Since my last post, I have made two separate trips to London and purchased at least 45 books – yes, 45 gorgeous reads featuring all kinds of layout and colour – that comprised interesting essay collections and novels; serious literature that I’d be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. I was really keen on regions from the Middle-East, Greater Middle-East and the African continents.  Still, I  bought a few new titles currently out in England, by debut novelists like Alison McQueen.

I went to two quaint and well-stocked Arabic bookshops off Sloane Square and in Westbourne Grove and also visited Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street (Baker Street Station), a good few times, among other big bookstore chains like Waterstones Piccadilly and the faithful, gleaming row on Charing Cross Rd. I made new friends with helpful booksellers. I enjoyed the flair of  intriguing observations, significant  of cosy cultural communities, tucked away in Middle-Eastern cafes, in the heart of Notting Hill Gate.

Last weekend, I was caught in the Heathrow fray, over a gatecrashing snowfall from an unrepentant Artic snap. Thankfully, I encountered no disruptions. My flight to Ireland, was at the worst, delayed for an hour and a half, so that was considered pretty mild. Unfortunately, I returned with the start of a winter cold, no thanks to the minus zero temperatures in London.

Am looking forward to my reads, to blogging and also to a time of serious writing.  © susan abraham

“Mine is a Dublin afternoon in January. The days are cold and the gales are wild. My disillushioned poetic muse, having  escaped to a mysterious sabbatical in the far South, has  returned.. Its absence may have counted a season wrong, for my homesick craft still bears within its plumped-up beauty… the oversized pastoral frolic of a summer’s day.  Did my runaway poetry feast too much on its escapade to Eden? Was it still a warm, bright green day when I last composed a verse or hummed an ode? Sadly, I can no longer measure the rush of an hour.  Yet, donning a masquerade of lightly-threaded shadows, how fragile the demeanour of my art, how enigmatic its response. I tell you now, the time for tears is over. My poetry waits to clamber up my back and wrap its long sticky hands tightly around my neck in sweet embrace…Oh! But for its kiss-me-quick lollipop scent, plastered breath and my favoured piggy-back ride, my long-lost poetry so ethereally once-upon-a-time mine..for here it is once more, having finally returned to me.” – susan abraham ©

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Dear Readers,

I am thrilled that my writing days are shaping up so nicely, with nary an effort on my part to recreate that lovelorn magic. This revelation surprises even me.   To understand what I mean, you would have had to read my last few posts at year’s end.  Then I had explained that in the last two years, I did not feel able to do too much either artistically or creatively as my energy path was filled with the unnecessary clutter of controversial human relationships.

Of course, I have no one to blame but myself. I had invited noisy crowds into my life, naive and trusting and without batting so much as an eyelid. The result being, that I had to subsequently free my path eventually. As an individual I desired to breathe again and discover my newness as an artist. At the time, certain situations had turned up great distress. I am happy that I sought the courage to pounce upon the right introspective decisions about my life, no matter how painful the angst.  It’s amazing how one may grow  sharply wise overnight.

Once my journeying path became clear – and this happened towards the second quarter of last year, many lost and beautiful, artistic pursuits which I had initially cherished, returned to me. I think, a dramatic one had been the return of an overwhelming love for Arabic, Persian and Turkish literature, which had earlier encapsulated my reading time in 2008 and 2009 before suddenly vanishing into thin air.  The desire to embark upon this beloved pastime engulfed me last July.

As for poetry, I am able to engage with the craft only when my thoughts are crystal-clear…My relationship with poetry holds the fortitude of an iceberg, with the exception that the season for poetry-writing may well melt away, without any warning.  While it hovers though, I view the world as being imbued with romanticism. Meandering lines or  watertight ones shadow my footsteps. My well-encountered bliss may later show up, through vivid descriptions of  nature’s celebrated beauty… garden birds, seascapes, landscapes or the erratic mood of a season. Sometimes, this pastoral effect has made me weep with great feeling.

I have begun my New Year a little late but  rather resolutely and with no complaints on my front.  2012 embraced me heartily, with diligence and a seemingly peaceful fondness. It placated my tenacity if only for a moment to grant me that essential rueful reflection. The clock graciously withheld its chimes. Now, I am  raring to go.

