I know it has been forever. While my blog has been silent, but mind has been active. I’ve also had my hands quite full, freelance editing, teaching part time, and being new mom to a lovely one year old. I just started writing again, but I hope to move my writing in a new direction, focusing on essays and reportage. I submitted a few articles to Sister’s magazine on two of my passions, race relations and the history of Islam in Africa. Both deal with gender, so you get the theme. Being an educator, you are exposed to a lot of stuff you want to write about, but can’t. It means you have to broach subjects with a lot of tact. So, the instead of the old sledgehammer approach, I must put some velvet gloves on the iron fist. Working with people, you see their humanity. At the same time, you can see how systems reproduce inequality and how short sightedness and ineptitude can undermine the most promising of institutions. Above all, you see that most of us mean well and are trying the best we know how. A year and a half ago, I talked about a series of articles I intend on writing. I still want to work on those. It will realistically take a lot longer. At the same time, I realize that I have to look at writing as part of my self care, as a way to nourish my mind and refine all those jumbled thoughts in my head. I hope you will be patient with me as I build up my writing chops again.