To Dig Roots or To Take Flight

I resume writing after almost a month and half. Have been busy with the 'idea' of moving continents and all things related. We are finishing the do-able, must-sees ...all very touristy I must say. That is the easy and the fun part. The not so fun part is emotionally and mentally preparing ourselves to say good-bye to a place we called home for the last seven years. It becomes even more difficult because I came here a girl and am leaving a woman. I became a housewife, a mother here. I also re-discovered my faith and evolved some more and faster.

We prepare ourselves to cut off those ties that bind us to this place, to go back to the ties that tug at us. I prepare myself to say adieu to all those whom I reluctantly be-friended and more reluctantly leave behind. The smells, the sounds (or rather the lack of it as it is in typical suburban America versus India), the food will be missed. I will miss the old Indian gentleman whom I would chat with in the laundry who would pine for his village and his friends. I will miss the African American woman who smoked like a chimney and whom we lovingly and secretly called 'Chimney'. How similar and yet how different we were. I will never forget the way she stuck up to us after an argument with a particularly racist white man for some petty reason. She told me "Do not take that nonsense" and told me stories of her childhood in rural Mississippi.

I will miss all those who stood by and even those who did not because they all taught me a lesson or two. I thank the technological advancements for once, knowing it will allow me to stay in touch more easily than ever before.

But yet as I prepared myself to fly back home, I was jolted by the news that I might be going somewhere else. Hubby dearest might have to go to UK for a couple of years. I still am not sure if that will happen and will not be till I am actually there. But the surprise did lead to a lot of sighing and thinking and feeling blue. I am a tad bit tired of living as if I might have to move in the next 2 months. I have lived without fancy curtain or cookware and cutlery. I have learnt to be happy and have at times gotten my way and hung up elaborate Madhubani paitings not caring if I lived here for a day or a year. I have sometimes given in to the practical problems of baggage and shipping etc. And sometimes thrown all caution to the wind. I do have some regrets and mostly that I would have be-friended some people earlier than I did for they are such wonderful people and I would have loved to know them longer.

But yet another move, to yet another country. I gave up on my professional aspirations the minute I became a mom and I have never regretted it. But the resolve to follow my husband around and be a family sometimes has had me floundering. I just saw Julie and Julia and loved it. I loved the story, Merryl Streep and Amy Adams. I could relate to their stories (not the cooking necessarily) and loved their married life. Great husbands, great families with lots of love to go around. I could also echo the question Merryl asks in the movie "Where is home?" and am trying to understand the answer her husband gives "Wherever we are"
One thing that I learnt from the movie was that a lack of a sense of purpose and a sense of joy could arise with or without the kind of nomadic lifestyle I live. It could arise with or without the lack of a rewarding career. As long as we were togther and happy and in love with ourselves, each other , life and God we could figure it out.

The power to make a situation sunny and positive lay within me. The movie taught me that. My husband says it more often than I would like to hear. My scriptures say it. I am a part of the supreme whole and hence I am whole...complete and powerful.
So why be in doldrums at all. My sense of purpose is for me to define. Why challenge the master plan. Maybe I was born to roam.
Travel, absorb, learn, integrate, assimilate........there is so much to be seen and there is so much to be learnt. I am eager to return to my land, my people and most importantly give back. And I pray that I will do that soon. In the meantime I will give back to my family, and communities wherever I am. Period.

Hence pine I will no more. Or at least try very hard not to. Digging roots at the moment is very attractive and safe but I shall not tremble at the idea of taking flight and soaring to new heights. God grant me the courage and show me the way.