Mooned by Sheikh

"Moorish Girl Lying on a Couch"
Rabat Morocco

by Edwin Lord Weeks

Any woman who counts Margaret Atwood a friend as Nasneen Sheikh does in her recently published, "Moon over Marrakech", I assume to be a strong, intelligent female.   What is a strong, intelligent female? More problematic still, what is a strong, intelligent female within the context of romantic love?

I am infatuated with the thought of maintaining my own persona of the strong intelligent female. I am also infatuated with the thought of travelling to Morocco. Interesting conundrum. For the last few years I have wanted to take an extended holiday there. I've read history books, travel guides, fiction, and most recently Ms. Sheikh's memoir, set, for the most part in that mysterious land I have so often fantasized about. 

In this post, I am only going to speak of Ms. Sheikh's tale of her second marriage, I will not forray into the complexities of the third. Go on, get out there and buy the book!!! 

Donna Bailey Nurse reviewed Sheikh's book in the The Globe and Mail as one of two "..captivating memoirs". Captivating indeed! 

The book takes us through the labyrinth of Sheikh's romantic life.  Beginning at the end of her first marriage, and, straight away into her second.  Red flag.  One very wise, very Jack Daniels soaked friend of mine gave me some sage advice when I separated from my husband.  He said, "You think you're ready for another relationship now, but you need at least three years to heal yourself before you'll be any good to anyone."

I thought he was crazy.  But, as it turns out, he was right. I needed that time to regroup, get intimate with the bruises and scrapes that happened along the road at the end of my marriage, and heal enough to have the energy to give to someone else  in a relationship.

Bruises and scrapes and contemplative healing be damned. Ms. Sheikh headed straight into a head over heels relationship with whom would very shortly become her second husband.  Despite the overuse of extravagant adjectives, Ms. Sheikh describes a seemingly wonderful relationship. Her husband adored her, doted on her, was more than competent as a provider, sender of flowers and devoted, satisfying lover. (Any man reading this, please note the above three qualities - and oh yes, the man was intelligent too - in other words, she could roll over and talk to him after their fantastical love making sessions.)

As she paints the picture of her honeymoon with hubby numero two, there are hints of power and control issues.   It was his choice of guide, his insistence on keeping the same guide despite her expressed discomfort and swarthy secrets that she needn't worry her pretty little silent head over. That kind of thing. Before the end of their honeymoon, I was disgusted at her submissiveness. Although her husband cares for her, it is in a way that leads to her acquiescence, she yeilds to his needs and agenda and does not have her own. Is this imposed dominance in a sneaky subversive way,  or is this what we do in relationships - bend to please our beloved?

But what's submissive? What works and what doesn't? From the outside looking in, and from an ever-expanding perception of my own relationships, what is this dance of self and togetherness? It certainly is not black and white. Like arguing religion infused politics, arguing structure in a love relationship is futile. Maintaining a unique identity while etching out the identity of the couple is interesting to say the least.


More and more the lines cross, instead of being drawn with firm boundaries. Navigating the ever-changing web of these uniquely woven lines seems to be the art of love relationships. On page 123 of her book, when the author finally finds her missing ex-husband who has lied about a long-standing psychiatric disorder, and left her destitute, she says this of rescuing him, " This is a choice I make with full consciousness."

Over a long chat, some diet soda and a plate of nachos, one of my very intelligent girlfriends and I discussed our romantic relationships. We're educated, independent, and also struggle with maintaining our strong, independent selves while loving the men in our lives.

We too have made our choices with full consciousness. Just not full logic, and instead, a heaping amount of emotion. Does this make us weak, or does this make us brave women who hold the world together with that taboo (within the secret sisterhood of strong, independent women) glue of loving and giving?

A few years ago, I came across a quote that I am reminded of time and time again when I think of relationship issues. Not only romantic love, but the relationships we hold most dearly; close family and friends. That saying is; "The truth can be seen from many doorways". What is felt by one person is translated differently by the other. It's respecting how the other feels and treating that emotion with honour and respect that is a key to one of those many doorways.

