I'm in Australia. It's New Years Eve here already and the world is
burning. Or at least, parts of Australia are.
I ought to be in
Woodford, at the Festival. I'm not. I'm in Melbourne, convalescing
from flu and bronchitis. The last time I got sick like this was three
years ago, landing in Queensland, on my way to the Woodford Festival.
Which I also missed, because I was ill. I'm starting to suspect it's
actually long haul plane flights I'm not good at.
I've written so many
New Year's wishes here...
(This is a link to a New Year's Post from the last time I was sick in Australia, where I collected them all together: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2016/12/another-year.html.)
I think today I'll
put something else up instead. Here in Australia bush fires are
forcing people into the sea, forcing towns to be evacuated. There's
loss of life, human and animal. Loss of property, too.
Meanwhile, in the
Northern Hemisphere, it's winter. And it's going to be a hard winter
for a lot of people.
A month ago I wrote
a poem.
This poem began with
asking people on Twitter what “warmth” made them think of.
Thousands of people replied. I was planning to write a story, but a
poem felt a better way of including all the different thoughts and
points of view and memories.
And I read their
responses, and then wrote this:
What
You Need to be Warm.
A baked potato of a
winter's night to wrap your hands around or burn your mouth.
A blanket knitted by
your mother's cunning fingers. Or your grandmother's.
A smile, a touch,
trust, as you walk in from the snow
or return to it, the
tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.
The tink tink
tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.
To surface from
dreams in a bed, burrowed beneath blankets and comforters,
the change of state
from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think
just one more minute
snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one.
Places we slept as
children: they warm us in the memory.
We travel to an
inside from the outside. To the orange flames of the fireplace
or the wood burning
in the stove. Breath-ice on the inside of windows,
to be scratched off
with a fingernail, melted with a whole hand.
Frost on the ground
that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.
Wear a scarf. Wear a
coat. Wear a sweater. Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.
An infant as she
sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,
a kindle of cats and
kittens. Come inside. You're safe now.
A kettle boiling at
the stove. Your family or friends are there. They smile.
Cocoa or chocolate,
tea or coffee, soup or toddy, what you know you need.
A heat exchange,
they give it to you, you take the mug
and start to thaw.
While outside, for some of us, the journey began
as we walked away
from our grandparents' houses
away from the places
we knew as children: changes of state and state and state,
to stumble across a
stony desert, or to brave the deep waters,
while food and
friends, home, a bed, even a blanket become just memories.
Sometimes it only
takes a stranger, in a dark place,
to hold out a
badly-knitted scarf, to offer a kind word, to say
we have the right to
be here, to make us warm in the coldest season.
You have the right
to be here.
I wrote it for
UNHCR, who had it made into a scarf. We did it to raise awareness of the plight of Syrian refugees who are facing winter and need help. For UNHCR's Winter Emergency Appeal. There's a website: https://www.unhcr.org/belowzero/ Go and look.
It's a warm scarf, too.
And may your New Year be happy, and may you be happy in it.
I hope you make something in the year to come you've always dreamed of making, and didn't know if you could or not. But I bet you can. And I'm sure you will.
Labels: A Poem, A scarf, Happy New Year, Refugees, UNHCR