Moving Pains

I hate moving kitchens. I fall in love with each one so much that I’m always heartbroken when I leave, even though I’m the one who always chooses to leave. When I moved into the last kitchen, I was still deep in depression from breaking up with my beautiful marbled kitchen with recessed lights that glowed invitingly even in the middle of the night. The cupboards were classy with smooth handles and the sink was massive, reminding me of the one that we had in the 180 year old farmhouse in Etna. I loved the safe space that it created for me. It was the kitchen where I bested some of my greater challenges like the Boston cream doughnuts and the incredibly evasive, fingerprint-erasing sugar work for the simple Soan papdi. 

And here I was, in a brand new kitchen that couldn’t even hold a candle, except for the size. When we first arrived, the laminate was peeling off the countertop, so much so that it had to be taped down. Each time you pulled a cupboard door, some tiny part would invariably fall apart in our hands. Everyday, I ached to feel that marble top again, to roll a croissant on that smooth surface. But as with most breakups, you don’t get to go back, and eventually, time worked its magic. Even with Ni complaining about the amount of changes he wanted to make to the kitchen, I started to find those little quirks of the kitchen charming. I filled the windows with plants (which I subsequently killed,) and impregnated the cupboards with beautiful glass jars of rice, lentils, and spices. It was the beginning of something new. I accepted the quirks of the oven and shared a deep friendship with the front-left burner of the stove. With each dish that I placed on the counter top, with every cake I frosted, I fell in love, again. I loved how the kitchen had space for bar chairs on which my loved ones perched as I filled the kitchen with the aromas of soul food. When I pulled all-nighters on complicated cakes, she stayed with me, making me forget about time and space. Each night as I cleaned down the kitchen, I took the time to learn about her edges and curves. It was our time together and gave me an incredible sense of satisfaction when I finally turned off her lights for the night. 

But, as most of us have experienced in life, good things never last forever and rugs get pulled from under our feet all the time. Being under the mercy of immigration laws, I was once again ripped apart from my sense of comfort, forced to be away from my kitchen, forced to be in a relationship with another, a whole another country away. Late last year, just before the holidays, Ni and I  found out that our Canadian work permit extension did not go as we had expected (what did I tell you about them rugs??) To say that we were blindsided is an understatement. We were called at work only to be told that we had till the end of day to close up. We were done working in the country. I honestly have no idea how I drove back home. 

Now, we were left with only three options, option one, we would try to reactivate Ni’s US work visa (one we had actively chosen to let lapse. We had already been living in Canada for 3 years, FINALLY figured out the health system, and built a family of friends. We loved the sense of permanency that Canada offered. Oh, how the lords of irony are guffawing right now!!) We did not know if we’d get an appointment with the US embassy, let alone get stamped. 

Option two was to give up Dakota and move back to India (for he would not survive that heat.) Option two made my brain palpitate and shut down. To be honest, it took a few days for the tears to stop and for rational thought to enter my brain. 

 I mean, look at that face!

Option three was to stay in Canada, jobless, and wait. Wait for our Canadian Permanent Residency application to reach the officers desk, which by the look of things was going to take forever. 

After two months of literally trying to talk to everyone we could, including reaching out to the local ministers to see if they could urge our file to the top of the pile, we got nowhere. We couldn’t earn, we couldn’t sit jobless in the country anymore. So we decided to pull the plug and try our luck with the US. The one week that we had to mail our passports to New York, I was a wreck. We were living in a country in which we no longer had legal status and our passports were in another country. Each time I saw a cop car, I irrationally thought that they were there for us. I cannot possibly explain to you the anxiety that we felt during this period.

And even though we had given up on Canada, I checked my email like I was a teenage girl waiting for the boy to call back after the first date, every five seconds. To be honest, this wasn’t the first time I was getting kicked out of a country, but it was the first time I’d tried every possible way to try and stay, except for maybe trying to get on the news. We heard nothing. 

After about a couple of weeks, the US accepted our application and our passports came back to us with a fresh stamp allowing us to move there. For the first time in a month, I felt like I could breathe. Ni could go back to work and not risk losing his job. We fought with his company and pushed our moving date to after the New years when they wanted us to come the next week. We gave our notice to the landlord, reconnected with our realtor in Boston, started looking for houses and planning our steps forward.

Each night, Ni and I would lay in bed, hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe we would hear back from the Canadian agency and we wouldn’t have to uproot our lives in this dramatic manner. “If we could just go back to our life…” we’d whisper.  But, as my dad always says, “Life is effing hard and you don’t always get what you want.” I told Ni, “Just watch, the minute we cross the border into the US, we will hear back from the Canadian agency.”

It wasn’t the minute we crossed the border. It was two weeks after we had crossed over. The moving van had just dropped off our things in Boston a day before. I was literally unpacking, when we got the email asking if we were still in Canada as our Permanent residency in the country has just been confirmed. I am grateful, I absolutely am, but I cannot possibly describe how crushed I was to be right. The physical, mental, and financial strain that it has taken to stop your life, pull it apart, move to a whole other country only to know that if you had just held on.. Just for two more weeks.. Just 14 days.   

We told ourselves, maybe it is best to make the most of this brief interlude. Now that we are here in the US, we might as well make the best of it. 

Have you guys ever moved back into a city that you’ve lived in previously? It’s like going back to an ex-boyfriend. NOT GOOD! At first you revel in the familiarity, but soon notice that all the things that annoyed you in the past have somehow only enhanced and you start wondering “What were you thinking?” 

When I came in 2015, I fell in love with Boston. I mean just the landing strip at the airport floored me. Each time Ni and I drove down from Dartmouth for a concert or a date night, the sight of the Boston skyline would give me goosebumps. I loved walking through the cobbled stoned freedom trail and noticing the gorgeous mix of old and new architecture that makes this city so unique. In 2023, this is a city that I can no longer relate to and the fact that I am unable to, is filling my soul with guilt. To be fair, I honestly don’t think it’s Boston’s fault. It’s still beautiful, the skyline still stills my heart, the Celtics team lights my fire, the green line makes me giddy with the joy of riding a toy train, the old buildings warm my soul, and I could spend hours in its gardens. Perhaps it is I who has changed. I have become the kind of person who would prefer to live in the woods rather than in the city. Or perhaps it’s because I already know that if I do love it again, when it comes to the time to leave, I would once again be heartbroken and I don’t think I’m all that put together at this moment to begin with.

My brain also understands that I cannot live like this and that perhaps I should start with loving my home first, everything else will fall into place.

I tell myself that everyday, as I struggle to find the motivation to cook, to bake, to move in my new kitchen. As with most Boston kitchens, it is a nook. An adorable, acoustic corner, but a nook nonetheless. Each time I have to use an instrument, I have to move things off the tiny counter so that I’d have space. I felt no butterflies or tingling, as I lined the cupboards before filling them. Even as sunshine pours through the windows (and I do mean pour,) I find myself wishing I could love the one that I’m with, instead of yearning for someone I know is long gone. 

I’m sure that as with most kitchens, the quirks will slowly charm me and win me over, but I also know that the wall that has been building itself around my heart is going to make this whole sojourn more complicated than it has to be. 

Until then, I’m doing what humans do best, ‘Fake it till you make it.’