Whenever I’m super busy writing I do little to no blogging. I just can’t. I think the well only holds so much creativity and between family obligations (of which there are MANY!) and just basic work, I haven’t had time.

Who could have foretold this pandemic would have such an impact on our lives?

And who could have imagined that I could emerge through this difficulty in tact.

Certainly not me.

Whenever there’s been hard times, I and my family have struggled and yet this time nope.

We’re okay, alhamdu lillah. More than okay. And it makes me feel a bit guilty.

And as a result I give a little more in charity.

There are a lot of people suffering.

And while I have little sympathy for the unvaccinated that end up in ICU’s I do pity those who are struggling to put food on the table.

It’s time to tighten our belts and lend a helping hand.

Wouldn’t we want others to help us if we were in need?

God tests us in many ways.

Step up to the occasion.

And that might be a good thing!

I’ve been on the roster of an arts organization that promotes artist presentations in the schools for probably about ten years.

I’ve visited thousands of schools, in person, as a result of it.

In fact when I first started out I was doing about a hundred school visits every year.

That’s a LOT of schools!

Gradually the numbers declined and other arts organizations began getting the funding.

All artists and arts organizations have to keep developing themselves or they risk getting stagnant. That means trying new things outside your comfort zone.

Way back in 2013 when I was touring Alaska as their featured artist, I did some presentations at a school in Barrow. My presentation was ‘skyped’ out to remote schools who’d been participating in the program. The students had read WANTING MOR and they participated, remotely, in my session, asking questions.

It was the first time I’d ever been broadcast to a remote school and I thought it was a fantastic idea.

I love the Arctic! I love remote communities. As a kid I was weird and always wanted to run away and become a bush pilot in the tundra.

Blame it on reading Jack London’s CALL OF THE WILD and Farley Mowat’s LOST IN THE BARRENS.

Being able to commune with kids who lived in these remote regions was so cool to me! And I thought why don’t more arts organizations take advantage of the technology these days. We don’t need to incur the incredible expense of getting artists out to these remote areas. We have technology!

The pandemic has resulted in all kinds of suffering…but it may finally have opened up hearts and minds to remote presentations!!!

I can’t imagine it ever being the same. The world will change. We have been forced to get accustomed to virtual presentations and I can’t see that changing. And that’s a good thing.

Anything that gets the arts to vulnerable communities…is a good thing!

And now, a year later, I am as busy with school presentations as I was before the pandemic.

I’m back to trying to carve out time to write.

God is good and I feel blessed.

When you can thrive in the hardest of times, then the easy times are all the easier.

I don’t wish the pandemic on anyone. It has been a great trial for us all, but with the bad can come some good.

We’ve all got to hope. And with the vaccines coming, I’m very hopeful!

Sorry I’ve been away, been moving my elderly parents into their new condo nearby.

I’ve entered a new phase of life, I’ve heard it called the sandwich phase, where a person is sandwiched between the responsibilities to your children and to your elderly parents.

It’s not easy taking care of so many people.

Many times I feel like the mat of a trampoline, with springs stretching me towards all the people in my social circle.

And add to that trying to write regularly AND not neglect a blog.

One of my relatives was talking about an elderly uncle of his who’d become so diminished by Alzheimers and being bed-ridden that he didn’t even comprehend his existence. He just lay there, waiting for the nurse on attendance to attend him and my relative wondered, why do we have to live that long?

On more than one occasion he’s jokingly stated that someone should shoot him before he gets to that state.

He out and out asked me why God would allow such a thing?

The best answer I could come up with, is that this situation becomes a test on their family members to see if they’ll step up and take care of the person.

I’ve always hesitated questioning God’s purpose. I feel as though each one of us an infinitesimal speck in the vast order of the universe subject to the plan of a being with access to ALL knowledge, not just the piddly little slice of it that we can comprehend. I’ve always believed there’s a reason for everything, even when we can’t see it.

But now, I wonder, if this whole idea of being independent and a useful contributor to society isn’t fraught with its own sense of arrogance.

If we hope to die before we reach the stage where we will be dependent on others it means that we look down on such dependence. We pride ourselves in our being independent. But in fact, are we really?

Everyday we depend on the grace and mercy of God, so this feeling of independence is illusory at best.

