From the Desk of Zahir Alibhai

The weekend forecast had a glimmer of joy, especially for a mid-September weekend in Surrey. Saturday was a downpour of rain, but Sunday meant to live up to its name with a forecast full of radiant glory. It could be the last weekend where sunshine was a remote possibility and so we planned a picnic. 

We prepared a feast for our party of five. Bowls of fruit, Desi chaat, tea and coffee, chicken salad sandwiches, and Costco sized bags of crisps and chocolates for sweet tooths or salty personalities. 

At the last minute, we settled on Polesden Lacey, an Edwardian estate known for its high society gatherings and whose owner endowed it to the National Trust upon her death. We arrived just around half past one in the afternoon. After parking the car, I walked up to the parking kiosk only to find it covered in a canvas cloth printed with “Out of Order” and an A4 sheet taped to the front that said, “Free Parking Saturday and Sunday”. A false sense of silver lining lingered on this coincidence. 

I looked at the bulletin board nearest the car park kiosk and sure enough – it was National Trust Weekend where all the National Trust sites were offering free parking AND free entry. If there was a weekend for a picnic, this was the weekend for it. While waiting for the other car to find their parking bay, I looked throughout the board to see what other surprises could be in store. I literally had never heard of the “National Trust” and a manor named “Polesden Lacey” sounded like a poor man’s Downton Abbey. (hot take Downton Abbey is the poor man’s Polesden Lacey). 

And while we’re waiting there was another jackpot to be won: free Jazz on Saturdays with the next show at 2 pm. Free parking, free entry, free jazz, with delectable treats all in a park fit for  royal leisure the late summer sun. 

About an hour into the set, I decided to take a tour of the house. Interesting collection of fine art and furniture. Thin floors and thick docents encouraged me to look for the exit ASAP and get back to the music. I sat down, looked at the sky I heard my partner utter “I hope it doesn’t rain. It literally said sunny all day.”

Too good to be true? It was. Something fell short. If you’ve been in England long enough, there’s no need to say it. For everyone else: it rained. The sunshine was short-lived, and it literally rained on our picnic and as the trumpet faded. We couldn’t tell if it was going to last five minutes or fifty minutes, but we played it safe and packed up our half-eaten spread to head back to the house.

The thing is, I wasn’t annoyed or upset. I didn’t care that it literally rained over the picnic – we could have been soaked and disgruntled to the point of regret. On the contrary, I was overjoyed that everything happened. I found peace during our drive there with rolling green hills on either side of the road with horses idling around pastures. The ritual of arranging the family table in a different setting made it feel like it was ourpicnic, our meal emphasizing that home and house are not the same. And finally, the heavy drizzle was a reminder of Britain’s true colors of dull and overcast grey. 

I walked into the flat with no regrets and this wisdom: whatever you do – pack that picnic. Once the decision is made, the fun begins from that moment onwards and let it sparkle for as long as it takes. Weather doesn’t dictate or define our moments of joy. Life will pass us by in between the raindrops if we stay sour about the sun. 

My heart goes out to the all the people that have been laid off during this economic slowdown and especially the latest cohort from VTS. There’s a whirlwind of emotions and as someone who has been through the layoff roller coaster, I’ve found the following exercise to help me in moments of uncertainty: name that feeling. I would recognize that I’m feeling something and immediately give it a name. 

Over the course of many weeks, I found feelings and states of humiliation, emotional fragility, karmic reflection (or existential crisis) and finally to break out of the spectrum into a place of knowing. It was the point where I could objectively analyze the events of the previous months and craft it into a lesson that would propel me forward. 

Being let go by your employer places immense pressure on us psychologically and trying to process everything takes incredible energy and effort. To take a moment of reflection and awareness and name what gives us unease makes it easier to reckon with or even turn into a positive force.

It’s okay to feel because it may be the case that that’s all we have – our emotions. You are not alone in the feelings of chaos, vulnerability, or hopelessness. Heck, there might be feelings of joy, relief, and optimism. Whatever it is, I think it’s healthy.

And here is the permission to reach out for help. Words elude us and that’s where our support systems come in. They can help us sort through it and put a name to it. Once it’s named, we can put in a cage and lock it away or let it roam around our insides but simply knowing what it is gives us comfort. 

When I went through this, I eventually found poetry. I found rhythm and harmony in the feelings that I could weave into my next job app or interview. And with that, the universe listened in kind. 

If something happened and the course of the world has materially changed – it’s part of history.  Our trail of records show that it matters to someone out there and that this event and all the record around it is the fabric of connectivity to the past.

In short, this is history. I despised studying history as a teenager. There was something absolutely boring about it. I owe this to a method of teaching where facts, dates, and textbook memorization are the key to a passing grade instead of teaching how to interpret facts and questioning the sources presented to us. 