At this point in my life, I thank my beautiful God, that I harbour no turbulent emotion, no obvious sorrow, no painful regret, no lack of focus or waywardness. I ended 2011 on a pleasing note.  In the recent past, serenity has shrouded my life  with its generous layers of silent companionship and crayoned too, my earthly destiny with marked enthusiasm. Each calendar date still on its way to the  finishing line, has willingly passed on its baton of calming kindness, with which to appease my gentle spirit.

As a result, I have now found myself busy but happy busy if you know what I mean, in getting my plans off the ground.

In the present time, I have to schedule everything in my life around the prospect of travel. Such is my addiction to wanderlust that I perform this errand with bliss.  This year, I have been good with my journals and relying on a firmer organisation of things. My mind has stayed clear of stress, hassle and the perplexing anxieties that often trailed me in earlier years.  Thus, I have settled for a few Penguin notebooks and journals.  I have so cultivated a love for my Moleskines when I didn’t before.  And I do love my Penguin accessories…yes, yes…those brilliant coffee mugs too!

On the horizon is another week’s trip to London and I am pretty much excited about it,  just envisioning the bookstores I missed when I was there last, on the second week of a Christmassy December.  I can’t wait for Daunt Books, as always Hatchards  and also Alsaqi Bookshop in Westbourne Grove, which is, if I’m not mistaken, currently one of the biggest Arabic bookshops in England. And I do love Foyles and the BookHaus off Sloane Square… the latter with its overwhelming collection of elegant translations featuring West European and Arabic literature.  I can’t wait as always to conduct my little wayfaring jaunts, plus much of the staff at the little English hotel, where I stay have now become friends. As a voracious reader and proper bookaholic, I feel like a smug little cat, licking off the last saucer of milk and perhaps also,  the jubilant adventurer, ripping open an ocean’s treasure chest.

I did buy two books downtown in Dublin this afternoon, although if the truth be told, I promised myself  stupidly, no more till England.  One appears to be a compelling woman’s story called Africa Junction by Ginny Baily. It was published last year in London.  Now, how ever did I miss this  intriguing book featuring colourful settings and  unnerving plots derived from such remote places as Senegal, Liberia and Timbuktu… The novel sounds inspiring enough for me.

Another very beautiful little book – please see picture on the right – features reams of enthralling poetry from Istanbul. I shall slip this little paperback into the pocket of my long winter coat for the next time, I stop at a cafe for a cocoa, sitting by the window and watching the rain dance on the streets or a gale sashay by.  And by the light of the dusk, I shall remember the beautiful magic of a Joan Baez or a Marianne Faithfull song even as the late Turkish poet Necati Cumali whispers to me of

A New Love…

Once I used to go
everyday to meet the ferry
and hang about the stations
when trains came in.
I spent my life
in parks and boulevards,
Ah, how could I know
these are the places we haunt
before a new love. – Necati Cumali (translated by Ruth Christie)

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Something About the Writing:

1. Thankfully, I have managed to cross the chasm of learning to painfully combine writing with travel.  In February and March, I shall be returning to a few familiar international locations to complete my novel. I had first started to do this in May, June and July of last year. I flew out of Ireland again in October but was not well at all, to continue with travelling so I returned without being able to finish my novel as I had hoped, to the best of my satisfaction. I am someone who needs to be in a certain location if I am writing about it. I think this definitely is a little extreme but in my case a necessity as I have been a wanderer for so many years, that I could not imagine describing a  cosmopolitan setting, no matter how well I knew it from the past or how excellent my research, if I wasn’t actually there.  Otherwise, I would never be content submitting a manuscript, no matter how well it was written. So I have my work cut out for me this first quarter of the year and any new travel adventure/regions shall be reserved for the later part of the year.

Credit: Free picture of wildflowers, courtesy of KarenWhimsy.com

But let me approach the intention differently and than that works for me.

Finishing a year feels like closing the pages to an old book and opening a new one. I thrive on an assortment of  mirrored reflections but am keen to rush on with the New Year.  For example, the  Turkish Nobel Prize Literature winner Orhan Pamuk, who is currently touring South America to promote his recent collection of essays, The Naive and Sentimental Novelist, spoke  in Uruguay recently.

He stressed on how he often ran the risk of jumpstarting  the fragments of a new novelistic plot, before he had conjured up enough discipline, to complete the old one. Through the YouTube interview, I did indeed, pick up Pamuk’s impatience at the memory and of how that remembrance alone, had commanded the instant ability to place him on tenterhooks.

