September 2025 – Hiraeth Homecoming

September 8, 2025October 16, 2025

The flood and new friends

I had a sad day and decided to go to bed early. Fully asleep I realize there is knocking on my door. It’s the night door man trying to tell me something important. I’m half asleep and in my nightgown but catch the word lma…water. So, I gesture for him to come in. He checks the grasses in the window boxes, and I gesture to the terrace. We go out. It is flooded! He shuts off the water and gestures for me to climb up on the ledge and look down at the flooded street! Yikes!! The water is off, he leaves, I go back to bed. Ding dong, it’s the lady downstairs and her daughter. Oh dear. She is telling me she is flooded and I understand she wants me to come downstairs with her. I’m trying to tell her I know about the water, and it is off now. She is adamant that I come with her, so I grab my keys and barefoot I go with her. She’s taking my hand and slightly dragging me. Her cat ventured upstairs so they grab the cat, we all four get into the elevator…cat very not happy to be contained in an elevator. Her bedroom is flooded with a half inch of water. Soaking. The rug is squishy, the wall stained, a pool of water all along her windows. I feel awful and anxious. I type a message on chat that I am so sorry and that I’ve written to the landlord and the water is off. She doesn’t have her glasses and so can’t see. She sends the daughter I think to get someone who speaks English. She gestures for me to sit on her bed. I’m trying not to cry so I decided to try to be her friend. I ask her name, and she asks mine and we are smiling and she rubs my back.

We go into the salon. Most Moroccan homes have these rooms used for hosting that are simply gorgeous. Couches lining the walls with cushions made of velvet, sequins, sparkle, tassels; lacy curtains, little end tables to put in front of the couches for serving. This room I love because it is blue and gold and sequins! English speaking couple shows up. They are animatedly all talking and the daughter is interacting with me with the dog they brought. The English speaking lady asks if the water is off. Yes. Can you please leave it off until the problem is fixed? This is not the first time it has happened. Oh dear. Yes, of course I will leave it off. It’s an automatic system and it seems it didn’t shut off. She said we are not upset with you, just the situation but don’t be worried. She lives above me and if I ever need anything to come knock. She and her husband start leaving so I make to leave with them, I figure this is my chance to go back to bed. No, no, Halima grabs my hand and leads me back inside. I wonder, are we cleaning? No. We are having tea. At 11:30pm in my nightgown and bare feet. She brings over a few tables, sets out muffins and crackers and a pot of tea. The daughter is sent to the hanout and comes back with more snacks they arrange in different quadrants on a plate. It is just lovely. And I know she is cooking something. Rice with milk which is a perfect late dinner because I am apparently also staying for dinner. We are chatting and not understanding anything and laughing and trying to use the phones. She tells me she is happy for the water because it brought me to her and now we are sisters. Tomorrow I will come for couscous. I offer to help clean the water which is met with a hard no. I say I really need to sleep so they give me shoes and show me the door and make sure I know which number they are, we all pile into the elevator to be sure I get home ok and they walk me to my door. I go to bed for the third time just smiling to myself. Where in the world do you flood someone’s house and they have you for tea and dinner on the spot and invite you for the next day? I was ready to be yelled at.

The next day I am debating what time to really come. They said 1:00, but is that 1:00 really or is there some Moroccan time figured in and I should come later? I have no idea. I go at 1:10…the most I can allow my prompt self to delay. I get to watch Halima make couscous which I have never seen done. I bring my handheld translation device so we can all actually chat. And I’m there for the full day. We chat until lunch. There is enough couscous for 12 people. We have a dance party and laugh. Chat more, language exchange, more dancing. Break for soda. Then we lounge. At some point I think Halima makes a cake which we eat with our hands as we drink tea. More lounging and laughing and chatting. Asking if I’m married and have children. I tell them I was married, and it wasn’t good so I left and have to rebuild my life so I’m thinking maybe I will do that here. She puts her hand on her heart and touches my leg, and I get choked up. They are my family now and anything they can do, ask. They want to show me around Marrakech. I am welcome anytime.

