Essaouira square

Essaouira café square once again, having spent four days in Marrakech, four days in Rabat, and finishing it off with a crisp cool breeze that will liven me for the quick trip back. My hands are hennaed. Coffee hasn’t come yet. Now its come. Shoeshine boys are giving a little bitty guy wedgies, lifting him up into the air.

I have an English couple sitting behind me talking about something I wish I could understand. But with all the birds chirping in what looks like a magnolia tree, and the oodles of men chatting around me at their coffee tables, and the sound of drums, footsteps, sandals slopping over the tiled streets, I can’t even here my own language next to me. A crazy man is walking around with a sword-like stick attached to his back held by two pieces of rope. And women in full black hikes are pacing along the tile with only their eyes showing through.

The air is cold. I can feel the goosebumps grow underneath my shirt every time the wind blows over me. The sun is down and the lights are on, one by one along the row of cafés in this square.

Letter to a father with cancer

Dear Dad,

I got the long awaited letter today and I wonder how it would have been had I not called you Saturday. I’m glad I didn’t have to find out that way because I believe it would have been harder to digest. I told S about it yesterday and word seems to have spread fast. The sheik, who I’m sitting with right now, just asked about you.  I’m glad I’m in this village. It feels very much like home these days, and very much like family.

I haven’t slept in my house since I’ve been back from the states. It’s too hot, and the scorpions! Oh God! I found one yesterday under my pillow in my house when I went home midday to take a nap. I laid down on the pillow and thought hmmm, I should probably check things out since it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been home. It was four inches long and yellow.

It’s just me and the sheik. He just bent over and asked, “letter?” He’s now gone to see why a kid’s crying. Just came back in. I was thinking earlier how nice it is to see him play with his little kid even though he’s so much older. He’s got to be in his seventies. He really does take the time to give him attention, as do most people here. They seem to really love kids. Of course, here, there’s no such thing as child abuse. They’ll slap a kid in a second.

I’m on the roof with pretty stars tonight. It’s a half moon. The cornfields are nearing six feet tall and date harvest is close. I’d say we’re about a fourth of the way through now. In another month the flies will be unmanageable. 

There was a Newsweek article I read today about twins born to a woman through in-vitro fertilization, but the clinic did a mix-up and one baby was black. I explained this somehow to R today and she understood. I guess my language is coming along.

The sheik just said hello and thank you. For what I don’t know. The clothes, maybe? I had three French guys stay at the sheik's Tuesday night. I know one of them from Agadir. He’s a friend with the PCVs there. Of course, once he came to the village, he became married to my girlfriend and the two friends were his brothers and they were married too. They had lots of kids and no interest in me. I’m still having to explain it, lying through my teeth. 

By dinner the sheik told them I was like one of his kids, pointing off to his son J. The Kayid was there too and said, low and behold, I had become Tashlheit. It was a great experience for the guys and a nice trial run to see if my village can handle male visitors. They can.

The sheik is going through the Newsweek, looking at pictures, occasionally testing the extent of my Tashlheit, demanding answers and explanations. The Oklahoma incident. China.

The doctor just walked in smoking the butt of a cigarette. He then threw it off the roof, sat down, and lit another. He says hello to you. He says if you want to be well, really want to be well, then you will do it yourself or something like that. Bad translation, sorry. 

The sheik just asked the doctor what was wrong with you because I told the sheik to ask S since I couldn’t explain it. The doctor started and then turned to me a little unsure. I said it was no problem. He could just ask S. He said, no. He won’t understand pancreas. Animals do not have a pancreas.

Tonight, and until this is all over, we’ll be thinking about you over here. You’ve been blessed a million times and I’m learning all the God phrases for sick people. It’s worth something.

I didn’t call you Monday. I don’t have an excuse. I’m scared, I guess. I think I’m going to Tata Monday and will call you then.

S just walked in, picked up the Newsweek, and threw it at me saying, “I don’t know English! I don’t want to know English. Tashlheit, French, and Arabic. That’s it.”

The doctor’s also drunk I now realize. In fact, I think S might be a little drunk too. He went off about how women are difficult. We should only be machines that pop out children. We shouldn’t think we’re equal because we’re always below men. Men are always above women. It’s nature...and see--men have the muscles. I stopped him fast, said, “and you have them?” He’s a stick. I have much more meat and could throw him down in seconds.

I hope you’ve enjoyed an hour in the life of Dorian. 

