Inchallah is a word that seems to mean a hundred different things. Depending on the situation, who is saying it, your relationship to them, and the tone of voice…it can mean something completely different. If you ask directly, a Moroccan will tell you it means that if God wants something to happen, it will happen. It’s an acknowledgement that we aren’t ultimately in control. Will I see you tomorrow? Inchallah. I want to see you, but I don’t know what the day will bring. If it’s meant to be, I will see you. So many foreigners who live here ask me with laughter in their voices, “So how do you feel about Inchallah?” It’s a joke, because it’s a maddening word when it hasn’t been part of your upbringing or the way you’ve been taught to either make commitments or speak about God. But I think I like it, actually. Most of the time. Except when you feel like it’s being used as a way to say no without having to say no. It’s a word that feels like it has as many meanings as there are people saying it.
When I came back to Marrakech after Italy in the beginning of April, I was in my beautiful room with a gold polka dotted mosquito net canopy bed in my favorite riad with art supplies spread on the floor in the sun. I was hit with a desire to have a place to live. A place that’s mine. For almost the last three years, that thought would have filled me with an indescribable angsty horror. I have been living in a state of in-between, coming and going. Leaving a marriage, giving away 80% of what I owned, splitting time between where I had been and where I wanted to be, but was too scared to allow myself to want it. A lease felt huge and confining…and I had only just escaped being confined.
A lease up until now has felt dangerous. Has felt like choosing and committing to something I wasn’t sure I was ready to commit to. Or even sure of what it was I was committing to…I only knew I didn’t want to commit to anything; I couldn’t have the feeling of being trapped in the wrong life, in the wrong place ever again. I couldn’t be confined again. And yet, all the wandering and uncertainty was starting to make me weary. We can only be adrift for so long before that also starts to become a type of cage.
But here it was, this longing for space, for stopping.
So, I got online and the very first place I saw was perfect. Two bedrooms, light, a balcony, a nice neighborhood. The agent…a woman who spoke English(!) wrote back right away which is not very common here. We set a time to meet, and I walked over. It was surreal, standing in a space that could be mine. And I loved it.
She said, “I need you to be sure you’re sure because the owner is in Belgium and is serious, so you have to be serious.”
I went home and thought about it and wrote the next morning that I was sure. She wrote back that since I’m an artist and don’t have a regular job, he didn’t want to rent to me.
I said, “Please tell him I am not a flake.” Which is a strange thing to say to a stranger, trying to convince someone that a wandering self-employed artist who has been allergic to settling in one place is ready to commit to building a life somewhere. That it’s safe to take a risk on me.
She said, “I feel like you are a really good person and I believe you,” and she tried to convince him. We had to wait over the weekend for his decision, which felt like forever. I was trying to be positive…if it’s meant to be, it will work out. She and I had discussions into the late night…she said, “Exactly, this is Inchallah….if it’s meant to be, it will be. And everything will always be ok, so you don’t have to worry about anything because it’s always going to be ok. You need to learn this.” So, we waited and I tried this Inchallah mindset.
Finally, he said yes, but only if I paid a year in advance. Everyone assured me this was normal. Then came another problem: I didn’t have a Moroccan bank account. The money would have to arrive before he would sign. Pretty sure they tell you not to do things like that. You sent how much money to a man you don’t know without signing anything and hoped he wouldn’t run away with your money? Haha. I’m also about to go to the desert for a month to the house I love that I’ve been trying to get back to for two years. So, I say ok let me leave, I’ll get a bank account and if it’s still available when I come back, then it’s meant to be and if not, you’ll have something else to show me. “Yes! This is Inchallah!”
In the desert I am so grateful I didn’t rent something, because I am fully present, not mentally still back in Marrakech. I’m completely immersed in where I am, not rearranging furniture in my head in an apartment in another city while missing the camels walking past. The month ends and I arrive back in Marrakech. Online there are way less things available and nothing feels right. Nothing is what I’m envisioning. Some are truly awful. One apartment looked promising online until I realized the entire place was built around a single window, the rooms stacked like a train car. Feeling discouraged. I write to my girl and say, “I’m back!” She asks for my wishes and sends over one apartment. It’s nice. I’m not in the mood. I’m thinking I’m just going to go back to the desert even though summer is coming. I’m now no longer sure I’m really ready to lock into somewhere…old trauma is surfacing in my body; I’m physically reacting to the fear I’ll be trapped again.
