Yellow: 7 facts about my childhood

Hmm, let’s see.

1. Growing up, my best friend was Zaineb, and I was hurt that she rarely called me her best friend for the fear of upsetting other people. 

2. Once a girl named Humda became Zaineb’s new friend and I cried over it for months until Humda moved away and Zaineb’s attention moved back to me.

3. I’ve had a tiny beanie cow named Moo Moo, who is inexplicably missing an ear, since I was teeny tiny. Her memory is strongly associated with my grandfather.

4. In fourth grade, my teacher gave me a Harry Potter themed journal to write about my visit to Pakistan in.

5. I haven’t been to Pakistan in four years and I miss it.

6. My earliest memory of my favourite cousin is going to her town house somewhere in Pennsylvania, renting our favourite movie, The Journey Home, and going to watch it only to find that she’d locked herself in the master bedroom - our ritualistic place of observance of said movie - and didn’t know how to unlock the door. I can’t say she’s changed much since then.

7. When I was in kindergarten we lived in a rented house (on North Bailey, which we’ve driven by quite a few times in the last year) while my parents looked for one of their own, and my fifth birthday party was there. It was a surprise party, and in it my grandfather presented me with my first bike, which was pink and sparkly and named Luna. I still have the bike, though it’s old and dysfunctional, and I don’t think I’ll ever have the heart to be rid of it. I don’t have a lot of things of my grandfather left, but we were close and I miss him, too.

Orange: 6 facts about my home town

For the sake of being interesting, I’m going to ramble a bit about Lahore. I consider it as much of a home as I do this place.

1. It’s the heart of Punjab, and the cultural heart of Pakistan.

2. It’s very big and divided into residential areas, like Defence, where we live, and Bahria Town, and Garden Town, to name a few.

3. Near my cousin’s house in Bahria Town is a park. It’s a poor excuse for a park, about a block long, with a swing set and a slide, and mud. The last time I went there, I was nine. I drove past it once at thirteen.

4. The fast food is actually really good.

5. Talking about Lahore actually depresses me a lot, I’ve been crying for like five minutes.

6. The traffic is the scariest thing you will ever experience. Even our driver, who was from Karachi, which is also a relatively sizeable city, was extremely put off by it.

Red: 5 facts about my best friend

Sofiya you troll, you are my best friend. You know it all. If you want me to wax poetic, though, that can be arranged.

1. Her name is Sofiya, and she’s a bit more than a friend.

2. She worries all the time and there’s no way for me to alleviate that and all I really want is to be able to help, but there’s four hundred miles in the way.

3. Her hair is the colour I imagine gold-spun-from-straw to be, like from that Rumpelstiltskin story or whatever it is.

4. I couldn’t decide what colour her eyes were, but upon closer (intimate, in fact) inspection, I will tell you that they are grey, and flecked with green, and light brown around the pupil, and very, very pretty, the way you might expect a character of literature to have.

5. On top of cheese, because her fondness for that we must never let slip from our minds, she is an advocate of tea. All kinds of tea. She wants the tea. Give her the tea.

Grey: two facts about my favourite things

I already answered this one, but this time I will spice things up. Sofiya’s sweatshirt still makes the list, and will always make the list. The second would be my Uggs, the light brown ones, because they may be ugly but they are so warm and soft and comfy I don’t even care okay, don’t h8.

Black: 1 fact about the person you like

I more than like you.