I haven’t yet succumbed to that point in my writing naturally but have often felt the same exhilaration, about my reading journey. This is what one calls passion or devotion to a craft because than the desire is grown from within the subconscious and not just reduced to a careless consideration of the everyday intellect. Devotion to me signifies an enraptured swamping of the senses where no logical explanation is justified. A tender nurturing love and intense need towards a spiritual encounter, an individual or situation, stays framed by the prospect of immeasurable time and sacrifice.  “As long as it takes perhaps, I must complete reading this book…. …just the last chapter…I must wrap up the  writing…just that last chapter.  I’ll have to make time for it. As long as it takes, I shall get it done…”

In this vein, I’d like to modify my idea of the resolution, to something that leans towards the devotional…perhaps  a reading pilgrimage of sorts or a celebratory quest in the imagination.  I am presently threading varied reading journeys that have currently engulfed me ever so strongly from the last quarter of the year. I suppose there exists a longing to make my interests focussed and not to take them so much for granted. If I can accomplish at least 2 of these 4 reading journeys throughout the year with no lengthy gaps, I would be eternally confident as to other hopeful accomplishments.

Here goes:

1. All of this year, I have become more closely drawn to the memory of a celebrated childhood in Klang, Malaysia. I remember my father with a fabulous collection of books, that he prided himself upon. I learnt to read when I was four and my Dad always made sure I had a new picture book in store. I want to draw my influences from the delights of my faraway six-year old heart at the time. It was an atmospheric childhood based on a Dusty Springfield/Andy William and a Woodstock/hippie season. My father’s many friends consisting of young, ambitious men, often came by in the evenings and on weekends. There they would relax around a glass table on the verandah, lost in a series of intellectual discussions and those of other social situations especially subjects purported to travel.  Some  had already made plans to leave for Europe (at the time West Germany being a popular destination) and my father himself could never stay still in a place for too long.  What were the books  read and exchanged at the time? What were the paperbacks that lay affectionately next to the beer mugs, the sandwiches, coffee cups and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts?  My father was liberal in nature but made sure I stayed away from his prized adult fiction… Still, I do remember exotic film noir-type covers and attempting a sly peeop into those shy stolen lines, when I thought no one was watching. I was just 6 then. There was a lot of West European literature…Parisian cafes, artists’ garrets, poised models, books on Switzerland and also the Malay Archipelago. There were war and sea stories, tales of steaming jungles in South America and African wildlife/stories.  I want to go back to this time. I want to go back to as many of these settings in novels that I can find and relieve that lost precious time.

2. To re-read Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor…one of my favourite plays.. when did I last pick up a Shakespearean comedy? Too long.

3.         Something surreal happened from my Christian faith. My love for the universe exploded within the confines of my soul and begged to be set free.  But first let me explain. For many years especially in my twenties, I must have read hundreds and hundreds of works of British fiction. I couldn’t get enough of them. That was a very special time of my life and these were the books that were persuasive enough to lure me to the West.  I read sometimes almost as if in a trance, forgetting to eat or sleep properly. I can read books like the wind.  I loved British fiction, poetry and theatre plays so much.   What a valuable time that was in my life that urged me to more lavish dreams than the usual. I also earned immense courage to singlehandedly  abandon the rat race and hone a serious ambition of travel.

That was when the seeds of change were first sprung on me.

But this meant, that I was also a rigid reader. I knew everything that was to know at the time about British fiction but not much about other literature. I sensed my life with Christ – and it’s a pretty liberal lifestyle on my part – opened up new worlds to me like magic. My reading journey unfolded like a restless bloom and  excitement wielded from within me.  I was seduced by its accompanying literature. I also felt intoxicated by cultural films and cuisine. I felt truly blessed with a new beginning.

Then sometime in 2008, when I was in Dublin, Ireland, I watched Nikki Karimi’s Iranian film on televison, called One Night. Something beautiful gripped my spirit and suddenly there I was, head-over-heels in love with Persian and Arabic literature… How my senses happily drowned! I hurried over to the Irish booksellers who were kind enough to introduce me to many translated Arabic novelists with prize-winning titles that I hadn’t heard of before. My days changed and my reading journey blossomed. I was in love with Arabic literature and soon thanks to Elif Safak, Turkish literature also followed suit. 2008 and 2009 were magical times for me in Dublin and even while I travelled to places like East Africa.   I still allude this strange astonishing love for Arabic literature to the hand of my Christ and see this affair as deeply spiritual. I hold  such a yearning blissful ache for countless stories from the Middle-East.  Interestingly, the Bible does elaborate heavily on the Arabic and Persian regions.

