I have the keys

...to my house. Now before anyone congratulates me or anything, I've always had it ever since I've lived in my own house but the feeling that I own the keys to my house, its MY house and its my HOUSE just never loses its feel of gratitude or Relief for me. Its like holding the world in my hands when I hold the keys. Strange or ridiculous I dont know, but for me its everything. 

I've lived in hostels, dormitories, with parents (!!), in-laws (!!!!) and nothing comes close the feeling of relief I get when I turn the keys to lock in the front door of the house and come in. No raised eyebrows asking subtly or curiously or accusingly whichever about my whereabouts or the time or what I was upto. No self-suffering, martyred looks from mom, no questioning looks about the contents of my  shopping bags from mom-in-law, no nothing, just the welcoming sounds like the fridge's hum or buzzing radiators, that mornings breakfast aroma, the radio I always leave on and the squeak of the door as it swings open.

The older I get, the more I love my solitude, my answerable to myself'ness'. I have a husband who lets me have my way with what I do with the house, whether its decorating or cleaning. Its this thing I love and I dont want it to become a chore or a burden, I love being in it. I must have been a turtle in my last life. Maybe those big sea turtles.

I have been known to hug the walls of my house. Run my hands over them and cried over buying them. I've walked around and still walking around marvelling at the blessing it is to have a place to call your own. Do it up the way you want. Have every room exactly where you want. Taking care of me much the way I take care of it. I love the fact that the kids bedrooms are next to mine. Im not sure they'll be saying the same a few years from now. 

I love that we're surrounded by trees. Hemlocks, Maples, Firs, Magnolias, Cherry blossoms, Walnuts, big Chinar like trees that I dont know the English names to. Towering Christmas trees like. Roses in the summer peeking out from your neighbours yards. Flirting with me. Not to mention a 90 year old neighbour whose as sprightly as Iam now with every imaginable shrub, bush and flower to make me a vicarious lover of her yard as well. She has three varieties of mint itself that would help you make your mind or change it! Growing wild not in itty bitty pots!

I'd let the landscaping of our yard be much the same it was when I bought the house which was mainly azaleas and the cherry blossom out in front and the hemlocks in the back. Now I'm beginning to form a blueprint of the front yard I want and my days are spent cutting pics out of magazines and staring at people's yards as I drive by. (I should stop I know). So thats my current project and am so excited. Who am I kidding? I know its the work of a lifetime.

Add some swings. What is it about swings that makes you immediately forget your troubles and just be? I need a couple inside the house too. Im sure the kids would love to rock themselves. Who ever gets over that?

Colour. All year round. 

Spend practically all of summer outside. In the yard. 

Meanwhile I love the brick walls and the steps leading up to the front door. I love my house can you tell? Its a regular old house, nothing great but its mine and the sun that shines on it is mine and the rain it gets washed with is mine. There's no feeling like it. To spin like a kid on its floors and no one will tell ask you if you dont have anything more constructive to do with your time. To shut the doors at night and yourself and family in it, turn out the lights and feel the gratitude one does at having been kept safe from the elements, human or climatical.  

Vacations in the best hotels have a very short-lived appeal for me. I mean seriously I'm there for the decor and room service only! I'd rather be back home. My mother took it to be a milestone when after a few years of marriage when she asked me where I'd rather be and I said my home, she nodded with the bittersweet knowledge that I'd well and truly made my home. Dug my roots and was blessed with loving it.

I know what it's like to be a long long way from home. I know what its like to stare out of train windows and bus windows on journeys that take you only farther away from home. I know what its like to relish going to a friends house because your own was too far away. So one of the best moments for me is the delight of coming home. 

The feeling of being home and staying there. 

Chai ho jaaye?

A while ago I had written this post on tea and today I found this informative and lovely article on beliefnet.com echoing the same sentiment more or less. Read up if you have the time. Dont forget to get your cup of tea before you sit down to it :)

The Healing Power Of Tea

status set to busy

I'm going to use today to organise meals for the next 3 days, I find I'm sort of getting scatterbrained about it. So the chicken has to get made today and I found some kalijeera basmati rice and I'm dying to cook it and see if it's the same jeera rice that sends us into gastronomic rhapsodies back home. So pulao and chicken curry it is for today.

Well actually, R and the kids like simple, not so heavy dinners at night nowadays so I got a fillet of salmon to go with soup and some steamed beans doused in garlicky olive oil. Was supposed to make it last night but we ended up going out to dinner. So that definitely HAS to get made today since I had the salmon out to thaw and had to shove it back into the fridge again. The pulao will be packed in three dabbas for lunch tomorrow.

