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Morocco Journal Part One, Two and Three

In Expanse of Truth / Mountains through Mountains

Five years ago, Ramon and I sat, facing waves coming from the coast that broke from the Rif Mountains. We spoke in laughter and Italian, making loose travel plans for future years and charting my path for the next few months in Iberia. The idea of crossing the strait to Tangier had been set in my mind after a delicious tajine that Jackie had cooked sometime one of those weeks. Ramon thought better of the venture and pushed me to go north, on the train, the slow, local train that snakes through the mountains and deposits its inhabitants in Granada, lush and warm in the summer. It had felt important to go to Granada, even though I had already been. I had to go and be lonely there and settle into this feeling and come to know it. I hadn’t known this before I stepped on the train, nor did I know at the time, but years later, it expanded in written truths. I remember it as an unhinged few days of wandering and writing letters and sitting and smelling the jasmine in the gardens at the Alhambra. I often sat in the same spot, facing the same jasmine blooms, their scent lingering from the previous night and talked to the gardeners. Quietly, I would smile at their observations of the day’s work and the tourists that passed them in streams. Unsettling in the way of stirring up something that needed to be shaken. This journey had been about that, it was what I came looking for and it scared and struck me.

I think now, Ramon knew me and what I’d find in Morocco before I knew it myself. He knew I’d love the textiles, the scent of the place and that I would find myself there one way or another in the next few years. I remember when I came back from a day in Cadiz, he was impressed with my reflections of the city and he smiled a strong, approving smile. We never traveled to India on motorbikes like we had promised over green olives. We never spoke again after I left the orange grove. The letter I wrote months later was good but not good enough to alter a proper simple life. The farmer artist stayed put and I can only choose to have respect for that decision. As he foresaw, once to Morocco, twice to Morocco, maybe it is there we will meet one of these days.

I admit with a whole heart that I was terrified to travel this June. I had been preparing for months, for the past year and I had never felt more unprepared. Wishing for more time had started to become a daily pastime. I could have changed the timing, I full well know this, but I relish in this fear and the tension it imprints on to me. Fortune might favor the brave, but I didn’t feel brave, only constantly in question. Question had become a place of comfort, a default in unseen times. But the answer can never be held in preparations, it is only in action where truth can be felt in its purest form.

Your second time here? Yes, I mean, Oui, I mean, Nam, I nodded. Somehow, through my anxiety of arriving, I was able to sleep on the plane. It was a good omen that I did, somehow my body must have known this would be a very long and challenging Saturday. The agent at immigration seemed to be looking through my face, curious as to what I was actually doing there. Moi aussi, I wanted to add.

Hamid was downstairs to greet me. He is soft and kind and having known Susan for twelve years, there is an automatic comfort. She never fails to amaze me how she has completely entered and been enveloped into the culture and this country. She is Moroccan deep down, she must be. I still am incredibly humbled to have received such generous help from her, I feel so undeserving of it and am hoping to honor it properly.

Just like I was telling David, the air is pregnant with heat. Permeating up from the ground, from the South, up from the Sahara. But it is dry and a bit cooler than I expected it would be. Some of the land resembles yellow haired straw with clusters of goats and dots of low hovering palms as we reach toward Marrakech. We arrive at Amazonite around noon. The secret doors open into the corridors, piled high with rugs and textiles that I just want to rest my eyes on for a few moments. I close them though, because I know they will distract me and we have a long afternoon of mountain roads ahead. Susan was happy to see me and she offered some more names and numbers and advice. It felt like much to accomplish in just a few short days, but she reiterated it could be done. The exceptional owner of Amazonite, Sabah, remembered me and I melted with humility. I often thought of her over the last year and how she generously draped me in Berber jewels, fit for museum collections. She remembered my eyes, she said and I had pause to thank my mother for the gift of light eyes. Sometimes, I think that without them, no one would remember me. I said I would be back to visit next week, hoping I could keep my promise.

