In July 2021 I held the stack of birthday invites fresh from the printer in my hands. It featured mermaids swimming around a number six. My older daughter’s fifth birthday disappeared into a lockdown shaped hole last year. We were lucky this year, I thought. I left the invites on the dining room table as a surprise for her to see when she comes home from school. Before I picked her up lockdown 5.0 was announced and the mermaids dove into the recycle bin. 

Since July we have experienced a gradual return to normalcy. The vaccine rates are now above ninety percent, and inshaAllah with everyone getting their boosters things will stay this way. Looking over my wish list for 2022 for travel features heavily. 

My parents live in Turkey and the last time they visited us was for the birth of my second child. The two-month-old blob they met is now a feisty and funny 3-year-old. She only knows Anane and Dede from the iPad screen. Since they qualify as immediate family, I am doing their visa application to visit us. My brother lives in the United States with his wife, who I am yet to meet. I am praying for the definition of “immediate family” to expand so that they can visit us too and meet their nieces for the first time. 

Sydney’s first Muslim Writers Festival is scheduled for 12-13 February. If everything stays normal, I will be flying from Melbourne to Sydney to attend in person. I am invited to speak at a panel of children’s authors, and I am so excited to meet other Muslim authors. 

The other event I am hoping to travel to is the launch of Hijabi Girl: Musical puppet show in Queensland in June. Larrikin Puppets adapted my children’s book co-authored with Hazel Edwards into a musical puppet show. I have been watching the puppeteers putting the show together piece by piece despite all the COVID troubles, and I can’t wait to watch in person. The second book of the Hijabi Girl series will also be coming out in 2021. It would be a dream to have a book launch in person and meet our readers. 

The Jumuah prayers are back in person at the mosque Elhamdulillah. I look forward to seeing my three-year-old return to the mosque playgroup where she was allowed to chase balloons in the musalla and finger paint on the courtyard. I want her happy memories around the mosques to continue. Ramadan is coming up soon, and I imagine iftars filled with families visiting each other, and a spectacular Eid celebration to make up for all the Eids we celebrated over screens. 

One wish for me is to go back to writing in my favourite cafe, eavesdropping on the conversations around me and making notes of the gestures and clothes of the people around me. I want to write again away from the piles of laundry and toys that need to be put away.

And finally, I want to hold a mermaid themed seventh birthday party for a little girl who missed two birthday celebrations in a row. 

By: Ozge Sevindik Alkan