May All Our Loves Be Recognised

On weddings, and missing homes.

I write to you from a wide, warm room in Lahore, Pakistan. Muffled sounds of a distant party are thrumming through the open door beside me, and my feet are clammy under the blanket, though it will be too cold if I take them out. I am in the city for a friend’s wedding, one of my favourite excuses to visit somewhere new. Though it is my first time in this country, much feels familiar, and foreign, all at once.

gif of myself and the bride in various poses…not sure if this will work but I’m trying to be fancy here look at my canva skills!

Being in Pakistan reminds me of Sudan. The fine layer of ashy dust that coats every exposed surface in the outside world. The bright shop signs scrawled in Arabic script, the tuktuks, the overwhelming number of white Toyotas tooting their way through traffic, the raucous melody of the streets. The way women of a certain class move from vehicle to house to vehicle to shop, no walking, no time on said streets. The finery of the clothing, the encouragement of bling, the bountiful generosity of all. The accepted presence of a military force. The automatic weapons hanging from bodies as casual as a cigarette dangling from a young man’s lip. The quiet movement of the maids and workers in a home. The concrete staircases in the houses. The same pattern on this floor here in Lahore as in my grandmother’s house there in Khartoum, the house I was born in, the house I visited every second summer, the house which is now occupied by militia.

Even the handles on the doors here remind me of my grandmother’s house. They’re simple, stainless steel handles, attached by screws parallel to the door frame. Nothing special, and yet. Set against the off white of the colonial-era paint, with its built in mosquito net, I can almost hear the call of habooba to come inside for tea. You must be getting cold out there, do you need a shawl?

I haven’t heard from some of my family in Sudan for over two weeks, the telecommunications blackout still largely in force across the country. The last time I visited in Sudan was for my own wedding, and I rushed off - to get back to work, to escape the overwhelm, to reflect on how much this public contract signing had changed my life. I thought I would be back, but a pandemic and a war later, I am yet to return.

So being in Lahore, a place that unexpectedly reminds me so much of Khartoum, for a friend’s traditional wedding almost exactly four years after my own, after which life for so many of us changed irrevocably: well, readers, it’s been a hell of a trip.

I’ll be honest. I say ‘weddings are my favourite excuses to visit somewhere new’, but I’ve not made it to a destination wedding before. I’ve been invited, but for various reasons, it’s never quite worked out. This has been a new experience, and as I write, I wonder whether the only reason I am so reminded of Sudan is because the only comparable experience I have is my own wedding. As I write, I wonder: is a wedding in a friend’s home country a ‘destination’ wedding? I mean, yes, you are asking people to pay money for flights and maybe accommodation and apply for visas and take time off and the works, so the financial and logistical aspect is similar. But ‘destination wedding’ implies choosing a place that signals aspirational, exclusive, beautiful. Not that Khartoum or Lahore aren’t beautiful in their own rights, but they are certainly not being inundated with tourists who want the ‘perfect’ wedding backdrop.

For me, the invitation to a diaspora destination wedding is a privilege, more exciting than the conventional arrangement. It comes with the knowledge you are being let into a friend’s world in the most intimate of manners, visiting a friend in the place that made them, seeing them ‘in context’, and meeting others who knew the friend from different points in their life. The experience can bring colour to the line sketch one has of a person, shade in the gaps.

Of course, it is not so simple. The places that made us are not always who we want to be, and there is so much I personally find challenging about the hullabaloo that surrounds a wedding. Why not have a party, without all the stress, right? Why add the expectation and the judgement and the negotiation and the anxiety —

But one doesn’t often jump on a plane and clear a week of work for any old party. Births, deaths and marriages. The three ‘significant life events’ humans have been recording for centuries, millennia, and we only remember one of them! Bound to be stressful, I guess.

It amuses me that I’ve been back on my newsletter game for less than six months and this is the second time that I’ve written about a wedding.

