A Year in Reading Subtitles: Rabeah Ghaffari

In February of 2020, just one month before the pandemic reached a global pitch, totally unaware of what was coming, I took off for Merida in the Yucatan region of Mexico for what I thought would be a short visit to my mother who had been living there for some time. Unable to return after the lockdown, I ended up quarantining with her in a grand old colonial home in the historic center of town. Days, weeks, and months bled into one another, and we fell into a routine of cooking, talking, bickering, swimming, doting on the dog, driving to Costco, reading, taking walks, exercising, bickering while swimming, and talking about future meals while eating the one in front of us. When we ran out of topics to argue about, I would say things like, “Mom did you know I was born on the same day as Caligula? Thank God I don’t have any siblings, right?” To which she said, “Honey, thank God you don’t have a horse.” One day, as I walked across the interior courtyard of the house in a bikini top with shorts and a handkerchief wrapped around my head, I muttered to myself, “What if The Decameron but make it Grey Gardens?” I was thankful that we did not have any cats or horses. The world outside had faded into a fiction. Albeit a terrible one that was too real for so many who suffered the worst of it. 

Continue reading on The Millions website: A Year In Reading Subtitles