A Short Story - Part 4

As time passed and my girl didn't return home, I decided to go look for her and take my son with me. When my mom saw me get ready to leave, she stopped me. She then revealed that my partner had quietly died during the night, and my mother had immediately taken care of getting her body out of the house to spare my son and me from the tragedy until she could somehow gradually prepare us for it. A desperate sadness enveloped me. I didn't know what to do or what to say. The thought of never seeing her again seemed unbearable. I realized I didn't know how to deliver the news to my son. 

A Short Story - Part 3

I contemplated asking my mother to take care of my son so that I could go find the love of my life, but every time I mustered up the courage to ask her, I saw how sad she seemed, and I just couldn't do that to her. Since she adopted me all those years ago, the woman has loved me with all her heart; she has cooked, cleaned, and taken care of not just me but my lady and our son as well. Why did she seem so distraught, though? Did she know something I didn't? 

Six Years

I started living in the woods on May 29, 2018. I've been here six whole years. During this time, I've reflected on life, read many books, written a few, built a cabin, said goodbye to a cherished companion, and learned a lot. Here's to my seventh and final year in the woods.

A Short Story - Part 2

I looked everywhere but couldn't find her. I thought we would be together forever. And now, in my old age, the only girl I had ever loved had left me. Had I somehow upset her? I couldn't understand. How could she leave me? How could she leave our son? With my compromised eyesight and hearing, I had to care for our sick son by myself. I didn't know what to do. Should I try to find her? Should I stay at home and take care of our son?

A Short Story - Part 1

I had known her all my life. We had spent every second of our lives together. She was my best friend, my sister, my protector. I called her my partner in crime. We played, fought, ate, slept, and sat together... until one day she just vanished. 

Molière

"The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it."
Molière

Dear Twelve-Year-Old Me

 

Instagram @afarinrava

INSTAGRAM
@afarinrava

Leo Tolstoy

“To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling — this is the activity of art.”
Leo Tolstoy

Book Review

 

Neophyte

Merriam-Webster's word of the day is 

neophyte 

pronounced NEE-uh-fyte 

a noun meaning

someone who has just started learning or doing something

1

: a new convert

2

: novice

3

: beginner

The word neophyte has been in the English vocabulary since the fourteenth century. It traces back through Late Latin to the Greek word neophytos, meaning "newly planted" or "newly converted." Initially, it referred to a person newly converted to a religion or cause, but by the 1600s, neophyte had gained a more general sense of "a beginner or novice." In today's English, the words newbie and noob are used to convey the same idea.

(All of this is taken from Merriam-Webster.)

To see it in context or listen to the pronunciation, check the link: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day (May 21, 2024). 

Book Review

Nine Ways

... to Sunday?

I've heard "nine ways to Sunday" many times in different contexts, all meaning something like "in every way possible"... but where does the phrase come from?
An online search led me to the following explanation, taken from the informative website,
https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2019/07/27/what-is-the-meaning-of-six-ways-from-sunday/:
The precise origin of this phrase is not clear and has perplexed many lexicographers. However, lexicographer Michael Quinion offers perhaps what is the most compelling — and only — explanation. He cites a passage from James Pauling’s short story, “Cobus Yerks” (1828) as the first formulation of the phrase in America (a variant of the modern form we recognize today): “looked at least nine ways from Sunday.” Quinion suggests that this phrase is an amalgamation of two earlier British slang phrases: “she had look’d nine ways” (1622) and “looking both ways for Sunday” (1785). Over the years, of course, other writers severed the association with the verb “look” (making the phrase far more versatile) and tinkered with the number of ways. Quinion adds: “Sunday was presumably chosen because it would have been regarded as the most significant day of the week. The most common form probably owes its success to the alliteration of Sunday with six and a false mental association with a complete week.”

My Angels

Looloo, Koochooloo, Hoppoo - 2018

 

Criss Jami

“Reality. It is sometimes brought through foreign eyes; because if you do not know any better, you cannot see the worse (and vice versa).”
Criss Jami

The Author's Name

Another acquaintance on social media asked me why I publish my books under two different names. 

I use the name Afarin Rava — made of parts of my full name Nooshafarin Ravaghi — for most of my books.

I use Noosha Ravaghi — a shorter form of my first name, Nooshafarin, and my full last name, Ravaghi — for the books that are somehow related to teaching English because that's the name I go by in my teaching career and my students know me by this name. 
My books Indiana Joes (2022) and Summer Samplings: Anthology (2023) are related to the classes I've taught in 2022 and 2023.

Koochooloo

one year...

 

Book Review

 

Concurrent Projects

I have four concurrent projects, two of which I've already announced:
1- a memoir about my time with my grandmother
2- a family album 
(https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/04/unexpected-part-one.html
&
https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2024/04/unexpected-part-two.html)

I'll announce the other two shortly...

