The Circle of Life

Growing up on Long Island with a very Muslim mother, I remember a childhood going to the beach practically wearing a burqa. Yes, we were that Muslim family you occasionally see by the shore whose females are wearing all black full garbs and dipping their toes into the water while our hairy unshapely men swim like fish in their Speedos. I, of course, born and raised in America, would be melting in all those clothes and be constantly begging my mother to let me take a real dip.

“You don’t know how to swim Faiza," she would say.

My response, in true wise-guy form, would range from, “Ma, if I tie the bottom of my outfit in a knot, it would serve as a life raft. Really, I learned this in school," to something like, “Ma, honestly, the way dad looks in his swim trunks, don’t you think he should be the one wearing this burqa?”

Comments like this would get me in trouble and banished into the air-conditioned car where I could peacefully read a book and hide from the possibility of getting recognized by schoolmates. But it was constant events like this that led me to do two things as soon as I turned 18 – first, I became an agnostic because I was done with religious boundaries, and second, I became a Hawaiian Tropic bikini model because I was done with religious outfits. In my young teenage mind, these were natural progressions. My strict religious family, on the other hand, didn’t agree. 

But those were the early days of my college years, a time when I, like my peers, thought I was immortal and would never turn into my mother. Those years and that mindset came to a screeching halt once I became a parent myself. As is no secret to most moms, while childbearing is one of the most beautiful, natural occasions, the aftermath of such an event is really not. Our bodies change in ways that would be inconceivable to a pre-pregnancy brain. Joints ache, our walk changes, and in my case, after four pregnancies, my belly formed enough wrinkles to eventually have a face of its own. So, of course, I went far away from my bikini-clad days to wearing T-shirts and shorts on the beach, then one-piece black bathing suits with built-in girdles, to colorful loose tankinis that just screamed, “I have an ugly belly under here and I won’t dare show it, but gosh, the breeze feels good under this top!”

My children, of course, with their undying love, encouraged me to be proud of my belly, to embrace it and make it my very own. Any talks of possible plastic surgery were quickly dissuaded with loving remarks from my young ones like: “Mom, don’t do that, you’re beautiful as you are," to the guilt-making remark, “Mom, this belly symbolizes each of us, why would you want to get rid of it?”

Silly me bought into their notion of accepting my belly and slowly but surely I went back to wearing real bikinis last year ... within the realm of my backyard and with a cover-up always nearby. Finally, this year, I drummed up enough courage to go out to the local public beach and enjoy the Memorial Day weekend in a new pretty lavender two-piece. Trying to keep my mind off my insecurities, I read a book, ate some ice cream (because the belly needs to be fed) and then found the nerve to actually walk on the sandbar for a while. After a good hour, I was able to walk with my head up and think of nice meditative thoughts until the cutest little 7-year-old boy ran up to me from the water and yelled out loud, “What happened to your belly?”

I think I am ready to order my burqa now.