I think of my own parents who were so fiercely independent, and now the way my father looks at me when I cut his nails or trim his beard or put his shoes on with their velcro closures and it make me think of all the times he must have done that for me when I was too young to do it myself.

It makes me feel humble.

It makes me feel grateful.

And it makes me feel tender towards them both.

And it makes me sad to think of how many elderly parents are abused by their grown up children who remember every slight or every grudge they might have against them.

In the Quran God talks about the stages of life, how we start out helpless and we reach full strength and how some of return to helplessness in our old age and I do think there are lessons to be learned from it.

In the midst of my writing career I have to take time to ensure the ones who nurtured me when I was helpless, are taken care of, and there’s a great lesson in that.

It kind of puts the whole career thing into perspective.

What is more important?

If everyone just took care of their responsibilities, our whole societies would be a LOT better off!

There’d be no homelessness, there’d be no poverty.

Because every homeless poor person is in fact connected to other people in some way or form.

And we should all be looking out for one another.

In some ways in fact, taking care of the elderly has given me renewed focus on my writing. I have some good news to share…but not yet. Soon insha Allah.

Soon.

I’m probably not the only person who thinks the world will never be the same.

Sometimes it takes a crisis to change the way people do things, to force them out of their comfort zone and into a new normal and I do believe we’re in that type of period of history.

With the pandemic and social distancing norms, a lot of my presentations, no actually all my current presentations have become online.

I feel mixed about this.

In one way it’s great! No commute! I live in Toronto, famous for traffic gridlock and I’d literally get anxiety wondering what time I had to leave in the morning to get to my presentations on time!

Now the commute is down to my ‘studio’ in my basement, at my desktop.

And now I suffer a different anxiety. Will I ‘connect’ with my audience properly? Will I be energetic enough to keep their attention? Will the security system voice interrupt the presentation with its haphazard declaration of “System boot completed!” Oh it’s happened!!! And it’s mortifying!

I think my deepest fear is thinking that the organizers who invited me and are paying me good money will say to each other afterwards, “Well that so wasn’t worth it!”

But at the same time, I can’t help thinking of all the untold opportunities available!

When I was touring Alaska, presenting to students in Barrow, there were some remote communities accessing the presentation through technology. It wasn’t as sophisticated as it’s now become but they were seeing me, and hearing me, and they had excellent questions.

Alaska and many parts of northern Canada have such tiny remote villages that it doesn’t make sense to fly in. So as a result they often miss out on opportunities for enrichment. But really, now, with the availability of pretty good quality online presentations, there’s no reason why we can’t go live!!!

The possibilities are endless.

And yet I’m at the age where figuring out new technology is definitely a steep learning curve.

I’m going to give myself the same advice I gave my soon to be fourteen year old granddaughter when I was tutoring her in algebra.

When it comes to learning new stuff, first and foremost, relax. People tend to tighten up when confronted with the unknown. Don’t! Just relax and let the new information wash over you, like a wave, at first.

Then slowly, with a positive attitude, familiarize yourself with the new terminology and what the technology is asking you to do.

It will come, insha Allah. Just don’t panic.

I wonder if I don’t have survivor’s guilt.

I see the pandemic devastating so many authors and artists and other people and I just thank God that there’s a roof over my head and food in the fridge.

It’s made me donate to charities a lot more. Yemen, Syria, the disasters there have only gotten worse.

Closer to home, I was booked to do an online interview for a $100. Was hardly worth the paperwork so I asked them to donate it to a Muslim women’s shelter in Baltimore. It houses victims of domestic violence.

I do believe that privation and abundance are both tests from God. Privation tests your patience, and abundance tests your generosity.

I’ve been working steadily on a historical novel that is proving to be a gigantic project.

I never realized it would take me this long–five years and counting!

Right now I’ve got my head stuck in 1824, reading a biography of John Quincy Adams, what a fascinating guy!

And in reading what happened to him I keep thinking of that French idiom plus sa change plus c’est la meme chose.

There are so many lessons to be learned!

Got the good news that I’ll be able to see this project to fruition insha Allah. It feels so good to know that the next few months are covered and I can work pretty much uninterrupted without worrying too much about finances.

And for that I am extremely grateful!

