Limbo

I have not been a faithful blogger. What is there to say? 10,000 things and more. But what do I want to say? That is much more limiting.

Other people's cats are curled on cushions or left outside. There are spiders all over the walls wherever I haunt, the one critter that used to send me screaming, but I've gotten used to them. I can even put a teacup over them now until L can usher them outside. Small feat. I don't like the way they move. They remind me of every human predator I've ever known.

Insomnia curls up beside me again. I know it happens when something stressful happens with my family back in America. Knowing that I can't sleep because of trouble doesn't help, probably because my little equation isn't always true. Much of the time I don't sleep because I remember the things that used to happen in the dark, or darkened places, and I can't convince my awareness to desist until daylight hours. As I explained to my mother-in-law earlier, "It's just something about the dark, but then, I can't sleep in the light."

I don't like to complain about the limbo state we're in... even though we're poor and scraping by in other people's homes and waiting for work, I still feel lucky. I feel like someone is taking care of us. And it's nice to be in love with nowhere to go. This total rootlessness though that I imagined I would like when I was a teenager picturing myself in Europe in my twenties is not as rich and contemplative as I had thought. Actually, I found that I love having charming, kind, ebullient, warm friends surrounding me, and I miss the wonderful friends that I left behind in various countries much more than I thought was possible. That is my only real complaint, and it is one motivated by love, so I don't scold myself.

So all night I have been reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, which is a masterpiece of short fiction. Read this collection if you're into stories! It deals with immigration, loss, homeland, relationships, and travel so crisply and with such insight and succinct brilliance that I can't put it down. Wow. This woman will be remembered.

I suppose I bring this little dream to a close. So tell me, Reader, do you have a cure for insomnia? I've tried the drugs and they don't work.