This year Ramadhan begins around mid-April, so still a couple of months away. So it might seem odd to write something in reference to the fasting month now. But over the years I've noticed that my co-religionists often start making overt, brief references to the fast ahead around about this time. I've come to understand what I think are the reasons for this.
The fast is never quite routine. No matter how much one adjusts to the demands involved, these are real demands. And the fast is a time of enhanced intentionality. You don't meet the demands without intending to. So the mind must be prepared. A kind of looking forward to the fast is involved in referencing it at this time and an odd nostalgia relating to Ramadhans past.
It's as if an instinctive sense of something involving enhanced meaning kicks in. Something like planning but nothing quite as precise as that.
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