Douglas Coupland

“Dimanchophobia:

Fear of Sundays, not in a religious sense but rather, a condition that reflects fear of unstructured time. Also known as acalendrical anxiety. Not to be confused with didominicaphobia, or kyriakephobia, fear of the Lord's Day.

Dimanchophobia is a mental condition created by modernism and industrialism. Dimanchophobes particularly dislike the period between Christmas and New Year's, when days of the week lose their significance and time blurs into a perpetual Sunday. Another way of expressing dimanchophobia might be "life in a world without calendars." A popular expression of this condition can be found in the pop song "Every Day is Like Sunday," by Morrissey, in which he describes walking on a beach after a nuclear way, when every day of the week now feels like Sunday.”

Douglas Coupland

Podcasts, Writers?

So many podcasts for writers pop up online...

https://www.audible.com/blog/article-best-writing-podcasts

https://thewritelife.com/writing-podcasts/

https://makealivingwriting.com/new-podcasts-for-writers-2023/

https://www.charlotteduckworthstudio.com/blog/best-podcasts-authors
https://www.waveapps.com/freelancing/top-writing-podcasts

https://nybookeditors.com/2023/07/the-best-writing-podcasts/

My Books

 

Friedrich Nietzsche

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

Abstract

I've often written about abstract words having different definitions depending on cultures and perceptions, but today I want to write about the word abstract. 

The word abstract has various meanings depending on the part of speech. It has one meaning as an adjective, another as a noun, and another as a verb... although some of these definitions might overlap as well: 
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstract

A Journey of Transformation

 

Tim Burton

“One person's craziness is another person's reality.”
Tim Burton

Portmanteaux

A portmanteau is a word made by combining the spellings and meanings of two (or more) words or word parts, like spork (spoon & fork), frunk (front & trunk), skort (skirt & short), smog (smoke & fog), motel (motor & hotel), etc. Portmanteaus — the plural form of the word portmanteau can be made by adding s (the English way) or x (the French way) — always make me smile, or the creativity behind them does. 

Here are more portmanteaus:
https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/portmanteaus

Happy Birthday, Googoosh!

I learned Persian in my adolescence when I returned to Iran in 1981. After my dad and I got somewhat settled in our house in Tehran, I found a box of my dad's music tapes and played them in my room one by one to get familiar with Iranian music. I've already written about my discovering Ebi on that day in another post:
https://afarinrava.blogspot.com/2022/02/deleted-sections.html 

Another one of the singers I really enjoyed listening to was Googoosh. Today marks her seventy-fourth birthday... and this year is special because it coincides with her last year on stage. She went on her farewell tour around the world (Final Chapter) and brought back so many memories for all Iranians and many non-Iranians. 

Googoosh began her singing/show career after her third birthday and now, seventy years later, this legend has said goodbye to her fans all over the world.

I have many favorite songs by Googoosh. Here are a couple:

Mordab (Lagoon):
a short clip from a concert:
https://www.instagram.com/p/C3YW8T4obcj/
full song (lyrics by Ardalan Sarfaraz):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty47CWg_3Kk
To get an idea of what the song is about, here's an acceptable translation of the lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdyKZUew8NQ

Gahvareh (Cradle): 
https://youtu.be/RT2FS0eZzLQ?feature=shared 
To get an idea of what the song is about, here's an acceptable translation of the song:
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/gahvare-cradle.html-0

Googoosh has lived an extraordinary life. She got stuck in Iran when the mullahs took over and was banned from singing by the occupying/terrorizing regime in Iran, almost jailed in her own house for over two decades. In 2000, when she finally was granted a passport and allowed to leave Iran after twenty-one years, she staged her first tour, which started in Toronto. Soon after, she went to California, where I resided at the time, and I had the opportunity to see her perform on stage: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X6yUV3zqoc

And here's another one of her concerts (May 12, 2018): 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AolZSuSNmC0

A couple of years ago, Googoosh had a concert in Toronto and got a surprise... 
(a birthday song in Persian and a cake on her seventy-second birthday):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irBQd0a58r4

Happy Birthday, Googoosh!

#Googoosh #GoogooshBirthday #FinalChapter

My Guest Book

 

T.A. Barron

“In May, anything seemed possible. If only I could learn to harness time itself. To make every month like May! Or, perhaps, to live backward in time, so that whenever the end of the month arrived, I could turn May right around and live it all over again.”
T.A. Barron

May

May is here.

A third of 2024 has gone by.

I've always liked the month of May.
I consider it a month of hope.
Looking back, I see it has often been a month of change for me.

Besides referring to the fifth month of the year, the word may indicates possibility when used as a verb and means the hawthorn or its blossom as a noun... and in a literary sense, it can mean one's bloom or prime.