I believe, sometimes you need a little reminder of who you used to be.

So you can once again be

Who you are.

For,

Even if it comes from miles apart,

One day, when you inevitably look back, you realise, it all comes together,

Everything,

Connects,

Eventually.

I am someone who has always loved stories, for as long as I can remember. Listening to them, reading them, seeing them unfold, writing them, or even curating them in my dreams. My whole life, I have bled my heart out in ink, in between quick stolen moments, in between moments of fury, helplessness, rage, in between moments of wishful thinking, in between moments of spectators appreciation, in between moments of cynicism and levity, in between moments of grief and stolen freedom, and most importantly in between moments of silence.

Always, silence.

The kind of silence that becomes too deafening to be ignored, the kind that jolts your soul and mind to the very core, the kind of silence that screams at you to act, for now, it demands to be felt, demands to be seen, and demands to be heard.

So I pick up my pen, and write.

I let myself feel the air filling my lungs, I let myself hear the scratching of my pen against the paper while I finally watch the words I write, morph into a life of their own, where the art of imagination finally thrives, not just lives.

May it be through stories, music, or art, I have always loved seeing the worlds come alive, through nothing but sheer will, determination, the magical art of imagination, and the brilliance of the human mind.

It’s hard to not be in awe of the extraordinary minds of each and every soul, who brought their worlds, their words to life, and in doing so have lit a tiny ember of hope and courage in me.

And I, choose to honour it all through one of the most heartfelt, personal, beautiful form of eternal means, which has stood the test of time, over and over again.

Letters.

We have all written letters at some point in our life. Whether to our family, friends, or people whom we admire, and in doing so, we leave a part of ourself in it. The simple joy of sending a postcard, of waiting for the letter to reach the destination to our loved one’s is something we all remember. And greater is the joy, of knowing it might have brightened up someone’s day; a gentle reminder, that they were missed, that they are loved, and that they are your home, even when you are miles away.

I too have written many a letter, to my loved ones. Some were sent, while some remained on the very paper they had been written, while the rest were forgotten.

But there a few I keep revisiting, every now and then.

The letters I have written to my loved ones who are no longer with me, the letters I have written in the middle of the night to myself, to the letters I have written in between places, to the dreams, and hopes I had, about living a life I yearned to live, and to the one’s whom I found in between pages, who belonged to fantastical worlds, and places far beyond any postal service could reach.

Yet, each time, I wrote my letters, put down my pen, wiped my tears, and closed the book, only to do it all over again, when something new, burrowed itself in my heart,

I realised, I had been doing the very thing I always wanted to do, all along.

Write.

And once again, I picked up my pen, and found the courage to do it all over again.

I wrote.

Only this time, It didn’t quite sit right with me, to close the book.

Especially when something so profound jolts your soul awake.

It was almost a year from now, where I was reading a book that breathed a sense of newfound flame within me, a thirst to do more, be more, and one art lead to another, and before I knew it, I was knee deep facing myself, confronting myself, recollecting my past, exploring new possibilities, opening doors to paths I never could see myself walking on.

So, I took the road not taken.

I stopped living between thing one and thing two.

And that was when ‘Letters to the Hearth’ took form.

It is something I carved out for myself, poured every thought, fear, hope, ambition, grief, love, wishes and dreams into it. It is my humble attempt of honouring the lives, people, and stories, that I treasure so dearly. I wanted to build my world, with all the things I love, and what was safer, warmer, kinder than the Hearth?

Where each homage, each body of art I create, discover, learn, becomes, yet another inseparable piece of my soul, nursed, guarded, nourished, by my hearth. Where each word that comes alive, hopes to honour the very Spirit of Elips, the very essence of life –of light, of the flicker of thread holding onto to hope, refusing to let it go, even when I was shrouded in darkness, rendered paralysed amidst a hauntingly stubborn void.

Until, I found my strength in the very veil, through the glowing embers, and the warmth from the hearth, which seemed to very stubbornly not give up on me.

And who was I to not try?

To reclaim myself.

So I tried.

I picked up the pen once again.

This time, for keeps.

So,

Letters to the hearth is me, connecting my past to the future,

This is me opening the door,

To within,

To thereafter.

It is an ode to the very soul of all those that bound and wove through time and oceans and made its way to me, for me,

And

Above else,

To hope, who made her presence felt even in my darkest of days.

And

To Hestia, the goddess of the Hearth, without whom, there would be no warmth, or hope, in mine.

And

That is what my hearth is.

A home to love, kindness, belongingness, comfort, warmth, joy and permanence, in a world that is ever-fleeting, ever-changing.

Sincerely,

H

[A tender and keeper of this hearth]