When I joined Facebook in September 2009, I began to gradually lose the magic.  I had this really long list of  ‘friends’ but I wasn’t with the right crowd. My carefree energy eventually became burdened. No one lived my kind of life. I wasn’t watching the clock to wake up. I had long given up the 9 to 5 grind. Compared to many, I had an almost complete sense of freedom. Yet in reading all those daily updates, I felt I was imprisoned in everyone else’s heavily-routined lives…and I didn’t find any of these, uplifting. Many griped about little things, many whined. When groups of people talked about world literature, I knew straightaway that here again, for many, their interests were lukewarm…donned more from curiosity than anything else. Few had actually read what I read.  Some were clearly afair of serious fiction. They did not understand it. A few of the of the ‘voices’ later turned intrusive and my entire fiery interest in Arabic literature whittled down to that of a sad flicker before vanishing for good. This is what happens when the wrong energy comes upon you. You lose sight of your destiny. Other peoples’ actions especially if they are pessimistic in nature, may blind you to an original vision or at least, that is what I learnt in a hurry. This took place  for me all through 2010.

At least I realised what had finally happened, so I opened a much smaller FB account, only surrounded by those I felt safe with. And I made a very painful but necessary effort to free myself of those who were still on my path emotionally in some way but definitely did not wish me well.  There were also a few noted betrayals and slander with some of these individuals.  It was very hard work and in the first three months of this year, I travelled with pain constantly latched in my heart. In this way, 2010 did not end well for me.  I also became ill….  After the first quarter of 2011 had passed, all the oppression flitted away and by the time May came around, I could hear my thoughts clearly again. I felt light-hearted, I felt I could breathe again. I learnt to be very careful about who entered my personal realm.  That attentive detail alone made for a complete, effective remedy. I was the wiser woman to the outer facade of a stranger.

My adoration for Arabic literature returned to embrace me like a long-lost friend. Once more, there was a new motivation inspired by literature and the cinematic arts from the Middle-East. By October, the passion had grown so deeply,  I thought my heart would burst with joy. Just recalling the thought, made me extremely happy. I recognised that my life was slipping back to 2008.  I had in fact already celebrated this resolution by making two trips to London in November and December. I spent many a-happy moment at favourite bookshops, purchasing certain world literature that would not be placed elsewhere. So I have already begun this quest. And I look forward to an enthralling 2012, plunging delightedly into Persian, Arabic and Turkish literature. Imagine how much I will absorb, imagine how much I can learn.

4) I learnt to also cherish the essay in 2011, in the later part of this year when my life had already turned  peaceful and serene. It was Orhan Pamuk’s The Naive and Sentimental Novelist that did it for me. Then there was Umberto Eco and also Ryszard Kapuściński. The essay taught me to analyse everyday situations thoroughly. I began to see life differently, to better understand myself.  I learnt to make decisions with a sharper brand of confidence and to be authoritative with any stand that I had taken, all the time asking myself why and making sure I was content with my immediate answer. Reading essays stopped me being feeble or timid in any way and helped turn me into an obvious, critical thinker.  This led surprisingly enough, to a calming spirit. I do feel that Pamuk, Eco and Kapuściński are my necessary tutors for the writing craft.  In this vein, I now desire to read many more essays by famous essayists and to study and master the craft of skillful thinking through the art of literature.

5) I also hold a couple of dedicated writing ambitions but dare not talk about these for now, as I fear jinxing something that presently lies reverential from within me. Blame my careful, analytical mood from my recent study of the essay. See where it has got me today and nicely so.

Credit: Free clip art of vintage woman courtesy of Karen Whimsy

Well…here we are now with an impatient 2012 just hovering about with gay abandon at the universe’s gateway, while waiting to knock at our doors.

I am clearly excited and thrilled as I often am; wrapped with that strange sense of animated childlike delight, everytime a New Year marches in and with nothing short of a feeble embrace, lifts me endearingly, into its arms. I catch a balloon or two, slip on  a streamer, spill champagne and I am happy.

I wrote on  my Twitter account this morning that I do indeed feel grateful, enriched and extremely thankful at being blessed with another year to remember or at least, God Willing – and I use that phrase more often these days – to start with.

From a personal platform, I hold no complaints about a kindly 2011. The second half of the year turned out to be peaceful and serene, without effort on my part. Peace sought me rather than the other way around.  On retrospection, I found myself travelling this year, not for adventure but to forge closer bonds with lands and people I already knew and visited regularly. That happened automatically as I did research for some stories I wanted to write on intimate places and streets. Those stories are still in the bag.