The next day they leave a voicemail, which is difficult because I don’t understand any of it beyond the greetings. I’m holding the phone up to the translation device which only catches half of it. I get the sense they are asking why I didn’t come see them again. I didn’t know I was supposed to! I say I can go tomorrow…then I think they are going to see her mom and aren’t back until Saturday. I really have no idea.

I was thinking the day of the flood, how am I going to meet more women? It’s easy to meet men, they are the ones working everywhere and with blue eyes, they want to meet me….but I want some real people, some actual friends. The very day I’m wishing for women friends, they ring my doorbell in the middle of the night. Magic!

One of the things that I adore about Morocco is the connection with people. The time is taken to have connections, to sit for tea, to shake hands and ask how you are, clasp a hand on the back, kiss cheeks. I told my waiter about the flood and the subsequent tea, dinner, couscous, come again interaction. He said, of course. Everyone in that building is a big family and you all have to take care of each other. I think if I was Moroccan, they would have let me help clean the water. Yesterday on the elevator, I chatted with a girl, Sophia. She was asking if I was staying here with a family and I said I’m alone. As we get off the lift, she wants me to follow her and she shows me where she lives…so if I need anything to come to her. I’m welcome. This place. It has my heart.

September 8, 2025

Sad days

They are happening. I am tracking them to see if there is a pattern. It seems like once a week I have a day of just exhausted collapse. This whole thing I’m doing, whatever that is… surrendering. “Free falling with God.” Not having a plan but trusting my intuition and following signs. Taking off to Morocco, again, with just a suitcase. Not jumping back into the expected, easily laid out path. All that. It’s beautiful and incredible and I’m so proud of myself. And there are days, and moments where it’s hard. And a lot. And lonely. And I’m tired and want a hug. Maybe that is one of the goals…not maybe…I secretly always have this goal…to find people I am going to be able to hug. Today I want a hug. It feels like a visceral need, and I don’t quite know how to meet it.

I remember a few of these days in the last few years where it was a desperate feeling, this need to just be held or touched by someone else. That’s another thing in our lives, at least mine that happens so naturally within it, that we don’t notice how big and important it really is. To be touched. Until it’s missing. One of the most desperate hug needs was when I was leaving Morocco, in the midst of the terrible year and found out my dad had coded from a voicemail (he was fine-ish at the time of the vm, the intent of which I believe was being used as a weapon…divorce is grand) and I was desperate and desolate walking up and down the corridor of the Lisbon airport, sobbing, looking for anyone who looked like they could hug me. I never found anyone. There was another morning in Rome in the most beautiful little hotel I always stay in because they have birds painted on their walls in periwinkle blue paint. I was alone in the breakfast room, light streaming in, at a big picture window like you see in movies looking out onto European boulevards, crying. The waiter came over and asked me if my coffee was ok. He knew I was struggling but didn’t know what to say so he checked on my coffee. I was working up the nerve…not nerve…but battling in my head with how appropriate is it to ask a stranger to hug you? And a foreign stranger on top of that. Plus, I cry like a five-year-old, completely uninhibited which tends to scare the daylights out of adults. But some days what you really need is a hug. I still haven’t figured out if it’s ok to ask a stranger. But if someone came up to me and looked like I probably look and asked for a hug, I would hold them. But I know I’m not most people.

I’m learning that I’m my own best person to know what I need…I don’t need someone outside of me to give me anything….but a hug, that’s a different story. Today I’m realizing I’m overwhelmed. I’ve walked about 20 miles the last three days, the last bit of that in 100-degree heat. I’m learning a new neighborhood. Going to yoga. Practicing a language. Not being able to communicate in my own language in most all outdoor interactions. Figuring out the grocery store and lugging it all home. Spending full days with two different families. More on that soon, it’s been utterly delightful and magical how it all happened. But to be on all day…paying attention to body language, reading faces and tone in addition to trying to communicate is exhausting. It’s like learning to be in the world. It’s no wonder kids need so much sleep.

I’m realizing I have a left-over side effect from my marriage; that if you are not being productive, you are wasting the day or yourself or I don’t even know what, just it’s bad. So, these days when I am running on empty and want to rest, I’ve been beating myself up for not being out there, not seeing, doing, writing, learning, etc. And that makes the day even more fun, to be alone in your house with a big bully.

