No, it's not an earthquake, I quickly replied. I can't feel anything. Then I turned and looked to my right. Our standing fan was shaking vigorously. I hurried to the other doorway and stood there, looking at 3 liter narrow-necked olive oil bottles that held our water. The water inside was swaying from side to side like a drunken sailor.
My husband crouched in the doorway next to me and held his laptop in one hand as he continued his Bible study with the person on the other end of the line. I watched the water's pendulous sway until finally, it stopped.
For the next couple of hours, my eyes kept straying to the water bottles, wondering if my tense muscles were another aftershock, wondering if the fan was moving again or it was just my imagination. That morning my left hand had been shaking with a quick Google search attributing it to stress and anxiety. I couldn't handle another disaster on top of the multitudinous life challenges I was already facing on a daily basis.
Then there was the guilt factor. People in adjacent countries were experiencing much, much worse. There was a call for assistance on the campus WhatsApp group but as I'd gone through our house, I'd only managed to come up with a small bag of essentials such as toothbrushes and sanitary pads. We didn't have a lot and what we did have, we were planning to take with us when we relocated in a few months. Most things were well used and not fit to be given away.
It was a very unsettling sleep that night and, once again, I dreamt about water. This time my friends and I were going to their new house up in some gorgeous natural part of the earth. We'd hiked up some road among breathtaking mountains but it had been raining and had flooded the last part of what looked like a barn area that we had to cross before we reached their home. We stepped into the thigh-high water and that was when I woke up. I don't know if we reached the other side.
Several nights earlier, I'd dreamt about putting a newborn into an airtight container so they could be safe when a tsunami wave hit. Weeks before that I'd dreamt about a tsunami wave hitting the building I was in but I was watching it from up high. In another dream, I was on rocks watching the tsunami wave come in. In both of those dreams, a large killer whale was inside the wave. In yet another dream I was running from the wave and then I went inside a beach house and the wave swept through but I was safe. There have been others but I don't remember those as vividly.
My sister told me these dreams are my subconscious telling me I feel overwhelmed. She's probably right. After more than three years of crisis, I'm not able to manage anything anymore. Banks are closed again, grocery stores doubled the price of bread if I go early enough in the morning and are lucky enough to find it, gas stations periodically open and close and the price of gas doubled in a month even though the exchange rate did not. Shops no longer put prices on their items as the price is obsolete within hours so every time I go shopping I have to constantly bring my items to a self-scanner. Inflation has gone so high, the largest bill is valued at $1.20 so I have to carry wads of cash with me everywhere I go. My weekly grocery bill has soared from around 50,000 LBP to 4,000,000 signifying the 99% devaluation of the local currency. Calculating everything in the millions, then converting it to dollars to see whether it's worth buying, is a tiring task.
Today, they told us only essential staff need to go to work. I'm not sure if that means we have the day off or we should work from home. I hate vague things like that. I hate worrying every single day about how long we should turn on the hot water heater so we have enough hot water for a shower and to wash a few dishes but don't get a bill for hundreds of dollars for utilities. I hate getting our salaries late every month and, when we do get it, getting an email from administration admonishing us to "be thankful we met payroll this month." I hate having to cook everything from scratch because pre-made items are either not available or expensive as hell and I can't justify buying them. I hate standing in the grocery store every freaking Friday, calculating and recalculating which brand is the cheapest, while also being the healthiest. I hate knowing every time I step outside my door someone will be trying to grab as much cash from me as they can, greedy in the knowledge that I am a foreigner and even if they make more money than I do, they are certain I should be supporting them financially in any means possible. I hate the dog that terrorizes me every time I go in and out of my house as it growls menacingly. I hate trying to do the budget every month and it never balancing in the dual currencies I must work with. I hate living in crisis mode, uncertain day by day what will hit next. Will it be a problem with the car? Will banks close again, causing protests on the streets with random shooting? Is it safe to go buy groceries this week or should we try to make do with 1 carrot, 3 tomatoes, and 4 potatoes? Should I buy half a pound of almonds for $3 or try to find a better price?
I listen a lot to podcasts these days. I struggle with insomnia because I leave on a freaking campus where everyone expects me to be available 24/7 to answer emails and reply to messages in WhatsApp. I don't get paid to work outside office hours but nobody cares because they are all workaholics without a life "serving the Lord" while equally neglecting their family. So when I can't go to sleep because I've seen notifications on my phone, or I wake up at 5 am with allergies and I have to take my medication so the incessant sneezing and infuriating itching will calm down, or I wake up wheezing or whistling or rattling so I have to sleep upright on the sofa for the rest of the night, I listen to a podcast. And for a moment, in the comfort of my wireless headset, I can escape this lousy life I live and hopefully fall asleep once again.
To dream of tsunamis and earthquakes.