I love you and am thinking of you often.

Aid el Kabir and the Bastard Children

I’m taking a mid-day break in my humble abode, glancing around at my artwork on the walls. I’m glad to be back, even though I was very insecure about it. Yesterday was Aid el Kabir, the Moroccan holiday when each family slaughters a sheep and eats meat for three days straight. Since they all think I’m vegetarian, they think I’m starving. I walked into the kitchen yesterday and the sheikh's wife was fixing lunch. I looked in the pot and saw a jaw bone with teeth. 

It was interesting to watch them pull the fur and skin off the carcass in one long piece, not to mention when they blew through the sheep’s asshole to clean it out and flush it with water. I walked around the village greeting men with blood-splattered noses and cheeks, in between the butcher knife hacking. This holiday commemorates the story from the Old Testament when Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, to prove his faith in God. God sent a sheep instead, stuck in a fence, at the last moment.

This holiday reminds me of Thanksgiving. It’s a time of reunion and feast, a time of family. The men working abroad have come home, as well as students in college. Many people marry around this time. Next week are all the village weddings. I went to a circumcision this morning. It’s a big deal here. They do it when the boy is about four. The little boy looked sad in his mother’s lap with his crown on his head. His clothes were stark white against the worn rug and dirt floor. 

American, my neighbor, has got big problems. His oldest daughter is pregnant without a husband. The police came to warn him not to do anything, like murder. I think she might have been sleeping with some of them.

R’s sister was seen at some boy’s house. Her brother beat the shit out of her and she moved out. She’s still in the village somewhere. R said he pulled a knife on her.

Some man saw me and R on our bikes, heading off into the mountains. He thought I was a boy and started a rumor that R was off with a man. When she found out she caused an enormous scene, screaming and thrashing her arms about.

A Desert Flood

I came into Tata last Tuesday, planning to head out to my village Thursday to leave for our vaccination drive into the mountains, but everything changed. I went by SIAPP to see when the nurses were heading up to my village for the Polio drive, so I could catch a ride. All vaccination drives were cancelled because all vehicles were down in Akka, Liz’ village, an hour south. They wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon due to the mass destruction and chaos the village was in.

I saw it on the Egyptian news. Five villages make up Akka. Liz’ village was one of the worst hit. Her village is set at the base of a mountain. Two riverbeds wind around each side of it. Heavy rains north sent a flood and two four foot walls of water wrapped around each side of the mountain, crashing into each other at the village’s center. There were an estimated 600 houses destroyed, 14 deaths, 1500 dead animals, including 150 drowned camels that are now traveling downstream somewhere. With all of this, we decided to catch a ride to Akka to see what we could do.


Peace Corps called SIAPP last week to check on Liz, to see if her house still stood. It did. She lives on the second floor of one of the few concrete houses. She and her downstairs family stood on the balcony and watched all of the houses around hers fall. When one neighbor asked if their house had fallen, Liz had to turn to them and say yes.


Liz looks tired and drained. Standing on her roof Saturday, I saw what used to be homes, but are now piles of rock and mud. The sound of three motors can be heard over everything, sucking out the pond that sits in the midst of cement blocks, wooden beams, and wet blankets of mud. Frogs have come out of nowhere, and are multiplying as fast as the locusts that swarmed through last month.



It is incomprehensible to me that there could have been that much water, that it could have come through here with such damaging force. I could describe and describe in detail and you still wouldn’t see it. A tornado I can understand. A hurricane I can understand. An earthquake could have done it. But this is the desert! I have only seen rain twice since I’ve been south. It makes no sense that a flood rush of fast water could bolt through this village and do this much damage in a matter of an hour.


People are worried about some kind of epidemic breaking out, like cholera. The fifteenth death was found yesterday, a young girl buried under the rubbage. It’s chaotic down here. Few people know how to handle this. Men are trying to get the dead animals out, taken away, and buried. Men in business suits get out of the many trucks and cars that have come. They pile in and out estimating damage. Bulldozers are on their way to start clearing out this mess.



And over against the side of buildings, or under the shade, are the many village men sitting on their asses, doing absolutely nothing. I want to run up to them, kick them off their ass, to start helping out. The fatalistic attitude of some Moroccans drives me crazy. God meant for it to happen, so they're drinking their mint tea waiting for God to clean up.