When 2020 began, I found myself in a panic: I must write and reflect on these historic times. If not for me, for future generations. Let the teens of tomorrow read and experience what was going on in the moment. Let the nuance of the day be understood and that the determination of who is the on “right” or “wrong” side of history is a decision that could rarely be made the next day. Let the day and its passion be recorded one facet at at time, one bias against another. 

I failed at the task. I was overwhelmed. It felt like every day something new was happening: a oft-cited stat, a shocking headline, a scandalous atrocity, a new innovation. And we’re all on conference calls with dead space and all there is to do is talk, talk, talk to fill the silence and avoid the voids left by physical distancing policies. I couldn’t commit my full emotion to my screen and my page. To live through it once was enough; to recount for friend was torture; to reflect was not an option.  

At some point, I deferred to technology. The Internet and the obsession with preserving permanence was comforting. There was no need to repeat the headlines or stats or novelty surrounding us. They will be there tomorrow for anyone to access. A fuller picture will develop with the appropriate exposures. If you know, you know. As for reflection, the power of the moment was imprinted into my being. Whatever I felt, it was going to be impossible to forget. The conviction would never overturn.  

Twenty-twenty was the year that everything was ripped apart for everyone to see the world, the life for what it was. A mirror was held to each of our faces and if we dared to look away, there was an invisible hand that grabbed a shock of hair and forced us back to look straight into it. Shutting our eyes was futile. It stank like shit.  

When we don’t document the records of our lives we lose something of the past that has abundantly contributed to our present state and dictates where we go. The choices ahead of us are a function of the choices behind us. If we want to change the opportunities ahead, it is imperative to understand the choices that brought us to where we are today. Keeping the record straight is quite possibly the most enriching but most difficult task at hand and something I failed at in 2020, but now – I have the strength to resume a life examined, a beautiful life, that can one day be worth examining to someone beyond myself. 

Twenty twenty-one is for healing. It’s for cleaning up the mess. The spillage isn’t over but the end seems to be in sight. The road seems as difficult as has ever been. But now is my time to reflect. I am in a position to look back at 2020 with the courage to grapple the discomfort. I have the capacity to hear numbers and imagine the loss on a human scale. What is 300,000 dead when the desire to wake up and jump out of bed is as reliable as the L-train? I couldn’t find the strength to empathize with myself and so to empathize with dancing numbers was out of the question. Today’s 300,00+ person death toll is a source of purpose. I can face it myself; I can face those who cause harm, and I can face the hate.  

To do this, I have three journals to date. They each serve their own purpose and feed from separate wells of emotion. They take different sizes, different colors, each with its own challenge for me to grow with. I am face to face with an about-turn from no documentation to over-documenting. This website is one of them (as much as I’m inclined to say “You’re welcome to be invited”, the reality is that history and history-in-the-making is still boring, so REALLY – THANK YOU for coming and reading). 

What I wish for is for everyone to heal, to feel strength when they feel like the day can’t get worse, to realize they are important and they matter, and they are beautiful as a butterfly’s wings fluttering over a daffodil. I wish our journals (if you have one) are more than spotted with entries here and there but that they are bleeding the richness of our lives off the pages – we live life to the fullest, we will not be marginalized by the false presumption of power.  

And I hope I can be a better person: to the world, to you, and to myself. Let the trauma of 2020 be the trampoline that launches us to better being. 

I was listening to Sway’s episode on vulnerability and moved by how we can improve our lives for the better if we can learn to address our esteem patterns. I realized a couple things during that episode: my self-armor to protect against failure is to procrastinate until the end of time (or the end of the year) and even then, it may not get done. Where does my resolve go? 

Second, I found something that I need to come clean about in an effort to curb my shame and embrace what I think makes me inadequate: I’m a slow learner.  

The upside is that I attempt to be thorough but it comes it at a cost. We all have our learning and intelligence strengths and many of us proclaim to be visual learners or prefer hands-on exercises but for me, it’s time. I look at a picture or a graph thoroughly, absorbing every detail going through it once or twice. I hang on to every word lectured looking for nuance or trying to listen between the pauses.  

What that really comes down to is me consuming everything twice. I find myself reading pages twice over, skipping back 15 or 30 seconds to catch that snippet of a soundbite because I didn’t hear it or process it right away. When I get to the end of anything, it’s the beginning that dawns over me and I find myself recursing back where I started with a new sense of lucidity and doubting if I correctly read anything the first time around.

But that’s okay. We all learn differently. And this self-embrace-of-shame (thank you, Brene Brown) is meant to help me put aside everything else I harbor within me that prevents me from putting my best self, my best work, my best ideas out there. This is where it begins. 

-ZA