We greet people we know and people we don’t know. Doctor Aka stopped and gave greetings to the men sitting along the way. Ayah and I came to a little store to buy bread and candies. It wouldn’t do, to arrive at the joy empty-handed.

It’s the end of my 7-month stay in an Uzbek village teaching English and I was walking down the dirt roads with my host parents — Doctor Aka and Nurse Ayah. We drew close to a relative’s house, Shakhnoza Sister’s, whose children we love. “Let’s see the baby. We can’t just go by without seeing the little Kyrgyz (吉尔吉斯人),” laughed the Doctor. It’s his personal joke to call the lovely baby a Kyrgyz.

We then continued our joy. There are endless occasions to throw party in this village. Birthdays, weddings, buying a car, a holiday — all call for throwing a party. The occasion in this evening was the return of a relative and his wife from working in Russa. Ayah and I joined the women in their separate pace. All the aunts were present. We enjoyed Russian chocolate, drank green tea, told stories, tasted Osh — a rice dish of Central Asia.

My departure (离开) in a few weeks was now a main topic: we were planning to have a good-bye party, to cry, to keep in touch by Skype, and for me to invite them to my wedding. The last blessing was given by the oldest person present. We headed out the gate amid “Bye, Cathy! Come again!” “Okay! Come to our house next time!” …

Seven months ago I didn’t know these people or their language. I didn’t know that I would visit from place to place and find them just that joy.

Last year, the pandemic left me restricted between the walls of my home, with no physical social interaction with my friends. With no work to tend to, I spent all my days in boredom and thinking of the depressing situation. I finally decided to find comfort in reading books.

Reading gave me an unaccustomed perspective in life, provided unconventional ideas, and allowed me to hear unexplored voices, know visionary opinions and gain an understanding of new concepts.

Reading set my soul free, released by the limitations that ceased to exist once I lost myself between the pages of a book, making me realize that the world is nothing but a place of infinite possibilities. Perceiving the world through a character’s eyes and relating to his struggles, gave me a profound insight of how to approach my decisions.

Every revolution that has occurred in history had an impact on the literature of the time. Or maybe it was literature that influenced those events? The world of books and the world we live in are a reflection of one another, both taking inspiration from each other in their own way.

Reading made me look at the world in a new way, since I had had the privilege to go inside the minds of so many great writers through their books, and learn to see things from their points of view.

Reading broadens my mind and makes me more receptive to ideas and change. A reader embraces possibilities, adjustments and uncertainties more willingly. Reading the vast narratives of struggles and adversities and how people overcame it, makes one accept and tackle the challenges unreluctantly.

Reading books of different backgrounds and sorts makes me aware of the cultural perception that exists in this world how traditions and customs make culture, and how culture makes people.

Special boxes lie at the bottom of my locked filing cabinet. Deposited there are important letters and cards collected throughout my life, from my grandparents, school friends, parents, wife and son. Since the invention of e-mail though, they’ve been few and far between.

Tonight is New York’s Eve 2029 and there’s a very special box of letters I want to look at. But first there’s something I have to do – The Ritual(惯例).

I go to my trusted computer and start. I begin to type: Dear -- . I leave the name blank for now, anticipating the thrill of typing it in. “I hope you are well and I wonder how this will find you. And you still planning to move to that villa in Portugal? Did your son marry Fiona? Is your mother still alive? Questions surge into my mind.

For the next two hours I sit writing. About what I’ve been doing for the last year, my failing health, my increasing wealth and sometime difficult marriage. Then about my goals and ambitions. Will he be interested? Do I climb Mt. Kilimanjaro? Do I get that novel published? the one that’s been rejected more times than I carte to think about.

Finally, it’s finished. 11:30 pm. I fill in the recipient’s name, print my letter, sign and address it and then seal it up with tape. I then delete the document and empty the trash folder – to avoid the possibility of temptation. That completes the ritual!

I walk over to my “special box”. It contains ten long, white, thick envelopes, all with the same handwriting. I place the one I have just written in at the back and take out the one at the front. It’s dated 2019, and labelled “to be opened 31st December 2029”.

The cycle is finally complete! I open it, trembling with anticipation. I begin to read, my eyes tearing up a little as I do so. Throughout the last ten long, eventful years, of life, death, joy and heartbreak, it has been waiting patiently in this box for me, though I now have no memory of ever having written it.