Letters to My Daughter

5/2017 Yaseen is now a sensitive and brilliant 8 year old. He is a young man who is taking care of his mother, and is her best friend. I remember this first meeting with Yaseen as a baby, and how overcome I was with emotion. In April 2015, when I was expecting Fatima,  I got a call from my dear friend about her impending divorce with Yaseen's father. It was just yesterday that I met this little baby who is now the man of his house. They live in Boston, and I hope to visit them one day. I call her, and ask about Yaseen once a month. I also sent her a birthday gift last year, when I remembered what it would feel like to be in her position. Our relationships are disappointing and fulfilling at the same time, and the wisdom in these early journal entries amazes me. There is so much for me to learn, now in my 30s, and so much for my young daughter to learn. My dear friend has not yet met my daughter, given the whirlwind of her life. I remember the nights when I was nursing Fatima, the

"Joining a radical movement when one is young is very much like falling in love when one is young. The girl may turn out to be rotten, but the experience of love is so valuable it can never be entirely undone by the ultimate disenchantment.” Irving Kristol's words resonated with me today as i considered the early days of activism that I thought defined me as an individual. I began to shift through old emails I had accumulated and was overcome by the nostalgia of a former self I did not recognize. I came across a conversation--how I love that our conversations these days are permanently saved on gmail-- that left me puzzled. In the conversation, my late friend Conor advised me to "recognize the one," to basically stop wandering when I had already arrived at clarity. How strange, that five years ago, he knew what I needed, what I still need to hear. He had told me this five years ago. Five years ago. How extraordinary is the life of every human being that finds herself