Once more I am struggling with my troubled heart.
Chest pain that comes and goes. Palpitations that hit sudden and swift, and sometimes persist for over an hour.
Each time I wonder if this is how my father felt before his final heart attack. If this is my final hour. Then I wake to another day, another series of job applications, and bills, and wonder if it isn’t just stress that’s arrowing into my ailing body over and over again.
On that note, tomorrow I’ll be at the hospital getting the stress test and heart ultrasound that were booked back in December when these troubles began; hopefully, this will lead to something conclusive about what’s going on. For now, the suspect is pericarditis, inflammation around the heart. I did an endoscopy the other week to see if my hiatus hernia might have worsened and somehow be responsible, but it is much the same, though there was inflammation in my stomach and oesophagus.
It seems more of my body is inflamed than not, at this point.
That’s the pain update, now for some joy. This week I got to hold my new poetry collection, Non-Essential Work (UQP), for the first time, and though this is my fourth book, this feeling never get olds.
The moment you behold your book is such a pure triumph, when the dream you’ve laboured over for years becomes more than tangible, gains its own weight in the world, begins its own life. It will be out in April, and you can pre-order it at the link above or at your local bookshop.
Of all my books, this is the one I’m proudest of, a product and a record of these last five years, years in which I lost my father and found my wife; pandemic years, locked in, while the world convulsed; like many I suffered such loss, but also gained so much love. Throughout, I wrote. I wrote my novel Son of Sin (Affirm Press), and I wrote these poems, while Hannah was pregnant and we had a child and everything was insane, and I was able to do so mainly because I had a grant and prize money, but there’s more to it than that. Plenty of people who have money cannot do what I do.
I think the truth is that it doesn’t matter what’s going on in my life, what I’m suffering, or what the world is suffering, I can write, and in fact not only do I feel compelled to, I’ll quickly become out of sorts if I don’t. Even though I’ve been to emergency several times in the past two months, have a baby son to care for, have a grandma and uncle in the hospital for strokes and heart attacks respectively, have no money, anxiety and ADHD, I still managed to write a lyric essay of just over 4,000 words. Still managed to write poems—that were good, too, at least by my own standards.
I remember reading over it, and acknowledging to myself for the first time that what I’m capable of is not common, and that my accomplishments are not a mistake, not chance or luck, but the result of my own ability and labour. Maybe that sounds odd, maybe that should be obvious, but in my mind it hasn’t been. Sometimes I think we put too much emphasis on imposter syndrome, which is an internal demon, and not enough on the external demons in society determined to make us question our worth, diminish our achievements, and poison everything with cynicism. Those demons have been hard at work lately.
Too often, we allow our enemies to frame how we see ourselves; it’s an unwinnable position, when even your defence against an ugly narrative reinforces it in some way. I’ve been worn down over the past couple months, and let myself be led astray but I’m done with that now. I am learning how to value myself, for myself, and as an autistic man with an anxiety disorder and decades of shame to work through, I can honestly say it has been extraordinarily difficult. I’m getting there, though, alhumdulilah.
The other good news I got this January was that Son of Sin made the shortlist in the Debut Fiction category for the 2023 Indie Book Awards, which I’m extremely chuffed about, as these nominations come from independent booksellers who are the beating heart of this industry and who are all of them devout readers.
Lastly, Son of Sin is up for Booktopia’s Favourite Australian Book Award, and I really hope you all will head over to the link and give your boy a vote!
Hopefully if all goes well with my tests, I’ll be back soon with more.
Salaam,
Omar
I've been looking forward to my pre-ordered copy of Non-Essential Work since last year. April feels like such a long time to go! All the best with the tests. Take care.
Sending you Love and Strength ❤️
Your poetry and prose matters so much to the world. Thank you for bringing it into the World ❤️