Ramadan Journal 2013: Day 15 - ME

We usually buy each other gifts for Eid in my family, nothing extravagant, but something nice nonetheless. This year, the price of everything sky-rocketing means that everyone has been forced to watch their finances very carefully. This being the case we sisters had to have a conversation around gift buying. We came up with a number of solutions. One was to gift an experience rather than buy something. This could be dinner for us four, a tea party, picnic, afternoon out doing something cool, even an afternoon indoors with take-away and a good movie, where we block the time out for it and tell everyone to leave us alone. This way if we could not pay for it, we could organise something free instead.

The other thing we did was create a wish list each with some items that are fairly low priced and others that are medium-priced. We have done this in previous years and I think these lists say a lot about us. Funnily this year everyone’s lists were very short and appended with notes along the lines of, “we don’t really need anything”. This didn't really surprise me. I have been on a mission to downsize and simplify my life for the last year. I am tired of maintaining and storing things and I yearn for empty uncluttered spaces. I can imagine my sisters feel some element of that too.

At the same time I do think that fasting for Ramadan has an affect on our “nafs” or ego. It dulls our desires for worldly possessions and shows their true worth. I certainly don’t feel that I need more “things” and feel lighter and freer for it.