Kumaon nostalgia - day 5

I finally complete the jigsaw puzzle, all 759 pieces of it, and gloat over it for five full minutes. Now it has been put away in fragments, till next I take it out. Soon I must leave this world. The sky is a somber gray and the rain is falling once more. It strikes me that the weather today is exactly as it was on the day I arrived. Strange how so often arrivals do resemble departures, perhaps because the former always pave the way for the latter – and in the same way are ends enmeshed with beginnings. Then there must be wisdom in living each day as if it were complete in itself, with a beginning, a middle and an end; with nothing carrying over from the previous day and nothing, unfinished, spilling over into the next. 

The rain falls heavier now, as I try to memorize each detail of the view. Tomorrow, when I’m far away, I’ll close my eyes and try to piece it all together. But this is harder than the jigsaw puzzle; here, to the picture I must add the smell of damp earth, the chill of the mist, the sound of the rain on the roof and the murmur of voices beyond the mesh door… Goodbye hills, ‘bye pear tree. It is a short drive to the train through the velvet night, with village lights twinkling in the inky blackness. My mind wanders to a dawn, when I couldn’t tell if the twinkling lights were stars …