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Merry Christmas !!!

~~~

Lovely Christmas with friends: roast chicken (lemon and thyme); rich fruit cake, mashed potatoes; warm spiced cranberry drink (vodka optional). Good, decent, and intelligent people to talk to and yet, for all that...what is it?

A told me, matter-of-factly, in a hushed voice, amidst all the laughter: "I don't want to be here". Well, join the line, kiddo. But she'll be okay, will land on her feet. Always does.

bt, young and enthusiastic, practical head on his shoulders, always speaks his mind, and knows his mind. More importantly, points me to interesting poets and novelists. Impossible to keep up with, but that's okay.

Hasan K, tall and lanky, a bundle of bones, glasses, and communism ; the academic's academic. Could talk about China for ever, and still hold an audience.

Someone says, above the din:"critical thinking". I hear snatches of conversations around the room, Lately, I've become quite invisible. Then someone says, with great confidence, "academia is about questioning everything."

Is it, I wonder to myself.This isn't really about freedom, though you recognize how important that is. That you can question anything is not the whole of the issue; it is, rather, whether you need to, whether some things are (and should be) taken as given. Not just your reasoning abilities themselves, but all sorts of practical and moral insights. Some things are left best in the half dark.

Fudge, under the table, looking on at us with those sad eyes. Old fudge, unable (or unwilling) to participate in our conversations. Seen it all before, I guess. The most reflective dog this side of the Oxiana.

And yet, despite all that, there's a restlessness in your heart. The shadow of those who are absent moves across my face, is on my skin, twists beneath my shoulder blades. Home is where the heart is. And your heart is homeless.

At random, I flick open the book closest to my free hand, as people of faith in the past might have opened their holy book. The first words I catch are:

'We have entered the dark stretch of night just before dawn
as we have entered the dark stretch of land
before the home's come to.'
---Ken Irby.