Are you guys okay?

The longer answer

Day 1, Saturday

I am still in bed when I hear the first explosion. My husband had just texted me that Israel had attacked Iran, and a WhatsApp notification from a friend revealed a forwarded message from the US Embassy, asking its citizens in Qatar to shelter in place. Here we go, I think. Taking my tea into hand, I settle back into bed, about to switch on the news when the first set of explosions start. They are loud, and I feel the world slowing down with each one. I think this is what they mean when they say my blood ran cold. My senses start zooming in. Where were the kids? Downstairs, watching TV. Had they heard? Doesn’t seem like it. Wait, I made waffles for them. When did I do that? Was it before or after I heard the noises? I usually worry about the kids having their meals at the proper times, so it must have been before. Facing crises on an empty stomach is inadvisable, btw, because it makes one lose one’s appetite rather quickly. The rest of the day is spent waiting for the next set of booms, and we aren’t disappointed, if you could say that. Boom boom boom. The kids run into my room, the movie they are watching paused, to ask me if the sounds are bombs, and I do my best to explain. They run back to the movie, satisfied with my answer. The worst part of the day is when a well-meaning friend tells me to keep the curtains closed in case the windows shatter. I hadn’t even thought of that possibility. Great, now I am imagining pieces of flying glass, Homeland style, and it does not help. I close the curtains, only to tell myself that we cannot stay in darkness. I hate blocking out the light when there is light to be had. I weigh the possibilities in my head and then decide to open them. We sleep at night, the kids and I in separate rooms, me hoping that no glass shatters at night. Hey, at least the curtains are closed. Somewhere in the sky, my husband flies towards Miami, USA.

Day 2, Sunday

Sleep last night was fitful. The phone siren went off around 11pm, followed by the explosions, the former scarier than the latter. I start the day on WhatsApp, checking in with my husband and other friends. Some say they all slept downstairs. Should we sleep downstairs? All our bedrooms are on the first floor, and this would be inconvenient. Again, the weighing of decisions. Meaningless and yet somehow important. It’s Sunday, the first day of the school week for us. Today, it is supposed to be remote learning, but as soon as we sit at the table (yes, me too, as I need to help my daughter log in), we are told that live lessons are postponed. I call my husband, and we chat. He has a cold and is in a new city for the first time. I tell him to go out and explore. He says it’s the last thing he wants to do. The day is quieter. We are confident that the missiles are only targeting the US military base, which is away from the city. Fewer booms. My body temperature goes back to normal, but I still find it hard to focus. It’s a good opportunity to practice embodied writing, I tell myself. After all, my body is currently a wonderland, nay wasteland, of anxiety. A few tries later, I snap the laptop shut. It’s useless trying to concentrate. I am incapable of it. I flick between shows on the TV, news stations, and Insta reels. I call my husband multiple times throughout the day. He answers each time. This is unlike us; we have perfected the art of checking in while in different time zones, which sometimes looks like one long conversation a day, and sometimes like a rushed message before the other falls asleep. This easy accessibility, regardless of time, is both a new experience for me and a huge comfort. I know it is not without effort on his part, this human who can go into the deepest of sleeps at the drop of a hat, and I’m grateful to be surprised at the many quiet ways love shows up in a relationship. On my phone, messages pour in, and the adrenaline is still high enough for me to reply to each one with some perkiness. We are okay! Thank you for checking in! What else can I say?

Day 3, Monday

The kids slept with me last night, and we all slept well. I had a stash of Kinder Bueno to see me through, and had settled my racing mind enough to start on the new season of The Pitt. The skies seem calmer. Then I read that the incoming missiles were being intercepted farther out to prevent missile debris from hurting anyone on the ground. Out of sight, out of mind. It works. My mother keeps calling me throughout the day. Forget the war zone, both her househelp have disappeared, and she is not coping well. All the guilt I constantly feel (but have gotten better at pushing down) about my ageing parents ageing alone comes flooding back in full force. Bad timing, I think, but then again, there never is a good time for dealing with those feelings. My husband tells me to try and get out, maybe go to the gym. In a moment of hopefulness, I text my trainer, and he is happy to do a session in the evening, by which time I’m somehow worked myself into a state once again. I cancel the session and eat a slice of lemon drizzle cake with my evening tea. My tummy is in knots, my back aches, but I have The Pitt and Al Jazeera to keep me company. In the living room, my daughter has discovered a funny video from her birthday party on the iPad and is laughing furiously. She shows it to everyone at home, then settles next to me, watching it on repeat and laughing as loudly each time, repetition doing nothing to lessen the humour, her laughter adorable but doing nothing to lessen my load. When I feel like this, very little breaks through. Like a reverie, but the negative kind. Is there a word for it? It’s nearly 9 pm and I long to be alone, to eat chocolate and forget the world. For this, I need my children in bed, but the more I need it, the longer it takes. I am stressed, so please try to cooperate with me, I warn/plead, hating that I have to reveal the obvious. Trump says the war might take four weeks. Fucking hell, when will the airspace open then? I call my husband and cry. I tell him about my back pain. He doesn’t tell me about his cold, but I hear it in his voice. Our housekeeper has made the best chicken curry, and I lap up most of it with half a baguette, even though I’m not very hungry. Before I fall asleep, I hug my daughter. She sleeps with her entire body folded up, and my arm encases all of her, like I’m a bird and she is my chick.

