It feels like December tonight. The air is cold, and quiet nostalgia wafts about, interrupted only by the earthy fragrance of chamomile. The sole, stubborn pigeon still flutters around the air conditioner unit outside. The idiot flies away and knocks his head on the balcony ceiling when I get out to shoo it. I have begun to feel terrible for it now, so sometimes, I let it sit and cause a ruckus within some unthought-of, permissible limit, like how you allow a child to make a certain level of mess before you chide them for it. Tolerance is an innate human quality. It exists in us by design. And so does impatience. And often, they clash with one another, and then, you must find a way to rein the impatience in with one hand and extend the other forward. Pigeons or people—all could use a little bit of leeway. Life is hard as it is, and for some, especially on chilly December nights, it is harder.
Smooth jazz plays in the background for no reason besides the moment calling for it. Let us ease into it, that which has happened, that which will happen. There are three days for bookkeeping, for us to tell ourselves the final tally of how we were. We must look at ourselves as honestly as we can only so we can be better. There are no Gods and monsters for grown-ups. We wish there were, but everything holy that could ever exist is up to the hands that hold everything in place, and when there is nothing to hold, the hands that hold each other. And if there are any monsters, we make them, and sometimes, we make them in our image, and we make them so alike that we cannot tell them apart from us. It is easy to live with make-believe ideas of life, but it is much harder to take responsibility, to know that everything that is and everything that is not begins and ends where we do, that our decisions shape some of it, and the rest is a coin toss.
The year has ended. Some decisions were made, few were acted upon, and the consequences rolled in like the morning newspaper. No time to fret anymore, only to lie down and rest a little, sip some tea, listen to music, and look at what is to come eagerly.
Pigeons or people, after all, could always use a little bit of leeway.