Week 14 - Changes (again)
What sitting on the border of the Seine made me feel about running.
Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and emails from Week 12’s post. I haven’t had the capacity to respond to them all, but know I read each and every one of them. I felt deeply moved, and indelibly grateful. Thank you.
I made it, y’all! Over 15 months since I received a letter from the Australia Council about this residency, I have finally arrived. Big Alhamdulilah.
There is so much I could say about my first week here. Moving to an area of Paris is that is as White as my previous digs were Black. The cognitive dissonance I feel at being surrounded by people speaking English, when I am obsessed with wanting to improve my (especially spoken) French. The unsettling peculiarity of moving into a studio apartment in what is essentially spacious student accommodation without so much as an orientation tour or a ‘Welcome to the Cité’ spiel from anyone who works here - likely the result of starting during the third confinement of this century’s first global pandemic - leaving me with the sense of being a character in a computer game I don’t know the rules to, wandering around aimlessly, not realising there is a key token I need to unlock for the play to start and everything to make sense.
But those thoughts, as all consuming and pressing as they have been this week (along with news of the various impending French hijab bans, just in time for Ramadan, woo!), were not what kept me occupied this morning. I’ve been mulling on something a little more mundane, a little less significant, but something that nonetheless has continued to live in my mind rent-free, vexing me for years.
I’m talking about running.
I started running early. My father, a keen amateur athlete, dragged my little brother and I out of bed for a jog around the local park, every Saturday morning for my entire childhood. We called it Macgregor Park, though it probably had another name. It was the early 00’s, and we must have made quite the sight as we looped around the green: a skinny, short, very quick child leading the pack (my brother), a moustached light-skinned African man keeping pace (dad, obvs), and a tall, slightly chubby, loudly complaining daughter, straggling behind (ahem, me). I grumbled a lot, but I loved it.
I joined the gym as soon as I could (11), because I wanted to build muscle. I started boxing as soon as I was (nominally) allowed at 16, because the power of a punch thrilled me. I did stints in karate, sprinting, soccer, volleyball, tennis (all fairly poorly, mind you); if it didn’t get my hair wet, I would try it. I loved being fit, I loved being strong, and these were foundational aspects of my character throughout my teens. But as I wrote in Yassmin’s Story, somewhere along the line, sport went from being something fun I did for myself, to something that was inextricably connected to how I looked (read: how skinny I was), and also, somehow, reflective of a strange sense of moral good. And this link to moral good still gets under my skin.
As I sit on the border of the Seine, watching runner after runner trundle by, some obviously seasoned athletes, others shuffling along with pained looks on their faces, the part of me that loves sport, that loves the feeling of my body being stretched, tested, fine tuned, that part of me wants to jump up and join them. It wants to see how far I can push myself, see how fast I can go. I miss that rush, the endorphins, the slightly competitive edge to it all.
But there is another part of me that so very deeply resents that fact that if I do join them, I go from being seen as ‘lazy’ (and therefore ‘bad’), to somehow being seen as ‘healthy/active’ and thus, ‘good’. In these a-religious societies we live in, exercise and fitness - especially activities like running, cross fit and the like - feel like they have taken on a sense of morality that quite honestly, makes me nauseous. Especially given said society’s attitude towards my actual faith.
People will sniff at the idea of Muslims waking up for Fajr, but applaud a 5am run. They will think Ramadan is *too much*, but laud intermittent fasting. People will think abstaining from alcohol for religious reasons *is a bit much*, but if you’re doing it for health reasons, well, you’re just dedicated, right?
The irony is that no-one in particular is actually messaging me, saying I should exercise more, do more sport, would look better a few kilos lighter… but I live in the same society that we all do, right? I know that if I did start making ‘fitness’ part of my public persona, if I openly strive to fulfill the ‘thin/healthy ideal’, it would be something I am socially rewarded for - I know this, because I see it all the time. I know my friends would probably high key take the piss, but low key be impressed. I know that it would be mentioned glowingly in my bio. I know I would be doing ‘what I should’, what is considered ‘the right thing to do’, since being fit is good for you, right?
Oh gosh, how I recoil from doing what I ‘should’.
I’m not the first person who has written about these sentiments. But I get frustrated that the result is my borderline irrational refusal to participate in any sports, just so I avoid the elitist, gendered, Eurocentric fitness-industrial-complex that surrounds me. It feels even more personal, given it wasn’t always this way. Sport used to be easy, I think to myself. Why d’you have to go and make things so complicated?
But in my refusal, I am left with a nagging question. What’s the point in rebelling against something that you actually quite enjoy? Something that, between you and me, actually makes me happy? Who is my rebellion for?
Perhaps this is another one of those things were my resistance will be quiet, in not making it part of my story. Perhaps, I will keep it private. Knowing that I could cash in on the societal brownie points, but choosing not to.
Perhaps that is how I can have my cake…and eat it too.
Who knows. Maybe I’ll just stick to sketching and kvetching? :)
What I am reading this week: This is a super old piece that I came across, but had to share: a really honest post about ‘my horrible New York Times review’. I found it through this lovely piece about ‘the joys and dangers of readership’.
What I am listening to this week: Oh my, check out this music video. Bask in the Congolese excellence. Listen to those dulcet tones. What a vibe!
What I am watching this week: I’ve actually struggled to find a show of late. I started an intense French political show called Baron Noir, which is fine if not mildly dispiriting. An awkward reality of being in France is that many Netflix shows don’t have English subtitles anymore (??) and so I’m stuck with either rewatching shows I already know the plotlines to, or only partially understanding what is going on. And yes, I have tried a VPN. It doesn’t work. Alas!
Also, a gentle reminder that my latest novel, Listen Layla, is out now (you can also request it from your local library!). If you read and enjoyed it, it would be so wonderful if you shared a review here on Goodreads. It helps other people find the book :)
Thanks for subscribing and reading this week’s edition of Diasporan Diaries. Please, comment with thoughts, questions, critiques…and share if it resonated.
Much love, strength and safety to you all.
Best,
Yassmin
Ooh gold medal for this essay! Particularly as I've been searching for a term that sums up our western society a- religious. I'll take that if I may. Go running but don't publish. When a friend talks to you about weight my therapist would advise you to ignore any statements until it becomes obvious that They are weight obsessed but say it lovingly. Oh yeah, you got me right on my soapbox. I won't reiterate what you just wrote but yes! Yes! YES!
One of the most recent damaging books on diet (so many, it's a billion $) industry, is titled something like "why French women are thin" or something like that. Strength should not be aligned to thinness. I recently moved from an area where large bodes abounded, partly because of poverty. Now I live in an area surrounded by gym junkies, where chia bowls are breakfast. My body is the largest its ever been. I'm in therapy, involved in the health at every size movement. HAES ( Australia). My therapist founded Untrapped a program to free us from diet prison. Soapbox anyone! I'm currently setting out on a path to strength that will be private and helped by exercise physiologists. Because I can be in charge. In closing I'll point out Yassmin that you know your body, what it enjoys doing. So run, shadow box, dance in your student like accommodation and enjoy your strength. Great writing. Thank you.