What does that say about me, I wonder, when so many of those around me are eschewing the institution altogether, arguing it is inherently patriarchal or heteronormative, traditional and conservative and not worth the hassle. I hear that, I do. I understand a position wrought from pain, trauma and the tragically common experiences of injustice, exploitation and abuse. But then, I say to myself, hey! I did not grow up in a tradition or faith where marriage was about men owning their wives. I did not grow up in a tradition or faith where divorce was contested, or a woman’s agency suppressed. I grew up in family and faith which taught me that this was an institution to enter if, and only if, my life would be better in it than outside it. That taught me my nikkah, my relationship contract, was mine to define (with my partner) and that I should exercise the hell out of that right. That taught me to have agency, if not during the wedding itself, certainly in the marriage! I shouldn’t accept a contemporary take without bringing the non-Christian, non-Anglo perspective, right?

Then again, not everyone in my faith, family or tradition share my experiences or perspective. Just because it works for me, and I see its value, does not mean I do not recognise the challanges. I suppose, if I am going to suppose anything in this newsletter, I wish there was more space for our societies to recognise the plurality of relationships it holds. Despite all my anxiety about my own wedding, I was at least allowed one. I was proposing a union my family accepted, and felt comfortable celebrating. I wish the same could be said for all of my friends, but I know that is not, at this moment, true. It doesn’t seem right, or fair.

May we find ways to change that, inshallah. Perhaps it is time for me to start jumping on planes (or the more environmentally friendly trains, or just walk, I guess, very carbon neutral that…) for more than just births, deaths and marriages. We shall see, eh?

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Last week’s poll was overwhelming - you all prefer the three recommendations, once a week! Well, dear readers, your wish is my command.

Watch: In Conversation on Giovanni’s Room

I was fortunate to be in conversation with the inimitable Colm Tóibín, hosted by Heather Marks, discussing Baldwin’s masterpiece, Giovanni’s Room. I did the panel in the middle of my friend’s henna party, to the horror of all the aunties, so you know I was committed to the piece!

Listen: Where Should We Begin

I have learnt so much from the Belgian-American psychotherapist and internet celebrity, Esther Perel. The daughter of Holocaust survivors (the only surviving members of each of their families), she has an empathetic, clear-sighted and deeply human approach to relationships that I admire. ‘The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives’, she says, and I think there’s a real truth in that. If you haven’t checked out her podcast series, ‘Where Should We Begin’, you simply must. She records therapy sessions with couples going through a particular problem, and takes listeners through the challenges, and learnings, from what is being shared. Brilliant. Start with this classic episode: You Can Be Right, or You Can Be Married.

Read: How Do I Not Have My Heart Broken?

Did you know Nick Cave has a letter answering column? Known as ‘The Red Hand Files’, Cave introduces the project as such:

The Red Hand Files began in September of 2018 as a simple idea – a place where I would answer questions from my fans. Over the years, The Red Hand Files has burst the boundaries of its original concept to become a strange exercise in communal vulnerability and transparency. Hundreds of letters come in each week, asking an extraordinarily diverse array of questions, from the playful to the profound, the deeply personal to the flat-out nutty. I read them all and try my best to answer a question each week.

I came across the answer to a profound question recently, and thought it was worth sharing.

The surest way to avoid a broken heart is to love nothing and no-one — not your partner, your child, your mother or father, your brothers or sisters; not your friends; not your neighbour; not your dog or your cat; not your football team, your garden, your granny or your job. In short, love not the world and love nothing in it. Beware of the things that draw you to love — music, art, literature, cinema, philosophy, nature and religion. Keep your heart narrow, hard, cynical, invulnerable, impenetrable, and shun small acts of kindness; be not merciful, forgiving, generous or charitable — these acts expand the heart and make you susceptible to love — because as Neil Young so plainly and painfully sings, ‘Only love can break your heart.’ In short, resist love, because real love, big love, true love, fierce love, is a perilous thing, and travels surely towards its devastation. A broken heart — that grief of love — is always love’s true destination. This is the covenant of love.

However, to resist love and inoculate yourself against heartbreak is to reject life itself, for to love is your primary human function. It is your duty to love in whatever way you can, and to move boldly into that love — deeply, dangerously and recklessly — and restore the world with your awe and wonder. This world is in urgent need — desperate, crucial need — and is crying out for love, your love. It cannot survive without it.

(read on here)

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Hope you’ve enjoyed the read. Hope you hug someone you love. Hope you push away the shadows of loneliness and grief with acts of kindness and gratitude. How much longer we have on this earth is a secret knowledge, so we might as well make the most of the moments we have.

If you feel like a friend might enjoy this read, please do share.

Until next time,

Yassmin