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.
