I woke up at 4:30am today — neither earlier, nor later than usual. The predawn is when you can see your guardian angels.
After my usual ablutions, I listened for a few minutes to an adhan I’ve recently been playing every morning in the auroral stillness — whether it be here, in Florida, or up in New York.
I sip my coffee, my feet up on a tabouret, and let go.
My mind drifts into the space of nothingness.
I let go of all my worries, past and present — of the feverish night dreams, of the adventures yet to unfold.
I drift into a state of freedom from all imperatives.
Sometime it takes a while, but usually no more than five or ten minutes.
Throughout this meditation, I often murmur in Arabic that God is Great, and that Muhammad (PBUH) is his Prophet.
Somehow this connects me to my truest self: the boy who grew up in a distant land by a river where the sound of the muezzins from a thousand minarets would flood the dawn hours as the sun rose over what was once the greatest Arab city in the world.
It is that me who materializes during the fajr call to prayer, yet it does not feel like a burden — the burden of a past that is no more.
The adhan is an endless adventure with many paths to the absence of regret.
Then, after having collected my thoughts, I think of what lies ahead, the steps I must soon take in the days, weeks and months to come.
I feel no anxiety or fear, though a great many things could go wrong, ruining my plans, and capsizing my world.
So be it, if this happens.
So long as I can listen to my adhan, I’ll find a way to make it suffice through another day.
Leaving Amerika 