The second week finished

So now we're going into the third week of Ramadan. I've been thinking a lot lately about how different life is for me when I'm fasting. As much as I try to be normal, I spend a fair amount of energy trying to get through the day. Sometimes I throw in the towel altogether and just hunker down and wait for sunset. Consequently, I have less energy for things like returning phone calls, getting together with people, etc. At the end of the month, I find I have let a lot of opportunities slip by. When Ramadan ends, it's like being Rip Van Winkle, waking up to a world that was different than the one I fell asleep in. I've lost touch with people, Ziad and Maya have fallen behind in their work, their musical progress has stalled. I hope this is happening less this year than in others. It helps a lot that the children are less childlike. Now that they are older they are more capable of working independently. Rather than needing my support, they have been supporting me. Maybe that's why, even though we fast longer days each year, fasting itself has become more a fact of life and less of an enormous struggle. Still challenging, though.

And, much as I focus on getting through each day, I am focusing on getting through the month. Two out of four weeks done! Fourteen out of thirty days. I look out the window and see a beautiful full moon.

(Note: The calligraphy above says Ramadan mubarak, or congratulations on Ramadan (roughly). I love arabic calligraphy, and have since I was very young. It's graceful lines have always seemed to me to be the height of elegance.)