But that's the rub isn't it? Being able to practice that loving and honouring of your partner's emotion when you have your own feelings and ego at stake? I don't think I'm alone when I say I'm unsure sometimes where loving ends and losing yourself begins? Yep, not so good at navigating that tightrope when it comes to voicing what I need and going over the top just slightly. I am by the way, quite fabulous at "over-the-top".

Although I just wanted to pull the author out of her own life as I read her tale of three marriages, who is to say that she was ever wrong? How can I judge another woman when I struggle with  my own identity in relationship? Let's face it ladies and gentleman - we all struggle with this.

This could not have been easy putting her life out there on the shelf. Granted, like every other writer, including my beloved Mr. Leonard Cohen, Ms. Sheikh likely needed the money, what with having a disasterous third marriage to a man who  cannot arguably be described as anything else but a underdeveloped-selfish-flap-of-wasted-skin. 

Granted financial need likely played a part in making the decision to publish the book, we can use this narrative as a mirror to our own selves. I am deeply thankful to Ms. Sheikh for sharing. There is always value in witnessing someone else's story.

After all, perhaps I was the weak, ignorant female, having picked up Ms. Sheikh's book with the hope of hearing a tale of a "successful" romance? A tale of a woman finding true love of mutual respect and intellect in the most unlikely of places.

We need to continue to share our stories; not just the perfectly baked cake and romantic-weekends-away stories, but stories of our heart - the trials and tribulations we experience as women. It is in this deep, dark muck that we will find the wisdom to grow.

Book Burning, Gender Studies & Canadian Politics

Tommy Douglas
~Two races share today the soil of Canada.
These people had not always been friends.
But I hasten to say it. There is no longer
any family here but the human family.
 It matters not the language people speak,
or the altars at which they kneel.~


Wilfrid Laurier

First things first. You need to know, dear reader, that I have a lot to say in this blog entry. If you get confused, or my writing is too passionate to understand, let me summarize;

1) - Book Burning can be ignorant and inspiring all at the same time

2) - Some people should either be given space to write a properly thought out column in the Globe and Mail, or not be  published at all

3) - Canadians need to get off their bacon-fat, maple-syrupy rumps and vote not for the status quo, but for what is right (you know right - located precisely deep down in that hollow space somewhere between your stomach and transverse colon).

I have this terrible habit of having conversations with my colleague's while leaning on their door frames, my arms and legs casually crossed.  As annoying as my posture must be, when I'm standing like that, often with a cup of tea in hand, I'm paying that colleague a great compliment. My body language is saying, "Tell me more."

Monday morning I had one such conversation with the chaplain who is fortunate enough to have her office located just next to my own. I'm sure you can imagine her unbridled joy at my constant, verbal run-off. We had a great conversation about our weekends (ok, my weekend), baking, films, art, and finally, the hot topic of the week, especially for students of religious studies; the proposed Koran burning in Florida. 

Florida says it all folks. In my opinion the iconic state of overindulgence, consumerism and all things lacking significant thought. Please note the overwhelming presence there of men sporting white pants and white loafers. Ignorant arrogance flaunted in it's highest form. Enough said.

Our Monday morning conversation, and the conversations that I shared during the weekend evolved into conversations about what it means to be Canadian.  The conversations were not so much about Terry Jones the book burning nutso, but what ding-dongs like him can inspire in us - the democratic voting public. I believe if we separate the emotion of religion from the logic of politics, our political conversations can be inspiring and dare I say futuristically ground breaking. 

Historically our great country is in that awkward stage akin to puberty. We've been around long enough to have our own ideas, but we're hesitant to give up the safety of our tested and true politics. Thats exactly what we need to do in order to break away enough to craft the political future of our dreams. It's often the zealots like Jones who say out loud what the bubba's of our nation are silently thinking. In this case it has inspired anyone with a stitch of logical thought to speak up and out. Sometimes we need the Terry Jones's to irritate our apathetic selves into action.

Since I've been old enough to vote, our politicians have done a great job of just pushing the envelope enough to cheese us off, but not enough for our courteous and apathetic nation of voters to protest. No wonder the number of people inspired to come out of their nice cozy-wozy over-priced, over-sized, over-mortgaged homes is plummeting like a paper plane in detention room.  Canada has always been blah blue or retisent red. Liberal or Conservative - go ahead, live on the edge, flip a coin.  Face it -we're stuck.

