Today, I watched my tea come to a boil, and likened the first bubble on its surface to the sighting of an evening star at sunset.

I missed the fire of a gas stove in the undramatic simmer of my tea, as I patiently waited for the induction to heat the milk pan.

The sky looks like the backdrop of an old studio here on many days, I thought, and photographed the unnatural blue to lemon gradient. Maybe I'll use it as my background on the next zoom call.

As the world shares a somber summer vacation together, I don't know how to feel anymore.

It was a poor film about old Mumbai that brought me to tears, because I've forgotten how to discern good content from bad.

The dark circles are fading, and I catch myself, too often, thinking about my nine year old self, intently cutting magazines into meaningful compositions.

I always made do with staying inside.

It feels wrong to be at peace, but the indoors are doing to my skin what socks do to my feet.

I'm worried about not having enough sanitary pads, and also about entering the job market during a recession. I don't feel useful either.

I am however, counting my blessings and my breaths these days. It's like we're all living in a dream that doesn't make sense in the morning, or in a meme that isn't funny anymore, or in a game that has run so long that we've lost track of who's winning anyway.

I'm grateful we don't have to have an opinion these days, at least for a while.

I'm grateful for this cup of tea, and toasted bread and butter, mostly because it's suddenly okay to simply watch the tea boil, and think untethered thoughts about the toasted bread and butter.