Hamid and I jetted out of the palmeraie just as quickly as we had come in and it didn’t take long for the landscape to change drastically. Driving in and through the Atlas Mountains didn’t seem like such a feat as I was making plans to come here, but now going through I see that it appears to be mildly treacherous. It is probably to my benefit that I am beyond exhausted and traveled out at this point. The hazy shade of journey has been clouding my vision since we were on the outskirts of Marrakech. It was a good time to be half asleep. When I would come to again, often times we were in the dip of the mountain pass. These oases are verdant, appearing as if they were soaked in liquid in the middle of the driest bits of mountain. The mountains impress me not because they are massive or awesome in an admirable sense, but for their patterns. The way the vegetation hangs to the seemingly rocky soil, sometimes vertically. The trees grow in large numbers, often they appear so perfectly spaced, gridded almost. They grow as if they are reaching for something, yearning towards the sun that gnarls their positions and limbs. I noticed hives and am thoroughly inspired that bees fly up here to make honey. You would think the spread out, flattened bits of land would host the hives suitably enough, but I often saw them tucked into widened crevices, hidden into the mountainsides.

The further we twisted south, the quicker I felt the anxiety fall away. Let it come down, I need it to disperse. None of it seemed to matter during these bits of road and it will probably extend further into importance and taking up space. What is said about a change of scenery couldn’t be truer. It felt like breaking shells, I sensed warmth and was happy to see myself emerging from the weight of the winter and of the past few weeks. I made it here, just like I needed to and now I am in it but it still feels so unreal.

The mountains turned into gravel like textures. Piles of stones marking the kilometers. Hamid drove like a bat out of hell after most of the curvy passages. It was striking as we entered upon a fairly desolate stretch of land that flattened out and was bordered by mountains in the distance. The dusty embankments lead to Tazanakht, which is windblown and deserted, but it is just hidden from plain sight, the hidden country. We have syrupy tea at the Hotel Taghdoute and it is decided that I will stay with Ahmed’s family instead of in the empty hotel. At first, I did not mind the change, I was much too spent to even think on it, but as I grew more tired, the idea of concentrating and conversing felt like it was taking its toll. But there was no out, only onward.

Ahmen, Ayman and Asma and I sit sheepishly staring at each other. They know the toys I laid on the table are for them and they have to sit on their hands not to rip open the packaging. I don’t mind either way but there is a ceremony of tea and honey. We converse over the names of the foods and the numbers in Darija, French and Berber. This only lasts so long and the sweets are gone and the olive oil soaked up, so somewhere in my tired self, I find the resolve to play with them and we laugh and act silly. Kbira talks me through it, speaking mostly with our eyes. Tirelessly, Kbira shows me countless rugs she has made, all different styles and colors. Her industriousness puts me to shame and would do the same to nearly every creative person I know. I am marveling at her and coming up short in my language. I wished for notes to write, to her and the children, to communicate in my truest intention, I can always write better than I can say it, but there would be none.

It is dark now and nearly ten. I’m sure that the pace is finally slowing but I couldn’t be more wrong. Dinner is being prepared and Ahmed has a guest for tea and then we have some business to discuss. We all sit on the floor around the tajine and it seems surreal that I am here with new friends, while last night I was at the airport in New York and the night before, drinking margaritas with T bird. The children are intelligent and funny, they tell illustrious stories and Ahmed listens intently to their observations. I’m humbled and impressed by the quiet strength of this family. Another door of Morocco opened. There is watermelon to finish, it is sweet and cools me to the point of rest.

Finally the night and my longest day comes to an end. The days after this first one will be filled with long roads and tea. Kbira takes all her hair down and shows me. It is incredibly long and luxe, I’m almost breathless at the sight of it, it is that beautiful. She lays down a pile of her rugs for me to sleep on and I leave the window open. It was thinking of Italy when I thought of the phrase, days with open windows never end but today and tonight it is in Morocco where it rings truest.

