I love Ian McEwan's Black Dogs. Yes, I admit that I have yet to finish reading the book. Just as how I am behind time for most of my readings this semester. Nevertheless, that does not stop me from enjoying the little things that I have read so far and enjoying my classes for the semester. Anyway, I am digressing from Black Dogs.

Perhaps it is my own laziness seeping through the years but lately, I have a preference for thin books. It awes me more when a book appears so simple and innocent and yet, the depth of knowledge, wisdom and art that the author is able to infuse into his work is really quite beautiful. Black Dogs is one of them. I feel a tug of familiarity with the character of Jeremy. No, not those tugs of familiarity borne out of your own secret desire to be viewed a certain way but rather, his position as a third-person narrator, observing the lives of the other characters around him and his ability to easily blend into the lives of others and appreciate the one thing that we often take for granted - parents.

We often talk about ideologies and the demons that can exist in the human psyche during class and yet, the crux of the novel that struck me most is really of family. I suppose it is partly because I have been thinking a lot of my own family. We don't get to choose how our parents or our siblings. You are born and they are the way they are. 

Recently, I had gone to the mosque on the night of Nisfu Sya'aban and it was an emotional night for me. I was touched by the whole proceedings, my very first, I must say. And to be there with a family that was not my own, I felt like a Jeremy then, looking in and borrowing moments that otherwise, I would not have. To have someone else's mother hold my hand and spend a whole hour just to help me learn to recite the surah Yaasin. Masyallah...I cannot put to words how it affected me. 

I cried. To sit there in the mosque and seated amongst so many people. Yet, to be seated there alone at the same time. Is it possible? At that night, I felt all that I missed in my life and all the times that were wasted in the past. A little misspent and a lot wasted. Here was a mother giving me reminders about my religion and teaching me to read. And she was not my own mother. 

My very first Nisfu Sya'aban was indeed very meaningful to me. I try and perhaps, I am not trying hard enough to be a better Muslim. I am like the camel, looking for an oasis in the vast desert. Yet, I let my solitary define me. I don't seek out for assistance to prod me in the right direction. I am merely there, allowing for the wind to blow sand into my eyes, clouding my vision further.

My black dogs continue to haunt me and I am still attempting to step out of their shadows.