Narrative

Taymiya Riffat Zaman*

I’ve been quarantined in my room for four days. In the evenings, my temperature rises. 99.6, then 99.4, then 99.5. Not a fever, but enough for me to feel feverish. I’m congested and have body aches. The inevitable question arises: Is it COVID-19? Quarantine follows. I have breakfast on the balcony, surrounded by flowers my mother has planted. I look at them more closely now; baby bougainvillea are coming alive and the nasturtiums that bloomed bright orange in winter are withering away. It’s spring. Downstairs, my parents have their breakfast. My sister Jawziya has already had hers; she makes herself coffee and then works in her room.

I don’t know what made me decide to take a year’s unpaid leave from my job in San Francisco, but I don’t question my instincts, so I left. I spent months traveling, until the desire burned itself out and I wanted nothing more than to be home and not go anywhere at all. I’d burned through my savings too, on the pragmatic side of things. I got a teaching position at IBA, and that class went online, after which online teaching got suspended, leaving us with nothing to do but wait for the administration to figure out its next move.

When I wake up in the morning, I’m grateful to be with my family. If I were in San Francisco now, I would want to go home but I’d feel helpless because the borders are closed. It’s strange not being able to hug the people I love. Strange too, this relationship to touch and breath, where everything must be sanitized, where I shouldn’t touch my face and they shouldn’t touch what I’ve touched, and I shouldn’t breathe near them, and they shouldn’t breathe my breath.

I need something to do with my hands so I paint. Everywhere and with everything. On the balcony, at my desk in the lounge, in my room at four in the morning. With watercolor, ink, oil paints, acrylic, coffee, tea, markers, color pencils. To silence, with music, while singing badly, while on the phone with friends. I read my holy trinity of spirit writers: Virgina Woolf, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison. I write, experiment with form and voice and sometimes I see stories in pictures rather than words. This is a strange spring. But I’m a writer, and everything is raw material.

* Taymiya R. Zaman, Associate Professor, University of San Francisco, USA, Visiting Faculty, CBEC