School opened late this morning because of a snow storm yesterday. It was still several inches high on the driveway as J stood there waiting for the school bus. Unlike other days, when I wait by the front door to see her get into the bus, I was upstairs by the window keep an eye on her as I got ready for work. At some point, I caught the sound of J singing to herself as she kicked the snow around. The sound of her voice intermingling with the chirping birds creating a moment of perfection. She being herself, unaware of my presence or of the magic she had helped make. I had to share what I had experienced with the one who would feel it just like I did - enjoy my happy place with me.
An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t
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