I was also healed of many things and dodgy relationships in the earlier part of the year…so by the time, May turned up, my energy path was properly revitalised. The wonderful result was that certain loves for specific book and cinematic titles and other meditations and beautiful situations I felt I had lost in an over-crowded destiny from the recent past; returned to me.

In this way, my infant resolutions already stay an ongoing journey…something that my spirit itself yearns for, rather than any deliberate effort of the everyday consciousness. And I can say goodbye to 2011 for cheerfully offering me one of the sunniest times of my life, in the last decade.  This was also the year as an adult, that I came into my own as a reader for the loveliest literature that chose to define my individualism.  For the first time, I also received a suave, shiny confidence as a solitary traveller, confessing to an almost complete lack of self-consciousness for wherever I went, derived from years of ferrying luggage through odd places and difficult airports. In these areas at least, I have overcome my challenges.

PS: Tomorrow, I shall blog about my reading resolutions, which I have already engaged with, slightly.

Credit: Free clip art of fairies in art courtesy of KarenWhimsy.

The majority of industrious bloggers that connect themselves with a bookish theme or subject would often lend themselves to what was going on in their specialised fields for instance- new writers, new titles, interviews, the sharing of links  etc…  I realised after a while that these were individuals who love their blogs, are serious about each post after an intellectual fashion  and so craft their web pages into a tireless hobby.  At the end of the day, that is where the energy for their written word, rests.  They’re not professional writers, aiming for publication, I don’t think.  Thus, time is naturally kinder on both the senses and the bones.

Then there are writers who have published books and their blogs are used mainly as marketing tools…a post filled out on some promotional musing or hidden advertisement, every once in a blue moon.  Readers are subtly used as potential customers and the occasional self-adulation is necessary.

But then again, there are also a flourishing group of  in-betweeners…the majority of whom I observe to be from England or the States, who have run up blogs quite a few years old now, who have been hard at work  on their keyboards and so gained a respectable audience.

These are a league of professional writers especially poets, essayists, novelists and the travel writer, who turn up substantial publications and yet zinc up their blogs with spectacular literary reviews and essays.  These are writers who pen their blogs regularly not just because they love the primary idea of a worldwide internet communication  but  for the fact that writing runs feverishly, through their veins.

I believe I fit very loosely into the third category. I don’t fit into the other two, although I used to in earlier years. For one, I shall never again blog in the way I did before and as most bloggers still do today, by way of posting new information or links. Not unless a publication is really special to me. I think writer interviews can also be painful sometimes if they don’t go right, so I shall consider this seriously as well, unless it’s for a friend or someone who inspires me.

I would never fit into the second category either. I don’t think I can bear the idea of begging readers to please go to Amazon and buy my book, kind of thing, with every blog post. That just seems so sad, yet I see it happen often. I just can’t do that. Maybe once or twice but not all the time. And not without first giving readers something good to go by. I would do my promotions on a website where my publications lie and not on a blog, unless I could think up something really creative. But I wouldn’t beg a reader.  Of course, there are no rights or wrongs about this and it’s still, to each his own.

My only problem is that I have several adjustments to make. I need to fix my writing craft, get a good disciplined schedule going and then fit my time for blog posts. In earliers years before the internet, I wrote as a career and in my own time. I wrote all the while.  Then I answered a spiritual call and did nothing but travel. Then I blogged. Then I travelled some more. Than I blogged some more. When I began to write creatively again in my own time, it took a year of painful adjustment to fit in writing and travel. And in earlier years when I blogged predominantly, my creative writing lagged terribly behind. Now, I’ve got to turn my little hourglass holding these two passions, upside down, where writing for publication becomes the dominant factor. That will be my challenge for 2012.

Where my blog is concerned, I shall  focus on my favourite literature and their accompanying regions through reviews and essays. I would also like to include world cinema. And I do love books on culinary journeys as well. Let me describe to you tomorrow, the themes and subjects I am drawn so passionately to delve into, like never before. And when I do manage any writing accomplishments as they come along, no matter how small, I shall hopefully mention them, if I can somehow conjure up the nerve.

I was quite surprised to observe from some vague remembrance, that a book review I wrote on a novella titled The Patience Stone by French-Afghan writer, Atiq Rahimi, now residing in France, had been published in The Iranian.com on April 2010.  This review rested  on one of my older blogs before I decided to submit it.