Eelah gh agharrass

August 1995

While learning Tashlheit, I have noticed times when I hear something I've never heard before and then I hear it all the time after that. So when I heard eela gh agharrass, I didn't forget it. Not because I heard it a million times within the last two-three-four days, but because I played it over and over in my head that first time trying to decide the appropriate meaning.

Eelah can be "it is" or "there is" or "he is" and agharrass can mean "a way" or "a road". The sound gh is a preposition meaning "in" or "at" or who really knows anyway.

Anyway, I figured it could mean "there is a way" or "it is on the way" or "it is in the way" or "it is a road" or "it is on the road", and I mean I heard it every time I walked into a room. It was always said with a bit of sarcasm, like sarcastic preaching.

I thought maybe it had to do with the heat, like the heat's on its way out the door, or when we had couscous, I thought they said it because it was an unbelievable amount of couscous to be dealing with. So today, I broke down and asked, a little nervous about asking these things because I feel I'm expected to know it or it's assumed that I know it because I've heard it a million times in the past two-three-four days.

A stranger came walking through the village last week, so it seems, a little coo-coo in the head. He came in the heat of mid-day, from 25-30 km away, on foot. No car. No donkey. No nothin'. He came walking through this neighborhood with his little bag and someone asked him where he was going.

Eelah gh agharrass.

It's the village joke now, their answer for everything. Where are you going? eelah gh agharrass. What are you doing? Eelah gh agharass. Why are you doing that? Eelah gh agharrass.

Dorian in bloom

Up to now, this blog has been a memoir, written from the journal of my past. It is of the time that I lived in a small Berber village in the deep south of Morocco. It took an hour from the nearest small city and then another thirty minute dusty drive through the open flat desert to the edge of the stone mountains and my village of 2000, an oasis of date palms. I got water from wells and electricity from a village generator, only for a couple of hours each evening. I lived there for two years.

When I left Morocco, I left behind a family that I had grown very close to. In that small village, they took me in and I became part of their family. The shiekh with his two sons and all of their wives and children. They supported me through my father's cancer and taught me their language and culture and laughed at me and my many mistakes. They welcomed me open-hearted, and were with me from the very beginning, when I was so disoriented, to the end, as the Dorian in bloom.

I left twelve years ago and had no contact since. I've thought about them almost every day, though, and dreamed about them often. That experience has remained so close to me. I kept many journals of my time in Morocco and always wanted to share them. It wasn't until four months ago that I decided to start a blog with them.

Magically, a couple of days ago, I received an invitation to chat from M, my "brother" in my village. I didn't receive the message until later and when I saw his name on that email address, my heart skipped a beat. It was like the moment I've been waiting for for such a very long time.

We instant messaged, with his wife and girls beside him. I talked to his daughter N in French and Tashlheit. She's now 22 and studying to be a nurse. She was ten the last time I saw her. One of his other daughters sent me an invitation to video chat when I wasn't at my computer. She was two the last time I saw her. Amazing.

I feel so grateful to have them in my life again, in my present. In fact, I'm feeling so grateful to have all that I have right now, in my present, as the Dorian blooming again.

For many of you, this is the first time you're reading this blog. This is the first time you've even heard of this blog. And I'm sure some of you are asking why it took so damn long for me to give you the address to this blog. The answer is quite simple. I had to let go.

I am letting go...

Here continues my journal of my time in Morocco. For my current life, go to my other blog, Dorian in Bloom.

Always Check for Scorpions

Photo by John Reid

I was going to take a nap, got as far as getting my clothes off, laying down on my pillow propped against my wadded up sleeping bag, and closing my eyes. Then, I thought, you know? I should probably check for scorpions. After all, it's been two weeks. So I lifted up my pillow. Nothing. I lifted up my sleeping bag and low-and-behold, the fucker was sleeping underneath it.

I found out he wasn't dead when he lifted his big ass of a stinger in the air and ran towards me.

Now he's in a jar. I thought, hmmm....maybe I'll send him home in a cassette case, but he won't fit. A videotape case maybe will work.

In the land of R

Her sister's off in jail somewhere, got charged with prostitution. Two months. Z told me not to go to her house anymore. That if I want to talk to R, have her come to their house. S says they need to run away. R needs to go off to Agadir or something and find a job.

I just came back from R's. Her mother was fanning the flies off the face of her grandchild, her illigitimate grandchild. And now she cries nightly, daily about how her family could possibly be falling apart like this.
When her sister ran away the first time, taking her mom's money wrapped up in a scarf, she ran off to a house in this village for five days. Then she took a taxi to Tata.

