Friday, October 01, 2010
exodus
an earthquake has wrecked through haiti in the past week. 200,000 possibly dead, or dying beneath the mud, stone, crashed buildings, broken bodies. chaos everywhere, desperate pictures in the papers every day. today’s paper said the exodus back to the villages from the battered city has started. couple of days ago read about another kind of exodus. the one that the writer made as she journeyed from being a citizen of haiti to resident of the uk to citizen of that country. how does one let go of a country? you put miles and money between yourself and that land, you make a new life, you bring up your children in the new land. but does the country you left ever leave you?
and what makes you feel safe and whole in this new place? for me it was, among other things, my home in my place of residence these past 13 years. not my birthplace, not my school place, my college place, the place where i fell in love, the place where i tasted death for the first time, or got my first pimple.
a lovely, kindly land, but not mine. here my beautiful home kept me feeling connected.
actually, two homes. four years and a bit more in the first. exactly eight years in the next.
years in which my daughter grew from seven months to eight and a half years old. the tsunami struck. the fish in the restored koi pond gained grace and colour. the garden settled down, lush and in bloom. my mother died.
eight years, the longest i’d lived in any house in my entire life. ha, fifty this year.
still remember the day i walked into this house for the very first time. benny, our hapless agent, ever worried that my husband would not be comfortable with this or that,
(discovered this incomplete piece on the comp started on 22 jan 2010, just before we left 90 lts, now writing on)
said, "you think mistah robin is okay with jalan lim tai see?" he was referring to the name of the street: very chinese, compared to the coronation road, the duchess avenue, the queen astrid park so correctly continental just round the corner. a large old labrador ambled out of one of the rooms and filled the space with an air of comfort and trust. the maid said he was blind and he slept in the bathtub of the master (why never mistress) bathroom. we moved in toward the back of the house: large, open kitchen in black tiles, green lawn fringed with red haleconia beckoning at the french window along one wall. oh, how could one not be okay here.
on 15 february 2010, we moved out of 90 jalan lim tai see, mistah robin and his fam and his bag and baggage and 55 containers of fragile china, all equally miserable.
since then 90 lts has been broken, battered, and bashed. our beloved home is being transformed into someone else's dream home. i have tried my level best to like our new place. cloddy, large, full of staircases. almost a year has passed since i saw it the very first time and made that call to piklu, my younger brother. "hey, i just saw a place. so many stairs at the entrance, now what? how will you manage?" piklu, born with a funny vascular condition, growing up never to walk in comfort, his left leg weak, swollen with odd bundles of blood, now practically wheelchair bound, calmly said, "how many steps to the entrance?" "10." "I'll manage." earthquakes have ravaged china, pakistan; floods have washed away leh, up, bihar. piklu has died. how do you leave behind a country. how do you leave behind a home. how do you leave behind a brother.
and what makes you feel safe and whole in this new place? for me it was, among other things, my home in my place of residence these past 13 years. not my birthplace, not my school place, my college place, the place where i fell in love, the place where i tasted death for the first time, or got my first pimple.
a lovely, kindly land, but not mine. here my beautiful home kept me feeling connected.
actually, two homes. four years and a bit more in the first. exactly eight years in the next.
years in which my daughter grew from seven months to eight and a half years old. the tsunami struck. the fish in the restored koi pond gained grace and colour. the garden settled down, lush and in bloom. my mother died.
eight years, the longest i’d lived in any house in my entire life. ha, fifty this year.
still remember the day i walked into this house for the very first time. benny, our hapless agent, ever worried that my husband would not be comfortable with this or that,
(discovered this incomplete piece on the comp started on 22 jan 2010, just before we left 90 lts, now writing on)
said, "you think mistah robin is okay with jalan lim tai see?" he was referring to the name of the street: very chinese, compared to the coronation road, the duchess avenue, the queen astrid park so correctly continental just round the corner. a large old labrador ambled out of one of the rooms and filled the space with an air of comfort and trust. the maid said he was blind and he slept in the bathtub of the master (why never mistress) bathroom. we moved in toward the back of the house: large, open kitchen in black tiles, green lawn fringed with red haleconia beckoning at the french window along one wall. oh, how could one not be okay here.
on 15 february 2010, we moved out of 90 jalan lim tai see, mistah robin and his fam and his bag and baggage and 55 containers of fragile china, all equally miserable.
since then 90 lts has been broken, battered, and bashed. our beloved home is being transformed into someone else's dream home. i have tried my level best to like our new place. cloddy, large, full of staircases. almost a year has passed since i saw it the very first time and made that call to piklu, my younger brother. "hey, i just saw a place. so many stairs at the entrance, now what? how will you manage?" piklu, born with a funny vascular condition, growing up never to walk in comfort, his left leg weak, swollen with odd bundles of blood, now practically wheelchair bound, calmly said, "how many steps to the entrance?" "10." "I'll manage." earthquakes have ravaged china, pakistan; floods have washed away leh, up, bihar. piklu has died. how do you leave behind a country. how do you leave behind a home. how do you leave behind a brother.
