And so it is that we come to another end. Symbolic, obviously, for a shift occurred a while ago and the earth changed, and I with her.
2012 was all about peaks and troughs. Of extremes, learning, and deep realization. A momentous year, of change, insight, and revelation. Like a train changes tracks mid-route, but not quite as seamlessly, I halted, regrouped, and reassessed. Was aided in startling ways by unexpected travelers. I discovered who my very own jedi were, and who wished me harm. Other people became surprisingly irrelevant as I turned inward and focused on my own growth. In the finals weeks of these months of tailspin, more curtains parted than ever before, a path confirmed its existence, and the knowledge I bear became surer, firmer, and better defined.
Gifts abounded. Some were snatched away, others atrophied, yet others morphed into opportunities to burnish the self.This has been less a year and more a journey. And, just as a road has mile markers, today is merely one such in the hike I started longer ago than memory permits.
I leave it to an all-time great to tell you how I feel:
And since we’re on the subject, and not because I wish to boast, oh no no, not at all, listen to this:
Three days ago, I stood in my aunt’s inhumanly immaculate kitchen in San Diego as she flung a casual hand out and asked, “Who was that English singer? The one who died?”
“Cliff Richard? Engelbert?” I asked, trying to rifle through memory for singers from her time.
“No, the Parsi one,” she persisted, “He was quiet, and lanky, with buck teeth.”
“Wait…you mean Freddie Mercury?”
“Yes, that’s what he called himself later, isn’t it? I knew him as Farrokh. We used to play together in Panchgani, and he went to boarding school there.”
“You hung out with Freddie Mercury?”
“We were just 11!”
“YOU HUNG OUT WITH FREDDIE MERCURY??????”
“Look, here’s a picture.”
And so it was, that with a clap of thunder and a strangled scream, this gentle lady with whom I share our fathers’ bloodline, watched me yell for the Boy, disintegrate on her marbled floor, and call out “You knew Freddie Mercury!!!!” until the men in white coats arrived to haul me away.
Happy 2013, my friends. Don’t stop me now. Much lies ahead.
Wisdom Wears Neon Pyjamas 
Vox populi