Last week I asked my good friend, ChatGPT (that thing is amazing to talk to at any hour of the day), “What do normal people do?” Because that’s part of this too. Comparison. I think normal people just do normal things. I don’t even know exactly what that means, but I assume most people have an easier time moving through life than I seem to let myself have. I don’t know anyone else who’s done something like this — thrown themselves completely off the map with no real plan, just a hope that something will feel aligned. Most days it is beautiful and incredible things are happening. And today is hard. Chat told me that part of my problem is comparing myself to perceived normal. And judging myself for it. There is that judging myself thing again. That lots of people wouldn’t even think to do this…. “Because it’s extraordinary.” It is not ordinary what I am doing, and I sometimes long to just be doing something ordinary. It seems like it would be less painful or lonely or uncomfortable or internally claustrophobic. But I don’t understand how to do it differently than I am.

And isn’t it ok that some days are hard? Not every day in my “regular” life is easy and wonderful. There are hard days in every life. I’m not supposed to be having the time of my life every minute. How would I learn anything? I think what I need to learn right now is how to allow myself to have the days or hours or moments that feel heavy, that feel like struggle. To just be with the feeling of it. To hold it and say I see you, feeling, until it doesn’t feel so heavy or painful. To say to myself it’s ok to stay home and knit today; the world is not going to end. Morocco is not going to disappear. The signs will not stop coming. You will still meet your people. You will still find your path. And you will handle all of it better if you’re rested. How long do you think until I’ve learned this lesson?

September 6, 2025September 10, 2025

The Apartment

When I went to college, I was close enough to go home easily but the school suggested and therefore my mom enforced no going home until Thanksgiving. So that you gave yourself a real chance at getting adjusted, to making friends, to finding a rhythm. I’ve imposed the same sort of rule on myself at the apartment. No going to the Medina where I have routines and consequential strangers. I need to establish them here. This rule takes some pressure off me. It narrows my perimeter. I walk the neighborhood, learn the grocery store, find a liquor store, seek out the cafes, meet the hanout man. Get lost on purpose.

Liquor here is a strange thing. It is forbidden in Islam and not served in most places. There are tourist restaurants that serve it and it’s available if you know where to look. There are places called The Cave inside one chain of grocery store. Near my house, surprisingly and happily is a Liquor Store. The entire place is windows that are blacked out…the door is narrower than a regular door….like if you’re hiding it, then it’s not really there. It feels like a sneaky thing, buying a bottle of wine, like you’re committing some sort of crime. But being a westerner, it’s ok. One time there was a holiday, something to do with the king and you couldn’t buy alcohol. But if you went to the biggest Carrefour with your passport and had the number recorded in a book, you could buy alcohol. The outside was crowded with locals begging everyone entering to buy something for them. I’m in the rhythm of not really drinking here. I can tell the nights I have a glass of wine…the next day the heat is definitely harder to deal with.

The grocery store is like any large grocery. It has groceries, prepared foods, a pastry counter, flowers, electronics, clothes, and home décor like tables, mirrors, fake trees. All produce is put into a brown paper bags and then taken to a lady on an end cap with a scale. She types in the code, weighs it and puts a sticker on it so the checkout people can just scan it. I know what I can buy at the hanout below my building and so save those things to buy there. Plus, it’s a half mile walk back to the apartment in the heat so the lighter the better.

There is a cute café I want to try but my first day there is a large group of men, and they all turn in unison and give me crusty looks as I approach so I keep walking. It’s really intimidating entering a café I think….it’s 98% men and all the chairs are facing out, so it really feels like everyone is watching you as you enter. Like you’re on a stage. Two doors down is a less cute café but the vibe is better. The waiter is friendly, and the coffee is good. The second day, the same table of staring men so I continue on to the alternate cafe. This time it’s a new waiter and he doesn’t understand my Darija. I have no other way to ask for a coffee. He can’t hear me. My Darija teacher said this can happen…people don’t believe that you would be speaking their language, and they can’t hear you. So, he brings me some weird coffee drink that is not an espresso. And now I do not want to come back here. I decide the next day table of men be damned, I have the same right to be there as they do and I’m going in. And they were not there!! And the waiter was a dear! And I ordered everything in Darija, and he was patient and kind with me! Success. So now I have a coffee shop. The next time I go, the men are not there again, but they all start arriving as I’m finishing. They all take turns staring as they arrive. I realize it maybe wasn’t crusty, the looks before, but they were checking me out. Because today they all take turns looking at me and looking a little too long and then looking quickly away. But I’m already sitting so I don’t care. And it’s a good lesson….I felt daunted and insecure, and I think I read their looks wrong the first day. Still intimidating to have a full table of men staring in unison no matter the intention.