When questioned if she stayed at the man's house, she said yes. When they asked if he gave her money, she said yes. And though he gave her money and she stayed at his house, and that's all that happened, they call it prostitution.

She won't talk. She's quiet anyway, shy, keeps those brains all locked up in her head and doesn't share 'em with anybody. She isn't defending herself.

S says, "Yeah. And her other sister doesn't even live in that house. She and her baby are in another house."

"I know," I reply.
"You know?"
"Yes, like four months ago she moved there."
S looks surprised. "Well I just found out yesterday. How is it you know more than I do?"
"There's no man in the house, that's why," he continues. And just a couple of days ago Liz was recollecting all the girls she knows that are strong, speak their minds, do what they want, get into trouble, and there's no man in their houses either.

15 days, Z says, R and her mother have been having it out, fighting all the time. Momma raised her girls to be strong, stand up for what's right. But what's right? And so she rubs her fingers ever so softly along her necklace of prayer beads, pleading to God to care ofr her and her poor children asking, "Why have you brought this to me when I've tried to do good?"

R curses it all. She's got that brain racing. She's saying you mother fucking family, why'd you have to go and fuck it all up for me? I had my true love waiting to marry me, and now, now I have a sister that went and fucked a whiter man, giving us this bastard child, and another one that's gone off to prison because she won't open her mouth and tell her story.

I remember when the letter came. She tore it up right after she read it, the letter saying he didn't want her anymore.

A Taste of America in the Sahara

In my friend's village...


"Oh the irony!"I chanted, walking out of the TV room, after Laila Khadija called me to the TV and pointed her arms up as if using a rifle. Sean O’Conner was playing some James Bond role on TV. Liz said, "Yeh! It’s like one time I heard Soundgarden on the show Taxi Music and Kiltoum asked if I danced like that in the States. You know, like it was a bunch of guys dancing around with a garden hose." Or when the three black women of this house walked in Liz’ kitchen in their black wraps, and asked why I had the top off the pressure cooker. Why is this American cooking their Moroccan dinner? What is this? Or then, just downstairs, at the little corner store, they were watching a special on the tube about the American women’s sailing team. Here in this oasis by the Saharan mountains, America still reaches.


We went up to the big white house last night. We were summoned earlier in the day to come at 5:00 but were late because of the discussion group we were attempting to finish in the white section of town. I had a headache and was all stressed out because of the pressure to write down everything they were saying. I wouldn’t have been freaking out if the loud, obnoxious woman would’ve let us tape the conversation as planned. But no. She was afraid that somehow her husband would find out. They were such wonderfully horrific stories about the health staff.

I saw an old, cute woman sitting on the ground, her back against her mud house, rubbing her prayer beads. Her hennaed braids snuck out from under her black wrap. She had few teeth but a good smile anyway. When we asked her what she was doing, she informed us she was waiting for God to take her away. Where? we asked. She pointed over yonder and said, why, where the dead people are, as if we should've known. She seemed ready to go.

We had tea at another woman’s house. She told us the story of her nine children, one dead, with a son in Casa, another in Rabat, one in Tangier. All are married but the two girls and one son in the house. A few extra women were hanging about while a soccer game played on the TV. An old frail woman next to us kept cracking jokes that she thought much funnier than myself. Her laughing at her cute self was what moved me the most.
 
Rumor has it that the king was on TV last night and told everyone not to kill a sheep for L’Aid this year. There’s not enough sheep for every family to do it. Given they’ve been doing this holiday for hundreds of years, I can’t see people going for the request. The family above us said they were gonna move the slaughter into a room and eat away. Perhaps others will be glad they don’t have the pressure of the thousand dirhams for the sheep. Taking their sheep away on this day is like the president asking us not to have Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving.

Clearing space

I have pried open my chest, ribs and all, and energy flows out. I am no longer restricted to this body. This body has not much to do with the energy around me. Something watches over me and takes care of me.

The drinking is not the problem, it’s our relationship. We have some matching pieces that fit into the puzzles of our lives, with a connection beyond us and in the hands of God. Our control? We are not in control. Something else guides us, with very slow progress, though nonetheless progressing, inching us down our paths.

I think too quick. He thinks too quick too but he thinks I’m moving too quick. He did think that at least. Maybe no longer, since I explained on that last walk to the beach that he was scaring the shit out of me. I can feel myself putting up a new wall often. I asked if he considered the fact that I might be pushing away and am so close, so ready, so scared that I want to leave. He thought I meant Essaouira. I said, no, I want to leave you. He asked if I wanted to break his heart.

