Laila Ibrahim, Author
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We’re rich enough

10/28/2015

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When they were young, both of my children asked me,  “Are we rich?”  I told them,  "Yes, we are."

We live in a 1500 square foot flat in a triplex with our own bathroom that has cold and hot running water 24 hours a day.  We have so much food in our kitchen that we could eat for two weeks without grocery shopping.  We have our own car and when we needed two, we had more than one.


All of society tells us that’s not rich; that’s just regular.  But if I compare our lives to the quality of life of most humans throughout history, rather than to Paris Hilton, then I know I’m indeed rich.

The media message is unrelenting: “You don’t have enough.”  “You’re not doing enough.”  
“You aren’t enough.”


We may not have a master bath but:

I’m quite certain my children eat better than Queen Victoria did.
We carry powerful computers in our pockets.
We have drawers stuffed full of clothes.
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We have enough;  more than enough.


I recently read a reputable study found that 30% of the food bought in grocery stores is ultimately  thrown away.   I don’t know the best means to get all my extra food to a hungry belly rather than my compost bin, but I’m certain it would be the right thing to do.

The spiritual truth for the vast majority of us:  We have enough.  We do enough.  We are enough.
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Best day of my life, washed away

10/21/2015

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I'm in a time of enormous gratitude for the blessing of my life.  It feels like a golden time for me and I’m enjoying it enormously.   My life is so good that it borders on embarrassing.  My family, my work, my community, the weather, yummy  food, my house, my dogs, my health...the list of things I’m grateful for goes on and on.  

I was in my house, listening to my favorite Pandora station, Shake it Off, when The Best Day of My Life came on.  I felt the sentiment of those words deep down in my heart.  I started dancing around to the rhythm, and singing along to the life-affirming words.

As I’m singing and dancing, feeling the joy of being alive, I’m blindsided by a picture on my laptop;  The  heartbreaking  image of a preschooler’s body, washed up on the shore of a beach, is at the top of my Facebook feed.   I know immediately  this is a Syrian refugee who never made it to safe shores. Instantly, tears stream down my face. Imagining his parents’ pain causes me to sob out loud.

How can my life be so absolutely awesome when there is so much pain and suffering in the world, so much of it human made?  How is my life connected to that little boy?  How can I keep my sanity and feel empathy at the same time?

I had a good cry about that little boy and the refugees and victims of war. Then I kept on going with my day (minus the dancing). I can't continuously hold all the pain of 7 billion people or I would actually go crazy. But occasionally something breaks into my soul and I recommit to investing in something bigger than myself. Something that will bring just a little more love and a little more justice into our hurting world.
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Yes, this does matter

10/14/2015

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When my children were very young we had a nightly ritual of holding hands in silence before eating.  Then we went around the table taking turns sharing about the bad parts and the good parts of our days.  At some point, during the elementary years, the kids started balking when it came time to hold hands until I started to feel self-conscious about this spiritual moment.  Eventually we let go of the habit and no longer had a moment of gratitude and humility before dinner.

Letting go of grace is one my regrets as a parent.  I wanted my children to have that experience and yet  I didn't hold it up as a value.  Throughout my children’s lives I've asked them to do many things. Sometimes they do them happily and other times they resist.  I know when they resist part of what they are asking me is, “Does this really matter?”  When it came to manners and homework and getting dressed and brushing their teeth and doing their laundry the answer from me alway came back, “Yes, this does matter.  So you are going to do your school work and be polite and wear clean clothes and keep your teeth healthy.”

But when they resisted grace, when they questioned the importance of a spiritual ritual around food, I tacitly answered, “No, this is not important,” when we stopped doing it.

When they were in high school I  reasserted the value of a nightly grace.  When I brought it up, my kids were not just willing, but eager.  So we transformed our dinners  by saying something along these lines:  “God, thank you for the abundance we are about to receive and for all that went into bringing it to our table”.  It’s not fancy, it doesn’t take long, and half the time we only remember to say it when we are part way through the meal.  But it does the trick.  It reminds us all that we are connected to so much else, the interconnected web of all existence and to be grateful for the blessings in our lives.
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Loving all genotypes

10/7/2015

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One tool of racism is to teach us to be scared of young men of color, especially black young men. It's hard for me to admit this, but I know that it's been true for me. I became aware of this indoctrination after watching the Michael Moore movie Roger and Me.  That film shows how the media perpetuates the myth that black men are a danger to society rather than the opposite, which is that our society is actually very harmful to young black, and brown, men.

