March, 2021

here i am again, under a new flag, a lot older, a bit wiser. 2017, the last time i shared anything.

i wonder if i have any followers left? let this be a thought bubble that drifts away into nothingness if not.

fuzzy the cat is now fourteen years old and has been gently groomed over the course of a week by me, in order to avoid the easier route of having him sedated and given a lion cut by someone at the vets’. Today I discovered he likes papaya in addition to melon.

mowgli the calico is almost five and has proved to be a highly intelligent cat, demonstrated by her ability to open doors by jumping up and grabbing door handles and pulling them down using her body weight.

minnie has been around for a few years more than mowgli, i forget the year we rescued her. she did get lost for a whole month two years ago, but miraculously returned, haunted and half her size. her survival remains a mystery i shall never unravel, but her return was along the same route i had visualized in my mind’s eye.

a lot more kittens have entered and gone from our lives, the most notable being georgie and mano. and there is a mommy cat who lives outside with her brood of four: emmet, molly and the two scruffies. they are the most delightful family we have the pleasure of being acquainted with.

amu is now twenty three and feels weighed down by the burden of existence sometimes. my job it seems is to remind her to keep her eyes open to the wonder of it all. she is finally working towards a bachelors degree in social sciences, after quitting college for a year to dabble in other things: a yoga teacher training in nepal, a bit of teaching thereafter, and then a job at a startup. she produced a ton of art through 2020, and thrived in lockdown as it eased her fomo.

huz is almost fifty five and continues to be a poet and an IT consultant. his biggest breakthrough over the last couple of years has been to give back to the world by making inroads in the world of activism, doing what he does best: programming and visualizing. his work has helped in mapping global inequality, and apart from being mentioned in a groundbreaking paper as well as a book, he continues to gain the greatest satisfaction in finally being able to do meaningful work, not just a bullshit job.

i am now 48, proud to declare that i have finally managed to grow tomatoes and even a melon. i have learned a lot about gardening and composting, messing around with earth and seeds. i have jumped with both feet into mother earth spirituality, transformed by the depth of indigenous wisdoms, specifically native american ones. life has been full of understanding and insight, ephemeral though they are. letting go of the pretense of hair dye was a process that did more for me than just save my scalp from chemicals. i now sport streaks of white , along with the virtual company of hundreds of women who did the same, all of us part of a whole movement of women intent on overturning the norm. we all know it wasn’t just about hair.

setting an intention here today. to tuck away some thoughts as the days go by, whatever they are, worth sharing or not, just as an exercise in flexing my unused muscles.

love,

munira.