The Warmth of Jasmine

I am often reminded that life is an influx of change, but of a cyclical sort. A flowing river, but looped. A meander, pushing in on itself as time wears on, leaving crescentic scars along the outskirts of the oxbow lake that is humankind. A very particular something rushes through the floodplains of life, a something that wants to change us and alter the course of our stream. These somethings are usually simple enough to recognize, carrying names like Love and Hatred, Belonging and Exclusion, Recognition and Ignorance, Faith and...Realization? I don’t know if those two are synonymous.

Nevertheless, a change had entered my life, under a name I could not call to mind, something under the patronymic of connection. Something that had to exist without a name, for the time being. “Love?” I had wondered to myself. No, it was more than that, but..less than that. A form of breathless adoration-- something holy. A deified familiarity that left me cold and trembling after it was supposedly gone for good. “Something spiritual? No...sacred, maybe?” 

I had time to deliberate while I had been without it, wandering down the long halls of my memory, trailing a finger along the spines of the gilt-edged volumes of ancient names and sayings, systemic theologies that didn’t hold the words strong enough to name the feeling connected to the person: the kindred muse lost to time.

I’d lost the promised days where our cups of tea sat idly in front of us, cold and no longer of interest at the fault of our contemplative discussions. I’d lost our talks of simple things, simple things that brought smiling faces and wide-eyed monologues, of our daily life, of beauty, of the world when she was in it. I’d lost the warmth of my house; nothing but an empty husk of a home. 

Home was our sun-drenched hours together drinking tea in my study, while the air around us smelled of stale cigarette smoke and chamomile, towered by books and scrolls of yellowed parchment. In the absence of my friend, the room grew cold. Dust settled faster and the air had become still, a painful silence that couldn’t be fixed with music-- without her voice. It was soon nothing but a stiff house, with its dusty windows and scratchy wool blankets, with its creaky floorboards and intolerable emptiness. My home was simply a house without  Jasmine; the light.

I was pained at the thought of never hearing the laughter of the light, or seeing the way she smiled around the edge of her teacup as she brought it to her lips, basking in the whispy steam of her tea. I would never see her rosy cheeks, curving up in a smile when I’d greet her at the door.

She was a light that I thought would never go out, but on that night of pure chance, she had flickered. And like the wavering flame of a candle in the dark, she went out. So all that remained was the gentle spiral of smoke and my whimpering, grieving remembrance of the light that once filled my days with warmth. But that warmth had gone, and denial had soon replaced her role as my best friend, offering me the sweet fruit of comfort, where doubt lived quietly within its seed of stone. Sometimes I think that someone had purposefully planted this pip of disbelief for me to nurture into something that would soften the blow of the truth: that she wasn’t dead, or at least indefinitely among the living. Nevertheless, the ‘leading up’ to her return had been neurotic for me in the many forms of illusions and strange happenings, feeding into the groundless suspicion of her pseudocide. Yes, the not-so final departure that had left me staring down at her headstone as I whispered, “This doesn’t feel real.” and “I would give anything to see you again, Jasmine.” 

Luckily, I didn’t have to give anything up, except for the year’s worth of emotional struggle, trying to accept her death. Perhaps that was why I’d suspected her passing to be something temporary. Perhaps the faceless thing that had brought her into my life had taken her back for a little while: knowing that I didn’t fully believe it, before properly returning her to me on an oddly sunny September afternoon. 

I’d found myself staring back at the glowing spectre of the light, sitting in her regular seat of brown velvet, realizing that all my mild delusions had been building up to this moment of tearful shock. Because in the months prior to her return, I had caught a whiff of her perfume, jerking upright and swearing that I hadn’t imagined it. I knew I couldn’t have. I was sure of it. But then came her plaid scarf, fallen behind her chair. It’s been nearly a year. How had I missed that? I hadn’t. But somehow, it had made its way back. And finally came the sound of her knocking, her knocking: the five quick raps, followed by two slow ones that had me racing to the door, thinking ‘0h-- yes, she’s finally come back. It’s her. I knew it, oh my God.’ I could barely manage a gasp as I swung back the door, and my face twisted with pained confusion. Nothing-- no one was there. Until...she was there, waiting for me in my study with the sun in her hair and the heavens in her eyes as I dropped to my knees and reached for her with shaking hands.

