morocco – 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 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 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 13, 2025August 13, 2025

The Heat and Lessons from a Yurt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 9, 2025

Marrakech

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

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

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

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

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

August 8, 2025

Begin again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

February 8, 2025February 8, 2025

waiting to meet me

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

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

July 5, 2024July 5, 2024

tea

Six men sitting on a blanket at the base of a sand dune in the Sahara Desert. Just after sunset when the light is still bruised. A fire pit of coals dug into the sand to make tea. Here. In the middle of nowhere. But everywhere is somewhere and this is just my middle of nowhere. Though the more I’m here, the more I feel it’s my center. The light fading. The embers bright red. A smashed water bottle used to fan the flames. Turns taken to fan the flames. Tea madam? It’s hot and sweet in the little glass cup. Too late I wonder about hygiene but that also feels like another world’s problem. They pour the dregs of mine back into the green teapot decorated with enamel dotted flowers. Nothing wasted. More tea made to take to the man who will build the camps. While we sit and they laugh and tell stories. Though I don’t know what they talk about, really. It all sounds like song, rising and falling. I can hear where they will laugh just before they do and then I laugh too. Because laughing in a group is one of the delights of the world. You don’t even need to know what was said. You can simply feel the energy, the buildup, the release, the joy sparking out into the night sky.