Hiraeth Homecoming

August 28, 2025August 28, 2025

new motto, new friends, new apartment

I said goodbye to my new London friends. We cried. It’s amazing how fast connections can form when you’re traveling like this. I feel like I’ve known them longer than four days. I’m going to London to visit and bring my mom. They will come stay in my riad and come to my wedding….to whoever, whenever. So many dreams all rolled into a few sentences. And such a magical connection at a time when it really gave me a lot of reassurance, support and kindness on this path I’m on. It’s lonely; because it needs to be. How else do you meet yourself? To clarify, I think you can meet yourself all the time, wherever, whenever but I think it’s accelerated and deeper when you’re alone. The times I can look back on as my biggest growth times, that were achingly hard, and in hindsight glitteringly beautiful are the times I’ve been alone.

I realized at the sad Riad, I was waiting. Waiting for someone to befriend me, waiting for someone to be fun, to call out to me. I think when I first arrived in Morocco, I was flush with the happiness of being back here, of stretching my wings, of being seen again. Returning to Marrakech after wrestling myself in a 117 degree yurt and trying not to be lured into a scam every time I stepped outside was a different energy and I was not myself so of course no one was saying, wow I want to be friends with her! Ha! At my shop in Denver, we have the philosophy that we are hosting the best party in the neighborhood. It’s not retail, it’s a gathering place, a place people can come and be seen and share and connect and if they buy things, great. The main goal is to make a connection, and we are the hostesses of a great party. The morning I decided no one was going to befriend me (just like no one is coming to save you), and started speaking Darija to more breakfast ladies, I broke back open. I realized I should treat my life like it’s a big party, and I am the hostess. It’s the best party around and it’s my job to invite people, to make them feel welcome, to see them, to check in with them. A little light went off in my head. This is the trick. This is the secret. Your life is a party, and you are the hostess. I’m not a guest; I’m not waiting to be invited. I am the party. My life is the party. I think if I can hold this, keep this energy, this frequency…it’s a great thing.

So, at breakfast I chatted with the new to me couple, what were they doing, what had they seen, like I was in the shop, like I was at a great party. And since this is the party of my life, I was brave and shared my blog with them. Which, they actually took the time to read, and that cracked open the connection in a whole new way than if I had just said good morning, have a good day like I was just a lone traveler staying inside herself, waiting to be invited, included. What that connection did for me in those few days, was really nothing short of marvelous. I went on the roof one night and the sun was that crazy orange glowing orb that it does in Africa like nowhere else…and so I called down to the courtyard, “Guys the sun is so beautiful you’ve got to come see!” And they did, and we chatted more….and they asked me if I needed anything for dinner….that whole energy….it can change everything. Of course, it takes the right people who want to come to your party…because it’s not everyone, but some people do want to come and then you get invited into their party and hear all their stories too. And if I can walk around like I’m a hostess, imagine how many more connections I’m going to make than if I’m waiting for someone to invite me.

Now I’m at an apartment. I thought it was in Gueliz, the new city just north of the Medina. I am north of that. Twenty minutes by taxi back to the Medina, touristville. The area I am in is very local, suburban Moroccan. I have yet in three days to see another foreigner. It’s an adjustment. Being in the riad, everyone saying good morning, staff and guests, the night watch man saying I’m always in the kitchen if you need anything, waiters waving from across the courtyard, it’s easy. It’s built in connection. Walking out the door and into the souks its people calling out to you, my regular guys saying it’s nice to see you. Even the game of trying not the see the Shakira Shakira man, it’s a connection. The staff at my café. All these little connections, threads tying me to this place, shifted. I can go to the café, but it would be an outing. I need to find my new people here in this place. In this neighborhood. Establish new consequential strangers.

It’s been fourteen years since I’ve lived alone. Had my own space and been all the way alone. The closest thing was last summer in the beautiful little house in Tuscany. But I was in such bad shape there I couldn’t enjoy it. I was claustrophobic inside my own self. I was away from the trauma of leaving my marriage and sort of my life and it was the first down moment I had to start to process everything, and it was almost unbearable. So that I’m again alone in an apartment in a foreign place gives me a little apprehension. But it’s beautiful and there is stellar AC, which helps everything. I’m realizing finding my rhythm in my own space has nothing to do with Morocco or Tuscany….it would be the same in Denver. This adjustment is entirely internal. The learning how to be in solitary space again. To move to my own rhythms again. To have no one to answer to, for better or worse. So instead of viewing it as lonely, or scary, I’ve decided to view it as reclaiming my sovereignty. I have snacks out so I can graze like I love to (extra bonus of being labeled in Darija), art supplies out on the dining table, drinking milk from the carton and dancing in the kitchen to whatever random music comes on shuffle. I can nap when I want, wake when I want, watch people from the balcony as long as I want.

I am making a point to go out every morning to see people, coffee, grocery, the man in the hanout. Then when I feel sufficiently worn out, I come back and putz around. Like I would anywhere else. I do the best when I’m not judging myself for not being out there doing tourist things, seeing more, doing more. If I lived here, what would I be doing? That’s what I want to focus on. I need to make a list of things to do: find language classes, yoga classes, are there art classes I want to find. How do I find people? How do I find girlfriends? For now, it’s enough to be proud of myself for making a little home, for being alone, for being brave, for getting groceries and coffee. They’re pretty big things actually. And I’m proud of myself.

