Look across the Table

Last night was a normal evening in our household.

I made homemade roasted tomato soup with tomatoes straight from our garden. I know. Just call me Betty Crocker. Mrs. Homemaker. Whatever. You get the picture.

The kiddos were especially delighted because not only had I apparently redeemed myself from the last two homemade meals—which were so bland they may have actually damaged my reputation—but in approximately thirty minutes, we were heading to our school's annual Book Fair.

After dinner, Matthew calmly announced the rules.

“No kitschy stuff at the Book Fair this year. You each have $15 to spend. Please don't buy anything we're going to find lying around the house three weeks from now—like those journals with the little gold padlocks where we lose the key and then you lose your shit.”

Okay.

I may have added the swearword.

My five-year-old daughter immediately looked at him with those giant brown eyes, her empty soup bowl still sitting in front of her, and burst into tears.

We had crushed her dreams.

Apparently, a journal with a tiny gold lock was the only thing she wanted from the Book Fair because, as she explained through tears, we already have “a thousand books” at home and she doesn't have a journal like “her kids” do.

Her kids are her siblings, by the way.

Matthew and I exchanged looks.

“Okay, Roo. You can have a journal.”

And off we went.

We marched down to the school and walked into the gym, where Asha immediately reminded us, “Don't forget I have to serve ice cream from 7:00–7:30 for student leadership!”

A group, I might add, that is helping her absolutely blossom.

“Alright, Ash. We won't forget. We'll meet you in the other gym. Just make sure you're there by seven, and Viddy will walk you home because we are not staying.”

Famous last words.

The kiddos pulled us around the Book Fair, agonizing over all the colorful choices.

Which genre should they get?

Which popular book actually made sense for them?

Was this book worth their precious $15?

And right in the middle of all these very serious literary decisions, Rani came running over to reveal her prize possession.

A fuzzy Spider-Man journal.

Complete with a gold lock.

And key.

She was ecstatic.

Of course she was.

We mixed. We mingled. We made our purchases. And eventually, we made our way to the other gym to support Ashey during her ice-cream-handing-out time.

And that's when something happened.

I looked over and saw Rani talking to this adorable little Indian girl.

Matthew was talking with her father, so I wandered over and introduced myself. And in my head, I was practically beaming:

Yeah, I made that with my white Caucasian husband. LOL.

I told him my name and asked Rani what her new friend's name was. She told me, and I asked her dad what it meant.

Beautiful girl.

In Hindi.

Be still my heart.

So naturally, I started introducing the rest of my children.

“This is Vidya, Asha, Naveen and Irani.”

His beautiful brown eyes widened.

“Those names are all Indian!”

And somewhere inside my head—and probably all over my face—my response was:

Yeah, bitch. I'm Indian.

Obviously, he couldn't tell.

So I launched into my thirty-second explanation.

Born in Bangalore. Adopted at eleven months old. Raised in Minnesota.

As we talked, more Indian families started coming over. They stood around him, introducing themselves to me and exchanging pleasantries before eventually moving together to sit at their own table.

And it was glorious.

Except...

Something felt weird.

Something was missing.

I went back to the table with my family, but I kept looking over.

At their hair.

Their darker skin compared to mine.

And, God forbid, their noses.

Yep.

Noses.

I know what you're thinking.

Kenzie. Obviously Indian people don't all look alike.

I KNOW.

But you have to understand: I didn't grow up seeing people who looked like me. I wasn't accustomed to walking into a school cafeteria and seeing an entire table of brown people.

And suddenly, there they were.

A whole group of friends.

And something inside me wanted to walk over and say:

I want to be your friend.

I'm like you.

See? I look like you.

But what was really bothering me was that I couldn't figure out why they weren't noticing I was like them.

I could see it.

Why couldn't they?

And then it dawned on me.

I wasn't wearing my nose ring.

Obviously.

THAT was the problem.

So naturally, I rummaged through my purse, found it, shoved it into my nose and thought:

Bam. Now I'm Indian.

There.

Surely that cleared things up.

Cue the eye roll.

I know.

But in that moment, some little part of me genuinely needed it.

We walked home that night, and I couldn't shake the feeling.

By bedtime, I was perturbed.

Then sad.

I messaged my girlfriends. I crawled into bed with Matthew.

And eventually, I cried.

Because I thought I had healed this.

I thought I had moved past this years ago.

But that's the funny thing about healing.

You peel away a whole bunch of layers, congratulate yourself on your emotional maturity, and then healing sneaks around the corner and says:

Great. Now that we've handled all that...what about this?

Sneaky little bitch.

And suddenly, I was little again.

Who do I look like?

Where did I get my personality?

Where do my character traits come from?

I'm Indian—but am I Indian Indian?

I'm Minnesotan—but am I Minnesotan Minnesotan?

Where exactly do I fit?

With tears running down my face, I asked Matthew where I belonged.

He wrapped his arm around me just a little tighter, kissed me on the cheek and said,

“Right here, my love. You belong with me. You belong with us.”

And yes.

Obviously, I cried harder.

But even as beautiful as that was, I knew there was something deeper underneath it.

And then it hit me.

I had been looking for belonging in the physical.

My eyes.

My nose.

My skin.

My hair.

I wanted to look across that cafeteria and recognize myself in someone's face.

I wanted someone to look back and recognize me.

But maybe not everything we inherit can be seen in a mirror.

I don't know these things for certain. I can't pull out a family tree and point to them as facts.

But I feel them.

I've always been intuitive. There are things I simply know in my body before I can explain how I know them.

And I feel like my intuition came through my birth mother and grandmother.

I feel like my charisma and oozing charm (you’re welcome) came straight from my birth dad—and probably his godforsaken nose, too.

Maybe I can't prove any of that.

But somehow, those pieces feel like mine.

And then there are the pieces I do know.

I got my need for clean counters and kitchen sinks from my mother. I got her heart for giving to her community.

I got my need to reach out and help the people around me from my dad.

I carry pieces from the people whose blood runs through me and pieces from the people whose hands raised me.

Biology and belonging. Nature and nurture. The known and the felt.

India.

Ireland.

New Prague.

Czechoslovakia and Bohemia.

And a little North Branch and Faribault, Minnesota.

All of it somehow melted together into me.

And while I was lying there crying because I didn't know where my almond-shaped eyes came from, I had somehow forgotten to notice something pretty important.

My children have my eyes.

They have my heart.

Matthew has my soul, and I have theirs.

I had spent that evening looking across the cafeteria at another table, searching their faces for some evidence that I belonged.

And the evidence had been sitting at my table the entire time.

My husband.

My children.

Asha serving ice cream and finding her place as a leader.

And my five-year-old, chocolate smeared all across her little face, clutching her newly found prize—a fuzzy Spider-Man journal with the exact little gold lock and key we had specifically told her she couldn't buy.

And maybe that's the part I had forgotten.

Belonging doesn't always mean finding the face that looks like yours.

And loving the table I built doesn't erase the ache I sometimes feel when I look toward the table I came from.

Both can be true.

I can wonder.

I can ache.

I can want to be recognized.

I can carry India in ways I can see and in ways I can only feel.

And I can still know exactly where I belong.

Because I didn't need to look very far to find it.

I just needed to lift my head—

and look across the table at the family I built with my heart, my soul, and yes, those almond-shaped eyes and my godforsaken nose now with a little bling in it.