'Good evening, I'm Zarqa Nawaz': The wonder and challenge of news anchoring as my 1st full-time job

"Her cellphone's going off. Someone do something," yells a voice in my ear.

The device is swiftly removed. I could have sworn my phone was on mute.

"Your prompter is going the wrong way again" is the next thing I hear.

I look down. The teleprompter is controlled by a contraption that resembles a sewing machine pedal. I control it with my foot. I've been caught on air staring at my feet to correct its direction, giving perplexed viewers the impression that breaking news is somehow emanating from my toes. But even when I have it going in the right direction, pressing too hard will make it shoot forward, making me lose my way.

I've been hosting the news for four weeks. I keep my colleagues on their toes.

"Five seconds to air," says the control room. They collectively hold their breath.

I can see the prompter is going in the wrong direction.

I get scared.

I stare at my feet.

And we're live.

Surprisingly these are not the reasons I wasn't on air earlier.

In 1993 I was a journalism student at Ryerson University in Toronto and had a part-time job at CBC's The National. While getting my assignment from the chief news editor at the time, I asked him if I could ever be on air. He paused before answering.

"When I was a young reporter in Montreal, I wore a toque on my head. My supervisor told me to take it off or I'd be gonzo."

That was my answer. I gave up my TV aspirations immediately and focused on radio.

From radio to Little Mosque

I won a journalism competition and the prize was a one-year internship at Morningside, at the time the highest rated radio program on CBC.

I had a baby a few months into the internship and asked to be transferred to Saskatchewan, where I had decided to live after meeting my husband. After my maternity leave, I started working on CBC Radio's The Morning Edition in 1995.

Arrogant and full of ambition, I thought that my career in radio was set in stone. But deep cuts to CBC had started. Many of my peers with aspirations of journalism jobs at the public broadcaster had to put their dreams on hold.

I started making short comedy films in the hopes of launching a career in feature films. The shorts caught the attention of the National Film Board of Canada. I was asked to make a documentary about an issue that mattered to me; I chose patriarchy in the mosque.

The documentary Me and the Mosque was completed in 2005. Inspired by the documentary, I pitched the idea for Little Mosque on the Prairie at the Banff World Media Festival that same year.

The comedy department at CBC green-lit the show, and it aired in 2007. I was hoping the sitcom would be shot in Saskatchewan. After years of travelling for the documentary, I wanted to be home again.

But the show was an unexpected hit.

All of the CBC TV executives lived in Toronto and felt that it was more efficient if I flew to them rather than the other way around. By then I had four elementary school-aged children. The youngest had just started Grade 1.

I couldn't go.

My husband talked sense into me.

"A room full of white guys are not going to be able to write a sitcom about the inner workings of a prairie mosque," he said.

And so the years of living in Toronto for the week and coming home on weekends started. My husband took over the bulk of parenting duties. I asked him once if he'd have an affair while I was gone. He was running between four different soccer fields making sure one of the kids didn't wander off and get hit by a car.

"I don't have time to have an affair," he said. "Aren't you the one living in a Toronto condo by yourself?"

I decided not to bring up the subject again.

When the opportunity to come back to the CBC as a journalist came up — as a temporary host of The Morning Edition in January prior to taking on the six o'clock news anchor role this fall — almost 25 years had passed and what a television host could look like had changed.

There was more diversity on air, which included Muslim women. But it wouldn't be until 2016, when Citytv Toronto hired Ginella Massa as a reporter and weekend anchor, that the hijab was seen for the first time on a mainstream news program. Then their Montreal affiliate hired Fariha Naqvi-Mohamed as a video journalist. In the U.S., Tahera Rahman became the first hijab-wearing reporter/producer earlier this year, working for a CBS affiliate in Chicago.

Ginella told me seeing Little Mosque made her believe Muslim women who looked like her had a place on TV.

Meanwhile, they made me believe that being journalists has nothing to do do with what you wear on your head, but what value your professionalism brings to the newsroom.

As my daughter Maysa likes to remind me: "You're not the first visibly Muslim woman on air, but you're definitely the oldest."

Thankful for my team

It's a strange thing to have your first full-time job in the fifth decade of life.

I marvel at how Christy Climenhaga, our meteorologist, delivers complicated weather stories with such grace and skill while I'm still gripping the desk to make sure I don't fall over mid-newscast.

I couldn't have done this job without the support and camaraderie of our small but formidable team. They have been a pillar of love and a testament to patience and belief that I could pull through without taking the news with me.

My daughter watches me on TV with a critical eye. "I have only one question," she said.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Why do you keep staring at your toes?"