The Day I Went Viral

I'm looking at Nikita, he's looking at me. For a while, we don't see each other. Then he blinks and discovers I'm there. He says Hi, I say Hi. We're at the kitchen table, he's deep in his study of pure mathematics, I'm thinking of a good beginning for this blog (call it the Study of Pure Blab).

I'm writing again after a long, long time and what a good time too: we traveled across borders and seasons (summer in Portugal, winter in Romania, spring in Scotland!), we saw our family, all of them, every dear, smiling and splendid one of them, we chatted and laughed and walked and ate too much and found ourselves in a football team, a dance and a play. And best of all, we were with Moona, who brought dates from Sindh and shawls from Karachi and stories from Everywhere (then went back Everywhere, and we went home, and the world went quiet).

Until today, when hey, I went viral. Well, nearly, the closest I could get to viral. I feel thrillingly, infectiously, bubbling. And forget writing blogs, writing poems or prose, drawing a mural, even writing a play. All I had to do was a) be on Facebook, and b) born today!

Thank you, thank you: I wish you were all in my back garden having a picnic, instead of the workers next door who asked Let us use your path to carry some gravel, then burst in with much noise, bare shoulders and two rusty wheelbarrows.

I imagine your faces, your journeys here, I remember our journeys together, I can hear your chatter (in what language?) and mostly your laugh, like this morning's conference of sparrows.

... Imagination being where I really, single-handedly, always and hopefully, go viral.