The neighborhood is very suburban, very local. I haven’t seen another tourist or another western person in a week. I wander. Hanouts, coffee shops, a crepe place, lots of patisseries, a few restaurants. Lots of bougainvillea. My street has a few car repair shops, so the street is lined with old dead cars that are seemingly slowly being taken apart for parts. They are so dusty, and weeds are growing around their tires. Next door an apartment is being built and there is a steady back drop of hammering and banging all day long. Down the street is a large hole in the ground, maybe they started making an apartment and stopped. Beyond is an open field, which is just dirt and some small plants. Packs of dogs roam here and lone men on motor bikes pass through. Beyond is more Marrakech, mosques dotting the horizon. And the sunset. I make a point to be on my balcony at sunset. The light stains the buildings a dusty pink. Call to prayer starts ringing out in waves from all the mosques. It’s my favorite time of day.

In all my time in Morocco I’ve really only ever seen runners near the military base in the desert. Training. But here! Yes! Runners!! No female runners, but I’ll take it. People still stare at you like you’re half out of your mind. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of things done for sport here. Feels a little like a luxury, to have the time to run. I love running in foreign places…you see more areas faster than walking and in the early morning, especially in Morocco, you have the world to yourself. It helps me feel connected to this place. A man, I’m going to say Swedish, exuberantly waved and said hello to me as he ran past the other morning. A little connection!

I didn’t like it here at first; too far out, too industrial on my street, not the Medina, not touristy. But now after a week of forced perimeter I think it’s perfect. I found a yoga studio 4k away. It’s in Gueliz, the new city and where more foreigners are. It reminds me of NYC. It’s where I meant to find an apartment. Lots of cute places, book shops, patisseries, cafes that look like they’re from Europe. And going there makes me happy I am in my very Moroccan neighborhood.

I walked one day to try to find a language school to sign up for classes. Google maps had me going through a very construction site full of tons of men, staring. I would have needed to enter the construction site, hop a fence and cross a field. So no. I tried another way and it just felt like I was swimming upstream. Checking my map, only one mile to go, you can do this and I thought to myself…yes, but do you want to do this everyday? I do not. So I turned around and found a café full of trees and a fountain and drank espresso and a fresh squeezed orange juice. Sometimes we have to abandon our plans. I found a yarn store after the café. Why knit the project you brought when you could buy more yarn and start something else? When it’s 100 degrees. To be fair, they had turquoise yarn with sparkles in it, sort of hard to turn that down. My walk home Google maps got me very lost again, off day they were having….but!! I knew where I was! I recognized a hanout awning from earlier wanders. That feels amazing…to find you know where you are when you’re lost!

The yoga studio is a little oasis…a very yoga feeling place with healthy juices and lunches, homemade chocolate chip cookies. People on their laptops working. I’ve purchased a month unlimited….it’s nice to have a place to go, to move your body, people who speak English and remember your name. The man at the desk lets me try out more Darija with him. Words beyond restaurant and food words! Wow!! On the walk home today in 100 degrees at two in the afternoon, I am one of the only people out. A few men on motorbikes stop to ask if I’m ok or if I need a ride anywhere. I want to take them up on it, but don’t. A man from Cameroon stops me to talk…where are you from? America. His eyes get huge! You never hear of anyone from America! That is too far away, wow!! I tell him I’m hot and have to keep walking…he tells me God bless you and then yells, “I love you!” as I get further down the street. I turn and wave and he waves and smiles. This place is nuts and I love it.