That within which passes show

Pad Thai, made for a class BBQ

I knew, even before the holidays began late last November, that it wouldn't exactly be the sort of holiday I would choose to have. I knew, just instinctively, that when January comes and if I were to be asked where I went in December, and what I did, I wouldn't have very much to show for it.

'Wouldn't have very much to show for it... ' This phrase resonates with meaning for me. I remember London days, in particular one day walking down Tottenham Court Road with Thao after one of our dinners, probably at the homely Thai restaurant with the pink facade which felt like a Thai kitchen- then again, it could have been any time really. It was end-of-term, and I was about to leave London for the holidays. We were reminiscing how the year had gone by so quickly once again, and I remember telling Thao that I felt I hadn't very much to show for the year gone by. I remember feeling this very keenly: that somehow I had needed a sense of fulfilment or accomplishment, that somehow I had let the days slip by without doing very much that was significant.

Oh, the ardour of youth, intense in years few and compact. I did not know, then, how I would be feeling today, cherishing that year gone by not at all minding whatever that was not accomplished, for what it in the end did mean for me- deepened relationships, sustenance each day through both the expected and unexpected, the pleasurable and the painful- all that meant verdant growth deep within.

I didn't have much to show for December, either. I meant to build this blog, but didn't. I meant to go somewhere and explore a new land, but didn't. I meant to read thick thumping Russian novels, but didn't. Instead, December was a month of injury, a sprained ankle, an injured elbow and a tooth extraction. I meant to build but instead much was torn down- yes, there was much pain in the tearing.

So the instinctive feeling hadn't been wrong, and together with it the assurance- that what in the end matters is not so much the outward but the inward, that whatever structures are created are only, in themselves, only transcient at best. After all that is passing passes away, only what is of real value remains.