So now it is 2009 and I have still not rectified my consistency in posting or anything else for that matter. But with the new year, my dear husband and dear daughter and I have weathered our immigration troubles. Yusupha will have to leave the country but we can go through the consular process and get a visa so he can return. It's uncertain how long that will take but, insha'allah, our ordeal with Homeland Security is over and we can return to our lives. So it is a new beginning.
We are going to get remarried--to renew our commitment, to bring in a wider circle of friends, witnesses, participants. It is to seal something, or maybe to close off the involvement of the government, to bind our community to us--because the whole experience was traumatic, with lawyers, agents, people inquiring into the insides of our family, a place they didn't belong. So we are starting anew. The ceremony is, for the most part, going to be simple and informal EXCEPT that I bought some beautiful fabric to make myself a beautiful dress. I'm still working on details--the date in May, reserving the community center, who to invite, who to officiate.
This weekend is Yusupha's birthday. We never really celebrate his birthday because it is indefinite: we only know that he was born sometime around now in 1964. But this year he will have a birthday dinner, cake, and at least one present. I know what he wants!!
Obama is President! Michelle Obama is first lady! This new beginning, which resonates across the land, also feels like a purely personal joy. I drank it all in--the miles of people, all the dignitaries, the music, the fashion, the seriousness of Obama and then his face split by that luminous smile. I have great hope that whatever he achieves or fails to achieve, he will bring this country back to a position of dignity and humility within the world community. I believe he too will bind us to the greater world and seal us off from the indignity and the shame of the Bush years.
