Little things add up

It was a mild autumn morning and my daily train to school pulled into the station, reliably delayed by its typical two minutes.

I had made a habit of being equally late.

As usual, I got lucky. I arrived in perfect time to justify my extra morsel of sleep.

I approached the safety of the train doors and I could hear an exceptionally animated rendition of Taylor Swift’s newest single: Begin Again.

It was a sombre ballad describing the surprise of finding new love in the aftermath of heartbreak.

“'I’ve been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end. But on a Wednesday, in a café, I watched it begin again”, her young fan belted ardently across the train carriage.

She was engulfed in the song. And swayed side to side in long and slow motions as she sang, unaware of her surroundings.

I entered the carriage and she lunged towards me. Her eyes glistened as they met mine. She said, “Have you heard it yet? It’s perfect.”

Fast forward to a few years later. I was riding the train home listening to the 4th rendition of a Taylor song from her subsequent album: 1989. Her now a-little-older fan sang with the same vigour.

This time it was a song called Welcome to New York. It was an upbeat tune about Taylor’s exhilaration at the seemingly limitless opportunities of her new home.

As she sang, she bobbed up and down energetically with the kind of expressions that seemed like they were pulled out of a caricature.

Her pigtails parasailed up and down in sync with her bobbing but sometimes lost track and collided abruptly with her shoulders.

She raised her arms with her hands wrapped into fists at points when she got especially excited. She would let them fall back down to her thighs only to find them elevated again a few seconds later.

In fact, her ceaseless enthusiasm, avant-garde expressionism and search for meaning went beyond Taylor Swift songs.

Over the years that I had known her, I had seen her apply the same dynamism to many things.

She seemed to know the intricate ins and outs of fighting in the middle east at 13 years old. Every so often, I would be with her as a new BBC notification updated us on the movement of troops from one obscure place to another. Or hear about another missile that had been fired.

She somehow knew what this meant for each of the many complicated and interconnected factions in the area.

She also knew what she would do in response. She understood if it was the kind of update that meant donations were desperately needed. Or one where you wait for more news. Or if it was time to urge her government to take action again.

There was an English literature poem anthology that we studied in school. It was made up of 12 poems.

She was so stimulated by it that she mulled over it for months.

When it was my turn to study the anthology, she lent me her notes. To my surprise, she handed me 90 pages of beautifully crafted analysis. I am almost certain no one has ever written so much about this anthology before.

Once, she propelled herself into a raw vegan diet. Her digestion system wasn’t too happy at first. I’ll spare you the details.

Her list of pursuits could go on for a while. But it is time I get to my point.

I admired her adventurous nature and raw enthusiasm.

I was lucky to have met her in my young teen years. As we grew together, her attitude was infectious.

And I was blessed to be standing close enough to catch some of it.

I had never really done more than what was necessary until I met her. I always stuck by the rules and did what I was told to. She taught me to get excited about things and to get involved. Things were so much more fun that way.

It was dark. Not an eerie, uncomfortable dark. But a mellow and soothing one.

At half an hour after midnight, two of my flatmates and I had gathered to say a quick goodnight in the narrow kitchen hallway of our student house.

Instead, we habitually sunk into a rhythm of slow, comfortable and menial conversation having spent countless hours earlier that evening doing the same.

We didn’t cover anything special. More about our plans for the week, mutual friends and music we liked.

As we talked, she leant on me as a precursor to a good night hug.

And I watched her dark tightly packed curls skid up and down her shoulders as she breathed.

She started to play with my jet-black straightened counterpart. She pulled at small strands, tugging their ends lightly in a stroking motion. I could feel her warmth and fondness.

I had always hated overt displays of affection. They seemed so tacky. Why coddle someone when you could show the same understanding through a few seconds of purposeful eye contact?

Then it dawned on me that she had always been this warm. And it is what I liked about her the most. In fact, her small acts of warmth had slowly become a staple in my life.

One evening, I had cocooned myself in my room. It had been a long day and I’d had some bad news. I was also frustrated at an imminent deadline and my complete lack of progress. My work was due in a few days. I started thinking about my options.

I could push on unproductively. Or get something to eat. Something sweet. Sugar equals energy. And this day deserved some comfort food. I didn’t have anything in my cupboard. The closest shop was a cold, wet cycle away. It wasn’t worth it. And I gave up on the prize. I resettled into my cocoon with a grudge against the world and pushed on.

Half an hour later, to my complete surprise, she was holding a plate full of freshly made pancakes at my door. She said, “I have tons of batter, tell me how many more you want”. I could have cried.

In our house, we shared a drying rack for our washed clothes. It was hot property. As soon as one set of clothes were off, another was on.

But it was peculiarly unoccupied this week. I took advantage of the situation and did as much washing as I possibly could. Who knew how long this would last.

And as if my magic, the next day I found all of my clothes folded and stacked neatly on my bed.

She later told me she’d been bored and thought I might appreciate it.

And I really did.

These are the small acts of warmth that I would have earlier deemed frivolous and ultimately meaningless. Overt displays of affection that could not compare or hugely contribute to a shared deep understanding of someone else.

She had changed my mind. I now saw them as resurfacing little jewels that exacerbated the goodness of meaningful relationships.

She inspires me to be warmer.

We made sure we sat beside each other in the pre-drinks to our British university’s weekly Wednesday student night.

The university had a tradition of “circling” in which student societies gathered their members in big seated circles on the soon to be dance floor. Ours was made up of almost 50 people. Before the dancing started, we’d chug a purple concoction of beer, cider and squash as we played drinking games.

