The point is kind of submerged in confusion because prior to forcing myself to get on the treadmill, I’ve had cream cheese with rainforest crackers (sinfully yum) and twenty gummy bears.
In colour-coordinated order I pop them in my mouth, secretly vowing to, some day, ask someone how fattening gummies really are. I always like to ask people about things I don’t know and it’s very offensive when people ask me if I’ve ever tried Google. Unhelpful beasts!
Hubbies, by the way never want to ask people questions – my own (always slightly irate but very cuddly hubby) refuses to ask for directions.
The result is that we are exposed to his somewhat erratic driving style (sudden jerks from side to side) for longer periods then we need to be, as we take wrong turns quite a bit. Still, who am I to snicker at Hubs’s driving when I can’t drive myself!
This can lead to confusion in the Land of the Brave where you don’t have drivers (“Uff Kya Musibat!”).
There’s Hubs who feels sleepy driving after 8.30 pm “sweetie Kuch neend si aarahi hai” and there’s me who (in my 50s) who can’t drive. We are a delighful pair, often dependent on Uber late at night, but we don’t let that bother us too much.
Anyway, back to me and my bizarre snacking binges. After this feast of cheesy, squishy delights I look a bit woebegone. This happens daily.
For truth be told, dear reader, I have not so secret ambitions to look like Shakira or at least like her thighs.
After the feasting, I put on the Super Bowl halftime show and prance around in the living room, all the while hoping that Hubbikins’s earnest public health work is going well. Tucked away on a lower floor, the sweet man is in the study, having intense conference calls about the eradication of polio and the Coronavirus.
Meanwhile I’m imagining myself to be Shaks, shimmering red outfit and all, doing determined justice to Whenever, Wherever.
Of course I make a sudden awkward stop when Hubs or teenage son walk in.
Hubs doesn’t really worry about my antics, he just gazes devotedly at Shakira’s paused image on the television screen.
But my son has eyes just for his mother “Seriously Mama, again?”
Fact is that I am quite worried about when I can either look or move like her. Either will do. I will just have to find a way to kill those evil calories. Begone you bad gummy bears!
One solution is that I launch myself on the treadmill which is placed strategically in the middle of our junk in the garage. Bulbul (Hubby) and I have taken a sabbatical from cleaning the garage (possibly a year long sabbatical.)
I stare dismally at the treadmill, my will power slowly but surely going up in smoke and then I think of the possibility of a fun chat with my bestie in Seattle, Nigar.
Up I jump, on the machine. Headphones in place, I dial my pal and begin walking away on the treadmill, I’ve promised myself that I will just jump off if Nigar is not found.
It is too painful to conceive of exercise without inspiring conversation. Fortunately Nigar is found. Also important to explain here that Nigar, like me, is also dreamy and full of deep and meaningful reflections on life.This makes it all good.
After alI, I left a fascinating bunch of eccentric, lovable relatives and friends back in Karachi.
Our family lunches, courtesy my rocking cousins Tanu Apa and Ruby Apa (older but very rocking) are a delight for the senses and the stomach.
At the family lunches, everyone speaks exuberantly at the same time and then settles down in a serene manner to feast on the yummies. Some highly intense (adorable) individuals are the picture of docility by the time these amazing afternoons come to a close.
So you see, amidst many tears, I had to leave all this and I arrived in faraway Seattle.
Tucked away in a corner of the Pacific North-west, here we are drenched in rain and dense greenery.
Its a beautiful part of the world but if you’re not from here, you might get to experience something called the ‘Seattle Freeze.’ Allow me to explain, this refers to the syndrome that local Seattlites are not terribly friendly to those new in town, hence the ‘freeze’. I can’t help thinking that we are going through the Deep Freeze now as social isolation kicks in good and proper.
An already remote community is plunged further into isolation.
And that’s why my chats with my pal Nigar while I’m on the treadmill are so significant.
So yes, there I am jogging (somewhat slowly) away while Nigar and I talk about life. There are loving and frustrated dialogues about the kids, then (just frustrated) dialogues about the state of the world and then we come to our favourite pastime, the dissemination of the latest dramas.
What happened to Ruswai? How great is Yeh Dil Mera?
And why did Humayun Saeed launch into a torturous monologue in the ICU (Meray Paas Tum Ho) trying his best to traumatize his little son, Rumi?
The answers to these questions are lost somewhere in the universe but Nigar and I have thoroughly enjoyed our foray into Drama Review Land.
Our dialogue normally ends on a wishful note, our plans for our own YouTube channel one day (move over, Something Haute.)
Conversation over and I desperately try and get off the treadmill as it’s just too boring to stay without chatting to inspiring Nigar.
In my effusive attempts to leap off the machine, I have once fallen into the empty cartons around. But still we keep delaying the cleaning of the garage. I wonder if Hubs is plotting something – oh dear!
Truth be told: when quarantine first set in, Hubs and I had great plans to clean up but we are both creatively distracted people.
He keeps coming up with ground-breaking public health ideas and I keep wanting to write.
Problem is: I keep nibbling while I write. The only breaks I take from food and writing is some enforced exercise stints, mostly inspired by Shakira.
So here are we are, still in self isolation, increasingly aware of and grateful for the cosy friendships we’ve found despite the Seattle freeze.
Still thinking wistfully of loved ones faraway.
I feel deeply grateful for the friends I have managed to find here in Washington State.
Deep freeze or not I’ve found friendships like flickering firesides, a space that keeps me warm.
Even today, despite the physical (Corona-oriented) distance between us, we’re just a Zoom call away.
With gratitude I count the moments that remind us that we still have so much to be grateful for.