sidewalk scribbling

January 19   Haji Sahab appeared to be in his early 40s. He had the perfect Muslim man beard, trim and neat, long with grayish streaks, no moustache. His shalwar was an inch or so above his ankles. He was sitting at the Islamabad airport with a fairly young wife, I think she must have been in her late 20s. There were two young boys running around them, barely a year apart I would say. A third child was no more than 4 and he did not want to wear his shoes. “We’ve been here for four hours,” the pretty young mother told me in a Punjabi accent. “We came from outside of Islamabad for our flight to Karachi. And the flight keeps getting delayed!” I nodded sympathetically – kind eyes, slight pout, slow shaking of the head that is common to most South Asians and confusing for Americans because it is an in-between nod and shake of the head so the latter population has trouble understanding what it indicates. She pointed at her youngest and explained he was tired of wearing his sne...

June 26 My almost-Dementia is one of the secrets behind my regret-free, generally grateful and optimistic outlook on life. It is this friendly forgetfulness, at least in part, that makes looking back at my past such a bittersweet and pleasurable activity. I’m not like Sonya, who wades in murky streams most of her days, her skin wrinkled and pale because of the time she spends feeling bitter. She has a picture-perfect memory and can recall the purple plastic watch her best friend was wearing on her right wrist on the fifth day of first grade. But her memory kind of works like he media – bad news sells, it sticks and draws more attention. The thorns sticking into her feet, scratching her arms and holding on to the cloaks she wears are too prickly, their sharpness stings so much that she cannot feel the softer, silky petals of happier days. And so Sonya spends more time thinking about the time her mother got so angry at her for repeatedly asking to go to a friend’s party that s...