WE'RE BACK!

 

In these days and times, patience is all too often defined by our response to Covid, testing clinics, working from home, or trying to find work; arranging  our vaccine shots and not being able to see and visit with family, friends, adult children, the grands or loved ones residing in assisted living or nursing homes. And then there are the marriages, funerals, birthday parties that may be, at best, a drive-by or a Zoom.

We try to re-regulate our lives as best we can to do whatever has become our personal “new” normal.

And then many of us must bear testimony to the trial of Derek Chauvin. We are thrust to relive painful personal episodes and past trauma with police that rapidly rush to the forefront of our consciousness and re-ignite past pain and being dehumanized. So, some folks are beginning to prepare for an acquittal which has been the ongoing American history of white police officers degrading and killing Back citizenry especially African American males. So, with all of that said…

I appreciate our readers’ patience and acknowledge that the next aaduna issue has been too long coming. With a volunteer staff, what we project as a possible timetable is influenced by the ongoing parameters of their daily life and the pertinent realities that we must bring to our daily routines and unexpected challenges.

Give us a few more days as we work to format and launch the issue. And as our practice, we will tease you with some of the contributors and their work to whet your appetite.

Here is some of what you can expect from Anita Nahal’s first paragraph of the first chapter of her pending novel:

Anita Nahal PhD

Finally, She Showered

A novel in onegin stanza and prose 

{Circa 2017 and back and forth, and back and forth} 

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ll morning it had been raining, except for the hour or so when the wedding procession danced towards the entrance of the hotel. Priya’s son, Avijeet was getting married. It had been fifteen years since she had decided to leave India with her young son to create a peaceful life for themselves.  She could feel her heart knocking as she placed her right hand on her chest trying to calm it, with the left adjusting her sari pallu making sure her midriff was not visible. Standing at the tall glass windows on the second floor of the hotel just before the procession began, Priya heaved a long sigh-- relief and apprehension amalgamated like an uncomfortable mixture of tea and coffee in the same cup. Pursing her lips, hugging herself she swayed side to side like a swing in a gentle wind. It was still drizzling, lightly…very auspicious omen…the rain that is… at least that’s what India’s old wives’ tales echoed no matter if everyone got drenched with the bride’s make up running and the groom’s turban dripping!

 

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It is always intriguing when we publish a creative piece from someone whose intelligence, imagination, poise, and deliberative thinking is geared in another primary field, somewhat removed from the literary arts. Those folks find time and avenues to express their persona in two, and often more than two fields. In that vein of recognition, here is the opening paragraph from the story, “How Do You Really Know” penned by Matthew Bucknor, MD:

Matthew Bucknor, MD 

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n the moment between the still black night and hesitant blue dawn, Devon finds himself in a large concrete stairwell. Fluorescent white light cascades off the walls in lilting waves. He shields his eyes with his hands and steadies himself against the railing. He cannot recall the intent that brought him to this fourth-story landing. He has already forgotten the wretched smell of the last patient’s room, recycled air laced with spores, the flimsy yellow gown donned over his short white coat. The plan that had been made to defer further plan-making until morning rounds. He is only aware of fatigue, the urgent need to lie prone, to fully supplicate himself to gravity’s will. A sense of weariness lingers heavy on each step.

 

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Stay tune for a few more teasers!

 

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The aaduna spring issue will be launching soon!  

aaduna - an online adventure with words and images - a globally read, multi-cultural, and diverse online literary and visual arts journal established in 2010.  Visit us at www.aaduna.org where we put measurable actions to our words.

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