Day 4, Tuesday

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. I hear it in my dreams and then realise it’s not a dream and wake up, my heart in my throat, about to explode like whatever the hell is going on out there. I scramble to look out at the sky through the curtain, leaping back as another explosion reverberates. I can hardly breathe. The kids are sleeping soundly. My phone screen comes alive. It’s 1:30 am. I look for any news to tell me what the noises were. Zilch. I call my husband and cry. Again. Somehow, I fall back asleep, only to wake up too soon in time for remote school. I feel unwell; I’m sick to my stomach, the aches seem to be permanent, my body is running cold again, and I take deep breaths because it feels like I need to. Once the kids are settled with their online lessons, I sit with my phone to check in with a few close friends in Doha. I don’t hide my worry this time. They get it. They feel it too. We tell each other that we’re there for each other, that our homes are open if they don’t want to be alone, but I know neither of us wants to step outside. Our housekeeper has made biriyani for lunch. Food is so damn comforting, even the fingers that smell of spices for the rest of the day make it worth it. In the evening, it starts to rain. Usually I’d be thrilled, but not today. At night, I call a friend here, a school mom, whose lovely Zimbabwean-British accent makes it hard for me to understand her over the unclear line, but comforts me nonetheless. We laugh and contemplate leaving the country via Saudi. But what about the cost of leaving the vehicle in storage? And what about our things? I have no idea why we think we can’t come back, to our hard-earned life here, our material comforts. We laugh some more at how superficial this all sounds. Maybe it’s tied to our inability to tolerate waste, how much thought we put into our purchases. She asks me if I want to join the Whatsapp groups dedicated to exiting, and we laugh at how one alert group is named Duck and Cover. After I keep the phone (what an obsolete phrase that is. Where my fellow Millenials at?), I google if we need visa to Saudi. And of course, we do. We are proud owners of one of the weakest passports in the world. Options are always limited. Escape is a privilege.

Day 5, Wednesday

I’m writing this on Friday and, to be honest, I cannot remember which experiences of this past week were specific to Wednesday. Is that normal? The days blur into one. They feel short but collectively feel longer. Which reminds me of the phrase uttered to so many young parents: The days are long, but the years are short. Whenever someone checks in on me, they always inquire about the kids, and I’m grateful for their good moods and playfulness; that their problems are still about not liking what I prepared for dinner or having to go to bed. The biggest war updates are that Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz, and Qatar has paused LNG production. Seeing as both these are significant parts of a smoothly running global economy, we can only expect to feel the ripples long after this war ends. Bleak future aside, today is the day I finally go to the gym. I’ve been completely lax with my daily steps and thrice-a-week training. My PT asks me why I’m staying indoors, that it’s perfectly normal outside. Spurred on by him, I make plans to visit a friend tomorrow. Yes, I can do this.

Day 6, Thursday

The phone rings at 4:30 am, our former nanny calling nonstop from Sri Lanka. I put the phone on silent and try to sleep again to no avail. The morning routine consists of trying not to call home till absolutely necessary, unable to make space for their feelings on top of my feelings. As predicted, when I finally call— my former nanny, then my mom— they are tearful, crying and telling me that they are praying for our safety. My mother tells me we should move back to Sri Lanka, and I snap at her. Warzone or not, mothers and children are the sacrificial goats at the altar of our stress. I do some deep breathing and call her back in an hour. I’m sad that I’m worrying them. I bake pistachio and almond bars to take to friends in the evening. They are freshly out of the oven when the explosions start again, this time it feels louder and closer and lasts longer, making the doors and windows rattle. We sit together on the couch, and when I place my hand on my son’s leg, he hugs it. I’m dying to know what’s happening, so I encourage them to put on the headphones while I watch the news, which is, as always, unsatisfying. I’m used to Sri Lankan news, cameras on the scene, filming the action as it unfolds, even if it’s victims half-clothed and wailing, reporting events “as it happens, when it happens” (how easily the news taglines come to me). News here states the obvious: we can see smoke behind us/loud explosions were heard across Doha/we are still unsure of if they’ve hit anything/even if we knew, we can’t tell you. My husband has mistakenly put his phone on silent while he sleeps. Today of all days, I think, finding a few select friends who I know will respond to the Heard that? texts. I spiral, watching Chinese professors make predictions, catch up on Instagram journalists I’ve grown to trust, and…get this…worrying about how Sri Lanka has somehow gotten dragged into the drama by rescuing Iranian sailors after their ship got torpedoed by the Americans in waters close to Sri Lanka. What happens when the holidaying Zionist soldiers meet the Iranian soldiers? When does the US insist they come and defend us? The script is just writing itself.

It’s Friday morning, my day to post this. There’s a lot I haven’t written about here, like how I feel I’ve aged a few years this week, how many dear friends check in on me daily from both near and far, how my library books are overdue but I can’t make myself to do the drive to the library to return them even though I really want to, how I spend hours talking to my husband and sometimes we just stay on the line watching funny reels— sharing them with each other and laughing, how my kids don’t seem to mind that I have been distracted, but maybe I’m just being hard on myself, because they seem completely content.

I feel scared and unsafe when I think about what is going on outside, but safe and grateful when I look at my little life inside, and during these trying times — really, at any time— that is the best I can hope for.