This was the beginning of the end. He had run me down, forced me to let it all go and expose the raw me, to see if it’s what he really can take. He pushed me and pushed me and now I wonder why? Was it to see how much I can take before I fall over and have to be picked up?

He picked me up that night. He said he’d get me out of there and take me to Agadir. He said he was wrong for convincing me to stay those extra three days, that it’s not good for me, and it’s time to get me out.

I know it was a big deal to drive down with me to Agadir, especially to stay all night. There were several times he was contemplating a return trip during the night. I was making him extremely nervous because of my extreme unpredictability. Every time we pull up to any liquor store, he’s not sure how I’ll react, or if and when I’ll lose control. Last night I beat the shit out of the driver’s seat, slamming the palm of my hand against the vinyl seat as hard as I could until I was tired and out of breath.

I am sick. He sees this now where he didn’t see it before. He was genuinely sorry, I believe, God blessing every member of my family for my understanding and forgiveness. Please forgive me, he said, for all I’ve done. Teewahleeneenoo (my eyes), habeebeeteeno (my love), tafokteeno (my sun). And clapping, Dorian, oh Dorian, oh Dorian. He took hold of my hand as I took hold of his. We leaned forward, and kissed one another’s hand at the same time.

He left Essaouira with no one to run the gallery. His brother ran off to Rabat. His sister is in Agadir. He has a lot of business to take care of. His life is totally out of control. There is no room in his life for a relationship, and unless he can clear a space, I should stay away.

The night ending? The ending of this part? He said, I just want to wash my feet and sleep. He washed his feet in the sink while I washed my face, dripping soap onto his hands. In bed he turned facing me and held me close, wrapping around me, our hearts talking to one another, and our skin...it’s like heaven.

Mohamed woke us up at 5:10 am so I could get on the 6 o’clock bus to Tata. I decided to stay in Agadir, so our clothes came off, he placed my hands where he wanted them, and then an hour went by before we showered.

A Kiss

detail of Road with Cypress and Star (Artchive)

One time he talked about the devil crouching in the corner of the room.

Sitting at Nordine’s on the patio last night, watching K talk to God with his head lifted and arms out, even on his knees at one time, I was having flashes while looking at him that I was looking at myself. I felt myself for several moments inside the body I was watching. I turned in my mind to talking to my father, introducing this man as my father, my mother, my lover, my brother, my self, my life. I spoke this exactly as so in my mind.

When we left and sat in the car, K said, my mother, my father, my lover, my sister, my life. I lost my breath and told him that strange things keep happening.

Towards the end of the hellaciously overwhelming night that I’m recovering from, K asked me to kiss him from where I was sitting. We were opposite each other at the table. Nordine and Mohamed were across from one another next to us. We looked deep into one another’s eyes, each closed our mouths, and took one long deep breath in through our noses. As we breathed in, the air spinned around us, dizzied us all, and K said, while pointing to all the other buildings around us, shame on us. We could wake up the whole neighborhood like this.

Why does it hurt to open hearts?

Doing karate moves on me in the kitchen, he said to his mother, look at her...American, as if saying how the fuck did I end up with such a thing. It was nice to hear her laugh and take my side when he yelled for me to clean.

I took two codeine and a Benedryl last night to pass out. I was absolutely exhausted from these last few days. Today, standing over the wall, looking down into the gallery with his coffee in hand, K looked at me squating against my packed bags. As I put almond oil through my curls, he said, did you know I didn’t eat yesterday. No lunch, no dinner last night. All I did was cry.

I asked him last night while walking to the ocean, why does it hurt to love another person? Why does it hurt to open our hearts? He said if it didn’t hurt, it wouldn’t be love.

Is this what love is?

There is the Italian man in the balcony of the square. He’s closing his window and I know he’s been watching me down here at the café. Of course he was watching everyone else too, but I know he saw Ancie look at me from about 15 feet away. I looked up and he was looking here, smiling.