August 27, 2025August 27, 2025

Café des Espices

My favorite café so far in Marrakech is Café des Espices in the spice piazza (I’m sorry I will never not be Italian in naming this type of space). Rattan umbrellas three deep, stools, armchairs with red carpet pillows on the perimeter, straw hats on each table, greeter man, waiters and waitresses! scurrying about, huge straw bell shaped lamps hanging inside, misters and the perfect people watching. I’ve started going everyday. It’s close to both riads I’ve been in and it’s good to feel recognized. When I’m traveling alone, it’s these small connections that help hold the day, help you feel in a place, help you belong. Tether you. I think we have them too at home, we just don’t realize how important they are. We have our routines, our families, our coworkers and so I don’t think we really notice how important the connection of our barista is or the one waiter at the restaurant we always frequent. But I know on a visceral level how much better I feel once I have some of these connections in a place that’s new. Consequential strangers, they’re called. My friend Google tells me; they are important because they allow you to explore facets of your personality without the pressure of your core relationships. They provide a sense of community, and they are crucial for fostering a feeling of belonging. Yes!

They know me there now and know that I speak enough Darija that they will now only take any order from me in Darija, which delights me. The other day, the big boss saw me coming and pulled out my chair, “We were waiting for you!” The waiters say nice to see you and when I leave, see you tomorrow, in Darija of course. I think so much language confidence is started here in these small interactions that don’t really matter. It’s where you feel comfortable starting to use more words and trying to say more things. Half the draw of this place is the people watching. I watch as the vendors in the piazza unwrap their products stored overnight under tarp and rope and begin to set up shop. It reminds me of my art fair days, setting up, arranging just so. It’s a precarious foundation on which all these straw bags are stacked…flimsy cardboard boxes with cardboard laid out like a table on top. Bags stacked inside bags, inside sideways, inside diagonally until they are stacked eight high so all the designs show. Bags stacked inside the next inside the next inside the next and hanging from the umbrella. Said umbrella has only four working ribs and has copious amounts of wooden sticks rammed into the joiner. It takes about five tries to get everything to say put. One sharp breeze and it’s going to be a catastrophe. All the while, joking, laughing, chatting.

The henna ladies are who I really like to watch. One sits just across the way on her chair with plastic stools in front of her covered in laminated images of henna designs. Under an umbrella, she always has a slight scowl on her face. She stares and me, I stare at her. I’m half convinced she’s putting a spell on me. She alternates between calling out from a relaxed position. Henna. Henna. Sometimes she stands and tries to put the booklet into peoples’ hands. It’s interesting to watch the dance of it all. Women will be intrigued and stop; the men they are with invariably are like come on what are you doing. It’s a precarious moment for the henna lady because the woman is torn, she wants to, but her companion is trying to talk her out of it. It becomes a bit of a stand off between the henna lady and the man…each trying to convince the woman. Whenever she can, the henna lady inserts her body between the woman and the man, tries to take the hand of the woman and lead her to the chair. The problem tends to be, she is not the henna lady…she’s the front man and once she gets the lady in the chair, she has to go fetch the woman who will do the henna. And here is where it falls apart about half the time. She’s left the woman unsupervised with the man who is trying to convince her not to do it and when she returns, it’s the same dance of trying to get the woman to sit back down, but you know it’s futile if she’s gotten out of the chair. Once the henna is happening, she seems like a different person, relaxed, chatting with the woman. Gone is the hard face, the harsh tone, the slight glare. She laughs and I think she speaks every language. She’s been gone the last two days. The café boys tell me she went on vacation to Essaouira. I’m glad for her, but it’s a disappointment to me to have her be missing from her place.

I love watching all the groups of people come and go. They sit, they drink, they leave. No one seems to linger, and it amazes me the turnover that happens. Most want to go to the rooftop terrace, and a lot of the interactions are spent directing people to the correct staircase. I watch men hurry down the street carrying trays of tea, donkey carts full of cement pass. This seems to the be main thing they transport, the donkeys. The most incredible thing I see is a juice man. He has a white metal drum on wheels with metal rings hanging from the side to hold glass pints. A bucket of water hangs from the side. For some coins, he dips a cone shaped ladle into the drum, holds it high in the air and a light orange colored juice streams out the bottom. The customer stands there and drinks the juice while the next man waits for his. They drink it on the spot and hand the glass back. The juice man dunks it in the bucket of water and hangs it again from the side of the drum, ready for the next customer. I wonder about germs, but somehow this all works…like the tea glasses circled around everywhere with just some water washing them out between drinkers.

Sometimes I write in my journal, sometimes I just sit back and watch it all. I say see you again to my favorite waiter, but it will not be tomorrow. I go to my suburban apartment and start a new chapter in the morning. Feeling sad about leaving all these connections and routines. I wonder if they wonder where people go. I’m grateful for this place and I will miss it.

