Every day

We haven't seen the sun around here for a long time. And it's not because of the monsoon. So this weekend when the haze lifted and blue skies beamed, it was riotous springtime. We lived on the patio and by the pool. Neighbors hosted impromptu happy hours and Oscar Gus ran shirtless with Minecraft sword in hand between our house, the park, the patch of grass behind our flat, and anywhere else he could get a sunny ray on his back. Good times.

Later, Oscar asked (as he daily does) when his birthday was, and I broke the (daily) news that it was still five months away. He sad-faced and wistfully dreamed out loud "what if every day could be my birthday?" I referred to the thick haze we've all been choking in and how special these last days of sunshine have felt. Things that come only once in awhile make even the most ordinary events like dinner outside and evening games of tag feel like a party. He stared at me, as he does, and he said what needed to be said. "That's ridiculous. Are you really saying clean air is like a birthday?"

Oops. Bad analogy, mom.  This pollution is not a birthday indeed, and it's made us all so stir crazy that I've apparently lost my sense of normal. So, today, to hold onto the hope of breathing deep on my morning walks, I doodled sunny circles. It's November and time for pumpkins and winter coats in many parts of the world, but here, one degree north of the Equator, we are hoping for the haze "season" to lift and the endless tropical normal of 30C sun and rain and sun and rain to return. Just as Oscar Gus wills a daily birthday.