MOVED

We recently shifted out of a house we had been leasing for the last eight months. In the days and months leading up to the event, we debated the pros and cons of the decision heavily using cost-benefit theories, emotionally charged arguments, and when we were in a mood to tick each other off – excel sheets and bar graphs too. Finally the call to move to a new apartment was made, not because the pros outweighed the cons but because we had to justify all that time we had spent even contemplating the idea.

We are not new to the concept of packing bags, my wife and I. Apart from the hollow threats we have made to each other occasionally, we have actually packed bags between properties eight times in the last five years. Some of these were necessitated by circumstances relating to work and comfort in commute, while a few pertained to general betterment of lifestyle and other intangible benefits. One common factor across all of them, besides the laundry list of to-dos they have entailed, has been the emotional conflict they have effected – between the memories of the past and the promises of the future.

The wistfulness hits me in instalments. It begins when I bring out the first dusty suitcase from the attic, then a little more when I empty the first closet into that first suitcase. Over the next few days, the rooms begin to look bare. The safety gate that had been set up on the staircase to guard our baby against a fall is now taken off. Down with the wife’s paintings and the family photograph. The dents left in the walls are carefully sealed and painted so the owner is reassured the house is still his own. Then one day, the truck arrives. All our belongings are shoved into its belly within minutes; the truck rentals are at a premium and time is of essence. We cannot care less about the odd trinket left behind in a drawer that was not attended to. It could have been anything – a little gift from our friends at our housewarming party, the remnants of a paper plane we entertained our son with, or a valuable household tool that will no longer be ours. We will realize its value once we acknowledge its absence. The family stuffs itself into the car and drives out of the porch, leaving behind had given the very house that had given it a home.

As we settle into our new surroundings, listlessly pinching at layers of bubble wrap coming off our couch, we admit the new house has all we could ask for – friendly neighbours, quality amenities, a nearby convenience store. What does it have that the earlier one did not? Our minds churn out answers that are contentious if not entirely dismissible. Change is inevitable. So is the longing to snatch back the memories of the time we have just renounced on the dotted line. Our little boy who is busy parading around the house looking for that familiar sliding door he used to play with, does not understand what a dotted line is anyway. It does not matter. He will not grow up to remember what the previous place looked like. We will always remember though, that it was the place he had first learnt to walk, where we had hidden under a table to give him his first hearty laugh, the one with the carpet that had absorbed his first fall. That house did have a few features after all, that the new one never will.

Nostalgia has its ways of overpowering you, then wearing off you as does a fad, and then resurging when you need it the least. I suddenly realize there was more than just that tiny trinket we left behind. There are a few important things we must reclaim, and so I put in a request to the property agent to let me in one last time. I wait patiently for his approval so I can enter the premise that was once ours. He meets me at the appointed time. He turns in the key and lets me in, then puts up two open palms in the air indicating ten minutes are all I have.

I do not wish to give myself extra time either. The longer I stay, the emptier I shall feel. However I cannot help but notice the gloss on the otherwise bare walls, the carpet that has been steam-cleaned because of which my shoes must be left on the foyer, the autumn leaves that have been cleaned off the backyard, and most strikingly – the FOR LEASE pin-up on a standee in the front lawns. I stop to glance at the French window, of which our earliest opinion had been that we could have lived with a much better design.

It is still the same French window. Somehow it looks so much better now.

I return to the new house that is now home. The bags have been unpacked, the bubble wrap has been discarded, dinner is laid, and the television is on. It is business as usual, at merely a new address. We learn that change is inevitable, indeed, and that memories are best left vaulted in photo albums. It is decided that we will frequent our previous suburb occasionally, take walks in those old lanes, and certainly go to that cafe in the adjacent street that few others had chanced upon. We are a little fatigued from all the shifting business, but we will do this soon.

The soon comes much later than we had thought.              

But we go for sure. When we drive into that old lane that led to our house, we are overwhelmed by what we see. Look son, do you remember that brick house in the corner? Yes, the one opposite which was that park with a slope you used to roll over – hey, wait. The grass in the front lawns looks burnt. A basketball stand has been put up near the door. The French window is gone. Instead stands a less attractive wooden gate. A bowl that used to lie filled with water in the porch, so our son’s favourite parakeet could come sit for a while, is gone too. Some of its debris seems to stick out of the mud in the lawns. That is all there is to it.

As we retreat with a sigh, our former neighbours emerge on to the street and greet us with surprise. We ask them how they have been. Same old! Comes the reply. Everything in the neighbourhood really is the same old, as it always was.

It turns out we were the only transients in that sub-universe that stayed constant. We must leave now, for we feel like misfits. And we thought we had left that house.