August 23, 2025

The Women and the Shopping

I am not shopping. For a multitude of reasons. I need nothing. I have no house to put anything. I don’t know where exactly I live. I am already carrying to much. Figuratively and literally. Like want to find a UPS store to send things home carrying too much. I understand and can appreciate the ability to leave things behind; I have just never figured out how to do it myself. I tend to bring my favorite things, because I like to wear my favorite things…which makes it difficult to edit down a suitcase. It’s hard to know what you’re going to be the happiest with when you’re packing and you don’t really remember what 110 degrees feels like. So that beautiful linen shirt becomes a heavy weighted thing you refuse to put on. But it’s beautiful and you’re not leaving it behind. And I know I tend to wear the same thing over and over once I arrive….I just never know what that thing is going to be ahead of time.

It doesn’t help when you’re probably depressed by your current Riad and the surrounding neighborhood and are wearing the same thing for 6 days straight. Wash it out in the shower every night and it’s so hot and dry it’s good to go again in the morning. This Riad is beautiful in all the right ways. Orange trees, cooling pool, couches with decorative pillows, rugs, candles everywhere, string lights, painted wooden doors, piles of books, bougainvillea climbing the walls, multiple courtyards. And a buffet. Kiss of death. Never a good sign for me….means it’s too big and it will be harder to make friends. Too many staff all focused on doing their jobs. But I break in a little with my Darija with the breakfast ladies….Said, “Sbh nour” to one and she smiled and said it back and then stopped and turned around. “What did you just say? You speak Arabic? Where are you from?” And we have a little chat and a laugh and we’re both delighted. She smiles at me every time she passes me. But in general, everyone is friendly but it’s the friendly where the smiles don’t reach the eyes. Probably because it’s in this neighborhood….and being friends with the breakfast ladies only gets you until 9:30 am and then it’s out to the scamming men.

Anyway, I decide I need some ladies, and I need some retail therapy. I saw a couple of dress shops on my wander the other day. It’s a very different experience shopping in Morocco because you do it with the shopkeeper. What are you looking for? Do you like this? Try this. They help you put everything on. Tell you it looks bad. Try this instead. You want to try it on again? Yes, I’m used to doing this alone and I can put something on three different times without someone laughing at me. I make her happy by choosing the one she said four garments ago was the best. We are in agreement. She humors my try it on three times to be sure method. We chat and laugh at my darija, she teaches me words. And I leave a little lighter. I’ve been seen. Next shop more of the same, but she is a bit chattier…where are you from? Are you a tour guide? Your Arabic is good. Teaching me words for things. Have a beautiful day. And I’m a little lighter still. I don’t care what I’ve bought. I wanted the interaction. Another shop the credit card machine wasn’t charged so, “please do you have a little time, here have a seat. Are you in a hurry? Can we wait for it to charge?” And so, we sit and talk. Where we are from, what she likes about Marrakech. I should find a man and move here. I’m sorry it’s taking so long she says. I’m not. What else am I doing? This is lovely. We laugh a lot.

So now I have a few souvenirs for people and three new garments that I didn’t really need. But I needed people. I needed women. I needed to talk and to laugh and to be seen. To be in spaces where I didn’t feel like I was being taken for a ride or that I needed to be on my guard. And I will love these dresses because I will remember the ladies saving me today.I am not shopping. For a multitude of reasons. I need nothing. I have no house to put anything. I don’t know where exactly I live. I am already carrying to much. Figuratively and literally. Like want to find a UPS store to send things home carrying too much. I understand and can appreciate the ability to leave things behind; I have just never figured out how to do it myself. I tend to bring my favorite things, because I like to wear my favorite things…which makes it difficult to edit down a suitcase. It’s hard to know what you’re going to be the happiest with when you’re packing and you don’t really remember what 110 degrees feels like. So that beautiful linen shirt becomes a heavy weighted thing you refuse to put on. But it’s beautiful and you’re not leaving it behind. And I know I tend to wear the same thing over and over once I arrive….I just never know what that thing is going to be ahead of time.

August 23, 2025August 23, 2025

The Men and the Scams

This part of the Medina I’m in now is a little pocket of weird energy. Every time I’ve been in this part I feel it…the first time I did an abrupt about face and left. The souks in general are intense; shops packed together, their offerings piled high and spilling out into the alley, people meandering and stopping randomly, shop keepers calling out to you, donkey carts and speeding motorbikes narrowly trying half heartedly not to kill you. But this area has an extra layer to it. The first time here a man told me the main square was that way…the opposite of the way it was. I know where I am at most all times, thank goodness. I just find that really disconcerting, leading people the wrong way.

I wouldn’t call it superstitious, but I look for signs and feelings. This time back to Marrakech reentry was rough and set the stage for this week. The sweet taxi man who brought me from Sidi Kaouki was following his GPS…but not well and we got off course in the streets that are almost too tight for a car. I knew he was going to abandon me and was ready for it. The problem was he didn’t want to leave me alone, so he asked a man to help me find my riad. I did not want a man to “help” me. “Oh, it’s so far away, really.” “No, it’s not.” “It is far I will help you.” “It’s not far and I don’t need help but thank you.” Google maps is my BFF in the souks, and I set course and didn’t let him take any of my luggage. “I’m just being friendly.” Sure, dude as he led the way. But do I not follow him the correct way with all my crap? Once we arrived, he of course demanded money. I gave him some. Not enough. “I need 200.” I said, “Well that’s all I have.” He left annoyed. Funnily enough, the next day I see him, and we say hello like old friends. He invites me to his mom’s house for couscous. For free he’s sure to add when I give him a look that says I remember what you did yesterday. I see him the next day and we say hello and have a good day like we’re old acquaintances.

