Looking both ways

At this liminal space of the new year, I catch myself looking at both directions, Janus-like. As I look back, the pages of last year’s daily diary put together an answer to the inevitable question “Where did the year go?”: job assignments, writing, journaling, coffee appointments with new friends, classes… the smudges, the dog-eared pages, the colour-coded flags bear testimony to a year of adjustment to the London world I had left twelve years ago.

In December last year, we upped sticks again and moved back to London, after more than eleven years of living and working in Tehran, Iran. At times like these, truths that I have known all my life take on an extra clarity. For example, how fast time goes by, too many plans and too little time in which to carry them out, and how few things I actually need to get by.

When the decision to relocate to London firmed up I started a monthly countdown at first, then turned it into a weekly and finally a daily countdown as the day drew near, all the while making constant decisions on what goes (mostly books, clothes and mementos) and what stays (the rest).

Around two months before the move date, I discovered a bunch of incense sticks forgotten at the back of a cupboard. I made a tally of sticks with the days still left, and burned one every morning, the ash a sad reminder of the ebbing away of time. At times like these I become more pensive than usual. This may be the last time at the local café; I may never see this ageing neighbour again; who knows when (if?) I will ever see my old colleagues?

Then the weekly countdown turns to a daily one, as time drains away, until the last hours, minutes, seconds rush through like the last grains of sand in an hourglass. Power, gas and water mains are shut off, security door locked, and the train of life switches track, to continue in another land, another house, among other people.

Then there was a wish list: visit the Persian Gulf islands Kish and Qeshm, and Mashhad once again; take the Persian translators of my book out to lunch; organize a reunion with Iranian friends from the Greece years; say goodbye to my old students of Classical Greek. It was a wish list that remained just that, for the very simple reason that I was taken in by the illusion that there is all the time in the world. And then I was too busy – I would get round to it once this work is finished…until time run out.

Over the weeks of packing I gave out lots of books I had amassed over the years, some of which had made the passage with me more than once (Greece, England, Iran, back to England, back to Iran), but now came to rest in other hospitable bookcases. Novels and literature reference books to a niece-in-law who studied English literature; English teaching books to the university ex-colleague and friend who holds the fort at the English department; candle-holders and home decorations to other friends by way of goodbye.

Meditatio Mortis – A Rehearsal of Death: this is how Seneca described the serious asthma attacks that brought him close to a death experience. The comparison may not be obvious, but to my mind, endings and journeys are similar: they underline the transience of time, so I’d better make the most of the time I have.  I also realise that I’d better leave things to others; or better still, not hoard so much in the first place.

At the threshold of the new year, the other face of Janus now looks forward: I flick through my new daily diary, the brand new, pristine pages, the smell of new paper carrying the promise of more days assigned to my life.