Home republic

Home…with its noise, messiness and a lot of activity can still be your heaven and haven. Specially, if you are busy person who rarely get to spend some time at home, the yearning to know your pillow and blanket better is ever so tempting. As times  go by, when classes or work keep you away from home even on holidays, and when you can’t remember the last time you saw the morning sun rays falling over your dressing table, it is probably because you are not giving yourself enough time to breathe.

Take a break and sleep till late. Wake up only when the newspaper headlines are being read on television. Sit in front of it while enjoying your tea, or better still walk into your garden to sit on the bench you haven’t seen for ages. Get ready for a typical family breakfast you are going to have after Avurudu.

Help your mother with household chores. If she has been washing your clothes all this while-be a good child and offer to wash hers. Hum your favourite song while dusting your way around the trophy cupboards filled with what you and your siblings had won during school time.  Try to remember why those cups are there. Steal into your father’s library and try to renew ties with the books you used to flirt with. Get lost in the fictional dreamlands and find your way back to reality-newly smitten by your childhood heroes.

Stroll into the garden and listen to the birds and squirrels singing in harmony. Walk around to see if the jambu or guava trees have borne any fruits. Indulge yourself in seasonal treats that rarely come your way. Open all the windows in your bedroom to let in as much sunlight as you can. Let it fall over your fancy perfume bottles and make dancing lights on the mirror. For a moment, thinking of nothing; at least nothing about what awaits you at the end of the weekend.

Take a long shower. Your hair needs that time underwater. Your skin needs to know how it feels like to be relaxed and refreshed. Most of all, you need to know that time can in fact wait for you once in a way.

Enjoy lunchtime political conversations with your father and let your mother intervene with the delicious caramel pudding you have made specially for him. Relish in the expression on the faces of your parents and siblings when they gulp down your delicacy.

Try reading the weekend papers; and fall asleep on the mound of news if you can’t avoid it. Drive your family down to Galle Face or Parliament grounds to watch the sunset. It is totally justifiable to fall for prawn vaddai and tapioca chips.  Seal your day with a take out dinner. And rejoice over the fact that you have a family to see you through the high’s and low’s in life, to tolerate your mood swings and to make you feel loved and wanted.

Sometimes, there isn’t anything that can’t wait while you dust your roots.