I can’t take much more of this. I’m tired, exhausted really, and need affection. I feel beaten down. I understand his point. I tried to stay out of the way and then came all the love stuff followed by the jealousy followed by the anger followed by the love stuff followed by the anger and more anger and more anger…

I’m really tired. I’m lost again. Feeling crazy again. Why can’t he admit to me what he really thinks…why can’t he see the sickness? So I do what…I listen to him and don’t get listened to. I get a hard dick when I can’t have it and a soft one when I want it. I get peace when I don’t want it and no peace when I need it. What’s it all for? Is this some test for me? When do we take the things in life as a test and when do we decide that it’s a test too long and going no where? When do I decide to let this go? Are the good things in balance with the bad?

I’m ready to leave. I don’t know why I even stayed. It’s one broken promise after another. I’m scared, really. A fear like no other and is this what love is? Being so afraid? Us both so scared?

Later-
I am sitting at the bar that K just left from, sitting in K’s chair actually. He was butt-drunk wasted when he left. A sick man he is. I don’t think I’ve seen him any sicker. It’s this fight against something.

How do I do? What do I do? I do just like I am and be honest with myself, with my life, with everything. How much patience it takes I don’t know. But now, I’m secure and safe with this city. I think that makes it hard for him. I have been fed by these people in all the ways I want him to feed me. I am loved in all the ways that I want to be loved. It is passionate, and sad at times, but this is a story of a time in my life. I am learning what I need to learn. It is a true test of character, of grace, of destiny, and of miracles. It’s of angels and devils and God, that big big that’s reaching out to me is breaking through. Such strange things are at play.

The readings of these Sufi masters are affecting the way I look at my life. These mystics are still here, playing. Maybe I am one of them. Maybe he is. Maybe together we strike up the heavens with thunder and rain and blossoms and weeds and life as well as death. Perhaps perhaps perhaps…something is at play…he will see that he has to let go of me in order that I fly.

The amount of gifts falling into me I cannot understand. It is truly a holy thing the way I am looked at here. How I, a woman, can be sitting here so safely alone in this bar writing. With not a soul grabbing at me but all reaching out gently to make sure I still stand. They are telling me to be patient, that all this means something. That I will be loved by people no matter where I am.

Ancie, protector of me

It’s Wednesday. The man next to me is playing his instrument, the Essaouira type Gnaowa guitar, and the man at the table is singing a song in Tashlheit, I think to me. Ancie, K's rusty dog, is here. I always thinks of Ancie being a girl. But he’s a he, the protector of me. If I’m not with K I’m with Ancie. Oops. Now I’m alone. Ancie ran off to the ocean.

The woman next to me has this straight blond hair down to the small of her back. Maybe she’s English but I don’t think so. She’s speaking English to Ancie, petting him. He decided to come back and watch over me. Yesterday I could feel the woman watching me while writing. I asked her for a lighter twice and the second time she gave it to me. She has on a maroon tank top dress with a tattoo on her breast, With her legs crossed, she holds her chin up very elegantly, smoking a cigarette with big silver rings on all her fingers.

I have all these people (tourists) telling me how surprised they are to find the people of Morocco wonderful, that what they read in the tour books is not their experience at all. It’s like the writers of these guides step off the boat in Tangier, have their first bad experience right off, which sets their whole tone, and their bad time is written down for the world to learn from.

The Ghosts are taking my side

I think that the ghosts are taking my side, as well as the dog. Ancie comes with me everywhere, senses where I am and shows up. The ghosts? Well, a painting fell last night off the wall downstairs and broke something. I heard the pieces crash against the floor. It startled me. I jerked when it happened, woke up scared, and held on tight to K. I felt something brush across my shoulder last night, a ripple like the fingers of a hand. I thought it was K but his hands were at his side. I thought it was the covers but they were under my arm.

I was in the balcony room the other night looking for my toothpaste, getting really frustrated, throwing my things about the room. I thought I heard the dog, Ancie, whine on the balcony. I looked out the door and didn’t see him and went back to the search for the toothpaste. I started getting pissed, let out a big sigh, and heard another whine from under my bed. I lifted up the blanket hanging over the edge of the bed to the floor, went right for the place I heard the whine and there was my toothpaste.

K’s got this pain running from his toes to his ass on his right side. He says it’s the sciatic nerve. And now he thinks it’s because he’s been cursed, had a spell put on him because “Moroccan women do those kinds of things.”

I was all itchy last night and told him we were both falling apart. I know now that it’s because I drank opium tea last night with Alex and Zachary. They were also itching last night. I knew too last night why I was throwing up into the toilet like something straight from the Exorcist because of the last time I had tea. But I didn’t tell that to K. He doesn’t know about the tea.

