and then our exile

i began this post three days ago, but left before reaching anything conclusive because a White Tourist walked into the internet cafe and asked the counter how much an hour cost. "Seventy-five[, and dude, you're being scammed]." The place was right outside the Old City's citadel, but even accounting for real estate indices, i could come to Rukn ed-Din and arrive at numbers like twenty-five or thirty. Went to the desk myself, and was told "khamsa-talateen--fifty-three". me: "O_o that's thirty-five." he: "oh, sorry. thirty-five." i wasn't there for an hour, but even so, i was given a different rate. As how if i walk down a street with camera in hand, or sans camera in hand, i'm treated very differently. All of which reinforces the fact i live in a culture of cynicism: my roommates, bless them, are not very appreciative of Syrian society. "They're all scumbags, man. Find the good people and stick to them, but everyone else? You're just wasting your time. ...they have no rahmah." (etc. etc.)

--

you, my dear brother, have troubles. (Z. to me, last Ramadan)

i'll take that as my starting point. Today: a week into Ramadan, and three days from now mark the two-month departure from Wuddistan. Two months are not a very long time but somehow they are a very long time, and either way one runs into clichee. Ramadan in Dimashq. The blessed month, the month of clarity and the time of beauty, the month of days awake and nights without end, relieved and freed from physical chains: and here i have a problem, because i am disappointed with Ramadan in Dimashq.

What does it mean, to be disappointed? it means either that one had misled expectations, that it is disillusionment, or that one is being misled in another way, is hanging out in the wrong places, that one needs to adjust one's mindset slightly and search out other things and other people, that the disappointment will vanish because it is external.

Did i come here with vague expectations of another sort? My affected cynicism gives that the lie: i knew i wasn't coming to utopia, but even so i spent the first few weeks i was here sad that there was so much concrete and so many cigarette-butts in the street. After that it was like i was being forcibly awoken, and suddenly i noticed the way the sun rose and the shadows of date palms, and man, wow. "Wow", such a vacuole a vapid monosyllable the first in a line of gaping foreign tourists gawking in synthetic amazement check that impressive as they file past organic hieroglyph flash of film recording souveniers for the family back home look honey i was here the overpriced fawning pandering giftshop touristshop lurid postcards gaving a great time how's the golf... from one extreme to another, and now i wander about somewhere between.

--

...and here finishes the last thought.

It's now a full third into this month, two months since departure. i was disappointed for both reasons: not that i was expecting to walk down streets and swim in metaphysical Zam-zam, but that i did expect there to be more...presence, somehow, which i haven't come across. Was missing even the ambience at the MCE, Edmonton: there was real community there, the qira'ah (some years.) was of Beauty beyond most things i've felt yet, and you were actually allowed to make i'tikaaf. And that's the West i'm talking about. Most masajid here don't have khatam taraweeh--this translates into, even at Ibrahim al-Khalil, let alone Kirdan and others, that the imam recites three or four ayat per rak'at. i'm not kidding. The qira'ah might be nice (and sometimes it's not at all), but if you read three ayat per rak'at, taking about eight of the twenty to read suratul-haaqqah, it's just kind of unfulfilling: the surah is wonderful, powerful, but if you read that much at once, there's very little sense of continuity. You do get more people staying for all twenty this way, but all twenty take about forty minutes, and the word "many" is implicitly and complicitly (sin of ommission and commission) relative: if there are a gazillion people in this city, and it's as densely populated with Muslims as it seems to be, (well, they say assalamu'alaikum, right? ...and then, so do random zen-type agnostics in my classes at the university.) shouldn't there be more...people...there? First few days: masajid full. By now, and the story's the same everywhere, about three rows of people. Other than that...E. and i were making a list two days ago, of what characterizes this month in this city. (in no particular order, and refer to the 'culture of cynicism'-thing above)
(--shopping. "Ramadan has all the best deals." The moment you finish iftar, hordes of women will be out on the street shopping for their Eid clothes. Till late at night.
(--tv. "Ramadan has all the best tv programs." Which i find pretty sad. Serialized dramas one after another without break or pause.
(--food. "Ramadan has all the best food." Self-defeatism or self-defeatism?
(--fights. "Ramadan's when everyone aching for a cigarette is finally able to back up their empty threats."
(etc.)

~

So, all that sounds like gloom and doom and the optimism of a disillusioned chimpanzee. The reason the little squiggle (~) is thrown in above, though, is because it symbolizes the rise of socialism and a pan-Arabic power---er, it points to the end of a paragraphical topic and the beginning of realization that much of that disappointment was also played to by the second reason for disillusionment said above--that the circumstances were purely circumstantial, just because i hadn't gone to the right masajid didn't mean they don't exist (and there are hundreds of these in the city, i've only been to a dozen or so), just because i hadn't experienced something doesn't mean it wasn't real, that i'm denying solipsism: and to think otherwise is to be arrogant, and although i am arrogant i do not want to be, and so. And recently i've started going to Shamsiyyah, where qira'ah is full and exact and the shaikh knows the ten types of qira'ah, and i've gone twice to jami'ah rifa'ee for tahajjud at 2am, which is glorious and beautiful, and i enjoy the extant hospitality, brotherhood of many, especially the student body...and Ramadan is more than taraweeh or i'tikaaf or iftar: and aspects beyond are those which raise spectres: that as Shaitan is chained, faults here reflect solely on /me/, that desensitization is something i cannot blame on Syria or the GrandeHobbits, though i would i could.

So, all things in perspective.

*

Something i find amusing: as daytimes approach that of iftar, the city takes on an air of desperation, anxiety: the streets empty, the last remaining vehicles careen around in their mad rush to get home before the Trump, as the maghrib adhan is called and for the next hour thereafter one can walk down streets which otherwise are thronged with thousands of people and find them empty, literally empty, that there is no other shadow but your own. "A ghosttown."

...so. There is a lot of observation. Most of it's gloomy, i think, and i think after i read what i just wrote i will feel remorse and go through with the aim of making it seem more upbeat, because for example two days ago i felt the happiest i've been since i've got here, and etc, but for now, i have to go: home and then to campus, classes till noon, then to kafar suseh for 'arabi with 'Aamir, and then home to find some sleep (have been up all night, arranging things and then to jami'ah rifa'ee) before night and meeting someone after taraweeh. etc etc etc. (was making my schedule today, and realized i'd forgot to put in a slot for sleep.)

This is the life, and death comes on. Du'a for me, for baraka in time, and for all.

(ps: writing one-liner messages is different than writing no message at all, and herein's a message and a pun for those who are busy.)