My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears — SQUIDD Deep Dive
Mohja Kahf’s grandmother washes her feet in sinks all around the world. She’s done it in every possible situation, configuration, and position. What I admire the most about her is her unwavering steadfastness. She is immovable in her beliefs and therefore does not allow the opinions of bystanders to repel her from using the public bathroom sinks to wash her feet.
What surprises me is that she isn’t more worried about the rules. In some places, it would be considered illegal to use the restrooms in such a way and it would most likely deter anybody from washing anything other than their hands or arms in the sinks. Even so, she would receive a lot of funny looks from fellow restroom-goers. Has she been doing this since birth? If she has, she probably would have grown up with people of similar beliefs and actions and therefore she would have had to develop this thick skin of hers at a later point in her life. However, if she grew up in a neighborhood that did not share the same cultural values and beliefs, she would have had to endure ridicule and pain from her peers if she was ever caught washing her feet in the sink.
That brings up the question of how her childhood was. Was her family very spiritual? Did she learn this custom from her parents? From her religion? If it is a matter of religion, would it be against the law to impose it upon the common people? To force them to stand there and watch as she washes her feet in the sink of the restroom while they go about their daily routines. To stand there and witness a cultural ceremony that they had never asked for in the first place. Maybe it isn’t even a cultural shock at all, and she is allowed to practice her own faith in a public area without consequence. After all, she isn’t recruiting followers left and right and brainwashing them into sacrificing their lives for this foot-washing cult.
She slowly and methodically goes through the motions, as though she has nothing else to do for the rest of the day. She is well versed in the art of drying her toes; around the bend of the big toe, down the arch of the second, and pulling through the gap in between. She focuses on the motion, to the point where the outside world fades away until the only thing she has left is her feet and the washcloth. The world stops for a moment until she finishes her ritual. The imagery of this scene was so beautiful to me. The narrator manages to capture a special moment that happens between her grandmother and her feet. She also manages to encapsulate the feeling that the people standing by are feeling towards her grandmother, especially at the ending where everybody eventually leaves the bathroom together and it turns out that everything all melds into one larger and more purposeful space where there is no discrimination, hate, or customary views.
The main takeaway I received from reading this article written by Mohja Kahf is that you should do whatever you want. Life is too short to be concerned with the negative hate speech of others, their disheartening comments, and uneducated standards which they simply impose upon you simply because they cannot understand. A foreign influence is always a welcome one when it helps to expand one’s mindset, and the onlookers of the event described in the passage are a prime example of something that would stop this foreign influence. And when it comes to the grand scheme of things, it turns out that not all people are meant to follow the same path. Some people will eventually deviate and follow their dreams and passions, while others will allow those dreams to fizzle out because somebody told them it was weird.
