My days are rather full these days.

That’s a good thing according to everyone. These being pandemic times, people like us, the elderly, are liable to start slipping into depression with nothing much to do. There is no opportunity to go out and engage in activities one likes. Travel is off the cards. The possibility of meeting up with family and freinds or spending some time with children are not yet on the cards. Yes, our place is still struggling with Covid-19.

And yet my days are full.

The day starts at 6 a.m. for me these days. After morning ablutions, I start on my exercises as instructed by the physiotherapist. If I miss them I will pay for it dearly by being saddled with a stiff shoulder and a painful arm. So, no more shirking. Next I must down my glass of protein drink. Without it I will not make it to the next activity on my list, of walking for half an hour. This also means I will be listening to some audio book. Move over, music, I am now an audio book addict. Whatever I may have said earlier I am thoroughly enjoying this new addiction of mine. Somewhere in between all this, I gulp down my tea as well.

Walking done and dusted, it is time to prep for breakfast. I multitask while breakfasting by watching some show or other on my iPad. Right now I am somewhere in the English countryside, Downtown Abbey to be precise, in the company of earls and countesses, butlers and footmen and all the rest. Strange as it may seem, what I enjoy most about the show is imagining P.G.Wodehouse’s characters come alive in the same settings. For example, when I see Carson the butler in Downtown Abbey, I think of Beech the butler from Wodehouse’s Blandings castle series.

I am so immersed in the show that most days I sit at the table long after breakfast is done. Well, not too long after because I have to prep for lunch too. That done I rush upstairs for a bath and a change, for it is time to go for my physiotherapy session. I utilize my time there to dip into whichever book I am reading at the time. Right now it is Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God’. This book was gifted by a dear friend quite a while back, but it somehow lay unread, hidden from my view, all these days. I am so glad to have chanced upon it while rearranging stuff.

After lunch I indulge in some ‘farming’ at Farmville and halfway through promptly fall asleep. When I wake up it is time again for the next round of physiotherapy exercises, another walk (the walks are broken up as too long walks tire me), a little bit of lazing by checking dog and cat videos on Facebook or YouTube, followed by dinner prep and dinner with a show thrown in. This is something I watch with the L&M, so it must needs be a thriller because that is the only genre where we can agree on a show. He wouldn’t consider docuseries which I am fond of, so those and other genres I prefer, I watch on my own.

After some odd jobs around the house, soon I am upstairs. Brush and bath later, feeling fresh as a daisy, I tell myself: ‘NOW!‘ The whole day I have been writing blog posts one after the other in my head. All day the words, sentences and paragraphs have been jostling inside my head, begging to be written. ‘Yes, yes!’ I tell them all day long, ‘Tonight, I promise. Tonight is THE night!‘ But sitting in front of my laptop at the end of the day, (some days even before I can make it there), the ‘fresh daisy’ soon droops, too tired and sleepy. Besides, the damn things, the words, sentences and the paragraphs, have gone and hidden themselves in some dark unreachable corner of my mind. In my befuddled sleepy state I try to recall one pertinent fact from where I can build the rest up. But no, they steadfastly refuse to show themselves. ‘Oh well. Tomorrow!‘ I tell myself. ‘Definitely, tomorrow!‘ And then thankfully, I jump into bed and blissfully fall asleep.

But, all that is going to change. .

I know it is my lack of energy that makes me give in easily and go with the ‘definitely tomorrow’ flow. Things have come to a pass where I now have stopped believing in my promises to my own self of ‘later tonight’. So, it all HAS to stop. Or at least I have to try to stop this nonsense. Hence I am going to be here everyday for Ruchi’s September Musings this month or die trying. And if those thingamabobs – the thoughts pushing themselves all day – dare hide from me, I vow to drag them out from whichever dark corner they are hiding in, smash them to pulp and plaster them all over my blog page. Ha, they dare hide from me, do they! Also, what they do not know: I have a secret weapon called ‘notes’ where I have ‘noted’ all about them and every suggestion they pushed.

© Shail Mohan 2021