Catching up with cousins

 Spent an hour chatting with a favourite cousin. I have seen her as a baby and spent most of my summer holidays with her. We spoke about our current lives, but mostly we reminisced about our childhood, our aunts and uncles, what set our family apart, our grandparents and their unimaginable, unconditional love, their broadmindedness, the unique pleasures of growing up in a temple house.

She is one of the most open-minded people I know, able to separate herself from the situation and relationships and dispassionately observe people and what drives them. For someone with a limited exposure in terms of what is considered the usual markers of maturity - reading widely, travelling, living in other cities and cultures, etc. - she is amazingly meta in her thinking. 

That I am surprised is also an indicator of my intellectual smugness.