This vivid memory takes me back to our old flat on Maple Street, where I stand by the kitchen window as I am skilfully flipping pancakes.
While I perform this culinary ballet, an 8 p.m. June paints the sky with golden hues and a delightful wisp of mouthwatering smoke fills the air.
ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” is playing in the background as I agilely venture between kitchen cabinets, coursing through all sorts of jams and sweet flavors.
I was a couple of months away from celebrating my 20th birthday, had recently finished with the finals, and was looking at the beginning of a summer spent “galavanting like a mad gazelle” (as my grandmother used to say). The unpredictability of life was enrapturing; I felt carelessly joyous.
As my pancakes were turning into charred discs, I was cleaving the air with my spatula in vivacious dancing moves, and it surely felt as if no other soul was inhabiting the planet apart from mine. Life was good. And I was happy.
When feeling drained or hopeless, I sometimes fall into this moment of serenity. Its candour serves as a reminder that, perhaps, presence is the sole ingredient required to relish the beauty of life and it can turn even the most ordinary moments into captivating images worth writing about.
THE WONDERMIND 