The house...

Change was imminent in their lives that summer. Everyone was waiting for change of a kind - not in the hold-your-breaths-in way but with a faint sense of ennui. Perhaps a gentle soothing breeze amongst the listless trees would scatter their brooding thoughts. Imaginary invisible antagonists of neighbours prodding them to leave... nervous parents cautioning against the pitter-patter of the children engaged in play. A sense of foreboding, that their stay in that apartment has come to an end, even before the lease neared to its expiry date. The children had been promised a bit of green garden. Where, when, how was not their concern. They had full trust in their father, he made things happen.

Each one of the family held on to their hopes, beliefs and reservations. Change does that to some. The lady was the most concerned. By the sheer effort of a decision which is not reversible easily. Does it have to be? Why so far? Can't we consider the other listings? Many such arguements which flared up in front of the kids. That day the arguement began in the car, on the way to see the house, and only paused during the brief  5 minute tour of the house.

One can record the minutest of details inspite of being preoccupied with other thoughts. White and calm, the facade of the house. The half-lidded attic window, she always thought of it so, only later realising that there was a single lace curtain, giving it the appearance of an eye half-open or shut. The field alongwith, erm, garden actually.......huge. Surely, the pony must be out on a walk. The blue-tiled bathroom. The formation of the trees in the garden, 3 of them, but how one completely covered the other if you viewed it from the living room. They saw the house whilst the previous tenant was still living. It seemed intrusive, so difficult to imagine oneself living somewhere with other people's belongings. A Buddha statue and a room of incense was not their style. They picked up the  arguement on the way back. It made for an hour's ride that sunny Sunday afternoon.

But move they did. She continued to smoulder like quickly doused fire. Perhaps she had lost her voice, or maybe just become invisible. That point of existence when things get done, and you get so used to it that you stop thinking there must be someone or some effort behind it. She felt powerless with that power. She waited, maybe for nothing, months passing by before coming to terms with his independent decision. For days on end, she just existed, like a replanted rose shrub, which stubbornly refused to thrive and flower in the new garden bed.

It is a long drive to work, and no expressways till the last stretch. Time is ultimately the biggest tradeoff for anything and effort too. The kids have planted tulips, the merel birds scamper every morning in the garden. Big black crows and the doves visit too. The little bikes race on the cemented courtyard. He comes in when they are in bed, or long past. The baker nearby has a km long line on weekends. There is a Sunday and Monday market, where the whole town congregates with shopping trolleys. Small delights, a post box with your name. Or the neighbour's cat which visits 5 times a day. The fireplace. And space.

They generated a lot of interest in the beginning - school, neighbours, elsewhere and now are quietly accepted or ignored, having exceeded the novelty period. Kids have made friends easily. Life in the countryside is slower and more alluring than the quick pace of the city. She has mixed her own palette of emotions and feelings regarding the move. Resistance, acceptance, delighting in the tranquility and calmness to being totally at home. Watching the evening starlit sky on clear nights and swallowing gulpfulls of fresh air as if it would run out. Space enough to spread out. Yet the paintings were never put up. They did not have the heart to drill the walls.

We must move, he said almost every other day. We actually like it here, she said. We are happy and content. And there is the garden, the kids love it. But, it's too far, he said, I'm losing time. The arguement remained the same. Yet, each spoke from the others' book. She wondered if she should plant the rest of the tulip bulbs. One afternoon, they did, knowing they may not see them flower. Four unpacked cartons was a great way to begin the process.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Kierkegaard