"Did someone pass away?"
"Are you cold?"
It's been a little over a week since I donned the hijab, and expectedly, I've faced some questions, particularly from my co-workers of over two years who have never known me to have any kind of identity other than the quiet, competent girl in glasses.
My mom had no questions, only support. I don't know why telling her caused me so much anxiety.
The friends I told had some questions, but again, all support. A friend whose wedding I'll be in in October said it was obviously fine if I wear it at her wedding, "It's part of your religion, it's part of you."
I worry that some people, the ones who wouldn't ask me to my face, are talking. But I don't care.
Not for a millisecond have I reconsidered. If anything I've become more resolute, more confident.
An African American woman who works at the Starbucks in my office building is a hijabi. The first day I saw her, I was with my friend, and she was with her co-worker, and it was busy, but I could feel her eyes on me.
When I went back a few days later alone, the cafe was empty and she was cleaning behind the counter.
"How are you?" she asked. "I'm good," I replied. "How are you?"
"Good," she replied slowly, and then added, "Is that a hijab?"
I replied, "Yes," and in that empty Starbucks two strangers with nothing in common but a headscarf, had a low, heartfelt conversation like we'd known each other for years.
We were both converts. We both had opposition in our extended (luckily) family. We both thought Islam was the most beautiful thing we'd been a part of.
"Don't you feel so much better," she asked, "Being covered?"
I smiled slowly, but widely. "Yes, I do." It was so true.
When another customer eventually came, we shook hands, exchanged names, and parted with a "I'll see you around."
That same day, as I was walking out of the building, I saw an older woman, with large brown eyes, olive skin, and curly chocolate hair staring at me as she came from the opposite direction. As I had resolved myself, I met her eyes and just smiled. No averting my eyes, no nervous fiddling with the folds. Just a smile.
I reached door first, and held it for her.
As I passed through the revolving door, she said, "Are you Muslim?" And pointed to her head.
I responded "Yes," when she cleared the revolving door.
She asked first if I liked it, the simplicity of which made me chuckle a little before I said sincerely, "Yes, I love it. It's beautiful."
She told me I looked so beautiful, so so beautiful in my hijab, and that she was proud of me as a Muslim woman. She was Egyptian, raised Muslim, but didn't "have the strength" to wear the hijab. I felt like saying, "Once you do, you'll never go back," but I didn't.
Because as sad as it is, I have an advantage. A slight one, but one nonetheless. Because even under my hijab, I am unmistakably fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and (based only on my eyebrows at this point) light-haired.
And when I read stories of women persecuted, harassed, or otherwise targeted because of the hijab, they don't very often look like me. Not to say I am immune, but that it's easier. Because even under a hijab, I'm not quite "the other" that these women are perceived to be. People ask me questions. People don't automatically assume I'm doing it because of familial pressure (although some have asked if it was my boyfriend's influence, if I was engaged, etc). But if my boyfriend's sister, dark-haired, dark-eyed, dark-skinned, were to wear a hijab, people would not ask her as many questions. It would be an "of course she is" kind of reaction, and she would much more quickly filed away as "the other" that I am not made to be. She would also become a target that I am not made to be.
So while some people are "proud" of me, or think it's "brave," I feel slightly like I have a cheat code. That I'm protected by my race. Because even if I have "othered" myself with the garnet I choose to wear, we are above all, a very, very racist country.
I hope that line blurs. It has already, undoubtedly. But I hope by the time my daughter, inShallah, chooses to wear a hijab, people won't automatically file her away. I hope, if she choose to do so, people will ask her questions, instead.