One man on my way home the other day started talking to me, telling me I was going the wrong way. I was going the exact correct way. Then he raised his voice and started yelling, “Listen to me!! I am talking to you! You are going the wrong way.” Following me, yelling. I just ignore. There is a man on a motorbike who wants me to go to the festival of colors. It’s this way, let me show you. No, thank you. It’s only for another hour; the Berbers have come down from the mountains it’s only for another hour you don’t want to miss it. Sorry my friend, but you can only fall for that scam one time and my mom and I did it on our first trip to Casablanca. Went to see rugs made by Berber women before they packed up and headed back to the mountains. From their very well-established warehouse. Full of only men. So no, I will not do that again.

There is a man from Merzouga (the desert town at the edge of the Sahara that I adore) so I like him just for that, who keeps asking me to stop and have tea. He’s an artist and has had his shop for 26 years. Every day he greets me, how are you today, where are you going today. Have tea, no pressure, just talk, I’m not pushy like the others. Maybe. But then he takes me yesterday to a wholesale warehouse. Which happened to be very cool and full of handmade things that I would love to buy if I had a house to decorate. I told the man there when I get my house I’ll be back. He’s saving chairs for me. And when/if I need help finding a place to live, he knows people. Just come knock on the door. But was it just kindness to bring me to a shop, I’m not sure, so I’m skeptical of this just tea and chat.

Today on the way to the photography museum (museums are my solo traveler, tired but want to do something secret weapon), I met a man who seemed so kind, where are you from. Talked about snow and mountains and I hope you have a beautiful day. And I’m thinking to myself maybe I need to soften, maybe I’m being too rigid and suspecting and don’t I actually believe that people are kind and not out to get you? Yes. So, I’m feeling like wow here is a nice one. See you can be open. He says stay to the right the motorbikes go so fast. We laugh about them. Then… you know the square is the other way. Red flag. Yes, but I’m going to the photography museum. Oh, but it’s really the other way (I was almost there). Man, you’re crushing my hopes today. But this is the way to the tannery. Oh really? Yeah, you can see them tanning and working the leather…. sometimes you can see them sewing things. Really? Yeah, just go that way and turn second right. Thank you. Off I go. Then he follows on his motorbike…stops in front of me. Calls out to a man on the street…. this is so and so, look he’s wearing the traditional Berber outfit (the most basic plain jelaba I’ve ever seen) he will show you, just tell him choukran as thank you. Right dude, I did not fall of the donkey cart yesterday. So now I’m following another man I don’t want to be following. But he’s going the way I need to. He turns right (I need left), and I decided to stop him and ask for directions to come back later. But later they won’t be there. Only one more hour and then they pack up and go back to the mountains. The photography museum will be there all day…this is just one more hour. Really you need to come now. No. No. No and again no.

I’m tired. It’s 110 degrees and the heat adds an extra layer of difficult weighing down on you. Pressing into you. The streets around here feel like a battle ground. I walked further out of the area yesterday and felt a shift in energy. Totally different feel…friendly…calling out, come see my things, hello where are you from? The feeling is entirely lighter. It would be interesting to make a map of the souks by feeling, by energy. Maybe I’ll do that one day. It’s interesting to me the first time here, I came this way, it felt so off I turned around. I wonder what the story of this area is. No where else in the Medina or the souks feel this intense and nowhere else have I been tried to be scammed from the “helping you get somewhere,” wrong directions, a color festival, a trip to the tanneries, see this free exhibit, men being angry when you don’t listen to them, every day multiple times a day. It’s the weirdest thing and it’s really affecting my overall wellbeing. I feel like what am I doing here, what’s the point of any of this. I should just go home? But then what? And do what? I need a new neighborhood so I decide to reach out to my first lovely Riad in the quiet residential neighborhood and see if they have a room for me. And they do and will be delighted to see me again. Thank goodness. Thank goodness.

