Summers; hot, humid, dry summers, they are no time to be reading books curled up on your window cushion with a mug of coffee. Summers are for water fights and pool volley. And they are for sipping lemonade while sitting on your porch. (my imagination will kill me someday)
(Back to reality) Much to my dismay, I neither have a pool
nor a volley ball. I don’t even have a porch; I live in an apartment building
in Saudi Arabia where, if I did intend to sit outside my house to do anything,
let alone sip lemonade, I would have to wear a black hijab which would just
make matters worse.
I don’t like summers. For me, they are just icky, sticky and
they make me ultra-cranky. I’m a winter person. I like to sit on my terrace,
covered in head to toe in triple layers of clothing and read romance novels or
thrillers or even auto-biographies. But I can’t do it in this blasted weather
because as soon I pick up a paperback, I have the vague feeling that even the
pages of the book are sweating in my hands. It’s just too depressing. (Oh, the
sadness)
And, NO, I do not like E-books. I have had to resort to that
mode of reading since there aren’t any old-bookstores in Saudi where I can just
walk in and buy everything and still have enough money left to last me the
month. But I do not like this mode of reading. What pleasure is reading when
you can’t feel the pages in your fingers and can’t register the smell of a good
old paper-back? True readers love books, people. And they do not resort to a
means of reading which is only reading in its literal sense, not the kind of
reading that you may take pleasure in on a cold winter night. Sigh
I want winters back. I want a snug blanket, a good novel
& a thermos of delicious coffee next to me. I want to indulge in these sins
without melting away.
But for now, I guess I’ll go take a shower – the third shower today, mind you. I’m afraid I’ll melt away soon. Do miss me if I do. (Does a dramatic fainting-heroine gesture)
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