Let's see - what else did I have to do? I bought new detergent with a new fragrance so I just might finish all the laundry today in one shot. Folding and putting away too. Nothing gives me that kinda high on the domestic drudgery scene. Since its done so completely so infrequently. But I'm in the mood today so.

Got some sheets of homework to go over with Nosh before we head for reading class at 3:00pm. Gotta read the rest of the library books to them before returning them tommorrow.

What else? oh yeah - the itty bitty stuff - got some sinks to scrub out and shoe racks to organise, I think I better get going...

Nomad in Nat

I've been feeling like a floating piece of driftwood for most of my life. Earlier it used to be a vague feeling which whether I wanted to or not came with me everywhere I went. I never had the time or the resources to actually wait and find out what it was all about. There was always something to do or other things happening which took my attention away even if only till the vague feeling reasserted itself again.

I still don't know what it is except yesterday when I was doing my work around the house, I passed by the front foyer and looked up at the main door and suddenly it struck me that there might and most probably will be another move sometime in the future, I dont know when or why but this might not be the house which will hold all the memories of my children before they get married and move out or just move for whatever reasons. As it is since I had Nosh we moved thrice. There's a bunch of memories I have of her when she was born in one house, one set in another and now many here. Reh as well. Even though it's not what I want for myself or my kids, I've been moving countries, houses, rooms and people all my life. Even though I thought I was fine with it, I feel now I am not.

I think the feeling was one of not fully belonging.

I envy cousins and friends who know their neighbourhoods and the people in them like the back of their hands. Whose sense of confidence and familiarity and pizazz comes from knowing they know their turf, they're on it and their concerns and life issues are way different from mine. They're not trying to grow roots or blend in. they're not trying to fit in. They already are in and they have moved on to other areas in life worth conquering and achieving. They have relationships that are rock solid. Or not but they still had the chances. They've understood how to read people because they've been with them long enough to see all sides. Their lives can be measured in concrete milestones, milestones that they laid out out with other people their age around them.

Is that feeling of coming home for me only fleeting? Every few years is there going to be another mat at the front door to greet me? Other trees asking me how I'm doing or how my day went? Other facades of different houses opening a slit in their otherwise closed eyes to shrug a momentary welcome? Different smells in different neighbourhoods making me feel like I just entered another party and soon it's going to be time to go?

Everytime I have moved, I've made it a habit once my belongings were out to come back and touch those bare walls again, to take away with me the essence of the place or the feel of the life I had there. Even hostel rooms. I've retained it all with me but this is not what I want for my children. It's not. I have also left behind big giant pieces of myself that I miss.

I do want them to take themselves wherever their fancy drives them. I do want them to explore every nook and cranny of the world. When they come home though I want it to be the same thing they remember from their earliest memories. The same trees, the same roads, the same dining table and sofa by the window and the same smells. The same soup bowl If I can help it. I dont want them to leave pieces of themselves behind in every house they move. I dont want them to leave pieces of themselves behind in the people they leave. I want the sameness for them that means 'I'm home'. Just enough surprises and different things in the same house that let them know mom and dad've been busy but the same framework, the same skeleton of a routine, feel, warmth, welcome and expectations and familiarity.

I want to remember my kids by the same windows, walking down the same paths coming or going, playing in the same backyard just getting bigger, the games getting different. Friends coming and going down the same front door, hopefully one or two will remain the same, there will different ones always. I want them to remember their achievements and failures sitting on the same toilet or switching channels on the same sofa. Know whats to eat in which cupboard. Know blindfolded that the cereal will be in this cupboard and the milk in this side of the refrigerator by that cupboard. Know there used to be a neighbour in the house next to ours who always made a big deal of them. That there were some on the other side who were around for years but you only saw them when they came out to put the trash or lights out for Christmas/Thanksgiving or Halloween. Know that the schools they studied in and passed out of are still around the corner if they want to catch up with pieces of themselves they left behind or just permanently say good-bye to. That the teachers they loved might still be around if they wanted to share news with or just keep up relationships with.

That the snow, spring, hot summers and winters just mean doing the same things we've been doing together as a family forever whether listening to their Dad moan about having to clean the sidewalk or putting the pool out to splash around in. Lemonade or hot chocolate.

I want the familiarity of their growing up in the same home and neighbourhood in the coming years to be their strength and for it to be woven so intimately with every year of their lives growing up that they know for sure who they are and where they're going. Also where they'll come back whenever they want. Thrive in it.