Kbira’s morning harira is thick and salty with a heady gulp of olive oil pooling at the bottom of the bowl. The dates seem like they were yanked from the palm in a gripping fist, smashing together their sweet pliable skins. You have to pull them from one another. When you eat this every morning with sweet tea, how can you not be thankful for your life, however it will present itself to you later that day.

In Expanse of Truth / Moonlight on our faces

Ahmed, Kbira and I drove across the street to the market to pick out vegetables and meat for the meal that the weavers would make because of my visit. Kbira commands the hanut and chooses so many beets and tomatoes, I’m lead to believe that we are meeting at least twenty weavers. The butcher’s stall is not for the weary. I will be confronted with an uncharacteristically squeamish version of myself in a few days time in Zaida, but today it is a rapid transaction of a swift chop and money changing hands.

The road to N’kob is through dusty golden crevices, a place where mountains are nameless. Ahmed is playing something similar to gnawa on the radio and I’m wishing that we could just drive all day. Over the past two days, I’ve fallen in love with these kilometers, something you would think I would have picked up a while ago, after long roads to Karabagh and Jaisalmer and the Midwest. We used to drive through the night away from Saint Louis in my fathers blue Mercedes. Even as a child, I loved that car and would stare out the window at the moon, not wanting to actually arrive.

The weavers greet us with tea and we lie around drinking, eating fruit and looking at rugs. Hanging out with the men gets old and I sneak into the kitchen to see if I can help, which I’d love more than anything. I’m quickly redirected to the room that holds Isma’s loom. I see this and realize I can never come up with another excuse for not creating something I dream and talk about it. I rifle through my dictionaries and realize my French is useless. It is not about the language, this is where the bridge is constructed. This is cultural. Speech turns to hands and drawings and somehow I think we find a path to reach each other. Doris, my sample maker in New York would have loved this moment and I wished that she were here to be a part of it. Before I left, she was reassuring my apprehension about the trip, telling me, creative people can communicate in other ways, that is what is special about us. She has no idea what her support has meant to me and how unexpectedly it has anchored me. I have to remember to tell her this when I go back during one of our fashion industry turned politics talks.

We are sitting around the tagine, eating and laughing and I probably jump the gun thinking we’ve gotten somewhere today. My lacking French turns to slowly practicing the Berber that Kbira taught me last night and we manage to exchange more than pleasantries. I hope to all the gods that this will create the basis of the relationship that could be fruitful.

Water is poured to clean our hands and we lounge around for a bit longer. I realize the pace and mood has changed. They are waiting for transactions but I didn’t come for that. One of the weaver’s husbands is terribly pushy and when he realizes that I am not the ATM he thought I was, he pouts. I can’t help but feel disappointed. They have shown me beautiful work today and an abundance of it, but it is not right for my project and there is not enough of a sense of flexibility to convince me that we could forge ahead together.

Hamid was waiting for me on the crossroads to Taznakht and N’kob. I felt sad to say goodbye to Kbira. I had grown to have an affection for her over the last day. After this afternoon, I don’t know if I will see her again but I will remember her.

Twenty kilometers down the road to Anzal we park in front of the Association Tifawin. There were at least twenty men sitting on the steps of the entrance. I had to take a deep breath to exit, I was exhausted. It had been a never-ending day leaving me filled with an overwhelming sense of doubt about my entire purpose in this country. I stalled, adjusting my sunglasses and opened the door. All there was to say was As-salamu Alaykum and all together they sung it back to me in a chorus. It still plays back in my head over and over. The ladies inside seemed surprised and pleased to have a visitor. They unlocked the doors and fire up the water. Fatima is comforting and sweet, so much so, I wish I could confide in her about my experience today. I was relieved to find the Chedwi textile here, the same rug I was struggling to locate and replicate this morning. Maybe there is reason to drive down these roads a second time.

