Quarantine times!

 

I began this year like every year with a new year resolution to blog more often, but didn’t expect to follow it up in the same month itself (it never happens!). Similarly we all hoped to embark on 2022 putting the horror of Covid-19 behind us,  but didn’t expect the pandemic to catch up with us so quickly, and in such a lightening speed so as to have the  hitherto untouched/uninitiated / uninhibited caught unaware!  Neither did we all expect to test Covid +ve at a time when we (read.. I) have been indoors for the past three weeks nor did we even anticipate that the illness would first hit my father-in-law when he hasn’t stepped outdoors in the past whole year!   Well….it hits you when it hits you is all I can say as we got sealed into isolation as a COVID HOME last week!

After being locked in through the first wave, and braved the second wave, we couldn’t after all escape the milder version of the pandemic that had engulfed the city as a third wave, which is now on a decline just as we at home find that the worst is now behind us. From acute fever and exhaustion to slight temperature and weakness, from continuous to sporadic bouts of cough, each of us reacted to the virus in our own way, convalesced as our own body and mind allowed us to and recovered in our own pace …….thankfully all at home. With four of us being co-vaxined and covi-shielded from the severity of the infection, this variant has left us drained mentally more than physically, paling us into a general sense of gloom and dis-spiritedness…as quarantine can turn even the quiet into the querulous!! 😊

Well….the best way to bring some cheer back into our lives is to have happiness delivered to our doorstep  by none other than “Funky Rainbow” our favourite indie book store of South Bangalore. No sooner did the little gems get delivered than did our happiness quotient in the household begin to rise!  Quarantine times can also be a period of emotional upheaval for us as a family as we grapple with the physical symptoms of the illness with willpower and emotional strength and what a better way to remember these trying times than this wonderful book that’s not only makes for a great read aloud book for children but also enables us to reflect on our emotions as adults. “Are your emotions like mine?” by Chitwan Mittal and Shruthi Hemani  is narrated by a little girl trying to understand what she feels every day from excitement to anger, from feeling silly to feeling nervous, from being proud to being adventurous! There are a host of emotions that we experience and reading about it not only serves as an acknowledgement of our own feelings but also a step forward in trying to understand and get comfortable with what we feel, why we feel and how we feel and express our emotions. Aided by brilliant illustrations , the little girl and her lion’s journey into their emotions was an instant hit with my little girl who couldn’t resist drawing her own version of what she feels! Here's to our emotions!