Currently Canada is poised on the global high diving board with an opportunity to either dazzle everyone, or make a big, humiliating splash.

You all know by now that I love my Saturday Globe and Mail. I start light in the Life Style section and work my way into the heavier, more thought provoking Cover and Focus sections.  One column that I generally skip is Leah McLaren's.  This week her column, "Man, don't feel like a womyn", held my attention until the very end.

I, like McLaren also attended university when women's studies were not just trendy, but a mandatory part of most liberal arts credits.  In the end, McLaren gives a piece of advice that students should, "Steer clear of trendy men's studies courses and stick with the classics. You'll learn more about men and women in one Shakespearean sonnet than you will in a whole feminist-theory program put together." 

Upon graduation I vowed I would never again use the phrase "patriarchal society", but I also carried with me a vision for the future that included considering all points of view. 

Skip to F3....Drew Hayden Taylor's column, "If you really must torch scriptures, why not start with the Bible?", and Stephen Marche's, "When words go up in flames".  Both writers comment about the proposed Koran burning which was inspired by the proposal to build a mosque near ground zero in New York city. 

Skip McLaren and Hayden. Unless the Globe gives McLaren more space to expound on why we don't need men's studies (like for instance we've been studying history written by men for the last, oh, say, 3 000 years), it's not worth the read. This subject deserves way more discussion, and even that snarky little bit I just put in parenthesis can be argued based on the effect of the women's movement during the past century.

And pul-eaze,  Tayor's further example of taking two religions and pitting them against one another like Ali and Foreman takes us back to the Kindergarten of our existence as a civilization here in the western world. Note here that this is not a comment on the state of aboriginal affairs - it's a statement saying we're in way deeper than figuring out how to separate two bullies on the schoolyard. We have a brawl here people. We need more sophisticated systems for peaceable, equal living. Burying our heads in the classics as McLaren suggests or pitting two out of countless viewpoints against another are poorly thought out solutions to any problem.

Pitting one thing against another, in this case Christianity and Islam, or Christianity and Native Spirituality only inflates the ego of the other.  What I'm suggesting is a more inclusive discussion about how,as Canadians we are going to maintain the political stability of secular politics as our population changes to include more and more new citizens from politically less stable countries.

What I suggest as a first step is that in a very un-Canadian way we wallow in the pride we've worked hard for. Don't get me wrong, I'm not waving a flag in pride over the Japanese interment, the horror of our history for Native Americans, or the type of what I like to call, "cock-rubbing" politics we've allowed our parliament to fall into (watch any debate in our legislatures).  I'm talking about taking pride in being able to speak freely, build a church or mosque, or temple, or sweat lodge without fear someone's going to take our lives for our faith. We need to take a more obvious pride in the health care provision that's quietly being taken away from us like a toddler being weened from their blankie and give a big yank back on that blankie.

Listening to City of Toronto mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi talk about his tunnel/traffic idea, I have a feeling we're in for a big disappointment during the next set of elections.  It's our opportunity. We either dream big now, beyond the centuries old automobile and tunnels to an effective, green-clean-mass-transit-future or get gobbled up in the big compost pile of global, "cock-rubbing", wag-the-dog, Charlie-Wilson's-War, you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours politics. 

We don't need liberals or conservatives, bloc-quebecois, or even the I-went-out-of-date-in-the-eighties, waffling NDP party.  We need Gandhi's and Mandela's, and maybe even a great Canadian Tommy Douglas again. Stand up. Be proud, and whatever you do, don't fall for this fear-mongering "throw-your-vote-away" crap.  Vote like you're in your grade 12 social issues class. Vote from that space deep down just between your stomach and your transverse colon.

Committed

A few years ago one of my friends gave me a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert's, Eat Pray Love. It was a book that had received a lot of media attention, yet didn't tug at my intellectual yearning to read. It wasn't until a second friend gave me her copy of the same book that I thought perhaps I should give it a try (after all, friend #2, much like myself rarely loans out her books. To loan a book is an expression of great love). Both women said that I'd love the book, and that the author's voice reminded them of me. Uh-oh.

