Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 24

      Near the conclusion of the novel:


        He wrestled, at the last, for a moment of quiet.
Remembering the Windsor Ruins.  The pillars in the woods, standing tall, rain-soaked.  The droplets pattering on the leaves and the needles and the limbs.  The wet grass soaking with unapologetic deliberation through the knees of his blue jeans.
  He knew she’d never ask him what he prayed for.  It was his prayer, his prostration, his private communion with whatever God had taken shape for him.  To intrude on such matters was not in her nature, nor was it his nature to volunteer details without first being asked.
That left him alone with it all, unable to share with anyone the worldless, shapeless character of his supplication. 
       How he’d prayed for peace without knowing what it meant for him.  How in the end he asked only for the quiet of the ruins to penetrate some later state of chaos, and exist for a moment in perfect supremacy, numbing out the noise and the endless anarchy of everything he felt and loved and loathed.
If she’d asked him, he’d have fumbled without success for a means of description, both of the subject of his prayer and the way in which it seemed a lost cause even as it unfolded, and maybe, just maybe, she’d have been able to shed light on the affair – what it was about his mindset that made even the intervention of God seem insufficient to prevent his death. 
       But Abida wouldn’t ask, so Dig couldn’t fumble, and he remained alone with the certainty of doubt.  
       The memory of something sacrosanct and futile.  
       The mud on his knees as proof of his appeal.  

Diwaniyya's "The Hidden World of Girls"

     Diwaniyya, a podcast for the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, identifies as its chief goal the provision of "thought-provoking conversations on Middle East culture, history and politics."
      Its topic for March centers on the experiences of Middle Eastern women and girls, whom it discusses via The Hidden World of Girls, a series of radio documentaries produced by National Public Radio and its award-winning documentary team The Kitchen Sisters.
     Of the six stories they offer, two in particular stood out for me.
     The first offers a multi-media look at the stories of nine young women who chose to stop wearing the hijab, or headscarf. The presentation contrasts photos that depict the women before and after the shift, and are accompanied by short audio testimonies of what persuaded them to make the decision they made. Of the testimonies I viewed, the majority of women discussed the manner in which wearing the hijab forced them to act as representatives of the Muslim community, a role they grew tired of fulfilling. In no case was it a function of any attenuation of their faith.
     While I greatly appreciated the story, I had a certain reservation over the manner in which its introductory video seemed to glorify the act of the headscarf's removal. I worry that it might reinforce the Western predisposition to view veil removal as liberation, but perhaps I'm reading too much into it, loyal, as I am, to the protagonist of my novel, who chooses to continue wearing the hijab and feels highly empowered in doing so.
     The second outstanding story focuses on Amira Al-Sharif, a young photojournalist from Yemen working in New York with the stated intention of "documenting the lives of American women my age and to compare and contrast them with the lives of Yemeni young women." Sheeren Marisol Meraji, the author of the story, rightly observes, "I liked the idea of a Middle Eastern journalist flipping the script. It seems like it's always the other way around: Western journalists documenting Arab women." The article features eight of Al-Sharif's photos, which are, indeed, compelling. Also compelling is her pride in her homeland, of which she hopes to spread awareness.
 

Feminism in Tunisia

     A panel discussion held at Unisa University in Pretoria on International Women's Day, aimed at discussing women's involvement in the Arab Spring, offered some intriguing facts on the history of feminism in Tunisia.
     Two in particular stood out for me, both date-related.
     First, in 1962, women in Tunisia were allowed access to birth control.
     Second, and more significant, in 1965, abortion was legalized - eight years before Roe v. Wade.
     Though Tunisia's path to gender equality has been as rocky and back-slide prone as any - for which the dictatorship of Ben Ali did no favors - it pays to be mindful of the places where light shone through, especially in regions so often construed as lightless.
     It's worth noting, also, that the abolition of monogamy and the establishment of a minimum age for marriage were among Tunisia's first legislative maneuvers upon independence from France in 1956.
     Now, as before, the struggle continues.    

Dr. Hayat Sindi, yet another participant in my "Remarkable Muslim Women" series

     Daily Beast and Newsweek magazines have selected for their list of the world's most distinguished 150 women Dr. Hayat Sindi, a Saudi national.
     Dr. Sindi is a Cambridge graduate, earning a PhD in biotechnology in 2001. Chief among her many accomplishments is her pioneered technique of using inexpensive slips of paper and drops of blood or saliva to diagnose liver disease, a practice that allows low-income individuals to bypass cost-prohibiting lab tests, or to offer medical service to those who live in areas where clinics might be nonexistent. During a stint as a visiting professor at Harvard, and concurrent with the development of this technique, she co-founded Diagnostics for All, with the aim of facilitating broader access to health care. She will launch on October 21st, in Maine, the Institute for Imagination and Ingenuity, which will help scientists draft business plans and locate investors for their ideas.
     Sindi's successes are astonishing not only in their own right, but also in light of the largely oppressive culture in which she was raised.
    At the same time, Sindi - who dresses traditionally, complete with headscarf - declares in no uncertain terms, "I’m very proud of where I came from. . . . Sometimes people think they need to completely discard their culture. But you have to hold on to your identity."
    She acknowledges the resistance her father initially put up to her engagement in a lifestyle at odds with traditional Saudi notions of feminine behavior, but then closes on a moving note: "When he died, I found newspaper clippings about me under his pillow."  