I was beyond grateful. Too distraught to cry or even speak for quite some time. But I did, and I started as if I would never see her again, because that’s what I thought would happen if I dared to let a moment slip without telling her how much I missed her. And after a gentle, tearful laugh, she looked at me with adoration, so sweet that I could barely feel tears sliding down my numbed expression, and she told me that she’d be back. 

I’d like to say I hugged her then, but my arms passed through something like a wavering breeze, somehow denser than regular air. I sighed, though it was more of a whimper, and felt-- for the first time in a year --the light return to me.  

The beautiful, nameless feeling had returned. It was a part of my life again, and my house was no longer just an empty house. Now, it lived in the softened hours of the late afternoon, when I would switch on my kettle and wait for the light. Jasmine. I would greet her with open arms, (even though hugging a ghost isn’t very fulfilling), welcoming the light that would grace our Persian rugs; the ones that were too rough and scraped our bare feet in the warmer months. And in the summer, when she had more time to visit, she would bring about an aureate glow to my study, and fill the dusty room of old books and oak wood with a weightless relief, just by being there, living, with less than a heartbeat. 

Over time, these afternoons had become a time of solace, as I held the treasured knowledge: that I could sit in my cracked leather chair with a steaming cup of tea, allowing myself to bear witness to such a wonderful bit of life. A wonderful, priceless bit of life I found within the confines of a single room and a single person, (and though I used to jokingly call her an angel, she was the holiest thing in my life.) 

And as she continued to visit, I found myself staring at her ephemeral figure, seemingly fading and brightening with the flow of sunlight that entered the room. I would smile at her, (for smiling was still an often occurrence between us), and the light would smile back, ask me what it was I was smiling about, to which I’d reply, “Nothing. You. Keep going.” 

The light would just roll her eyes: dismissive, and go back to whatever it was she was talking about. 

So that was how it went from then on. On the particularly sunny days, I was gifted the company of the light for a warm drink (that she couldn’t actually drink), along with a handful of thoughtful conversations, where our voices filled the room with honey-coloured amusement, just like the way it was before. We still talked about my life, her death, of beauty, of humanity, of love, of the world now that she was (kind of) back in it, and all the things she’d learned about death and the afterlife: all the things we would’ve wanted to talk about when she was still alive. And all these troubling things-- all these things that used to scare us were nothing but pips of conversations to add to our time together: something as profound as ‘the courage of living,’ as she called it. A theory of her own, on how living was not survival: “something more of a genetic law,” and that living, living was what humans needed to do survive. She proposed that humanity was of strength and resistance, but also desire and complication: a scale that liked to be unbalanced. 

“Love is what makes us human, because sadness comes from the absence of it-- however large or small. Sadness is secondary. Love is what we make of it, and nothing in the universe is more powerful. It’s the only thing that can eclipse the facts of creation, time, and death.” 

To see the light speak of such things had brought me a venerated unsettlement, one that I took note of as we continued to meet each other for tea, and over the years I would silently ask myself the same questions that had gone unanswered for so long.

“How?” I would smile to myself,

“How have I stumbled across such a soul, one that plays my heartstrings like a lyre?”

“Who moves with such gentleness that it mirrors that of the gods. Who speaks of morality as if it were a Harvard study. How have I found someone who feels this much like home?” 

I would quietly laugh and shake my head, routinely dismissing the thought as a simple spectacle of our friendship that wasn’t worth mulling over. 

But on the day of my death, years later, when my breaths had slowed to a softened hum, I looked back at Jasmine, and quietly thought of those questions for the last time. She took my hand into hers, which was beginning to feel more solid as the seconds ticked by, and said to me:

“You didn’t stumble.”

“What?” I asked between two breaths.

“You didn’t find me. We found each other.”

I let out a faint sigh, trying to keep my eyes open.

“That feeling was built, not found.” She said, taking a long breath, “From that first summer, when you brought me up for tea. The sun poured lightbeams through the windows. There was vellichor…” She whispered, “And a kettle that hissed too loudly…”

I felt the warmth of her hand for the first time in years, and my eyelids slid over like the sun sinking into the horizon. 

“We put honey in our tea, and sat in the sunlight…”

“Home…” I whispered.

“You can go home, now. See the light?”

After silence, I saw the mahogany door. I saw the gold handle and turned it, entering my study. I saw her coat and plaid scarf draped over a divan. A whining kettle.

“Oh good, you made it.” The light smiled, “Welcome home.”