I then understood that I had been taught that certain neighborhoods were dangerous for me, when in reality I can walk in just about any neighborhood without harm ever coming to me. Yet I was taught to live in fear of crossing boundaries.

After that realization, I decided to work on loving people of all genotypes. I'm aware it’s a kind of a strange aspiration, but for whatever reason it became mine. It helps that I live in a multiracial community--and that my kids attended multiracial schools. Adoring kids is easy for me. And once they've grown up my love for them doesn't go away.

This week I'm visiting New York City, an amazing cross-section of humanity, which has given me a chance to see how I've done on my goal. I'm proud to say I've succeeded. Most of the human faces I pass by remind me of someone I know. In each stranger's face I see someone I feel warmly towards, which makes them less of a stranger in my heart.  And that makes the world feel like a safer place. I'm no longer living in fear of a lie. Instead I'm living a life of appreciation--for all of the (not so) strangers around me.
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Stealing or Tasting?

9/30/2015

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   As I sat with a group of friends on a warm Fall day in Napa County, someone casually mentioned that they always taste grapes before they buy them.  Of course, I thought to myself, Who doesn’t?It turns out my friend D___ doesn’t. To my surprise, he challenged, “You eat grapes without buying them?!”

    “No, I just taste one,” our friend explained.

    D___ questioned, “Before you paid for it? And with no way to account for how much to pay for it?”

    “I guess so,” she said.

    “I do too,” I said.

    “Really?  Who else?” D___ asked.

    Most of us around that circle taste a single grape before buying a whole bunch.  The consensus of the group reassured me that I wasn’t breaking a social taboo by my sampling.

    “What else?” D__ asked, “Do you ‘taste’ before buying?"

    Nothing. I think to myself, just as our friend S___ says, “Strawberries.”

    I exclaim, “You eat a whole strawberry before buying a basket of them?!”

    She nods, “Same principle as the grape.”

    In my head I think, Oh no, that is stealing.


  In that moment I realize how arbitrary many social norms are and how we aren’t even aware of when and how we learned them.  I’m sure my mom tasted grapes in the store, but didn’t taste strawberries.  That’s why one's okay with me and the other isn't.

    One thing I love about being with people that aren’t just like me is that I get an opportunity to see my own internal biases and assumptions.  Sometimes I don’t know what I really believe until I’m faced with its opposite. This reminds me of a bumper sticker that’s popular around here:  Don’t believe everything you think.

    I still taste a grape before committing to buy a whole bunch, but now I’m aware of  the moral complexity of that act as I do it, turning an ordinary trip to the grocery store into a spiritual practice.





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Imperfect or none?  That’s the only choice

9/23/2015

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I often say you can have imperfect community or no community, but perfect community is not at option.  I’ve been going to the same church for more than 30 years so I’ve had ample opportunity to practice being a part of imperfect community.  Sometimes it is no fun at all.  But other times, something happens at church that makes my heart soar, causing all the frustrations and disappointments to be worth it.


As I embark on a career as an artist it strikes me that the same principle is at work in  art.  You can make imperfect art or no art, but perfect art isn’t an option.  As soon as I had that realization, I understood that it’s true for all human endeavors:  you an be an imperfect parent or no parent, but perfect parenting isn’t an option.  Nor is perfect cooking, cleaning, teaching, building, loving, meditating...the list goes on and on.


I find this notion very freeing.  Perfection is not an option so I don’t concern myself with it.  I don’t have to do things ‘right’. I just have to do things and then see what parts of it come out right. I act, I notice, I reflect, and I revise.  Not a bad system for making art...or a life.
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THE VIEW FROM MY INTERSECTION

9/16/2015

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Mad max or Star Trek Future?
(justice)

I grew up watching Star Trek.  I’m told I saw the original series when it first aired, but it was watching the reruns, and then the continuation of the series, that deeply shaped who I am.

Star Trek teaches us over and over again that cooperation, respect, and diversity make life better for all beings. We learn that you don’t have to be a human to have humanity.  And that struggling with morally ambiguous questions is a never-ending privilege that come from exploring borders.  Star Trek teaches me that working together we can solve the toughest problems of our time.  Food, energy, tolerance, respect, and justice are all abundantly possible. The future I see in Star Trek is the future that I want-- and the future I’m working for.

I often despair at the futility of that kind of hope. But the alternative is entirely unacceptable.  The alternative leaves my descendents in a Mad Max world:  a society without empathy, resources, and trust, in a world full of fear and scarcity?limitations.

