The Desert of the Undeserving
I am no better than Israel, yearning to return to Egypt and my enslavement
“#3 – The people complained about the bitter water – Exodus 15:22 This is when you are faced with the bitterness of changing your diet from the things of the world to the things of God. Like asking a child to go from sugary foods to eating their vegetables, it never happens without a protest.” — “How Israel Complaining 14 Times Mirrors Your Christian Journey,” One Lord One Body Ministries
I have never fully understood, or appreciated, the Old Testament of the Bible. After Hollywood made a movie about the “Ten Commandments,” I became even more disillusioned with a stubborn, selfish, sinful Israel.
Even after Moses — acting on G-d’s mercy, love, and deep wisdom — led his people miraculously out of Egypt, they still complained bitterly. Nothing was ever good enough, compared to where they came from — as slaves, from one generation to the next.
They saw nothing but an empty, foreign wasteland, the desert, and instantly wished for their slavish routines again, scraps from their master’s golden table. Like dogs to their vomit.
They made me sick and seething with anger. I could never be one of them. Oh no, I would be grateful and eagerly embrace my new surroundings. After all, I saw the Lord part the Red Sea for Moses and his people. How could I ever go back after such a miracle…miracle after miracle…delivering me not only from slavery but certain death?
Yet, here I am, three years later, and still wishing I never moved from Washington, where I lived (and truth be told, suffered) for most of my life, growing a family, going through undiagnosed ER asthma, then cancer, scraping together friends all over again, watching them come and go and fuck me over and die, even scoring a job I could be proud of.
I miss my son, who went back in the spring of 2022, because, like the Israelites, he could not bear leaving his familiar surroundings and community of friends. I made sure of it, because I remember as a child, I could not bear leaving myself; I swore I wouldn’t do that to my child…mission accomplished, ironic world.
I miss the people and places I used to know, the sight of a bald eagle floating majestically from pine tree top to pine tree top in the moody Seattle sun, as I walked around my Wingate neighborhood, pretending I wasn’t depressed as hell.
I miss where I’ve been so much, I begin to tell lies to myself about it. I smooth over the edges, the open and passive-aggressive racism, elitism, pretense…the closed doors and fake “how do you dos” before the ghosting. I forget the slights, betrayals, losses, just as I have before, when my parents made me move from place to place before I ever got my footing…until I soon forgot how to make friends, hid from the world, and gave up on life itself.
I disparage where I am now, the slower pace, the hotter weather, the long tumbleweed silences, the white-people steak-finger food, hopelessly stuck in the ‘70s (they still serve egg foo yung here!).
It smells like cow dung and desperation. Terrible winds whip up suddenly, sending garbage cans flying one minute, then blistering heat, then hail.
It’s like we’re play-acting a home and a neighborhood, going to what looks like a Costco, just like in Seattle (but not really), waiting in a line at a carbon copy of a Pike Place Market Starbucks for a green tea latte, grande hot, trying to fool ourselves into believing it’s not that bad here.
Close but no cigar…
I’ve done this moving so many times, you’d think I’d be used to it by now. But each and every time, I’m an Israeli slave, a dandelion in its final growth, tossed to and fro, wishing I could just find a place to stay…a place to call my own, where true friends never let me go.
I’m no better than the Israelites.
When we finally moved out of Washington to Idaho, it was during the height of an unprecedented pandemic, following the lockdowns. We didn’t even know if we’d make it across the state without dropping dead of an unknown, lethal virus from Wuhan, China.
It’s a modern miracle we made it. Looking back, we should’ve been more like Moses and his family, eternally grateful to be spared, plucked out of slavery, and set free.
Washington, similarly to Hawaii, was a chokehold on our rights and freedoms. It was and increasingly is even more costly to live. I know of at least one long-time resident forced to pull up generational roots and make the long, lonely drive down to New Mexico to start over, well into her 30s-40s. I can almost feel her shock and despair in the Instagram stories she posts, pushing the positive aspects of her new home…making do.
I’m slowly coming out of the denial and stupidity of my ungratefulness, to realize that I have been given a rare gift and, more importantly, my entire gypsy life prepared me to receive it. You know that saying, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?”
Before today and this moment, I’ve faltered, like everyone else…
I’ve moved away from all I’ve known before, only to return and try to make it all over again. I did it after I got married in Hawaii and moved ‘cross country to Spring Hill, FL. Didn’t work. The same bullshit that plagued us in Hawaii plagued us again. It’s why more Hawaiians are leaving than ever before, right now.
I dare you to move like I did, and stay put. You don’t have the guts to leave everything and everyone behind, because it is the right thing to do, even if it doesn’t make sense to the rest of the world stuck in their comfort zone.
You couldn’t do what I’ve done. You couldn’t do it.
You’ll put up with the higher and higher prices, the endless taxation without representation, the impossible real estate market only high-priced attorneys, doctors, and high techies can afford, the jacked-up congestion and traffic jams, the gang and drug problems, the Seattle Freeze and the aching fall to spring darkness of the soul… You’ll put up with it all, because to consider the alternative is too much.
You’ll pretend it’s red meat you’re eating, and not scraps from the Master’s golden table.
You’re dug in and attached too much.
Nope, you could never move away, not for all the freedom in the world.
But I did, and I’m done complaining. Watch me grow where I’m planted…
Inbox • Chat with Amy
YES to this. I find myself longing for Washington when I was never happy there. It’s like Stockholm syndrome or something.
Lol... Glad I'm not alone
Nope, definitely not. It embarrasses me that I feel that way too.
Texas is so much better in so many ways, but I’m over here longing to be miserable again lol
Like wtf.
I realize there's a reason Israelites resisted change even if it meant returning to slavery. If we can find one person or even a place to call our own, it helps...
So many more people won't move even when they're scraping by... It's like they don't want to make new friends.
They don’t. They want familiarity over change. It’s easier in some ways, but also a prison of your own making.
I hated the weather, the passive aggressive behavior, the racism, the cost, the elitism of the West Coast.
It made me feel like I was dying.
And those mfer’s tried to act like I was the problem. They were partially right. Their culture was not mine.
I’m also not American, so that might have something to do with it too…
— Amy
Well, hey, you can always watch Grey’s and Station 19 when you’re missing Seattle. Maybe sip on a Starbucks to make it complete!