August 23, 2025August 23, 2025

My two favorite people in Marrakech…written January 2025

Walking home from dinner, a souk vendor caught my eye and invited me in to see his rugs. So far, I hadn’t been engaging beyond a smile and a nod. I don’t need to buy anything and mostly it feels safer to not engage this first solo experience in the crazy souks. Especially since I would buy everything if I could and I’m gullible to a fault. But I had just come from a lovely dinner where the waiter was so kind and friendly and took me to the roof to see a violin concert at sunset. And I had a glass of wine in me so when he said come look, I thought what the hell. -I don’t want to look because I can’t buy anything. -Of course you can buy something! -No, I don’t have a house, so I have nowhere to put anything. -You don’t have a house? -No. – England won’t give you a house? Just ask your government, they will give you a house. -Well, I would love if England gave me a house, but I’m not from there so I don’t think they would. – Oh. -And anyway, I want to live here? -Really?! -Yes. – You want to buy a house or rent a house? -Both, either. -Well, I’m selling my house! – You are? Do you want to sell it to me? -Sure! Do you have paper? So, he writes down his first and last name and his address. Wants mine too…I don’t have one…that’s why you’re giving me yours. Right. -Ok come ask for me at my house and if you don’t want to buy it, I can help you find one to rent. -Ok, so I’ll come find you and buy your house? – Yes. -And then I will have a house, so I can come here and buy some rugs from you to put in it. – Yes! Perfect! I can’t even begin to tell you how happy this place makes me. I’m still carrying his info around in my purse so every time I open it, I see it and smile.

And who knows, maybe I’ll buy his house and then fill it with rugs from his shop. I’m sure crazier things have happened!

My first favorite person of Marrakech:

Walking home from first day in the souks, totally overwhelmed…..jetlagged…being cat called to, please madam, motos going mock too fast for the tight souk streets, tired. My riad is on a quiet street. Pink washed walls, cobblestones, plants hanging from balconies. Archways. Calm. The second you step off the main street, it feels like another world. I’m passing an older woman, and I greet her. I can’t help wanting to connect with everyone. She smiles and does the beautiful Moroccan gesture of taking her fist to her mouth and kissing the thumb pressed to the pointer finger and then touching her heart. I can’t help feeling flooded with love for this kind stranger who does this beautiful gesture. So, I repeat in kind. And she is delighted. And does it again. So, I do it again. And we are both still walking. At this point we have passed each other. And we both do it again.

And we’re both laughing. And then we keep walking and looking back at each other like we’ve just seen something magic. And I keep peeking. And she’s still peeking too…. And then we go about our days and I’m totally in love.

August 13, 2025August 13, 2025

The Heat and Lessons from a Yurt

It really is it’s own being, the heat. Actual 117 degree, African heat. A pulsing, throbbing, shimmering, slate grey sky oppressive thing. Laying down over everything. Lion’s hot breath on the back of your neck so you lay still and pinned down, trying not to tempt it. Trying to avoid it’s notice. Deep breaths, cool thoughts. Everything falls away. Stillness and such a quiet you don’t notice that the whole world is holding it’s breath. I feel slightly unhinged. I don’t know what to do with myself and it’s overwhelming.

Somehow, I have this new trend of unintended self-imposed exile to somewhere hot and isolated. I have these grand ideas of forcing myself to be introspective….like the month in Tuscany on a hillside last year in the middle of an unexpected heatwave….and then I get to this grand introspective location and feel like a petulant child…you want me to do what? Sit with myself? Look into myself? Can’t we do that tomorrow? This year I’m in a yurt. On a hill in an argan forest on the seaside of Morocco. Where I expected it to be cool. I keep checking the temperature and it is quite literally the hottest place I know in Morocco yesterday and today. You feel your entire body fill with heat, face flush, almost too hot for sweat. Too full to move.

And I think it must be a little joke the universe plays with me….and I think I need it. To be forced to sit and be still. To have only my thoughts. It’s somewhat of a tight rope walk….you are fine…it is so hot…you’ve got this…what the #$% am I doing. Normal people go places and have a good time. You go to yurts in a forest in the middle of nowhere alone in a heatwave. My friend I call laughs at me. Have fun in your yurt! I watched a video of a girl talking about how we are the most qualified to give ourselves comfort…we’re the only ones who actually know what we want to hear. So why do we so often look outside ourselves for that? We look to anyone else to tell us what we want to hear when we can give that to ourselves. So, dear self alone in the heat, what do I want to hear? You are brave and amazing, and you will find your way. You don’t have to know today what that way is. You just have to stay curious and not be worried. The universe has you and I have you and we will be fine. We will find the way one step at a time. One day at a time. And you are hot, but you are fine. You are uncomfortable, but you are safe.

Somehow, I secretly enjoy these experiences, but in hindsight….the ones that make you close to unbearably uncomfortable. The ones you look back on and think I can’t believe that happened. So, I’m trying to embrace that energy now while I’m in it. Trying to be proud of myself that I can sit in the discomfort and not shy away from myself. I can hold space and myself even when things are awful. I can still find the beauty around me. And maybe a lesson in this for me too is why? Why do I need to do hard things? My sister asked today why I keep going to places in the time that is the worst for the place. Because it fits into schedules nicely. And what kind of answer is that?

Today, I learned that when it’s this hot, cockroaches flip upside down and play dead…key word being “play” so I won’t be falling for that again. Flies are so sluggish you can kill them with a good smack like a mosquito. I pick up a knife in the kitchen and it’s as hot as taking it out of a freshly finished dishwasher cycle. And of course, I’m on instagram scrolling for distraction…but only for so long before you need to put the phone in the freezer to bring it back down to temperature….a special feature of Apple phones, overheating. But I get it, phone.

