8 years in a desert

It’s 4 in the morning and I still can’t sleep, in spite of the 3 melatonin I took and the whiskey I’m working on. I finally give up and get out of bed, settling in front of the heater  with my cup of little liquid company. The heater is of course jacked up to 80 so it will continue spewing out the heat.  I am trying to stop thinking about the dream house I saw. The house that seems like someone designed it knowing our exact aesthetic and number of inhabitants. In the exact location I have always loved. The dream house that has seemed forever as out of reach as the kids sleeping a room over and the man in my bed and me all in this country together. I am sitting on the much trafficked apartment carpet that my daughter tells me smells like feet, trying to figure out what talisman or prayer to say so I can sleep. And what bargain I can make with God.  And then I think of the Syrian refugees and the Corona virus. Will you judge me if I don’t know what the hell it is, except a serious flu? I have three kids. Someone’s always sick. Are we really going to pretend we can avoid it? Target is limiting how many cold items its patrons can check out to 5. Because of the Corona virus. Can you imagine what I’m up to at 3 in the morning?

So I’m in the mid morning silence of the apartment. The one I said was the reason we would never move home. Everyone including my baby cousin all nicely sorted into houses. Who wants to have a family of 5 in their 40’s living on an apartment?  I always said if we moved home, we’ll have to live in an apartment. And so we stayed in Chile. With a house and our dog. Really, it was the epic, unattainable dream to move north. The impossible 13 year dream. And then it happened, chasing the heels of a nightmare. And it’s 4 in the morning and I’m trying to think of a tactful way to ask God for the house.

At 2, I started watching an HBO show called the Outsider. It features Justin Bateman. I heard about it on a podcast. I like the podcast and I like Justin Bateman. In one of the opening scenes, his daughter asks him “if two teams pray to God, who wins?” Like, who does he back? The girl’s mother quickly tells her “neither.” And I sit in front of the heater and think about this.  People are freaking out about a foreign invading virus and Target is limiting cold medicine. When Target gets involved, that shit is real.  I think of the heartbreaking video I saw a few days back of trucks packed high to the sky with household goods in standstill traffic as Syrian families take everything they can and get the hell out of dodge. I’ve had to get out of dodge, more than once, but I was in no mortal fear. And I listen to the coyotes and the ducks and the fan someone left on in the 2nd bathroom. And I sit on the much loved carpet and think, here I am. In an apartment with heat I can jack to 80 and a magic portal that kicks it out in an invention I’ve been missing for the last almost 9 years called central heating. There are empty pizza boxes in the kitchen but there are no cockroaches greeting me when I turn on the lights in the middle of the night. I made my peace with them but can’t say I miss them. And there’s a dishwasher. Another magical invention I have been missing for… my whole life. I’m 42 and never had a baby or a dishwasher. But I have 3 kids. And now… a dishwasher. Let the small miracles never cease to amaze. Or the large ones will. God doesn’t care which team wins. Or where we live. I’m pretty sure. I think he does care how decent my kids turn out to be. So I talk to him about that.

I have my midnight chat with God. I won’t be asking for a house. I say thank you for the apartment. And the 3 dream babies sleeping in it. With all their sweetness and spite.  I’ll thank him for the hard one, and that she’s doing better. I’ll thank him for the husband, and that he’s sleeping here. I’ll thank him for the carpet, and that I’m sitting on it, thinking about the relatives that will soon join us here in a meet up that seemed the impossible dream not that long ago. There’s a banner up from the last birthday and I’m obsessively thinking about the next. The birthday for the babies I never knew but celebrate each year with all the satisfaction that deprivation brings.  Two of my babies are spring babies. They usher it in.  How appropriate it is that. I saw blooms on a tree yesterday evening that I swear came on overnight. And that is how magical it feels that I was 8 years in a desert and find myself here. With carpet. Did I mention that I missed that? I missed carpet. And central heating. And relatives to invite to birthdays. And my husband in a bed next to me on American soil. And attending my nephew’s and nieces birthday’s. And Easter and Trader Joes.  All of it, a miracle. After 8 years in the desert.