I desperately wanted a home, and at the same time I’m terrified of having one.
I ask her to send a few more for comparison and she said this is the only one that fits my list. I don’t think of myself as picky…but also, I know my home is so so important to my mental health and the flow of my life, so I’ve gotten really specific about what I need. Light. Outside space. A second room for hopeful visitors. Room for artwork. She says she would like to invite me to see it. Which feels really sweet. I don’t really want to, so I say Wednesday…she says it’s better if we can go tomorrow. So sure. I’m going to see it merely to maintain the relationship with her for when she has something else to show me. We couldn’t get in at first, and I was like oh well. But then we got in. And it was light and bright and all windows and good colors, with a full wrap-around terrace overlooking the street so I can people watch. Everything in me shifted. Holy cow yes! She’s watching me, already knowing it’s exactly what I want. She’s light and joking with me…and says, “See? Inchallah. This is why the other place didn’t work.” This place is perfect. I say I want to sleep on it, knowing I won’t even make it to bedtime before I say yes. She says there are other people interested in seeing it….which is why I think she pushed for me to see it sooner than I wanted, she was rooting for me.
I say yes. We meet the next day to meet the landlord and put down a deposit. She tells me, “He’s really nice, not as nice as you, but really nice. And he doesn’t live in Belgium!” She’s right, he’s so kind and real and relaxed. I can decorate however I want. He’s not worried about my transfer taking a few days, he likes me and feels good about me too. After my transfer lands we meet at an official Moroccan bureaucracy office where there are people waiting and agents stamping papers with great importance. We sign a book and the lease. In Morocco, so many things get stamped officially…even receipts for fans …. And it’s always done with such flair. Like a kid playing at some pretend job with a stamp that actually works. Stamp stamp and we have a signed lease. We go for coffee to do the bank transfer and chat. “We are friends now.” If I need help, advice on shipping orders, a recommendation for the fuse for the still broken sewing machine (that ongoing, feeling never-ending 600-part saga), or introductions to artisans in the Medina, he has ideas. What did I just find? Perfection. Inchallah.
Before I left for Morocco, the plan was to spend a month in the desert and find an apartment in Marrakech in February. That didn’t happen…living with the family happened, Ramadan happened, Italy for papers happened, the house in the desert happened…the whole time, people in my world were wondering when I was going to Marrakech. The only answer I had was: not yet. I was following breadcrumbs. So, once I was in the apartment, my mom said to me something like, “Finally, this was supposed to happen in February.” It hit me as such a strange statement. Because I feel so strongly that this apartment was here waiting for me. February me couldn’t have found this. It was always going to be mine, but I had to arrive to it first. I walk around in awe with a feeling that I’ve lived here before. Or that my future self was sending messages back to me…this is my place. I couldn’t have found it sooner.
It wasn’t ready for me. I wasn’t ready for it.
I wouldn’t have found it without my girl and the whole experience in April. This place wasn’t listed; I wouldn’t have found it in some internet search. It was only because I was connected to her that I found it. So, I let my mom say it was supposed to happen in February and didn’t correct her. It was supposed to happen exactly as it did. It had been here all along, waiting. Maybe I never needed to worry, because somehow it all works out. Even if we don’t understand the timing, even if it feels like things are falling apart at first, in the end, everything will be ok. Maybe Inchallah isn’t passive, maybe it’s not doing nothing. I think perhaps it’s the opposite, you keep moving, keep asking, keep opening doors, following breadcrumbs…but you stop trying to control which doors must open.
Maybe Inchallah is really about trusting that you don’t need to know how it will work out. We just have to trust that it will. Inchallah Inchallah Inchallah.
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