And these days, what really needs to happen? What really needs to be accomplished? I feel so guilty doing nothing as though my worth depends on what I do or how much I go out and see. I’m in here judging myself. But where would I go in 117 degrees? With no shade? And 40-minute walk to an overcrowded beach town. I would be dead from heat before I got back. Where do I think I need to be? What do I think I need to be doing? How much can we let go of? How much can we appreciate even when we are supremely uncomfortable? I am in a yurt in Morocco and it is beautiful and I am fine and safe and loved. And what else should I be doing? What else needs to be happening?

I’ve been thinking about that poem lately, the one that used to be the mantra for my life, until I slowly forgot it; The Invitation by Oriana Mountain Dreamer. Go look it up. I’ve remembered it again, started breathing it into my being again. A quiet chant. “It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. …I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. … I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. …I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.” I carried this poem around with me when I was sixteen and decided it was going to be how I would measure my life. And to be reminded of it lately has been a gift…like a skylight opened in my soul I didn’t realize had closed. And sort of like a test I didn’t know I was taking…I can answer yes to all these questions, years down the road from that sixteen year old self. I think she would be proud of me.

Laying on the outdoor couch next to the fountain, I can feel the heat break. And now I know why they say that….it broke like an ocean wave crashing over a rock. One second is unbearable and oppressive, the next a door opened somewhere, and light came back. The cool air rushed in, and my body relaxed a few notches. A yellow breasted bird came and sat looking at me and started singing. I looked up and the sky filled with birds and their song. They too, were waiting, waiting out the lion’s breath somewhere and I didn’t notice they were missing until they returned. Just like I haven’t noticed parts of myself that went missing, one day a little falls away and then a little more and you don’t notice in the rush and the push and the hurry of being alive. But I’ve been reminded lately of that dormant hope, the aching wonder, the delight in the beauty of everything. I’m also learning how to be true to myself…that it’s my own soul that has my compass. Even if I’m still learning to read it and still needing to summon courage to follow the unclear but loud instructions. I’m trusting the surrender, because right now that is my job. The surrender.

The thing that came to me, my epiphany in the hot yurt on a hill, is that maybe I need to get an apartment. Just bite the bullet and get a place. Hang things on walls. Leave art supplies laying out, a favorite mug for coffee. Have a place that is mine. I’ve been a nomad for a long time. Maybe I need to simply decide to be one place. It occurred to me that I felt so so trapped, that’s part of what I’m scared of happening again. This intense underlying fear that I will be trapped again with no escape. Maybe it hasn’t been about the place at all, but I needed to realize I will not allow myself to be caged again. That’s been part of the claustrophobia in thinking about renting anything. I think that was part of the trauma…I couldn’t get out of that house. I couldn’t leave when I most needed to. I couldn’t just throw everything into a car and go. I had too many things and too much house and I was tied to it in more ways than one. I haven’t realized until now how traumatic that felt. To be incapable of leaving when I needed to. And so, I’ve been averse to being anywhere and have been carrying everything around with me ever since on my back so to speak. It’s getting heavy and I want to set it down. I want to be somewhere. I think it’s time to claim some space that is mine and mine alone. I won’t be trapped again. I won’t be stuck and scared again. I’ve got me this time.

For clarity…it was 117 degrees….and the cool air that rushed in was 109 and it felt like heaven. And the day after, I got out and wandered for a day. Had a lovely lunch where the waitress told me I had lovely energy and am such a beautiful woman…like I startled her. Felt nice after wrestling with my inner demons for two days. I think I was probably a bit wild/wide eyed being out with loud tourists again. Had a 10K walk alone through argan forest, local villages, rocky roads, sheep and goats, camels, donkeys. Every person I passed saying hello and asking if I’m ok. I love it here. Here here and Morocco here. I’m going to look back on these days as being magic. The heat. The yurt. The solitude. The simple beauty of a really well designed and cared for space. The kind people. My patience with myself. It’s all been really beautiful.

August 9, 2025

Marrakech

I forget how much I love this place. The sounds, the heat, the colors, the chaos. Motorbikes carrying things you wouldn’t think could be carried; German shepherds, lamps, 5 people, trees. Traffic pulsing and rushing forward, horns honking. Palm trees, Moroccan flags, people everywhere. It’s terracotta and slate blue sky. Green palm trees. The Medina (old city) has a different kind of energy. No cars, smaller cobblestone roads. This time I’m staying in a more residential part of the Medina. The only other tourists I see are coming and going from my riad (B&B). Bougainvillea hanging across the road, men in barber shops, women gathered talking, chicken kabobs on the side of the street. Kids running. Men spraying down the sidewalk in front of their shops with water from a bottle. The sound of tea being poured. Tiny openings to stores which are really just a small room….I don’t know what you would call it…a place where things are ironed. Men using industrial sewing machines to make bags, men working wood in tiny shops…their projects out in the street because the shop is so full of lumber. Men hammering copper. Kids hanging on the counter of the hanout (like a bodega where you can get all kinds of things: shampoo, eggs, spices, yogurt, bread, tinned foods, pasta, toiletries, etc….the lifeblood of a neighborhood). There is one in particular I have visited every day and in my few words of Darija I can ask for “jouj perly afak,” two yogurts please…which I take home to the hotel and eat in the bed in-front of the air conditioner using the lid as a spoon. Hello let’s strengthen my immune system please. By the time it’s dinner, I have had my fill of interactions and sounds and am so content to be alone with my yogurt.

