making room

I moved out of my hometown 12 years ago. Brokers who drank my blood, housing society interviews, updating my address on amazon, finding the closest Nature’s Basket – sum up my annual rituals in Bombay. This taught me not to ‘unpack’ and I’ve pretty much lived out of cardboard boxes ever since.

Thanks to the virus, it’s been six months since I moved out of Bombay and back to my hometown. Now, I wake up to the morning sun hitting my face from the wrong direction. To a different doorbell at 7am. And to an extremely unfamiliar AC temperature. I never considered how it’s actually the tiny details that tie us to a place, that makes it familiar. And I guess that’s what makes it home?

Oh, how carefully I had planned my move, with lists and logistics to make sure I didn’t leave a single thing, that I thought was important, behind. Everything I needed had to be shipped back here. But what about the things I can’t carry back with me? Things that are ‘replaceable’ like my old pair of slippers, or my favourite non-stick pan that did not fit in the boxes. Or feelings and habits that make a home, but don’t make it with us when we move out?

I guess moving to a new house (or an old one) is just about making room for new habits and episodes that will turn it into a home, till they can be replaced again.