How faraway that seems…. a date that holds a significant message for me, which I will tell you about in a moment.

But first…  It is always quite a delight to glimpse something of mine out in a foreign publication…online or otherwise.  Especially too, when its editor is not my mate, friend or even a casual acquaintance, but simply a stranger.  Such a delightful situation offers complete credibility against any conflict of interest or prejudice and lets the slush pile stay strangely dignified.

I believe that this modern Iranian site with its tagline Nothing is Sacred is based in America with an overwelming number of Persian members who submit all kinds of gorgeous, artistic endeavours.   In 2008, I had quite a few reviews published on the site under the name of Suzan Abrams.  The thing is once you submit your contribution, you have to wait for the editor to give it the green light.  Two pieces of my work have been rejected in the past, but the majority have been accepted. I am probably also one of the 3 to 5 per cent of non-Persian writers on board.

In this context, I was surprised to see that I had a review out, having forgotten all about it.  This time, I had submitted it under my real name of Susan Abraham. The significant tone that spoke to me seriously enough was that April 2010, was possibly the last time I submitted anything for publication.

I understand the reasons for this.

In 2010, I was onto a lot of adventure jaunts in East Africa…especially at the National Safari Parks. I was also very badly distracted by a lot of people on Facebook.  I was a novice then and this vast social media network with my very long, unnecessary list – especially when I hardly communicated with half the people on it – proved a painful orientation for me. I  met many good people but also not so good ones where ethics and the conscience were concerned.

I suffered a fair bit at the hands of little known writers and especially one small-timer. The arrogance was artificial. Although these were those published traditionally by small presses, you never ever saw their titles in bookshops, even on homeground, with the exception perhaps of the odd  neighbourhood watch…who knows. I learnt that so intense was the level of competition and the desperate need for publicity, you could on having volunteered to help…well, get your face clawed if you were not careful in handling certain demands of these writers. Clannish cliques where lots of lavish praise meted out, were obvious.  Friends from the FB list would be pinched in a desperate need for favour and for any unsuspecting individual to buy another’s lesser-known novel.   I also went through a few betrayals.  As a result, I wasn’t in my best form.

Later, in the year – Christmas 2010 to be exact – , I published Call the Ships of Dar-es-Salaam with YouWritePublishing.com who at the time, had space for just 200 writers in a publishing round for a major print-on-demand venture.  This was in England and at the hands of excellent publishers. I am glad to say that my paperback featuring some alternative poetry and prose, still holds a superb online distribution worldwide. Sadly, I wasn’t motivated enough to promote it. I think 2010 was a major learning curve for me when it came to dealing with new relationships via the social media – also an important platform for the writer, eager to build an audience.

Thus, the start of 2011 saw me exhausted and emotionally drained. It was around this time I decided to let go of many things and people that were no longer beneficial to my wellbeing. It was probably the first time in many years, that I actually attended to this with a deliberate seriousness.

Not just to cut off ties but to longer focus on them. How painful this was but thankfully, I succeeded. Although I had made resolutions to write and publish work, there was still no inclination for this. In fact, I just longed for a wellness of my soul and finally succumbing to a spiritual force far greater than myself, I decided to go with the flow.  Serenity and peace met me with comforting pats on the back.  This was a year when I completely escaped calamities but felt constantly guided, protected and blessed by the living power of a Christ I happily clung to.

I’d say that 2011 marked a timeof spiritual healing for me and also one of renewal and refreshment, with a  crutch well-rested on my Christian faith. Around the third-quarter of the year, my great passion for Arabic, Persian and Turkish literature which had been suddenly ignited, first of all in 2008 and then turned subdued what with so many cross-currents on my energy path; finally returned to me in great abundance.  I felt that my destiny had given me as a writer and reader, the all-clear and how relieved I was to have my focus on literature, returned to me.

About a month later, came the desire to once more write for publication and to finally step out of the shadows. This review that is marked April 2010 is too long away. That marks my period of absence from allowing my writing to be published in magazines and such.  I believe although I did manage to publish a book, that my spirit had unknowingly shut down and that I had settled for a blog-presence to blanket whatever it was that I had to say….in the darkness.  2012 is definitely the year – and I already knew this in November – where I would finally cross the chasm and write widely again. How thrilling my days feel now…how exciting the feel of possibilities that seem to increase with each passing hour, readily conquering even the festivities of the season.