At the only inn in Anzal, the bed was filthy but I simply don’t the energy to make a fuss so I lay out on the Moroccan couch. (Very different than Western couch.) The bathroom was soiled with cigarettes butts and dust so I lit incense to make it just slightly more appealing. I hadn’t slept in such a shabby hotel probably since India. I would say our unforgivable night in Bikaner. I remember Marin and I waited for hours for our dinner in the empty pastel hued dining room. (Mind you, the food was delicious). Then we chatted for a long while with the owner’s father. He was bundled up in a puffer coat, scarf and hat, mismatched, in the endearing way that Indians wear Western clothing. He was kind and asked us about our travels and impressions. We got into bed with our coats on and wished the night through, so thankful for having each other to laugh the time away.

Hamid and I shared hariria and dates for dinner, the meal mirrors that of the morning. Considering the filth of the place, the food was quite satisfying and breakfast would be swarming with flies, but the eggs, fresh and tasty. I lie down and read some Paul Bowles stories, which were of the most terrifying nature and left me more than unsettled. To pass some time, I perch in the window and smoke a cigarette, slightly hiding myself and secretly hoping Hamid wasn’t standing next to his window out of the fear that he would think me a charlatan. I woke up in the middle of the night by the sound of barking dogs and then later by the light of the moon on my face. It was waxing to a full circle. I realized I had forgotten to ask around for the Peace Corp volunteer that lives in this road stop town. The dogs kept barking and I was freezing.

We drove all day and then we drove some more. We drove East through the Atlas and through Ouarzazate. Past Errachidia, we literally edge off the end of the earth. Hamid and I struggle to find the Maison d’hotes Sahara but the golden sand reveals a swaying oasis in front of me and ease appears again. We arrive and the hotel is empty, filled with only with rugs and afternoon light, an incredible sanctuary of tranquillo. There is tea being prepared. The maker is always surprised that I take it sweet. I decide to sit with Fatima and start weaving along side her. Susan hadn’t told me that the ladies were a family of weavers, a striking Berber mother and her three daughters. Later, Khira tells me about the language and religion of the loom. I secretly hope that I hadn’t broken any of the rules yesterday and offended Fatima.  I am honored that she let me sit down with her and tie a few pieces on; I’m no weaver of any caliber to speak of. Fatima works tirelessly on the weaving and she incorporates what she sees in the carpets, there are small rugs with animals, palms and skies, it is a vision of the palmeraie. Her henna dyed fingers progress along steadily through the evening and I’m shocked to see how much she has accomplished since I have arrived.

The tagine Khadija makes is the best meal I’ve had all week, the prunes are melting and perfect. Khira, Fatima, Hamid, Khadija, Aicha and I stay up late talking about wool, Berbers and language. Weaving is changing in Morocco because like the maps of the land, it is a direct reflection of the people. There is talk of the sheep and the women that take care of them and how this age-old task of animal husbandry is too labor intense. Ready-made wool is now available in the souks, which usually come to town once a week. In a way, making weaving more accessible, but the technical knowledge is key and what happens when some of those ideals are not passed and continued. Susan told me a few years ago that the women weave with spirit, in addition to technical expertise, but is that at risk too?

When I tell people I travel to Morocco, some of them look at me and assume it is because of a man. I’ve been informed countless times that I’m fated to marry a Moroccan. Maybe I should have considered the prior invitations, but I hadn’t and didn’t seem to host any regrets. Even my own mother tried passing me off during our trip last year. I remember looking at her incredulously, a shepherd, really, Jude? I think she was more enamored with the idea of the attractive goat pets rather than my potential suitors dental hygiene. She reminded me of my namesake opera; where the peasant, Anush falls in love with Saro the shepherd. (It incorporates heavy family involvement, male chauvinism and unnecessary drama, all traits straight from the Motherland and the Diaspora). I counter that the heroines story ends in despair and I hope more for my fate, in the name of my grandmother, Haykanoush.

