Caught right in the middle of a pandemic

 

It had been a long tiring day already. And it was not even anywhere near noon. In the room next to the living room where me and baby were seated, the elder one, I would imagine, was playing with a fidget spinner, her latest favorite toy, as the teacher on the other side of the laptop screen was heard struggling to get the entire class’s attention. All fifteen of them, scrambled in different directions, distracted by different things. I looked at the clock over the kitchen pantry, and heaved a deep sigh, and looked at the feeding bottle for the 20th time, which seems to work some kind of miracle, and refill itself, every time I need a bathroom break, or just generally need to flex my muscles. It never ceases to flow, as  the almost four month old, sleepily continues to suck from it. My days lately go on in a loop of these chores - feeding, burping, swaying, soothing, changing, cleaning, and repeating this cycle till my eyes dry out and my arms are sore. Don’t get me wrong. For most part, I do enjoy my luck with motherhood for the second time given how less paranoid I am this time round. But when days seem to stretch out in a loop of unending tasks it does sometimes reach the tipping point. Later in the afternoon however, the husband casually saunters out of his work space, sporting his new mane and a pair of boxers. He likes to fancifully refer to this room as his ‘office’, in our pokey three bedroom apartment. Fact is, in the pre-Covid world, this used to be the graveyard for things less used, the countless number of toys of the older one would disappear in this multi-purpose room without a trace like it is operating with some Bermuda Triangle kind of mystery. It is also that room which transforms into a butterfly from a caterpillar everytime a guest announces his arrival. But indeed those days are in the past now. As a result, we have made ourselves so comfortable and have spread ourselves so far and wide, that the walls of our home seem to have lost their prime purpose. They have succumbed to the needs of our family and this pandemic in a way that they  no more contain things designated to them. Hence we are thoroughly  enjoying an open style home plan, and conveniently allowing items from one room to float to the other, rest, languish and even propagate, if there is scope, without a care. And for just this once, I have joined the party instead of being a party pooper as they might be secretly calling me. With a body that craves  sleep at all times, and a mind that glosses over things for most part, I have wholeheartedly embraced  this ‘whatever goes’ policy that our family now swears by. But I am just sorry for that tiny part of my heart that still worries, what would happen, when, at last, the world will return to some semblance of normalcy. When the kid will start her school, the brick and mortar one, not the one where she doesn’t feel necessary to learn her friends’ names. What is the point after all, when you can’t run, chase each other, calling out each other’s names? What will happen, I worry, when all of a sudden, someone will decide to show up, probably with masks still intact, and  I will be panicking over the heap of laundry dumped right in the middle of the living room. Or the coffee table, which hasn’t been honored with a cup of coffee, not once, from the day it had arrived in this household. What a horrible impression I would make, how much my heart would ache, what a terrible tragedy would strike if someone were to catch me in the middle of this pandemic. Gray and raw, in my pathetic little gown, always forgetful, always running for things, always on call for duty. 

This actually got me thinking of all the time I once used to have which  was spent doing practically nothing! It feels almost unreal to think that such a time truly existed. When I could have moved mountains and it wouldn’t have hurt at all. And then today, when my mind races to do tons of things, pursue interests that were abandoned for lack of determination, but for the time, that I would never have anymore. Hence every now and then when I have rebelled against time, each time my mind has won over my body, it has felt like winning a war. And the real test is to see if these interests that took off as pandemic pursuits, can become life long friends. I don’t know what the remaining few months of the year has in store for us. But one can only hope that things will change for better. Soon. The infamous curve will flatten. And once again we will see ‘our people’ face-to-face. Hope is also to be able to talk about things other than the morbid stats and numbers of the great tragedies occurring around the world. Hope is to get that set of aging parents on the very first flight here so that we can look back and laugh at these trying times together. And mourn some irreparable losses with misty eyes. The meet-ups, what would they feel like, I wonder, when we would see one another out of our rectangular screens? How long will it take for the pandemic jokes to cease? I mean the personal ones, not the memes we have been sharing over WhatsApp, which had kept us sane and connected in the early days of Covid. The recipes? Will we be still as gung -ho about trying  them? And the ones like me, would I still be patient enough to knead through a lump of flour to watch it grow into a bun? And I also imagine the day when we would drop those darned masks, and give our tired ears a break. Would we be shaking hands again? Hugging? Oh what a relief it would be, to see a full face,  and not guess the color of the lipstick underneath those covers.  What would I not give to return to that world which I fear we might have lost, after having dumped it in our backyards. I cannot wait to return to those times when we would drag our baggages through busy airport elevators and not worry about rubbing shoulders with strangers in busy trams. And I cannot wait for the time when our only immediate concern will again be to win a good hand at Poker, while we savor the sweet sound of cards rustling, and chips clinking, as we laugh our days  away, and our nights will be far from sober.