I have a confession to make. I have been writing a memoir about the years I lived in Yemen for about three years now. At least, that is what I pretend. In reality, I wrote several chapters in a streak of inspiration, then ran into a wall. In my case, the wall consisted of my uncertainty about writing about the time we spent in a small village that was under siege by rebel forces. Uncertainty is not the right word. Inability is more like it. So, there the manuscript sits. Occasionally I pull it up and start writing, only to quit in frustration after a paragraph or two. I don't know how to convey the reality of that time in a way that will make it understandable to my readers. Make that "I didn't know how..." because, as often happens, everything aligns to give some clarity just when we need it. The first star that aligned occurred in a writing group I am in. I was expressing my frustration with myself and my writer's block, and mentioned that all I had been abl...