Hello snow angels!!

I cannot remember the first time I saw snow in England. I remember it was pretty, and gone the next day. This yuletide snow, now this is the real thing. Disrupting the country, people unable to go to work, friends moaning on facebook about the sheer and utter boredom of Yet Another Snowman!

I love the cycle of passionate delight at the appearance of extreme weather and then the eyebrow raising monotony of it all - oh no, snow again! - it reminds me of waiting for the Monsoon, waiting, hoping to get flooded in, and then hating the trapped in feeling of weather mastering your life.

I made snow angels. I chucked snowballs. I made new friends this year gone by, did I tell you? All hospital long I gathered new names and faces in the world of mind and spirit, but then summer came and I returned home to a skittering of loneliness tugging at me. A restlessness of needing more than faraway friends. I hope that doesn't sound ungrateful. Have I ever mentioned how desperately lonely it can get tucked up and away in a little village on the outskirts of a city? And then, the young doctor appeared on the ward, and with him, in time, his wife, his brothers, their friends, and my very first New Year's Eve party... dancing and all!! (My younger brother rang the night before to ensure I went to the party, "Shaista! You are not staying home with The Parents! No guilt!")

So I went. I wore a hot little number and threw some serious shapes, and after we had all

congratulated each other on accomplishing the living of another year, I stole a candle and crept upstairs to the top of their house. In candlelight I recited some prayers to thank my prophets, my saints, my friends, my family, for their prayers, their love, the miracle of still being here. A friend joined me and she spoke of beauty and grace. She is a survivor of Rwanda's genocide, she understands suffering, and she understands grace. We shed some tears. We smiled mistily. And then, we blew out the candle, joined the party downstairs, and lit up the floor all night :)