I worked a full day yesterday - 8+ hours between tutoring and driving, four students in four different locations. I typically try not to pack a Saturday so much, but it ended up happening. I came home to all of the moldy laundry done - which also means we're no longer allergic to our closet. Given our allergy, doing this laundry is almost debilitating, but we need clothes to wear and the insurance adjuster hasn't given me an action step yet on having someone else do it. So by the time I arrived home from work, Rebecca had spent the whole day exposed to mold spores and was curled up on the couch.
I've found that leaving the apartment while the dust mites and mold spores settle is usually helpful, so I dragged her to the city with me.
And on the way, I realized something. Most days, when I'm feeling happy, or sad, or overwhelmed, there's a place in the city I want to go. Belle Isle. The Charles Wright Museum. The Fisher Theatre. Rose's Fine Food. Eastern Market. The People Mover. The sleep porch at our house.
Our house.
And I realized: we are working to buy something, a home, a haven, in my happy place. I realized that I will have the fluttery feeling I get from catching a glimpse of tree-lined streets, or the Detroit skyline, or the bridge to Belle Isle - every time I pull into my driveway. I'll be able to tuck myself into the sleeping porch (soon to be my writing studio) with a cup of tea and write, or draw, or sit with a cat on my lap and look out at the tree tops.
I am so blessed. And I have worked so hard. And it feels good to realize that working so hard sometimes leads to something, because for a long, long time in the Recession and when my civil rights were denied over and over, it felt like maybe working hard wouldn't result in happiness. It was starting to feel like drudgery.
So we tried to go to Noel Night, decided it was too crowded, and then ended up at Downtown Louie's Lounge, a cozy Albanian American spot near Campus Martius. We had cheese plate and rosemary fries and lemon souffle and talked about finding a new place like that close to our house.
We're not closed yet, but just the dreams have done my soul good.
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