I hadn’t seen her in a while, and we were keen to catch up. I was especially keen to hear about her recent trip to India.

She’d visited distant family for the first time in Goa, a small coastal state on the west of the country. And between drinking games she told me about the cultural oddities she’d noticed during her time there. Her immediate Indian family were being so polite. They kept giving her things all the time, food mostly.

And of course, India was crazy. A lot of people packed into very little space. Traffic rules simply didn’t exist. Anyone could overtake anyone as long as they found enough space, including the occasional cow in between cars, lorries and bikes.

A year later, we were reunited after each taking an exchange semester. She told me about her time in St Petersburg. Too many interesting things happened on this exchange, but I’ll tell you one story.

She went on a trip to Murmansk, a city that she described as super ugly. It mostly was a former Soviet military base that had been closed. She told me that basic infrastructure didn’t really exist there, no one spoke English, restaurants and hotels weren't really a thing and transport didn’t function.

For a day, she went on a tourist bus to drive around surrounding mountains and villages.

That evening, the bus crashed into a vehicle in front at 100km/h on a completely iced road during a snowstorm. It toppled sideways into the snow piled at the side of the road.

They couldn’t get out of the bus.

And the front of it had started falling apart. They were in the middle of nowhere.

They were stuck there for around two hours before someone somehow figured out a way exit the vehicle. Once they made it out, everyone had to pull the bus out of the snow with ropes or help push it.

And then they carried on driving.

Later that year, we grabbed lunch together. Her long golden-brown hair skidded the tabletop as we talked.

We were discussing the hot topic of our plans following graduation. She hoped to move to Chile. Intern for a bit and then travel but it was looking expensive.

We googled the price of a plane ticket, and to her utter joy, it was half of what she had expected. Her eyes lit up as she said “Should I book it right now? I’m serious, if you don’t stop me I will”.

Oh and she spoke 5 languages. She’d learnt German and Spanish at home. And English and French at school. At university, and in Russia, she’d picked up Russian.

I loved her internationalism. And the way that she was open to being anywhere at any time. They world was her Oyster.

She seemed so daring. And independent. Almost invincible.

She inspires me to take risks. And I’ve started to think of the world as my oyster too.

It was another painfully early 8:25am school registration in our penultimate year of high school. We’d been assigned the art room for our registrations this year.

Tall, aged windows encased the room. They were on the longest two sides of its rectangular shape and started from the hip height of tabletops to almost reach the ceiling.

It was particularly sunny that day. And rays of sunlight flooded in from both sides of us.

She was sitting beside me in her off-white headscarf. It shone as the light touched it.

In fact, she shone a lot of the time.

She shone as she cracked the first joke of that registration. She imitated a friend’s common catch phrase. “Don’t touch me” she cajoled. The imitation was spot on. Her teeth shone as she pulled a smile and we laughed together. As her eyes twinkled, they shone too.

And then later that day, she really shone.

It was the day that the school hosted an annual Tedx talk and she was due to give a speech. I’d asked her if she wanted to practice. She said she’d be fine – she could wing it if she needed to.

When the time came, she got up on stage. Started walking from one side to the other. She looked like she knew what she was doing.

And the she started talking. She began slowly.

What was the Syrian civil war? What did it mean for the average Syrian? Was there any kind of end in sight?

We’d all heard a little bit here and there. None of us knew much apart from the fact that Syria was being destroyed.

We learnt that it wasn’t really going well for anyone. Assad was losing in some places. The rebels were losing in others. The Syrian people were losing everywhere. And the world wasn’t really doing anything about it.

And then she told us a bit about herself.

Why did she have to leave Syria? Was her family okay?

She said her mother had made them leave before things got serious. Some of her sisters were here with their husband and she could live with them. Another one of her sisters was in the US. Her parents were still in Syria, but they were safe.

As her privileged middle-class audience started to wrap their heads around her reality, she cracked a joke.

“I left the country and then everyone in Syria had a big talk. She’s gone now, its ok, we can start bombing everything”.

Her audience erupted with laughed.

Again, she shone, though the humour and grace with which she handled this difficult topic.

She made it seem like no problem was too immense. And it was always possible to find a tint of humour even in dark times.

She opened my eyes to my inherent privilege.

I always knew I was very privileged. For never really being concerned about my safety, receiving a consistent and robust education and having a concrete support system within my small but complete family.

But it seemed like most people around me had the same.

And until I met her, I had never properly taken the time to think about what it could have been like otherwise.

When I did, it hugely shifted the appreciation I have for the insanely privileged life I lead.

The woman I have told you about does not exist.

I chose to share my experiences of the four friends that have shaped me the most. They have each provided an important grounding for what I strive to be: enthusiastic, warm, international and appreciative.

Besides, it was impossible to choose the most inspirational woman to me. I couldn’t compare the inspiration of one friend above another, let alone pin one at the top.

It was even more difficult to compare these friends to other women in my life. I could not compare them to my mother’s consistency with her unconditional and endless acts of service or the inner vitality of my grandmother. Or to the creativity of my favourite musician and the impact of the environmental activist I love.

I also didn’t want to idolise a single woman. I did not want to declare a narrative of one-dimensional effervescent perfection that does not exist. But it also would not have been appropriate to contextualise her inspiration by pointing out the comparable magnitude of her flaws.

The most inspirational woman to me is a flawless friend on every occasion that she has inspired me.

What would yours look like?