Blog – 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.

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.