INTENTIONAL BIRTHDAY JOY

In the weeks leading up to my birthday, I try to be intentional about my gratitude. Here I still am, loved. 

I tend to myself in the ways that will fill me up for the unknown times ahead. I took the bus into town, crossed Parker's Piece and stepped into a cosy salon for a massage with baobab oil - seed oil from the tree of life (they say). I tried to infuse colour with my nieces' tenth birthday balloons in the conservatory (slightly deflated, but with original illustrations), birthday nails the colour of birthday balloons… flowers everywhere… 

Mum made a roast chicken with sweetcorn, mushrooms and potatoes on the side… And our beloved friend Joan Church whisked up the legendary chocolate cake she knows I have loved since my first bite in hospital in 2009 while I was still being weaned off a feeding tube… she learnt it was my birthday at 5pm and by 7:30 she was at the door, a cake with still warm icing, fresh from the oven, in the boot of her car!

Over the next few days, other friends stopped by. Dr Kumar with plums and then tomatoes, Dr Ly with walnuts from Vietnam, Sammy stayed the weekend while there was a wedding in the family... and a week after my birthday, I fulfilled a literary challenge set down by my friend Firdaus - to pick up the threads of my novel again! 

I sit in the conservatory and place a few sentences, a few words... like a few daubs of paint onto a canvas. A slow slow writer I am when it comes to fiction. Memoir and poetry come fast like trains and wind. A novel is slow pressure cooking for me. But if I don't keep at the cooking, a piece of my heart's desire continues to remain unfulfilled. So en avant! The poet warrior has work to do. A work of love, she hopes...

BIRTHDAY ANEW

At first, when the month approaches, I think of hiding. As though I can out run or camouflage myself against my own birthday. Why would you want to do that? you may ask. I’m not sure. A cumulative sense of feeling unanchored, lost, a questioning of the new self - are you the one I was supposed to be? Or have I let you down? 

But there were garlands woven by my mother, and my hands clasped, and kissed in the old Arabic style by my father, and his extravagant praise for the worth of his daughter in his life. 

A day earlier had seen us at Badger’s Wood, despite the heat and drought… the redwood stood tall and resplendent and the unbonsaid bonsai looked spectacular. 

Colette and Joseph made my birthday a day of delights and tales and cake, Mary Oliver poetry recited by me, a giant bear cuddled by Dad and even a tiny muntjac flew across the bottom of the lawn by the pond, just a little birthday wave. 

On the day of, I had afternoon tea with Victoria and Freya, and later dinner again with Mum… in between a gentle massage at the Grenville hotel spa and even my first delicious Margarita by myself on the hotel lawn, not a soul in sight, just Deborah Levy and I…

Dad’s blessings came earlier in the day. Later I found myself walking into the incense of St Paul’s Cathedral Church as evening Latin mass drew to a close. I wished the best for my loved ones. I thought of suffering. And I prayed for guidance in my own life, moving forward. Where to now, dear self of 44, where to now? 

FRODO AND SAMWISE, DOG DAYS

Who am I? Where am I? What day is it?

There are hailstones flinging themselves against my window pane and the wind sounds more like a hurricane, tunnelling between trees and rushing down these village lanes. Storm Eunice is here. 

Sometimes Samwise and I stare down country lanes that lead into the unknown, but having had one experience of being ‘lost’ in a field, with no end in sight, I steer my little pooch away from mysterious scents that beg to be followed. We chase sunsets and friendly scarecrows instead... 

Mum and Dad celebrated their wedding anniversary at the end of January, and Mum had a birthday a few days ago. The house is full of flowers, scents of freesia and mimosa, vases rarely used had to be found. A freshly baked chocolate cake arrived the day before Ma's birthday, via our friend Joan, and Irfan sent mithai - from Gupta’s - gifts can arrive this way these days - Singapore to London to Cambridge…

    

                                   

                                           

Who am I? We have lived so many lives already. The bell of mindfulness on my Plum Village app sounds every fifteen minutes, bringing me back to my present moment, which is quiet and safe and peaceful enough. My book is out in the world and being read, and I am learning that it takes Time to approach another piece of work while your heart and mind are still engaged with your first. I am tired, there is no doubt of that. Pops has had many sleepless nights, and I have been his aide-de-camp in matters of tea and biscuits… posh ones, Cartwright and Butler…

My fourth booster must be organised soon, I have taken my pre-infusion covid test in preparation for tmorrow’s infusion… and so it goes… do your days and months have a pattern? Do you experience the funny swoop? The little flutter that reminds you these are still strange times, and we must take care of ourselves and each other. The bell of mindfulness sounds again. 

                             

                                                 

JANUARY BOOK REVIEW IN FEBRUARY

‘A nightingale sang in Berkeley Squaaaare!' I've been burbling this song all day long, and I have no idea why... suddenly the line bursts off my tongue and into the vulnerable ears of whichever family member is around or on the phone... my grandmother used to sing with a tremulous treble she assigned to the throat operation which cured her of nodules. The operation destroyed the strength of her singing voice, she said, but I liked her trills and quivers. I like appropriating that quiver; it makes me feel very 1950s...

It is Mum's birthday today. Yesterday, I prepared the traditional Parsi celebratory dessert of rava, sweetened semolina and milk with rosewater and pistachios... I made some fresh milk bread to go with hot morning chai, and late this evening I cooked some figgy chicken with mashed potatoes and sugar snap peas (Dad loves the comfort of mashed potatoes) and on we shall go into the snowy depths of February. Meanwhile, I thought I'd share some of my readings from last month.

The Body Knows The Score by Bessel Van der Kolk has become one of those therapeutic classics along with Gabor Maté’s When The Body Says No. I found it a compelling read for the most part except where certain therapies were only available under almost laboratory type conditions. The last quarter of the book was therefore interrupted by my next reads, but Van der Kolk is so compassionate, I would absolutely recommend the book to anyone who has suffered trauma in any form.

Azadi by Arundhati Roy is a a very slim volume of essays, including ‘The Pandemic is a Portal’, the brilliant piece Roy wrote upon India being shut down with a four hour grace period. Can you call that grace? No, indeed. And while you’re reading Roy, take a look at Zadie Smith’s Intimations, another beautiful slim volume of essays - both writers are masters of their craft. 

Whenever I can’t put a book down, I am always amazed and gratified that my eyes can withstand the brief marathon. It is always a testament to the author - I felt this way about Deborah Levy‘s The Cost of Living, which is the second memoir in her living autobiography series. The memoir is a response to Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, and is full of poetic energy, and the feminism of starting over after the failure of a long marriage.

Nikesh Shukla’s Brown Baby was also a memoir I did not want to put down. Writing against the grain of despair in Britain's divisive society, which regularly displays its prejudice, Shukla answers complex questions asked by his young daughters. Innocent enough questions, difficult to answer with ease and hope and the promise of joy. And yet, Shukla finds the vein to draw that hope from.

And lastly, my beloved Eva Ibbotson’s A Company of Swans and A Countess Below Stairs, rounded off my first month for the pandemic new year, with humour and a little dance in my step.