’t think there is a perfect way to mother. If you smother them too much with no room to experience anything on their own–they might not be independent enough to face the world. I know this type, the ones who could not do anything, simplest thing with a need of just common sense, without calling mom. 

If you let them roam free with as much as a reminder—they might be the bad apple. The fearless ones, without having even a modicum of awareness for consequence. I happened to know these ones too. They do anything they want and they get away with it.

I read somewhere, a mother constantly worry. From her child is in the womb till old enough to have grandkids, a mother will always worry. It's like their second nature after breathing. You could drop “Jangan risau, do not worry” but none of that would lessen the feeling. 

A mother will always worry. Now a mother, I am living in that constant state too. If it’s not nature, I don’t know what is it. 

And as a mother, I know now, that it is not fair to blame a mother solely if her children ever did something bad. No mother in a right mind would throw her offspring into danger, into bad things, purposely. There’s only so much struggle a mother could endure, from conceiving, giving birth, feeding, teaching, providing and the list goes on. I think motherhood is the most beautiful gift from God—having human(s) that would know nothing but love you unconditionally from the very first second of their lives but it’s also the most frightening thing handed to you on a platter ; you are now responsible of this human(s), may they be a good one and should you fail? 

Item is non-refundable. 

Little Fires Everywhere (2020)

21/05/2020