as i move through

Inching closer to the "2019", I am trying to remember what 2018 was like and I have to very honest and tell you this, I can't remember it all too well. It probably was a whirlwind just like 2017 was, and 2016, and 2015, and 2014 and also other years, for that matter. But yes, there isn't much that I remember about 2018. However, one of the things that I am taking away with me as we all inch closer to 2019 is that, I am going to stay closer to myself. Bits and pieces of whatever I can dig out of the year that's slipping away is that I enjoyed being a friend to me this year. Sure, it was tough and tiring and exhausting and draining and what not, but it was good. It didn't hurt. To be honest, parts of me actually feel at ease and I think that it is important. In 2018, I spent lengthy hours holed up at home, in my bed, under the covers.  In 2018, I walked for miles through roads I have known all my life, over bridges I hadn't seen before, on slippery slop...

Lake: A large body of still water. If you look up the word "lake" on the Internet or the dictionary, that is the definition that will be indicated to you. But the lake is anything but 'still'. I spent almost every minute I could spare during the past five days close to the  Phewa  lake - be it in the morning, or in the afternoon, or in the evening, or before the crack of dawn, or before the dusk settled in. I stood by the lake and listened to her.  In the first afternoon, I chuckled as I watched her and suddenly remembered studying the definition "A lake is a large body of still water" somewhere in my science book back in my school days. I would not use the word 'still' to define her. Instead, I would use the word - 'human'. Yes, the lake is human - as human as the word 'human' can ever mean.  The first afternoon that I met her, she took my breath away. None of the pictures I had ever seen, none of the paragraphs I had ...