12.13.2007

Tie Two Birds Together...



I have just woken up. I figure it’s after noon but I could be wrong. I don’t wear a watch anymore and have no clock in my room. I’ll have to wait for the town clock to chime on the hour. The call to prayer just went off. That would give me a clue if I was Muslim and praying, but I’m not. I am fasting though. Today at least. The last day of Ramadan.

I am in Essaouira. I was in my village on Friday and decided to stay there this year for the end of Ramadan instead of going to Goulamime with the rest of the Tata volunteers. I told my family, when I left for Tata Friday morning, that I would return on Saturday or Sunday. I’ve been feeling some guilt lately for not giving my village the attention they want from me. So I was going to go to Tata to make them cookies for the end of Ramadan.

In Tata I decided I would also call K. I figured he had probably received my collage letter. But when I called, the phones were down. I couldn’t get through. This set me off and I felt like I had backed down in some way by dialing his number and the least I could get from it was to be able to talk to him. Instead...nothing. I started thinking of coming to Essaouira.

K’s mother just walked in to go on the patio clothesline.

This experience, part two of this love story, is beginning on a very good note. I decided to hang around Tata, to prolong my urge to hop a bus and see if the phones cleared on Saturday, which they did. He was glad to hear from me, said he had received my letter and that I am a genius when it comes to putting these things together. He said he didn’t have the patience to do it. He also said whoever saw him drunk in Marrakesh was mistaken because he wasn’t there. Essaouira, on the other hand, is quite possible. Not falling over drunk though. He has a reputation to uphold.

Saturday I wrote out a little note to my village family and gave it to a taxi driver to deliver to their house. I told them I was going to Goulamime. If I said I was going to Essaouira they’d be worried. I took a bus, then another bus and a grand taxi, twelve hours yesterday to get here. He knew I was coming but didn’t expect me until 6 or so, right before the call to prayer. I showed up at 4:30, walked right into his room, where he was watching TV cuddled up in bed. There, laying beside him, I realized how good it was for me to come now. The timing is perfect.

Before, we were having problems with the alcohol. More like I was having problems with the something that he considered more important to have than me. This led to power struggles. I would get needy at the same times he needed space and I am slow to learn how to keep my neediness and need for reassurance to myself. Displaying it results in the opposite effect that I want. They end up pulling away from me.

This is my goal this week, to practice self control, self assurance, and space, to not dramatize this one week as if it’s all that I have and to see that it is only a small portion of the picture. The big picture exceeds all borders and boundaries that I can not even fathom.



After breaking fast with dates, pasties, coffee, and soup, we went for a walk around town so he could shop for shoes. He kept reaching over and putting his hand around my waist, or a finger locked in my finger. I felt so alive and present in the crowded market streets. We came home to eat and then went back out for a walk on the ocean. He began talking about how so many people here know him and he doesn’t have a clue who they are. He said how all the young guys in this town give him more respect than he deserves, that everyone seems always more concerned with what he’s going to do next instead of what he’s presently doing. That gives him extra pressure. If he decided to run for mayor or something, he’d get the votes. They’re already trying to get him to run.

I said K, ya know, the way you live in Essaouira is much like myself in my village. Everyone’s always in your business, always keeping up with your whereabouts and what your doing. You’re the center of attention. Of course this is on a different scale, but he agreed.



It’s about 3:30 now. I’m on the ledge of a wall at the ocean. I just found me a stick. Every person that passed me had their own and so I felt I needed one too. Since all the rain the tide is high and has washed up all kinds of soot and sticks on the beach. Essaouira is usually a wide open long beach. Now there’s hardly any sand left uncovered to walk. I’ve never seen it like this.

At this moment, these past 24 hours, I’ve never been so content and peaceful, wholeheartedly in love with life. K and I can sit and look at each other and forget to breathe. Last night, laying next to him, wrapped up in his arms, both of us looking into each other’s eyes, I said to him, “I like you. I mean really really like you.” I’m not caught up in the relationship like I was before. We are both appreciating each other for being who and how we are, with our glorious imperfections.

Last night at a cafe having coffee I told him how I want to go on vacation, travel some. He agreed. He said, “We should take a week or so in March or April and go around the country.” I asked if he was serious because if he wasn’t serious I needed to make plans on my own. He responded, “Well I can go on my own, too, ya know,” and grabbed hold of my nose.

Maybe it’s that I’ve never been with someone that was really serious about being with me. He’s not thinking of how long we have before we may end, but instead what a long road it’s going to be. I don’t think we’re going to end. I never thought that before with anyone. I’m Miss Fickle Kitty.

He wants to buy another house in a small village outside Essaouira. I can see it from where I’m sitting. It’s at higher elevation and you can see all of Essaoiura surrounded by the port and ocean. He wants a place where he can have cows, goats, chickens, cats, and dogs, with no noise and few neighbors but close enough to Essaouira. He wants a boat to sail on for weeks at a time, months even.

Now? He has his art gallery in a big house--a room of rugs, a room of sculptures, a room of antiques. He has his exporting business, his friends from all over the world, his sense of humor. He has his beautiful smile and happy eyebrows, his wit, his love of beauty. He has his car rental business, his close family, his four new bikes, new satellite TV, new phone in his room, new refrigerator, and me. Maybe me. So far so good but I’m definitely a slippery catch.

It was well worth it to suffer through that last trip to Rabat without coming to Essaouira. No, I’m not forgetting the dark side of him. I’ve seen it. But through my last few letters and distance, he has seen it too--in himself. I can now remind him of it when he starts up, say, now dear? Your dark side is coming out again. Will you go away for awhile until it leaves?

What I would like is that he understand it’s alright to run away from me when he needs to. He can have the space he needs. He can also understand that he doesn’t have to go get wasted to do it. We were getting in a pattern thing these last two times. He, I believe, was overwhelme. I was making him have to reevaluate his whole life. He was fighting me with the alcohol. He was having to face that ugly face of his because I handed him the mirror. He resented me. It was my fault that he looked the way he did because I was the one that made him look. It seems this time he’s more secure. I’m more secure. We’re both here for each other where as we haven’t been before.

If you look at how my past is with boys and men, with the few relationships (hardly) I’ve had, and you set it next to his, they’re probably very similar. We’re both afraid of loving someone else. To love someone else means that we have to open still some places of ourselves that we don’t really want to look at. We both must realize that we are still two people with two lives.

“Tie two birds together, they will not be able to fly. Even if they now have four wings.” -Jalaludin Rumi

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