Dear March ’18

Dear March,

We made it.  It has been a difficult start of the year, but I am glad to meet you in a much better state.  Winter is fading away and warmth is beginning to settle in.  Spring will be here and so will the perfect opportunity to refresh and renew.  There are few things that I would like to accomplish during your stay:

• Organize: I have let all of the cabinets and our master closet become rather unsightly.  I would like to organize them, little by little, throughout this month.  I am visualizing them being peaceful, airy, rid of unused items, pleasantly scented and causing me smile every time.

• Grow: There is just a little bit of time left for me to finish Access 3.  March, you will have to be it. It will be wonderful to close the final page after doing the translation of Surah Baqarah – the translation of which I am deeply looking forward to doing. As a reward, I will open the botanical journal and tackle into the next thing. But that would wait until your departure, of which I am sure, I would be having mixed feelings.

• Strengthen:  Your friend Feburary ended with me joining the gym with my husband and renewing my intentions for working out at home.  During your stay, I see myself attending at least three group classes during the cardio days and continuing to strengthen and tone at home.  Perhaps I can even take the strengthening to the gym to challenge with bigger weights, but I will not let you count on me for that yet.  At the same time, I would like to strengthen my resolve to continue my spiritual growth. Sometimes it feels like a far fetched dream, but one step at a time will help me become stronger.  In attempts to do so, I will begin intentionally memorizing Surah Mulk with translation and reflection.

• Feed: With the oncoming of Spring that we all are eagerly waiting for, our plants and trees in the backyard will need some attention.  I will be getting the fertilizer and giving all of the growing things enough nutrition to grow beautiful throughout this season.  I think their growth will outlast you, March, but you will see them bigger than when you arrived.

• Regroup: Our chickens in the backyard need a better home at a better location so that they can survive your friends April all the way to August.  March, you will be the month where we will tackle this issue and give a better home to our backyard dinosaurs.

Thank you, Allah (swt), for allowing me an opportunity to live another day, to see another month, and see the beginning of another season with much improved health than the start of this year.  Please help me to become a better person, a better human being, a better community member, a better family member, and grow into a better Muslim throughout this month.  Allow me to see, live, and benefit through the upcoming month of Ramadan. Ameen.

-S