I read the first two sections of the book, that took the author from married, to mourning her marriage through the food of Italy, and sanctity of spiritual of India. I stopped there. I didn't enjoy the book, and I thought that the author was rather self-indulgent as she travelled (by means of monetary advance from her publisher by the way)and indulged in, good food, spiritual retreat and adventure. Not every woman who finds herself on the other side of a bad marriage has the good fortune to be able to wallow in this kind of obsessive, border-line selfish thinking. Most are not writers, and that does give Ms. Gilbert much more leeway in my eyes. Most women are praying to get through the day to day demands of paying bills, raising children (if they have them), and not falling apart emotionally while living hand to mouth and day to day.

When I first picked up the book and started reading, I thought, “Oh my gawd! Am I that self-indulgent?! Do I really obsess about things like this woman?! Come on! “. It was kind of like being set up on a blind date and wondering what the heck the setter-upper had in mind when they matched me with the guy across the table. Pul-eaze! I did have to concede however, that yes, I obsessed, especially about my single/dating status. And yes, my friends had very patiently listened. Maybe they thought the book would hold up a mirror, and finally make me shut up. That, or increase my gratitude for the freedom I have as a single person OR encourage me like good girlfriends do that Mr. Right is out there somewhere, and I would meet him when I least expect it. Hahaha. Very funny ladies.

Anyway, two weeks ago I wanted to read something. My bed is, and always has been surrounded by books. I keep the ones I'm reading, and the ones yet to be read on shelves at arms length near my reading lamp. After all of these years of bachelorette-hood, I have come to the conclusion that I am happy as I am. Not just, I'll-get-by-until-the-next-guy-comes-along happy, but really content just having my own space and managing my own time and money. So, in my comfy bed with lots of pillows, I reached over and pulled Eat Pray Love off the shelf and started the final third of the book about Ms. Gilbert's adventures in Bali.

Much like my philosophical friends who think relationships happen when we need them, and we learn the lessons we need from these relationship when it’s time for us to learn these lessons, I believe that we read what we read when we need it, when we’re ready to translate whatever message happens to be hidden in those millions of words for us.

The long and short of it is that I did enjoy the last third of the book. That third did remind me of me, and how I relate and make my place in the world. Isn’t it nice to see that part of ourselves reflected back in our choice of literature? Anyway, I enjoyed the book and had read an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert in Shambala Sun magazine about her new book Committed; A skeptic makes peace with marriage.

After I finished the first book, I wanted to know what happened with neurotic Elizabeth, and her very sexy Brazilian lover Felipe. I mean, how bad could it turn out? He was Brazilian after all. I must confess here that every blue moon I actually take a hit of Harlequin romance myself. My dealer is a mid-fifties Newfie housewife who secretly boils bologna and cabbage and says prayers over the pot that I might meet Mr. Wonderful who will sweep me off my feet, take care of all of my worldly cares, and treat me like gold just the way her husband treats her. Keep boiling bologna old girl. I need all the help I can get.

Anyway, I bought my copy of Committed, and settled in with it. Yes, it does tell the story of Elizabeth and Felipe, and it does end “happily ever after”. After, that is, a hellish experience with the bureaucracy created by a paranoid, red-neck Republican U.S. government called “homeland security”.

Gilbert’s book gives us a great narrative about the history of the institution of marriage, and insight into how an independent woman’s mind wraps itself around that institution. From Greek philosophy to the early days of the Christian church, and marriages for land and power pre-middle ages, it is a sweeping testament to how “thinking women” as Gilbert puts it, come to terms with the great losses and gains of marriage. What the price of that intimacy is, and what the price of not having that type of intimacy is.

I remain, as I did before I read the book; content in my being. Content with my home, my child, my friends and my spirit, and maybe a little inspired. Inspired to think it is possible. I would marry again, but not under the same circumstances, or with the same expectations. Meeting a really nice man who can carry a conversation with me would be a good start.