I have a path to the souks I take every day…this is both good and bad. I learn the neighborhood and the people learn me. There are a few I greet, and we wish each other good days. And there are a few I avoid…duck behind a crowd of people, look the other way. One man in particular calls out Shakira! Shakira! every time I pass. A group of boys stands in an archway (a gateway to the Medina) and cause trouble…one day telling me the way was closed because they were working on the mosque. Ok dude, not falling for that. It’s a game of sorts. “I saw you yesterday, I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s tomorrow and you’re still here. Come have a look!” And I say, “I’ll still be here tomorrow.” A man on a donkey drops his stick and asks me to hand it to him. Rewards me with the biggest smile as he trots off atop the donkey. The streets of the souks are tighter, with canvas or lattice hanging above to block out the sun. Dappled light. Hundreds of colorful shoes hanging from the ceiling; colorful leather, tassels, knots of colored leather. Sequins. Slippers. Piles and piles of shoes. Bags made from carpets. Clutches with big gemstone closures. Rugs piled high and hanging from the rafters, poufs. Spices heaped in bins, fish grilling for sandwiches, pashminas, jewelry, paintings lining the walls. Old coins spread on a blanket on the ground, a juice cart with sugarcanes six feet high and jumbled like straws in a jar, men selling prickly pears from baskets on the back of their motorbikes. Old men gathered around eating one after the other as the vendor peels them and hands them to the man greedily drinking them down as fast as the other can peel them. Donkey carts coming through carrying wagons full of cement. Scooters racing past at a speed that is incomprehensible for the tightness of the alleys and the number of people who could step out of line at any moment. Bicycles. Groups of people walking and stopping. You have to move like water, easy and loose to just flow through and around.

My first stop is to buy oils from the woman I met in March. Amina. I purposefully left everything home so I could refill with her. She remembered me! We chatted and laughed and talked about our lives. Come sit, be at home. Her boss comes in and we make faces at each other behind him and giggle like schoolgirls. Do you need this? How about this? Sure. Sure. Everything. She gives me Nila Zarqa which is a blue powder made from the indigo plant used for cosmetic purposes…and you can paint with it. I told her I would make a painting for her and bring it Sunday. Really? You’re serious? Yes. Promise. Yes, I promise. She is delighted. A jeweler calls out to me as I pass and comments on my earrings…can I take a photo? For my designs? And for some reason, I stop and say sure. I’m supposed to be surrendering, so why not? Tea? Why not. My mother would have a conniption. And we sit on the floor of the blue shop and have the wildest conversation. Answer me as your adult self and as the little child inside of you too. Slow down, tell me the real answer…you don’t have to answer so fast. I feel like I’ve entered a different world entirely. Like the universe wanted me to stop and breathe. And in the blink of an eye three hours have passed and I walk home a different person than the one who stepped out the door in the morning.

The riads feel like they have a dynamic all their own, a microcosm. I love watching the other guests…hearing all the languages. I try to find intimate places…ones where the other guests are friendly and open. It makes all the difference when you’re traveling alone. To have a home base where people talk to you. Even if it’s just the staff…better also to find a friend. It makes everything lighter when someone knows a little about you in a strange place. Says hello in the morning or at the end of a day. You can hear about their adventures, find out places you might want to go. And somehow, I always find someone. I loved my riad this time…beautiful courtyards, peaceful, conversations when you wanted them. I felt like I was living in a real home…I was, Peter planted the date palm in the main courtyard 60 years ago. He’s always around to tell lots of wild stories of his life.

And this time in Marrakech….everyone I spent time with…come back..stay here….I’ll help you find a place. I want you to be close and we will be friends. This really is the best place to be. And maybe it is.

August 8, 2025

Begin again

Every time you think you know something, it changes. Something shifts.

I don’t know what this is. I thought I did. A discovery of a home. A Lost place. Found in Morocco. But I’m not sure it was ever about the place. I think the place was the trigger. The space that provided the catalyst to reconnect with

Myself. And maybe that’s what I’ve been searching for my whole life. My home. I’ve looked in others. Asked for guidance and permission. Validation. Fit into their ideals and their boxes. And this hiraeth. This longing for a home that may never have existed… what if it has been a longing for me. For myself. For all of me. A place. That may never have existed. But I know is true. I know exists. Even if I can’t touch it or place it on a map. A deep longing for all of me. To come home to myself. Maybe it’s been a longing for my own heart.

So here this blog thing morphs again. And I don’t know what I’m doing (which I know I’m supposed to stop saying) because I do know. I just don’t quite have the words to put to it. Or more accurately, I don’t have the words to put to it that fit nicely into the language of society. Of what’s par for the course, one foot in front of the next we’re trained to want and do. And I truly don’t know the next step. Just that I’m following my intuition like it’s a map from the gods. Because I think it might be. The only way to decipher it is surrender and listen. Surrender and follow. Surrender and trust.

