We ambled through the dusty night, tracing the pavement cracks with our tired feet and drawing wide empty circles in the air. Our husky chuckles mingled with late traffic and the sudden breezes from whizzing cars, ears ringing from the quiet rattles of passing motorcycles. It was a different sense of closeness, a novel melieu that was as incidental as dewdrops at dawn. And even though the clothes were clinging to our backs, and our arms were laden with garments, the weight didn't matter, the time didn't matter; we were bouncing in the bubble of our little lives.
The necklace of our memories lay strewn in the air as we picked the beads of events from our childhood, choices based purely on hilarity and charm. We travelled back to stories of strawberry fields, recalling exuberant expeditions amongst acres of dirt plotted land and gargantuan, succulent ruby red fruits. We visited the rows of rainbow bubble gums at the cash n carry on Sundays, and dived again into our adventures in Queen's Park and Hyde Park and Haywood Park and the colourful collage of all the playgrounds we ran and spun and played through.
Remember those golden drenched evenings speckled with packed picnics? we laughed quietly, grand events sided with doses of playing ball across emerald lawns, and rolling down wet, grassy hills. Remember the long road trips riddled with raucous games and tricks and setting up tent for camp at night? And how we managed to conquer both the ends of the kingdom, and all the monuments and hilltops in between. Remember snow, and how we made the largest snowball in history because we just kept rolling and rolling it one freezing morning? And on, and on and on we talked, all the way home.
One of the best parts of having lived a childhood in a country far away is the fact that years down the road, it'll offer you a magnificent well of unconventional memories to sift through, as well as an ounce of perspective on how large and how different the world could be. I was blessed to have been able to flit through the duality of cultures, from rolling curry puff doughs at home while listening to P. Ramlee to attending christmas parties in class with crackers and reindeer antlers and bells. Rather than a sense of identity lost, it was a monster gain on both cultural parts.
The ruminations above were the result of a blocked car at the Masjid after a quick 8 rakaat tarawih prayer. My sister and I chose to leave the car and ended up walking the 80 blocks home. What started out as a necessity measure turned out to be a nostalgia filled time travel that I don't regret in any way. Sometimes you need to block out the daily distractions and have a good, long conversation. Maybe not about changing the world or quantum physics or tangles of the heart, but about how things were, and how things are, and maybe how things will be.
The necklace of our memories lay strewn in the air as we picked the beads of events from our childhood, choices based purely on hilarity and charm. We travelled back to stories of strawberry fields, recalling exuberant expeditions amongst acres of dirt plotted land and gargantuan, succulent ruby red fruits. We visited the rows of rainbow bubble gums at the cash n carry on Sundays, and dived again into our adventures in Queen's Park and Hyde Park and Haywood Park and the colourful collage of all the playgrounds we ran and spun and played through.
Remember those golden drenched evenings speckled with packed picnics? we laughed quietly, grand events sided with doses of playing ball across emerald lawns, and rolling down wet, grassy hills. Remember the long road trips riddled with raucous games and tricks and setting up tent for camp at night? And how we managed to conquer both the ends of the kingdom, and all the monuments and hilltops in between. Remember snow, and how we made the largest snowball in history because we just kept rolling and rolling it one freezing morning? And on, and on and on we talked, all the way home.
One of the best parts of having lived a childhood in a country far away is the fact that years down the road, it'll offer you a magnificent well of unconventional memories to sift through, as well as an ounce of perspective on how large and how different the world could be. I was blessed to have been able to flit through the duality of cultures, from rolling curry puff doughs at home while listening to P. Ramlee to attending christmas parties in class with crackers and reindeer antlers and bells. Rather than a sense of identity lost, it was a monster gain on both cultural parts.
The ruminations above were the result of a blocked car at the Masjid after a quick 8 rakaat tarawih prayer. My sister and I chose to leave the car and ended up walking the 80 blocks home. What started out as a necessity measure turned out to be a nostalgia filled time travel that I don't regret in any way. Sometimes you need to block out the daily distractions and have a good, long conversation. Maybe not about changing the world or quantum physics or tangles of the heart, but about how things were, and how things are, and maybe how things will be.
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