The old in the new...

Entrance to my flat, Pentre Jane Morgan, Penglais, Aberystwyth

As I am drafting this week’s entry, we, in the UK, are suffering from the big freeze. The only ones not complaining about the heavy snowfall are my countrymen who are often found outside hurling snowballs…myself not excluded. The coldest winter since 1963. The marina in Aberystwyth has been set in ice and students have been late in returning to the university. I am myself enjoying the snow with the exception of that day when I had to shorten my Christmas break by a day having to rush to the bus interchange for the first bus out of Brecon to Newtown before the snow started falling worsening the road conditions.

When November takes a turn into December, and then as the New Year approaches, there is this profound sense of the loss of the familiar – the familiar presence of the people who are nearest and dearest to me, my family and closest friends. My birthday, my mum’s, Christmas and New Year – why do they have to be so close, concentrating the heaviness of my heart in miserable miserable days!

But there is something called God’s grace. He has given me so much and I have come to be blessed with friends who have me at the forefront of their hearts and minds.

I was invited to spend Christmas with a friend and his mother and his family. Lovely people who made me feel welcome in their homes. As I was in their company, I couldn’t help but feel that I was sharing a special moment in their lives. The banter, the poking of fun, the catching-up, the exchange of warm hugs and kisses – so much like being at home with mum, Nikki and of course the mischievous three who give so much meaning and purpose to my life – the stars in my sky - Lochna, Lekhna and my Siamese twin, Yudish. Oh how I miss you all!

New Year’s eve was spent at my second home in Aberystwyth with my Aber ‘family’ – my daily conspirators of mischief and fun! How I love you!

Isn’t it fascinating that although I am so far away from my family, I have found another? Isn’t it fascinating how the familiar love and companionship that is missed is flooded once more with new love and company?

There is no one else who can articulate my emotions more prophetically than the genius of Tagore…

Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not.
Thou hast given me seats
in homes not my own.
Thou hast brought the distant near and made a brother
of the stranger.
I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed
shelter;
I forget that there abides the old in the new,
and that there
also thou abidest.
Through birth and death, in this world or in others,
wherever thou leadest me it is thou, the same,
the one companion of my
endless life
who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar.
When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut.
Oh,
grant me my prayer that I may never lose
the bliss of the touch of the one
in the play of many.
- Gitanjali

I found the old in the new….family and friendship, love and companionship.

Pentre Jane Morgan, Aberystwyth