sidewalk scribbling

It’s the honey soft warmth of the sun on your face, your neck, after a week of cold gray clouds and rain, like a slow, deep breath, like climbing into a soft, clean bed after a long day and snuggling deeper into lavender scented blankets, like someone gently bringing their lips right next to your ear and blowing out all thoughts so that for one tiny moment, you close your eyes and feel at peace, that inexplicable elusive whispery feeling that never lasts for more than a few minutes at one stretch … I find it a little amusing, as a teacher who loves all her students and finds herself annoyed but somewhat charmed by that one child who never fails to spill ink across his homework, at our human tendency to never be grateful, to always want that which is just out of sight, turning around the corner, realizing the restaurant we wanted to go to was the one we just drove by and can’t turn around for because it’s a one-way street. And so it is that if I were back home in Karachi and I...

Fields of green spotted with fluffy white sheep, the clouds hang low, teasingly low, if you go half way up a ladder, you can touch the soft cool underbelly. Eyelashes feel heavy, drop low, flutter open, close for a few minutes and open again. Now the windows are wet, small rivers streaming across, cutting the pane into diagonals, blurring the green outside, turning a quaint old-fashioned painting into abstract art. And my eyes close again, lulled by the even rocking motion of the bus, legs pulled up, knees pushed against the back of the seat in front of me, and a few minutes later, the sky has changed again, the sun breaks through like heaven’s trying to say hello to the world below, misty streaks of gold cutting across the gray in four, five, many rays.  The colors are suddenly vibrant, the rolling hills a bright sunny green, and the trees lit up, even the sheep seem more alive. The sky kept changing on our ride to Edinburgh, with sudden swift and short-lived b...

November 7 Mrs. K came back for her country. She spent more than 20 years in England, studying English Literature at Oxford, but she came back, back to a city of imperfection. I never really asked her why, but I bet it was because she missed it. The curriculum was less than challenging but she was brilliant, smart, and knowledgeable, and very encouraging. She would stand in the drafty room with its wooden chairs, colorless walls and write sparsely in eloquent cursive. Her writing matched her mellow voice perfectly, and she would talk about the greatest novels in the world, the flawed characters in stories and ask us to think and capture our thoughts in words. No wonder I liked her. I like most of my English Lit. teachers, and not to brag and all, but they all loved me. Mrs. K was tall, thin, and birdlike, and of course she wore glasses. What self-respecting English professor doesn’t wear glasses? If she had ever met J.K. Rowling, she would have made it into the Harry Pot...