Since you all seem to enjoy my little life updates, I'm going to give you another little domestic anecdote. My roommate didn't change jobs yet, but she didn't complain about any further violence, and seems to come home from work smiling, so I think she's okay for now! If something further happens, I'm confident she will change her job; she's been telling her boss she'll leave for a while.
Saturday morning I woke up early, so I decided to clean the entire kitchen and then ask the roommate to put up holiday decorations with me. I've cleaned and rearranged everything to make space, and then she woke up and was surprised to find everything neat and nice. I had to ask for her help then; I have a little synthetic tree that someone wanted to throw away, and it can't stand on it's own. So what I've been doing every year is get the biggest pot with soil from the balcony, and stabilize the tree in the soil, that always works! However due to my health issues, I cannot lift the biggest pot. So I asked her to carry it for me – and she did!
She even made sure to position the tree correctly, aseembled it, and commented on how beautiful it was. I thought it was shabby and dingy but I also like it; I like old stuff! She then put up decorations, while I was sitting on the floor fixing the fairy lights – I managed to fix them. She thought I was so smart to manage that, but I convinced her she is just as smart and could do it too.
I don't celebrate the traditional christmas, but I know that the evergreen tree branches brought inside, together with some decorative ornaments, are originally a pagan practice to celebrate the winter solstice. I also know that the advent wreath is originally meant to celebrate the cycle of the seasons, that's why it's a circle, with 4 candles; 2 equinoxes, 2 solstices. I planted some wheat as well, since that feels very pagan and is a symbol of how crops will grow in the summer.
I always bring in decorations from outside, so we had rosehips, some red berries, pine cones, walnuts, orange slices, little stars cut out of orange peels, and then also handmade stuff like origami stars and diamonds, little sown ornaments, and stars made out of straw. I was putting all that on the tree, while she preferred the bright, sparkly and round ornaments, which I also had a few of. So we ended up with a mixed little tree! Half christmas-y, half pagan. I like it, it invokes enough feelings of nature for me to be happy with it, and I don't mind that it also sparkles a little bit, it's not overdone.
I put on some instrumental holiday music to play, and she recognized some of the tunes and then also let her own music play as well! I was singing to it and she said my voice was sweet. While we were decorating she also started to teach me Nepali language, how to introduce myself and how to ask someone how they're doing. I sadly forgot most of it, but I remembered that maya is love, and photolinus means to take a picture. She showed the tree to her mother on a videochat, commenting on how pretty it is, and excitedly introduced me too, as her friend.
Later she made another red-lentil soup and was excited when I knew the name of it was dal! Two people in the comments recognized it as 'dal' soup and I remembered the name. She told me to eat as much of the soup as I want to, and insisted on pouring more for me than I originally asked for, but I was happy since I had focused on the cleaning and decor to the point of forgetting the food. We had a lovely time decorating and eating together. I'm saving it as a happy holiday memory.