I had a British guy pick up the book I’m reading. It was laying face down where I set it when I squatted to talk to him. He was on the tile street against a wall having coffee and pastries with a South American girl and Alex. The guy turned the book over and said, “Oh,” surprised-like as if it explained everything and answered all his questions he had about me, “so you’re a writer.” I’m reading the Creative Writer’s Handbook helping me focus on this relationship as if it’s a story and not my life. But it is both I suppose.

I’m listening to the song “Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits, and it reminds me how I often feel K and I follow this Romeo and Juliet thing. I just saw a translation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” in Berber. The other night K said (while holding me tight), if I stop breathing, please don’t try and start it up again. I just want to hold you and then die. The next night I said it back to him exactly the same way. More so that he’d see what it feels like to be told that.

Jealous of us

Today is March 13th, I believe, and I’ve just gotten away from K for the first time since last night at 11. It’s about 8 p.m. now. We got out of bed at 4:00 I think. Maybe it was 5. Because it wasn’t until 6:30 that he got out of the shower.

My welcome to Essaouira this time is absolutely positively fascinating. Unremarkable. Ok. Remarkable perhaps. I walked out of K’s last night to go to Toufik’s and was interrupted in the walk by “Ashkeed Hetta!” yelled out from the restaurant nearby. So I walked back by and in, was told to treat his place as home while he left for cigarettes, leaving the fort to me. Then into Toufiks where I must have seemed to the British couple like some Essaouira goddess the way K’s eyes got so big and he jumped up out of his chair over to me. And how Toufik yelled my name from the back of the restaurant to come kiss my forehead, my head, my cheeks over and over, telling me how happy he was to see me. And then to watch K push him out of the way, tell him to not ever touch his girlfriend again, and accidentally whack Toufik’s head against the wall.

We left to get fish tonight, K walking with someone and me in my own space on the street ahead of him, appearing to be alone. I love it.

At Toufik’s, he said, I’m jealous of us. That’s why we fight. I thought a lot about that these last twenty four hours and will have to agree. I, too, am jealous of us.

Wisdom Teeth

Last night, just hours after getting my wisdom teeth out, Suzanne and I were sitting in our room at the Central motel. She started giggling from underneath her blankets and said, this is just so funny.

I looked up across the room at her. More like glared. She continued, I mean you come into the city to get your wisdom teeth out, stay in a hotel with 24-hour electricity, and a big bed with two blankets, and you say all you want is a buda gas flame and a pot, sitting there against the door on the cold floor, eavesdropping on the two men in the next room. It’s just so funny.

It is. Wisdom teeth. That’s what I want to write about. Three nights ago I was angry with K because he wasn’t considering where I was coming from, how I was leaving at 5 am to get to Rabat just in time to talk to Marina, cash my mandat, and eat my last solid meal for two weeks. His response was, oh my God! Wisdom Teeth. I could write a fucking book on your wisdom teeth.

When I first walked into Marina’s office yesterday, she assured me childbirth was much worse. I thought of that last night, unbathed for five days, sitting Indian style on my bed with my eyes closed and a cheek about to explode. It was a pain that wouldn’t allow me to think, speak, cry even. I kept saying, childbirth is much worse, in my head, imagining myself giving birth. I tried a lot. I tried spreading the pain out over my whole body. I tried concentrating on localizing the pain where it centralized. I could feel every little nerve and stitch and empty pissed off raw space..

Hmm.

The flexible Peace Corps volunteer, taking this in such good sport, as I’ve seen fellow volunteers get flown home to D.C. to get the same thing done. They were hooked up in Peace Corps apartments with free long distance and cable TV. Oh my God! How could they do this to me?

Well, they did. They have refused me a decent hotel. They have not shown even remote concern for my well-being and sanity, and I’m still not complaining. Everything is just how it is and just how it’s gonna be and I can do with it what I will.

A Jewel to offer me

K said last night that he had a jewel to offer me. There is a plot of land near Essaouira, set not but 200 meters from the sea. There is a river that flows through the land and the river flows into the ocean. The ground is green on a hill with the closest village a couple of kilometers away.
A Frenchman bought a thousand square meters near the property, and has already started building. Another German couple bought land and finished the deal yesterday. The property is cheap and the value will only increase, for Essaouira is just now getting international attention for being what it is...Essaouira, a small town of creative culture--artists, craftsmen, tailors, writers. This is a town with my soul in it. I am healed here.

I think I’ll cry now.