Nobody Can Argue with Happy: An Interview With Kamila Ahmad
“Your identity was something that no one could take from you.”
Since its inception, The Drinking Gourd has sought to center ancestors modeling alternate ways of being. Taking our name from “Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd”, a Black American folksong referencing the Big Dipper’s use in locating the Northstar, was one nod to this. But throughout our existence, TDG’s writers have spoken to this TKTK.
As TDG celebrates its official relaunch, we want to highlight one such writer: Kamila Ahmad. In Jan. 2020, TDG published Ahmad’s essay “Proud Maryaam”, a reflection on the life of her grandmother’s aunt who “embodied the mysteries of two worlds, bound in her words and memories.” Within her essay, Ahmad asserts, “To be reborn and stand contently in that rebirth is what Aunt Maryaam taught me.”
“Aunt Maryaam’’ is an essay that many of us, particularly Black LGBTQ+ Muslims, can relate to. Perhaps we have our own Maryaam within our families — or we are her. Either way, Ahmad’s words have sat with the TDG team for the past two years, and we are thrilled to speak with her in-depth “Aunt Maryaam’’ and her writing process.
The Drinking Gourd: How did you get into writing?
Kamila Ahmad: My grandmother was a copy editor for over 20 years, before her retirement, and then my mother was just an avid writer. One of the things that she would do is get movie scripts and she would write out her own scripts. My grandmother and my mother were the pillars of my writing and upbringing. But as far as my own journey, I started officially writing in 2004. My first publication was in 2004. This was after our home had been raided by ICE. At my grandmother’s behest, I actually wrote [the story of being raided], because I was so angry. When my grandmother got wind of it, she was like, “You need to put all our comrades on it, you know, publish this.” That was when I was 16, in 2000. I would say that was the official beginning of my life as a writer.
TDG: It sounds like writing — at least in that moment where your home was raided — was a way to process. Is this the role that writing plays in your life? And has that changed?
Ahmad: Because they’re both passed now, I want to say that writing actually connects me to my grandmother and my mother. When nothing else can get in, writing is a comfort for me. It’s been a comfort for me in this stage of my life and in different stages but especially during transition. Writing is a foundation that I can rely on to stay in tune with myself and with my true essence, and it really is like a relative. It’s family. It’s a part of me. It’s a teacher, but it’s also a comfort so it really does allow me to navigate life confidently. Especially when I’m unsure about what my steps should be. I deal with manic depression, so writing is a gauge, a way for me to tap into where I’m at. Writing has so many roles in my life. At any given point in time it changes but for the most part, it’s a gauge and it’s a comfort for me.
From the women in my family, you’d get the, “Oh, you know, Maryaam lived her life fully.
TDG: What kind of stories do you like to tell and like to write?
Ahmad: I love playing on irony. I find that I have an appreciation for dry humor more than anything else. Sometimes it misses in real time. But then if I write it out, I find complete strangers who are like, “Yes!” My writing is a great outlet for my sense of humor. I would say I lean towards the irony of things. Someone asked me the other day, how do you conquer writer’s block? I just play the dozens with myself and document it. But then there’s some times where I’ll just let it go in its raw form. I don’t really base it off of receptivity or, you know, reception. I run myself ragged and then laugh at it.
TDG: For the Drinking Gourd, you wrote an essay that reads like a meditation and reflection on your aunt Maryaam. In what ways have you held on to a long heritage of Black queer Muslims always existing?
Ahmad: Funnily enough, she is my grandmother’s aunt on her father’s side. And goodness, what made me curious was the different reactions from my family members when I would ask them about Maryaam in her life. You get those reserved like us, “Maryaam was just out there.” From the women in my family, you’d get the, “Oh, you know, Maryaam lived her life fully.” That’s what made me dig more into her story.
The irony that I find is that my great grandmother garbed and then my grandmother didn’t and then my mother didn’t and then I don’t. The acceptance and the appreciation for the nuance is all ingrained in all of us. It’s all apparent in all of the women in my family. I think that was, I believe, my great grandmother’s spirit of resilience in light of gender relations within the Islamic family. It was her way to say, “ I’m going to live my life.” My great grandmother passed very young, at 36. A lot of what my grandmother thereafter navigated [after the death of her mother, my great grandmother] was her own agency, her own advocacy, and really standing out as a young Muslim in the 1950s in America after having lived abroad for most of her life.
It was really understanding that identity was all what you made it. That was always Aunt Maryaam’s point. Your identity was something that no one could take from you. I see their spirits coming through my children. My daughter will go from wearing press on nails to a polo shirt and sweatpants. I get to experience it for myself in a selfish way through my own writing. So as you know, I really do bask in what they instilled in me.
…the more I lived in my full self without apology, the less I felt like I had to explain it because nobody can argue with happy.
TDG: How do you feel you see the spirit and values from your mother and your grandmother in your own life, and in your own day-to-day experience?
Ahmad: Being pregnant right now and having previously been in a relationship with a woman about three years ago, I have noticed that a lot of my actual romantic involvement is trivialized because of my identity. I’m starting to see that there is a possibility for people to appreciate and accept who you are fully. But only if you do. I had a rule of thumb to grasp with my own apprehension behind living in my full self. I noticed that the more I lived in my full self without apology, the less I felt like I had to explain it because nobody can argue with happy. That’s what the theme has been — identifying for myself what brings me joy because that will transfer to everything else that I touch, including the lives of those who are dependent upon me.
TDG: What are the ways your Blackness, queerness, and Muslimness bring you joy in this life? And how do those two things coming together bring you joy?
Ahmad: Oh, wow. It’s the whole…It’s the variety…It’s being able to relate to everything, globally. That’s exciting. Because all the traditions are ours. You know, everything we come from and everything comes from us.
TDG: Is there anything else about this essay and the process of writing it that you feel is important for people to know?
Ahmad: The whole writing process in itself was transformative. It was actually my first time shedding light on my life from that angle. And it was terrifying. That’s why I knew I had to do it. This story, I could let it swarm around the what ifs. When I realized how important it is, for someone to be able to identify with a voice, not just have a voice, but identify with one. That’s what pushed me forward in actually completing in publishing.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Kamila Hasana Ahmad is a queer Black Muslim woman whose message is affirmative love and creating space. An avid student of the human experience, Kamila infuses her traditional foundation of education with her spiritual practices into her life’s work. She is currently a yoga student with a multidimensional spiritual knowledge that has enabled her to fill up her own well and lend a guiding word and hand to help others do the same. Knowing that spirituality is universal, therefore inherent, she is not confined by titles, positions or names. She lives by the motto: “Spirit recognizes Spirit.”
