Happy New Year

It hasn't rained for a few weeks, and the days have taken on a pale, watercolour look.

Four children in faded sweatshirts push each other across the road, dusty trees edge the street and a woman in a red dupatta walks down the lane.

As the sun slowly shakes off his blankets and brightens his face, it starts to get warmer. Soon I'll be able to slip off my socks and jumper.

Soaking up the sun on the last day of December in 2023.

I found a typed diary page from ten - no wait, actually  20 years ago. ( how am I already old enough to be reminiscing about things from 2 decades ago?)
It was an ordinary journal entry on a summer day in Karachi and it made me smile. The mundane details of what I wore that day and what I ate, the comfortingly uneventful musings and vague dreams of a 16 year old watching TV all day instead of going to school.

That snippet of my life from so long ago brought with it a languid and sweet kind of nostalgia, mild, soft, settling itself gently around my shoulder like a well-worn shawl.

A second line around my lips has joined the first one. I stare at what I must accept as new wrinkles and wonder what creams I could potentially use to wipe them away. 

Is this because of my too cool to care about good skincare products attitude till recently? I think, touching the signs of middle age (say what?!) on my face.

Drink more water, eat fruit, be grateful.

Resolutions from a decade ago still apply today. Is this persistence or lack of real effort?

2 decades later, other than some creases around my lips, what's changed? Friends and family have scattered around the world like ripples in a lake created by a skipping stone. Love diffused, bits of my heart beating in synch in different time zones.

Some relationships have faded away, without much more than a sigh, a sympathetic glance over the shoulder that you'd give to someone at a roadside who has just missed their bus.

Who knew friendships didn't always end over a big disagreement or fight, more likely to just fizzle out as priorities change and distances widen. Fairylights that twinkled and brightened so many dark nights, but then slowly stopped working but you don't have the heart to pull them off the fence and throw them away.

There have been many changes in the last 20 years - marriage, moving to a new country, new jobs, new friends.

I have a very obvious favourite change though, that's currently spraying water on every thing in sight, dressed in muddy fleece pajamas. Ignoring my threats that I'll take the bottle away if he doesn't stop spraying me and Nano.

"I need to cut your nails." I try to bribe him with a biscuit but he takes it away and tells me he has to do dangerous stunts on his bike before any essential grooming can be undertaken.

The sun is getting warmer now. The sky is still dusty, the sounds of the kids in the streets louder.

It's time to cajole his little highness to bathe. And then come back out in Ami's garden and sprawl on the striped chittai under the afternoon sun, still relishing life, and looking forward to family, friends, chai and love, 20 years later.