Not many people get paid to write what they love!

Hang in there! The pandemic will not last forever.

This too shall pass. That is guarranteed.

When I first started out writing, I really thought that you could write ANY story as long as it was logical and made sense.

I didn’t understand the idea of mainstream talking points.

At any one period of time the zeitgeist has a certain agenda. The vast majority of people–the mainstream believe certain things as gospel and you argue against it at your own risk.

And this zeitgeist is like a pendulum, it swings back and forth, from left to right and back again, very seldom does it settle in the reasonable middle.

It used to surprise me.

You’d talk about blatant racism or sexism with people in the media and there’d come a blank look on their faces, like, “Yeah, what do you want me to do about it?”

They know it’s wrong, but at the moment the public isn’t willing to do anything about it.

It’s how powerful people got away with abuse for so long. The vast majority of those who knew it was going on felt helpless to stop it.

Cosby, Weinstein, Epstein, they were too BIG to tackle.

It’s so interesting that it was one simple remark that actually brought Cosby down, and it was by a relatively obscure comedian named Hannibal Buress. Cosby was talking down to the young Black comedians, complaining about their demeanor and way of dress and apparently Hannibal simply said, “Yeah, but you raped women, Bill Cosby, so that kind of brings you down a couple notches.”

All of a sudden people wanted to know what he was talking about and the rest is history.

The women who had gone to the media to report what Cosby had done to them were all told they couldn’t touch Cosby! Not Bill Cosby!

It has always fascinated me how some people can get away with so much.

Until they can’t.

#Black Lives Matter, #Metoo, all movements started by Black women, because out of all the demographics in society, the one on the bottom may very well be Black Women.

A timely word, a call for justice…and all of a sudden the public is ready to take on those who were previously untouchable.

When will it happen for Palestine?

Everyone knows how they’re being slaughtered and oppressed, when will it be their turn?

Because right now when I read about the atrocities that Israel is committing, the blatant atrocities, and I mention it to people in the media with any type of significant following, I see that look in their eyes…that unspoken warning, “Oh you can’t touch Israel…”

But the truth is the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice.

No oppression lasts forever.

Look at how they thought slavery would never be abolished!

Even while there is much wickedness in the world, there is also a trend away from it, and that is where I tend to place my hope.

May God have mercy on all those who are suffering abuse and oppression!

May He guide us to help establish justice for all.

Because nobody, no matter how big, is too big to come falling down.

Nobody.

I remember the incident well!

I’d come back from an overseas tour and was attending a family literacy night at a school that had booked me.

I was tired.

When your schedule fills up, and it’s busy season, it comes with a level of exhaustion that doesn’t get satisfied with just a good night’s sleep.

Anyway, it was some school about an hour away. I thought piece of cake. Went there, thought of what I would say, got up and said it, and then called to the principal that I was done. She seemed surprised, and I realized I’d made the mistake of not asking how long they wanted me to speak.

I made the assumption that like in most cases, they’d want a brief fifteen minute presentation.

That look on the principal’s face gave me a jolt and ever since then I’ve always tended towards over preparation rather than under.

There’s no worse feeling than standing in front of a group of people and your mind going blank because you ran out of things to say.

I firmly believe in leaving them wanting more!

And so now, as I prepare for a zoom seminar, I find myself creating a presentation I likely won’t be able to completely finish. Not unless I talk very fast! Which I tend to do anyway.

But I want to give them a bang for every buck, so I over prepare!

It makes me feel a lot better! It’s the consideration I would want if I was booking my services!

Have you heard of the coronavirus parties in Alabama, where young people get together in packed venues and whoever catches it first gets a cash prize?

At first this might seem ridiculous and counter intuitive and it is. But I keep thinking of that scene in School of Rock when the principal of the school is being confronted by all the parents. She’s trying to speak to them and they’re all in her face screaming. So she goes outside and the teacher runs up to her telling her that the kids are gone. (They’ve left for a field trip.)

The smile on her face is funny. It too seems counter intuitive.

But when things are so off track, when they’re so awful horrible, the instinct is actually to laugh.

I think that’s what’s happening with the young people.

They’ve been under so much strain for so very long that with all this doom and gloom they’re just throw it out the window, I’m going to party.

