Created for the occasion of my aunt's ninety sixth birthday.
Himalaya: himá हिम: cold, winter, frost; ā-laya आलय: receptacle, dwelling.
My aunt spent part of her childhood at the foothills of the Himalayas, the mountainous region separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau.
In her early twenties she made the long journey by sea to England where she made her new home. I was fostered by my aunt and her twin sister Merlyn when I was three and a half and grew up with stories about a beautiful and magical land of heat, snow, sky and water.
My aunt continues to be transformed by the sight of clouds and landscape to this day.
Our love of beauty remains, despite the flux and ache of age.