My Husband's Dream - Washington D.C.

It's my first time in eight years we've visited Washington D.C. It's my husband's dream to serve the U.S. government and we haven't been in D.C. since Ivry was born. A trip is in order.

We board the Greyhound bus from Pittsburgh. One scruffy looking bearded man talks to himself, and another young man walks around pulling up his pants with one hand while eating a sandwich with another. My husband stares. Out of the three of us, Ivry is the only one who doesn't seem to care so much. I can tell what my husband is thinking.

The bus leaves a half an hour behind schedule. If only we would have taken Megabus...I think to myself. The true "If Only" - we didn't have to ride buses all the time...I'm so sick of them...

The students don't seem to care.

Ivry's white socked legs protrude in the aisles and I lift them up for student passengers who want to go to the bathroom. And I... I listen to the conversation in front of me between two students. I am unable to sleep. Unable to think any productive thoughts, I just stare at the foamy blackness of the sleepy looking houses. I'm in reverie - thinking of what our life would be like once Haim gets a good paying job working for the federal government, and I can live out my writer's dream. If only we didn't have to ride buses all the time...


Students have a tendency to speak so loudly as if they don't have a care in the world. I drown out the noise by nuzzling my nose next to my husband's neck who sits in the seat in front of me. I whisper to him of my day in Hebrew and we catch up on sentiments and plans. Washington D.C.

But then I think, maybe there is some sense in paying attention to the conversation. I listen to the conversation in front of me:

-I've never been to any place outside the United States.
-Me neither. I want to go to Japan.


***

-So where are you from?
-Do you like the U.S.?
-I know a little Spanish.

***

I pretend it is me that is talking. My voice. Colored in a rainbow of cultures, languages and mentalities from years.


Their voices are green. New. Fresh.

I think back to my years as a freshman at SUNY Albany but there is nothing in those memories to sustain me.

I am tempted to just stick my head in-between their chairs and say, "Israel? What about Israel?"

And my husband and I become the "dream weavers" - he works at the government and I serve people in the area of cultural diversity and life story. I was meant to bring change in a very creative way that goes beyond cultural boundaries.

So what is my vision?