My third night in this room and I have a dream about my children's hair and my hair. I dream that there are bright blue beads bound-up in my daughter's pigtails, and crystal coloured roses hanging from my braids. My son is sleeping in his perambulator, in my dream, with green leaves woven in and out of his thick nappy hair. We are in an old-fashioned train, and I do not know why. This almost worries me, but doesn't. We are riding somewhere, giggling as we go, holding our heads out the window and watching our hair grow farther and farther and farther out into the whipping winds.

When I wake I feel the soft heave-ho of my daughter sleeping against my side.

I stay awake and watch the light from the street lamp on the ceiling for awhile. Neither the street light nor the ceiling change, but the light swells and shifts and moves, and so do the shadows.

Things have really changed in this new place, I guess. And maybe things really can change. I brought my children here for a new life. Maybe we are finding it. Maybe I am discovering things that are real, finally. Am I? Is this all more real than it's ever been before? Maybe so. Maybe not, though, maybe not. Maybe it's only real in the same way that everything before was real. It feels real. Maybe we will get somewhere real sometime soon. Maybe I should go back to sleep.

Maybe I am drinking diamonds in the desert, and maybe you are too.