The unexpected chill this year in Islamabad has taken its toll on my respiratory system, causing it to suffer from runaway snot and an unpleasant sounding cough. The more I tried to keep the germs away, the closer they got to me, probably by finding a hidden “backdoor” in my immune system, despite the fact that I never kept the hand sanitizer away from me. I’m not sure if I should thank a friend for hooking me on to these little bottles. At least they have proved their worth by delaying the onset of a cold, so that I’m probably the last one to get the big sneezes this season.
Sometimes I wonder if it really is colder this year, or whether it’s just the psychological effects of having lesser gas to burn in your kitchen and in your geyser. My feet fingers nearly got frostbitten last year, and I had them soaking in a warm salt water bath, thanks to a prompt suggestion from my parents in Lahore. Haven’t got that this year, thankfully, but I have felt an increased requirement for woolies, despite the fact that I have accumulated a fine layer of fat under my skin (yes, I use a micro gauge to measure the thickness of my skin from time to time). It hasn’t rained this month, and that is adding to the chill, since everyone expects Mother Nature to turn her thermostat down when the clouds decide to unload.
But with the chill comes the fun. The fun of gobbling down handfuls of dry fruit assortments, of drinking chocolate milk lying in your ocean of quilts as you watch an old Christmas movie, of taking a nice hot shower in morning and then drying your hair in the sun (that is if you are lucky to wake up earlier than the others), and of jogging down the streets on a cold night, trying to warm those tootsies, among other things. It’s funny that winter always has to come at the end of the year; I can’t imagine (and probably don’t want to) how new years eve would be with the mercury hitting 40 degrees Celsius on the scale. Probably nature’s way of freezing everything before the big thaw in the first quarter of the new year. You may want to take advantage of the “freeze”, as I would call it, when most of the civilized world is on vacations, when the workload is less, when the kitchens are filled with the warmth and reinvigorating smell of homemade chicken corn soup, and when families get to spend more time together, and reminisce about the year gone by.
I think I’ll probably write another post for the new year, like I always do, asking people to plan and focus and all that. So I’ll leave you now with a very soft tune from Enya which I came across while surfing YouTube. Last year I was hooked on her One Toy Soldier song, and this is dedicated to another wonderful (albeit influenzic) winter.
Have a great time, and be close to the ones you love.