I met a woman today. She was amazing. And we needed to meet. And it made me realize I feel like I’m floundering and floating. Free falling with God, as Jacque keeps saying. And I’m half terrified- half trusting. But I still keep one foot in front of the other even if I can’t see the path. Because I’ve heard the only way we can see the path clearly in front of us is if we’re on someone else’s path. So here I am with machete in hand bushwhacking my way through. And today I meet this woman. And she was like a signpost. She needed my story today. It helped her see light in her own life. And through that I felt so seen. For real. Not as this brave adventurer that people tend to label me as, which doesn’t feel to me to be the truth of it. But she saw me as someone making a very clear, if wandering, choice to try something else. Because you reached a point where everything you’ve lived no longer exists. Not because you want an adventure. But because everything you have known up to this point has burned to the ground. And instead of rebuilding, reconstructing the shape of same thing…you thought maybe there is another way…another path.

To be seen by her and have her recognize our lives as similar and that she could reshape things in a new way too, gave me reassurance in myself. Recognition. To see the light in her eyes….like of course we could do it differently. That when everything burns down, maybe it’s because something entirely new is ready to be born. That there is light in a dark place if you’re brave enough to believe you can follow it. I need to figure out how to sit with everyone telling me how brave I am. I don’t think it’s bravery…even though I just said it’s brave to follow the light. I think it’s more true that…it’s that there is no other choice but to try to create a new path.

And so, perhaps this will be a collection of my adventures, the paths, the days, the wins and the redirections. The discoveries. Me saying, wow! Look at that!

February 8, 2025February 8, 2025

waiting to meet me

Sometimes, maybe when I’ve been exposed to beauty, I feel such an aching fullness. A hope. Thick and real. Like something sticky and fleeting like it’s dripping through your fingers, and you can’t quite hold it but some of the residue is left on your hand. Driving through Roses Valley- all the doors. Metal with designs. Layer upon layer of paint. So many stories behind each closed door. Each curve. Each woman standing in her threshold. Sweeping out. Watching all the cars go by. Full of tourists. Full of gawkers. I want to paint these women…all their eyes so full of fluid light. The wrinkles. They seem like wise women, like they have some sort of magic I want to know about hidden behind their slight smiles. I want to paint them. Juicy, oil- turpentine smell in the apartment I don’t yet have. The real artist space I’ve longed for my lifetime. Brushes in jars. Light coming in just so. My hair half-crazy and tied up. More ideas swirling around like dust motes in the sun than is possible to nail down. I want to capture the doors, the passageways. The women in the thresholds to their spaces. Their worlds- so many untold stories. And yet all our stories are the same. Our hearts ache in the same language. For the same things. I wonder how many other people feel homesick in the same way I do. I am homesick for all the people I’ve yet to be. As though I can see them all standing in a line, on a dirt road waiting to meet me. And I can’t get to them fast enough. Because I must have this version of myself first. I must lay the foundations and the parts for each next me to be able to come forward.

I’m also homesick for the wild and the stars. The dirt devils. The mirages and the knowledge that just beyond the horizon is a line of camels. Slowly. Languidly. Waltzing their way across the dunes. Their oversized plush feel puffing the sand. The hind leg stepping exactly into the print the front foot made. Marching from nowhere into nowhere, but it’s all the center of everywhere. It’s all home. The moon rising over the dunes. Racing alongside the car as we speed through the desert. The mountains ticking beside us like clips from a film reel. The whole time the huge glowing moon keeping pace with our speed. Hand out the window catching the wind.

July 6, 2024

stepping off the path

So, while I’ve thought this blog and this homecoming is about a return to Morocco…a place that grabbed my soul and hasn’t loosened its grip since I met her, I think the bigger thing happening is a homecoming to myself. I have no idea what I’m doing or what will happen. I put everything I own into storage, arrived with two suitcases and my typewriter, which for the record is absolutely one suitcase too many. Even if you think you’re going to live somewhere. I think none of this makes sense to most people in my life, but this decision to step off the path, is the truest decision I’ve ever felt. And who knows. It could be a disaster. But it could also be amazing. I just know if I didn’t try, if I didn’t get on the plane with no plan but to listen, it would be THE thing on my deathbed that would fill me with remorse and regret.

This past year was the most heart wrenching and difficult of my life. So much of what I had built, fell away. So much of what I knew, shifted. I think it was all built on a foundation that wasn’t quite mine. A foundation that was normal and what it “should” be. But not what I am. Not what I could be if I followed my heart instead of the rules. The guidelines. The well wishes. I’m a rule follower. It’s served me well in my life. If you look on the surface, I’m successful in all the ways you’re supposed to be, and yet I’ve never all the way felt like I’m living my own life. I’ve felt like I’ve been playing a part, living a story, but I’ve never embodied it, I’ve never participated in it down to my bones because it’s never really felt mine.

And so, now that I’ve started already…. because sometimes you simply must start things that scare you…like writing a blog….it can become what it will be…. a developing love story with my own heart, a homecoming to my own soul and an adventure along the way…with some reflections on the year that broke me. A time I don’t wish to ever repeat, but one I’m grateful for because without it, I wouldn’t have stepped off the path.