Indira Ganesan, From the Inside, 2017

It was falling in thick eyelash-cling clumps in the morning,  In the foreground, the snowflakes were large, but in the back, towards the neighbor’s horse farm, it fell like a miniscule blizzard, fast and tiny.  Towards the south, the light was golden, but facing north, grey.  I went outside for a minute to capture the snow falling from above with my phone.  Imagination will be key this year.

The bell from the terrace reminds me that bells will ring, with cracks, letting the light in, as Leonard Cohen penned.  He penned “Democracy” which PEN America asked Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer to record.

I am weary with exhaustion this snowfall morning, for a number of reasons, my body catching up at last with holidays and after-holidays.  This past year has left me wordless at times, and all I can do, we can do, is face what is in front of us, and act.  I am going to sleep to gather strength while the snow falls, and read, and revise.

I think this year, I am going to pronounce my name correctly in American English.  At last.  Immigrants lead bifurcated lives: answering to one name at home, one in the public.  The wise answer to their own name.  My name is Indira, pronounced “Indhi-rah,” the accent on the first syllable, the “d” soft, not hard.  For fifty years, I have been calling myself in public America, “In-dear-a,” with the accent on the second syllable, the “dear” prominent.  I learned from the outside, but  I didn’t mind; I could fit in, and the puns on the “dear” were sweet.

But it is “Indhi-rah,” meaning “Lakshmi” who has a thousand other names. You can, like I just did, look it up the pronunciation on YouTube (wink.)

Happy New Year, dear ones.

May the snow fall soft.

May the heart lift in quiet.