Hope

Yesterday was a rainy day here in Southern Idaho. It was that gentle, cold, fall rain that doesn't do much of anything but fall. I don't know if it was the rain, or the state of my life that lent a grayness to my day as I headed off to fulfill my obligation with the state. Offspring's "Get a Job" started to blare on the radio as I pulled out of the driveway. I listened and sang along with the entire song. I owned the CD when owning CDs was a thing cool people did. The lyrics added to my grayness.

I greeted my friend in Arabic when I entered the classroom. She greeted me with a joyous smile in return. We were learning about conflict resolution in the workplace. I was grouped with my friend, another refugee, and a woman my age who was once a teacher. Would I use these techniques? Maybe, I wasn't that interested in the topic, choosing it only because of the longer class time, which fulfills my obligation to the state. My friend and the other woman struggled to understand, and I realized as I went to pull out my phone to help translate, that I've forgotten it.

After class, I took care of paperwork, and then once in my car, I sat for a minute. I could use some real hope. I turned the radio to the Christian rock station.  Just anything hopeful. The first song I heard is about how you can stop making bad decisions, and how you can go back to God. I don't think I ever really left God. I don't like this song, its not hopeful. I flipped through the channels and end up back on the same radio station. A song about how God was changing the singer through the little inconveniences in life blared. I turned the radio off.  I needed hope, not drivel.

I drove through the school zone and watch as mothers and fathers drove erratically--one woman cut me off as I turned right, in the process she barely missed running over three children crossing the street. She turned a u-turn directly in front of me and oncoming traffic, narrowly missing the same three children she tried to run over in the first crosswalk. Maybe everything is hopeless. Between this disregard for the lives and safety of children, and the disregard for life everywhere, it really does seem hopeless.

When I walked into the house, my husband greeted me, "hey, you forgot your phone. I texted you but then I saw your phone on the bed, so you didn't get it."  "Yeah, I know. I realized I forgot it once I was there."  "Anyway," he continued, "I have an interview tomorrow." With that, a small sliver of hope took hold. I looked at the sofa and saw a package. I took it to my room and found the packing list to determine where it came from. A friend sent something for the kids' for Christmas. I reminded myself that just the night before I opened a box delivered from Amazon, with no sender's name, but with cheesy potatoes and other wonderful things for our family. Who was I to feel hopeless in this world?

Today, the phone rings fifteen minutes before the scheduled time of my husband's interview. Surprisingly, its for me. I interviewed two days ago for a job in Oregon. They were calling to invite me to the second round of interviews to take place on Monday. I'm excited. My husband is too. He cloisters himself into the girls' room at the little sewing table/desk. The kids and I commit ourselves to absolute silence. Nearly an hour later he emerges, smiling. It sounds like he will be on the call-back list for the second round.  He'll have to drive to Washington to interview in person.

Hope. I needed hope. Now I clutch it closely as we try to figure out how to meet not just our basic needs, but the added necessities of traveling. But we do have that hope to hold on to.