The Rainy Days of Transition

It’s a dreary day and the monsoon rains drown the streets with rivers of water, while cyclists wearing trash bags for raincoats and city buses drudge on through. I planned to visit a plant nursery today to begin filling our apartment with plants.  The best and most affordable was half an hour into a nearby village, so it was going to be a half day affair with the kids.  When we woke up the heavy clouds were beginning to pepper the windows with big fat raindrops, so we came up with a new plan.

My husband set off to the office and the kids and headed to a café that also has a kids play area (of all the divinely inspired ideas out there) so we came for me to catch up on work and the kids to paint and make sand castles.  I really am truly, deeply blessed by the amenities here. I always knew I was a city girl.

Yet I sit in this aesthetically inspiring café, taking in the designs, textures, potted plants in wooden trellises, and custom tile-work (the café is owned by a popular furniture store), staring at the shimmering raindrop-covered windows looking over my new city, and I just feel… underwhelmed.

Out of place. Lonely. Sort of sad.

I love this. I am so blessed, I tell myself. Yet it strikes me that this familiar feeling is the one that lingers after every move to every new place, no matter how chic or shabby. There’s just no way around it—transition is hard.

Leaving is hard.  Arriving is hard.  There are intermitten moments of adrenaline, excitement, even fun.  Setting up the kids’ castle bunk bed!  The outdoor furniture market (feels like a giant condemned dump but full of the most fabulous treasures)!  And (the best highlight) reconnecting with old friends over meals, in our home, making plans for life together. These are the moments that keep me afloat.

But that first bit of time when you’re setting up life in a new place is hard. You may have a handful of acquaintances or even a close friend or two, but overall everyone knows you’re new, and so do you. The kids have one friend each—so far. I itch for the day, 6 days and counting, when school and preschool begins.  They’ll love it, I’m sure. And their father and I will thrive on the chance to get into a predictable rhythm of life.

We both get sort of listless without routine.

Our house sits on an ordinary neighborhood park with ordinary families who have been here for generations.  I love that. I wouldn’t meet these neighborhood moms at a café or a mall. The only place they go is to take their kids to school and then take them to the park. Their husbands go to work and back. They’ve been so kind and welcoming, and I hope for many play dates and cups of chai to come.

But some days I can’t bring myself to brave the sweat that drenches and the constant cultural, linguistic challenge that is taking the kids to the park for an hour. It reminds me just how very foreign and new I am. So I just have to let it go, say OK, I’ll try again tomorrow.

Grace upon grace. That’s what we need when we’re thrown back into the childlike state of ignorance and incompetence. And maybe just one more hand crafted cup of coffee, staring over herbed window boxes at the rainy day beyond.