January 15, 2012

My dearest,

Out with the old, in with the new. You tell me it’s that time of the year again. We need to get rid of our old pussy willow, dusty and dry, and head out to get some fresh stalks. It’s like shopping for a Christmas tree, except this far more enjoyable. No solemn and forlorn carols now; it’s the season for drums and cymbals and flutes and lutes, a season for bright melodies and a prosperous cheer like no other.

It also means we have to get up pretty early to avoid the crowds, other last minute shoppers. We get three thick bundles of pussy willow with the buds still encased in their dark, brown skins (their snowy down hidden like a treasure). We get pots of flowers which I do not recognise and their names in Chinese, when you tell me, do not help much either. They are colourful though – red, pink, full of life. I spot a small fluffy dragon toy. This would be nice for the car, I say, so unlike me, for I usually abhor stuffed toys, especially the furry, cute variety. But who can resist this? It’s almost Chinese New Year. One is in a brilliant mood by default. One can’t help it.

Back home, we get to work, carefully placing the pussy willow in a tall, narrow vase. We remove some of the skins from the buds to reveal the near-white blossoms and leave some for next week, when it’s closer to the actual date. You hang red packets in an assortment of shades and design. I dig up an old box of Chinese New Year decorations, flimsy cut-outs of an entire family greeting each other from my childhood. This tree we furnish together, with hopes of an auspicious new year, of good tidings, of abundance and of health. We look at each other through the branches of pussy willow and we smile.

Yours, ever and always.