Do you count the seconds, minutes, hours, days, and weeks, or do you see it physically through the new grey hair lining your brow or the wrinkle fresh on your cheek? Did you feel time’s frantic tempo whilst navigating online schooling, working from home, or as you urged your heartbeat slower during a crisis? Did it deaden to a crawl during hours of quiet reflection when everything caught up and the very act of moving on was too much to bear?
Or do you feel it now, a steady beat signifying survival, resilience, and hope?
Whatever your faith and however your inclination, 2020 came as a year of reckoning, bringing humility and immense perspective. It taught us all the importance of family, of relationships, and the simple pleasures of the many inconsequential things we took for granted—the freedom of socializing without masks, the shared warmth of a hug or a handshake.
But most of all, for those of us living outside of Pakistan it brought home the relevance of ‘home’. Of that emotional geographical pin that binds us to our centres of existence… parents, siblings, family, and friends. Even further, 2020 drove home the importance of the grand canvas of our Pakistani lives; the links within that village that hold us together through the good times and the bad.
It may have been crazy at home, but it was no easier from afar either. We pined from a distance. We missed March’s thunderstorms, April’s blossoming bottlebrush, May and June’s afternoon radiating-off-asphalt heat, the Monsoon’s sticky armour, October and November’s melancholy long shadow, and finally, December’s creeping cold. We missed birthdays, engagements, and weddings. We missed the chance to stand up and be counted when the chips were falling. We missed being there to help clear a furrowed brow, to kiss a forehead, to lean into a hug, to wipe a tear. We missed saying our farewells, and we missed that final homage the living pay to the dead—we missed burying kin.
We missed March’s thunderstorms, April’s blossoming bottlebrush, May and June’s afternoon radiating-off-asphalt heat, the Monsoon’s sticky armour, October and November’s melancholy long shadow, and finally, December’s creeping cold
You bore your trials and moments of joy, and we bore ours. And sometimes, we bore them together over thumbnail-sized Zoom windows and through video calls—but what a poor substitute it was to the real thing! At moments like those, no amount of baked banana bread, Instagram pictures of kitchen adventures, or trips to Dubai, Maldives or London could make it even remotely close to masking a yearning for Pakistan. As we sat in broody corners across metropolitan cities, in urbane territories, speaking languages not native to us, we missed everything. This year, even the smog and the mosquitoes were dear!
And yet, despite feeling some days that our legs could not bear any more burden or the eyes open for another morn, the months passed, we found moments of laughter, of undiluted love and 2020 with all its adversities wound to a close.
Today a new year with its hope and optimism beckons. We may stand humbled and more aware than ever before of our individual and collective frailty and vulnerabilities, but we also stand clear-sighted on what is important.
The lesson is in not forgetting. It’s in holding that hour with a child or an elder more aware and present; in finding contentment in the littler things… and in breathing deeper and longer Lahore’s earthy rain-filled petrichor with a renewed appreciation. We embrace 2021 in the hope that this country we call home survives whatever storms come its way. That it endures, exists, and thrives to continue to be the defining centre of our narratives.
Here’s to you Pakistan, you absolute beauty. Even on the days you are cowed, you shine like a beacon to us lost voyagers. Here’s to praying that you keep that hearth warm and the tea brewing. We’re coming home soon.
All photos by the author. Ambreen Noon Kazi is a Pakistani journalist, copywriter and digital marketing professional living and working in Dubai. She can be reached at ambreennoon@gmail.com