My love and support to the people of Kandahar Province

      As one who opposed this war from the outset, and still remembers vividly the sense of total moral collapse I felt on the day of our invasion, I can't stress enough my outrage over the killing spree today by a U.S. Army Sergeant that left dead 16 residents of Kandahar Province.
     To the survivors of the massacre, and the families of its victims, my love and support goes out to you. Though U.S. officials will seek to portray this as an isolated incident, far too many of us are in some way complicit in the occupation and butchery of your nation, of which today's atrocity is just one other face.
     One day soon, this war will end.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 22

     He engaged the clutch and the stockade walls swung outward and they moved through the rain, out of Jackson, out past Clinton, southwest to the Natchez Trace Parkway and down toward the ocean, Cassie plunging forward through the green and gushing woods, through trees swollen with rain-coaxed fertility, bent in submission . . . southwest down a highway transformed by storm into the likeness of a culvert, green-domed roof and watery base, everything flowing in perfect uniformity downhill to the river, to the Mexican Gulf . . . 
     A sign said Bayou Pierce Presbyterian Church, 1807.
     They turned off the road and wound up the hill to the shack. They parked outside and they stepped through the door, into a totality of veteran wood . . . smells of dirt, impressions of consummate weathering . . . the place just big enough for ten people, maybe twelve . . . all of it abandoned and empty, consigned to history, but not to sterility.  
     Still spirit in the wood.  In the dust.  In the rain on the roof.
     They sat on a bench in the corner and listened to the drips overhead.  
   He put his hand on the bench, wondering – inevitably – how many people had sat there before him; what isolated precession of the faithful had braved the storms of centuries past to stand in prayer on this muddy little leaf-strewn knoll.
    “I can feel it,” said Abida, and the objects of her feeling – the spirit, and the belief that chased it – were left comfortably unspoken. 

A heartbreaking look at New Orleans, from the ground up

     Last week I wrote about a video on the CNN homepage that put a human face to the crisis in Syria.
     This week, I'll recommend to readers an incredibly moving article from CNN that looks at New Orleans through competing lights: popular associations of drunken revelry, color, music, and perpetual festivity juxtaposed with the debilitating intersection of poverty and hopelessness that conspire to make the Big Easy the murder capital of the United States.
      Anyone who has read my manuscript - or spoken with me, for that matter - knows the degree to which New Orleans swept me away. The gas lights, the brightly colored walls and balconies of the French Quarter, the immediate proximity of the Mississippi River, the myriad genres of music that seemed to ooze out of every crevice . . . I can barely dwell on the city without feeling myself on the verge of tears. As such, I come dangerously close to falling into the same starry-eyed trap that grips the article's target audience - one that ignores what could rightly be called a domestic humanitarian emergency.
     It's a lengthy read but one well worth pursuing, providing a heart-breaking chronicling not only of the victims and survivors but also the tireless efforts of those who seek to bring the epidemic to an end. We meet Curissa "Cee Cee" Davis, who at the time of her 18th birthday had lost 20 friends to homicide, including Katie, her best friend since 14, killed by a shotgun blast to the back by an abusive boyfriend.     Later accounts detail an 11 year old killed by a stray bullet in a street-fight and a 2-year old who died when a man sprayed with an assault rifle the courtyard in which she played.
    The article then focuses also on the efforts of Darryl Durham, who heads Arts for Kids, providing youth with a means to express their frustrations constructively, and Father Bill Terry of St. Anna's Episcopal Church, who set up a "murder wall" in 2007, and has since recorded the names of every murder victim as a means of bringing awareness.
     Critically, the article provides insight into the factors that make the violence so pervasive. Chief among them, unsurprisingly, is race. In addition to the usual discrimination in hiring and housing, which demoralizes blacks and places them in situations of economic distress, New Orleans' residents of color are also confronted by what until recently was a wildly racist and corrupt police force, not to mention Katrina herself, which wreaked her greatest damage on traditionally black neighborhoods. Indeed, it was only after Katrina that the city first claimed the infamous murder capital designation.
    Race frames the way the violence is perceived, also. The article details three men who were murdered in the act of protecting others. Two were black, one was white. The media all but canonized the third, and a colossal reward was offered for the arrest of his murderers, while the deaths of the first two men went largely unnoticed.
     I say I was "dangerously close" to falling into the trap of sugar-coating the Crescent City, but I made certain that my second visit to New Orleans included a self-guided tour of neighborhoods like Tremé, that in 2010 still seemed a warzone in the aftermath of the storm. Such ventures only strengthened my love of the city, as its perseverance, its spirit of survival in spite of overwhelming hardship, was as beautiful to me as any of the French Quarter's alluring attractions. In celebrating the individuals who fight to rescue the city from crisis, and the successes they've already brought about, the article pays tribute to this very character.
    A slideshow lends one more dimension to the piece, detailing the residents of the city and the surroundings in which they lead their lives.

Excerpt from Companions of the Garden, Chapter 17

       A stream-of-consciousness passage where Dig meditates on the work of Delta Blues musician Son House:  

       Opening track “Death Letter,” the steel-bodied national busting in with its soul-soaked twang, the chords so filled with Mississippi mud it seemed a wonder the deck could keep running.
I got a letter this morning . . . said your love is dead . . . 
Half-waltz, half-roll.  The skin of a dead monarchal gator animated with riverboat grease dancing on the surface of an ocean of sweat and blood and runoff and atop it the man and his slide guitar, the high notes tear inducing and saliva coaxing in the same amorous breath.  High chords on Track 2 “Pearline” like a loving slap from the vengeful, interspersed with melody.  Blastchord-tune-blastchord-tune-blastchord-deltadawn wetness flooding runoff swamp dust cotton choke cotton choke.  The old blackman and his semi-blindness coaxed from retirement in 1963 to palliate the resurgent thirst of a generation hungry for the purported purity of all things traditional.  A studio and a river inside it.  Oh, Pearline.