It’s kind of understandable.

But very very sad.

With the death of Nick Cordero, a youngish actor who caught covid 19, and the fact that it’s a very dangerous disease and many of them may well die from it…it’s very sad.

It’s a sign of dysfunction in society. It’s a sign when they’ve got tons of debt from a school degree that shouldn’t have cost them that much, that they’re willing to just be reckless because life is just too much…

May God help us all.

I’m not that old! Really, I’m not!

And I’ve been doing this stuff for a while, but sometimes just buying a pair of socks can turn into a nightmare!

Whoever heard of creating a password for an online sock account?

And then there’s organizations like Kiva, where you’re really just trying to do some good but again it turns into a nightmare!

And don’t get me started on all those passwords that have to have a symbol an upper case and a lower case and a number and have to be at least 8 digits!

I really like Kiva, as an idea. It’s basically an online charitable donation organization that operates all over the world.

You can read people’s stories and decide to contribute towards giving them an interest free loan. Sounds great right?

But… what happened is that my mom wanted to get in on it, so she gave me a lump of money to manage. Basically I look over people’s stories and donate. Again, no problem. The mistake I made was creating a separate account. Now there’s two passwords to memorize, two accounts to manage from two different emails.

And then trying to coordinate between them, AAAArrrrghh!

And now all the zoom stuff to figure out.

Last night I had a wonderful idea!

I’ve always thought of creating an after school group for disadvantaged kids, where I read them stories and developed their English skills.

I really do think that reading and English skills is the key to unlock all kinds of learning.

If parents simply read to their kids–I know it sounds simplistic but honestly the exposure to language makes ALL the difference!

If they just read to their kids and talked to their kids and engaged with them in terms of what the stories mean, what they’re getting from them, the kids’ thinking would be stimulated, their cognitive processes would benefit and all aspects of learning would be helped out!

But in disadvantaged homes with parents trying hard enough to just survive, there’s hardly any time for that.

There are all kinds of programs for kids in terms of athletics but that’s not what they all need. Not all of them will go on to become star athletes!

Anyway, why I’m talking about this, it occurs to me that this could happen through zoom. Most kids have access to a phone and could engage with me where I could teach them what could benefit them and give them advantages that other children take for granted.

But that means navigating zoom! AAAArrrrggghhh! God help me!

I have good intentions but the frustrations are trying.

But I will see what I can do.

The next few years are going to be tough, I’m afraid, and I want to do what I can to give kids hope.

If you want to be involved in anyway, let me know. I’m reaching out. The technology is a pain but at the same time there’s so much potential!

It’s been an interesting Ramadan.

I find that no matter what kind of upheaval is going on in the world, and over the last few years upheaval has been inevitable, as soon as Ramadan arrives a feeling of peace and calm descends on me like a misty spring shower.

This year is no different.

I have so much to be thankful for, and Ramadan always heightens that feeling of gratitude in me.

Yesterday was the tenth fast.

10 fasts out of 29 or 30 already done!

Ramadan always goes so fast!!! I can’t believe a third of it is already over.

I’ve been praying! A lot!

This Ramadan I hope to pray taraweeh, that’s the extra night prayers, every night.

Last night I was so exhausted I wanted to skip, but I still managed to pray two extra. Usually it’s eight.

Makes me feel so happy!

And afterwards I pray for all those who are suffering. There are so many! And I’ve been increasing the amount of sadaqa (charity).

Many charities especially Muslim charities bump up the requests during Ramadan because most Muslims choose Ramadan to pay their zakat.

Zakat literally means ‘purification’ and it has to do with wealth. If a Muslim has more than a certain amount of providence above their daily needs, then they’re required to donate 2 1/2 % to the poor. That’s a must. It’s an act of worship that helps ‘purify’ our wealth. Thanking God for all His bounty by giving to those less fortunate because but for the grace of God that could be us.

Then there’s extra charity you can do above and beyond that which is called sadaqa.

When I give sadaqa I look for the neglected causes.

I am definitely not a bandwagon jumper. If I see everyone flocking to a cause, I will deliberately look for other underfunded entities.

In these difficult times, it’s so important to up our charitable giving.

People are suffering, but if we are kind to each other, we can and will get through this, insha Allah.

Take care everyone!