From Amu Nowruz

My dearest …,

I come once a year and I am never late, because I do not choose when I arrive — the sky does. There is one exact minute when winter stops and spring starts, and I am there for it. This year I spent it in a house with a name I was pleased to find: .

Look at the table. Everything on it starts with the same letter and every single thing means something, . The little dish of green shoots is new life. The garlic is health. The apple is beauty. The coins are what you hope for. Somebody in this house set that out by hand, item by item, thinking about the year ahead of you. That is not decoration. That is a wish, arranged on a cloth.

And they grew those green shoots weeks ago, in a dish, on a windowsill. Somebody watered them every day since before you were thinking about any of this, so that they would be exactly the right height today. That is what people do for the ones they love, and most of it happens before anyone is watching.

Jump over the fires if there were any. Let the old year go. I was told about , and I am taking that one with me into the new one.

Nowruz Mobarak,
and may your year be green —

Amu Nowruz

Uncle Nowruz · Who Comes with the Spring

P.S. — The goldfish is not obliged to represent anything. Sometimes a thing on the table is just a good thing to have on the table.