Ahhhhh! It’s sunny, it’s the first day of spring, it’s going up to 11 degrees today and all I can think is: bleagh, the snow is gone, what am I supposed to do for fun now?

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Equinox. The perfect balance of day and night. Hard not to feel and hope, this year, that it's a turning point, that we're headed for sunshine, light, spring bacchanalia.

It's Persian New Year. My uncle went to a restaurant in the airport suburbs on his way home from work and dropped off a multi course Parsi meal. We feasted on kingfish steamed in banana leaves with coriander, dhansak, saffron-scented biriyani, rosewater-infused custard for dessert.

I thought of a Parsi colleague, a friend - Nayrene, from back when i worked in Mumbai. She would take me home with her after work and make the most refreshing and fragrant chai I’ve ever had - black tea with just a touch of masala, boiled with fresh lemongrass and whole milk.

I didn’t know any Parsis and I was always so fascinated by all of her stories - the way they dispose of their dead, of course... the towers and the vultures. But also the epic sadness of it all: a faith and community surviving over continents and millennia only to be fading away now- strict marriage edicts (within the community only), no conversion, fast-dwindling numbers. What will happen to them?

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My brother is coming over for an hour with my niece. I haven’t seen them since Christmas and I’m looking forward to it but kind of seething with resentment that he just left me alone with my parents all these months. How dare he be so close and make no effort at all to stop by? I get it, he’s busy, it’s been cold. But he’s 20 minutes away.

As though I, who has been gone for a decade, has any right to say any of this. But truly, I thought of my family as this force of indestructible ties. That everyone would just be here waiting for me when I got back.

9:09 a.m. - 2021-03-20