orange sky

I haven’t really been able to sleep for three days.

This could be due to my recent nyquil intake and my shopgirl-work-position induced retail nightmares. Ones where I am ringing up the queen beast beowulf mother of all transactions. With hundreds of items, piles of slippery clothes, bags, enormous neon yoga mats, slipping and sliding from the counter, while an angry customer who looks a lot like Hilary Clinton (with that grotesque smile mask of fury she put on when someone accuses her of being against change) hands me coupon after coupon and waits for me, impatient, angry. The ancient computer, which, in this nightmare actually sports a long silver cotton candy beard, acts as my register but groans and finally dies while I fumble to hit tiny buttons with my now ballooned fatty clown fingers. While I wait for it to re-load, I try to stall by smiling and turning away from Hilary who has started emitting red fuming breaths and I realize the gauzy tissue paper we wrap clothes in is wrapped around my face, sealed with our signature orange sticker. I can’t breathe.

So I wake up. Bolt straight. Awake. Last night it was at 5:30 AM. I went into the purple kitchen, of my purple adobe house and crossed the cool burnt orange tiles, some with little puppy prints in them, and got a glass of water. I looked out our large windows. The cactus and sad little spiky shrubs all looked a little greener with morning dew than they usually look, dried out, tanned, by desert daylight. The sky was the color of peach fuzz. Something wasn’t right though, so I went outside and felt the light, clean air shift my hair on my shoulders and make the ocotillos lean. I listened to the familiar morning coo of the doves, and the scratchy stirring of the bugs beneath the cracked sand and I realized the orangesicle mist had covered up my mountains. The giant ridges that are my home’s back drop.

And I realized I couldn’t sleep because I’m leaving soon. Not because I’m afraid Hilary Clinton is going to come into lucy looking to stock up on power pants and camis with shelf bras. I’m leaving the desert and the 5c bubble, the only homes I’ve ever known. I’m leaving my sweet turbo silver volvo s-40, my cell phone, my books, my friends, my family, my life. I’m going across the world to Ireland.

A place that I’ve read about and seen in movies and almost tasted in my Nana’s little stories about my great great grandparents. A place I’ve never been to but have always had others associate with my identity and me.

I don’t know where I’m living, what classes I’m taking, I don’t even know yet how I’m getting from the airport in Dublin to my orientation in Limerick. I have to register with the police, the gardai. I have to get insurance. I have to get an Irish bank account. I have to start packing…eventually, when I decide what I’m taking with me.

But I’m going to figure it out, and I can’t wait to go. I want to see what it looks like at 5:30 AM in Ireland.

Time for my second shot of nyquil.