I’ll never know which future we humans will get.  Likely it will be somewhere in the middle.  But I’ll do my part, however small, to bring about the world I’d want to inherit.

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The view from my intersection

9/9/2015

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Delusions of Time

Self-reflection


In the future, my life is always spacious.  I have all the time to do what I’ve planned. And believe me, I make plans.

Then the future comes and suddenly it looks a lot like the present I had been planning from:  already so full that I never get to most of my to-do list.

Last spring I decided to blog for a year starting on my 50th birthday.  I imagined that I’d have plenty of time to do that once I’d stopped working and became a full-time writer.  And I've missed my first deadline. But, you see, our friend Dan is dying, and I started classes at Berkeley City College, and our daughter Kalin is moving out of the house, and friends are visiting and, and, and…Well, LIFE. There is always life.

Amazing things came from my decision to start writing a novel for my 40th birthday.  It wasn’t an easy or straightforward path to get YELLOW CROCUS into the world.  I missed a lot of self-imposed deadlines.  But I muddled through and now I’m a full time artist—well, except for the rest of my rich and full life :)

So I’m sticking with my decision to blog each week, though I’m starting a week (or is it two?) late. I always want there to be LIFE in the midst of my life.  So I’ll make my plans, deluded that I’ll have all the time in the world in my mythical future, and I’ll muddle through in the reality of now.  

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Laila Ibrahim Discusses Yellow Crocus on BlogTalkRadio

2/5/2015

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Did you miss hearing Laila Ibrahim on BlogTalkRadio the other day? Well don't worry! Hear Ms. Ibrahim discuss her compelling novel 'Yellow Crocus' on The Book Experience  with Ms. Chanel. Simply click HERE.
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Laila Ibrahim will panel a discussion at the Alamo Women's Club Author's Faire

2/4/2015

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Review from Literary Critic, Ashley Fae

2/4/2015

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"Yellow Crocus is a stunning story about love, loss and the beauty of beginning again. The pages of this novel are filled with such emotion that it's breathtaking."

This was the opening response from Ashley Fae, book critic for Literature Junkie Extraordinaire, after finishing her review for 'Yellow Crocus'.  She continues her review by saying, "
This compelling historical novel is a richly evocative tale of love, loss, and redemption set during one of the most sinister chapters of American history. From the plot to the characters, every inch is beautifully written. Without a doubt in my mind, this is one book that begs to be read and remembered for years to come. A story that changes ones life and the way one looks at the world. A novel that reaches out an touches the soul. 

You can read the full review here.

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The Inspiration for Yellow Crocus

11/21/2014

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Hear from Laila Ibrahim, author of Yellow Crocus, discuss the events that drove her to create the ardent story of multiculturalism, privilege, power, dignity, and love.

"The idea for the story came to me a long time ago in 1998. I was with a group of people talking about Tiger Woods, and someone mentioned the fact that he identifies as being Asian as much, or even more as African American. I thought to myself, "well of course he does. His mother is Asian, and she was one of his primary caregivers, and in that context, he formed his self identity."

And in that moment, in a flash of inspiration, I thought of this little white baby being cared for in the loving arms of Mattie - I didn't know the characters names at the time, but that little baby turned out to be Lisbeth. I imagined what it would be like for her to grow up loving Mattie as her primary caregiver, and yet, as she grew up her family was going to basically deny Mattie's very humanity. Then I mentioned what it would be like for Mattie, who had to leave her son Samuel behind in the quarters so she could take care of this baby. She was forced to do that, and we see what an untenable situation that would be.

So these characters haunted me for a number of years, and various scenes popped in my head. Even though I had never written anything, except for maybe a short story in middle-school, I decided for my 40th birthday to take on the marathon task of writing a novel.

I've come to love these characters, and I'm thrilled that Amazon has republish my work so these stories are getting into the hands of more people. I hope you come to love Mattie and Lizbeth as much as I do."

-Liala Ibrahim, author of 'Yellow Crocus'

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Forward>>

    Laila Ibrahim is a passionate author set out to write stories of love's ability to transcend human-made systems of oppression.

     Living Right goes beyond the headlines to reveal the life and death stakes when a devoted mother struggles to reconcile her evangelical Christian beliefs with her son’s sexual orientation.

    Set in the antebellum South, Yellow Crocus is a rich, evocative tale of love, loss and redemption between an enslaved black woman, her privileged white charge, and their fight for freedom.

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