and then our exile

"there are times i want a memory like a computer, erasable...but then there are times memory is enough to live for." (LM)

About a week ago, walking back from 'isha, as he spoke to me with words filled with Light, 'Adnan said something about how insan are named as such, that the root (jizr) is of n-s-y, the same as nasiya, to forget...that Insan are those who forget, it was Adam (as) who "forgot" initially the commandmants of his Rabb, and such was the genesis of mortality...that were thosewhoforget to remember all, their minds would bend, would break, that the capacity to forget is a Mercy.

There are days i am flooded by Memory, that images, shades of the past are tangible enough to touch, palpable. And the associated emotion, projected into the future, the future of the past--so where, then, is the present? We live the future, but we are the past... made up of our moments till the call of death, yet strung by the moments we have left behind.
That retrospect grants clarity tinged by another lens.
That memory tints in bas-relief.

There is physical memory, emotive memory, dry intellectual memory. Subconscious memory. And memories called up by sounds and smells and shades of the moon. And times every single thing will force memories centred around things-people-times.

~

On a semidifferent note--the word coincidence is no longer in my vocabulary: it doesn't exist.

Also, you know Sami Yusuf? He's taking Syria by storm: he's in my apartment building somewhere, on the wae back from the post office, even the outdoor blasters next to Abu Nour.

One of my roommates (the one from Texas) said "squijee" (sp?) two days ago, which made me laugh and think of Farooq.