When the ladies in Aofous float the idea of inviting me to stay, I think seriously for a moment that it might be worth considering. I’ve received such a glimpse into this life and I think spending time here could lead to truth and work. Pour la prochain, Inshallah. I think the ladies and I can make a plan, but I need to return.

I wake up facing the palmeraie and I feel rested and filled with purpose and confidence again. I linger half the morning, talking, visiting the place where the women make the large rugs. Time doesn’t stop and I must meet Houssain this evening in Azrou so North we go after prolonged goodbyes, promises and inshallahs. Khadija makes me laugh out loud when she dramatically gestures off her tahrouit and makes for the taxi. She’s more than welcome I tell her, there have been a lonely few days and her presence would be more than appreciated.

T bird had given me The Alchemist the forth night before I left and as Hamid and I were driving through the mountains, I read with a fervor that I haven’t felt in months. The book shed a light, like it always does and I could feel the convergence of what I was doing, where I was and could see its lifeline from past years and the people that had inspired, influenced and given to me in ways I could never express with proper gratitude. It became so clear in such an instant. I didn’t want to alarm Hamid, so behind dark glasses, I cried, not for nostalgia or sadness, but for the vastness of this moment of clarity and the vision of all the people, whether they were with me in spirit or proximity, that connected me to this very moment.

I thought often of Lucette on these afternoon rides and last night, when I set out her photos in front of the window facing the oasis. I laid on one of the plush rugs the women had made and sent all my thoughts of peace to the oasis and beyond. I wished she could have been with me but I knew that she somehow was, helping me render my thoughts in French. She had taught me well, by story and example, that I could feel it, if I allowed myself. This was the very reason that May had been a challenge. I wasn’t allowing it to take shape for myself, for some reason I was resisting. Feeling had felt void, as I was holding back and denying myself from resting into the rhythm. If full tilt was what I was after, I had to embrace it and I was always versed at full tilt when I traveled, it was the best version of me.

In a few days, when we were sitting in the back of the broke down car in Sefrou, David will tell me it is in the in-between moments where you feel in the deepest and rawest sense. He was talking about Lucette but it always encompasses more. It was in those glimmers of time as I passed mountains and scenes of daily Moroccan life. It goes the way it is meant to. Maktub. It is written.

In Expanse of Truth / Layers for Flesh and for Dust

There was light, flesh and pools of hair. It was a vision that shimmered somewhere between the sublime and the purest beauty. Inta el maghrebi? I shook my head and breathlessly said la. She had me in a considerably compromising position, half naked and wet, melting with exhaustion. Tonguing Arabic at that point seemed unreasonable. I seemed to be excused though, at least for the moment. I didn’t know her name and she didn’t know mine. She had brought me into the changing room by the hand and sat and watched me strip to my underwear. This usually takes a while with all the rings and earrings, but she never imparted any impatience. We have all afternoon to get you good and clean, maybe even next to godliness, I imagine she was thinking, Inshallah. She was right if she was thinking this way, it had been about a week since I had a proper shower sans bucket. It was not just the sand I had collected in my hair through the afternoons of driving through dusty mountains or the kohl caked around my eyes, the only cosmetic luxury I was allowing myself as of late, but the filth of confusion and exhaustion. Being the stranger in a strange land adds layers to you that also needed to be wiped and cleansed away at some point.

She led me out, through the hall to leave my belongings. I was surprised at the vastness of the space and everywhere on the floor was nakedness, being washed, touched, scrubbed, soaped. The voices and the flesh mixed and I didn’t know whether to look wider or listen closer. She gently pushed me under the hot showers, these waters being the reason people come to Moulay Yacoub and today was Friday, it was crowded. There were a group of women in the pool and they started to clap and sing and I opened my eyes to it and sighed with relax.

She tugged a long draw on my knickers and laid me out of a piece of plastic next to the pool lined with deceivingly blue clear water. The holes in the ceiling let light leak in and it illuminated spots on the swaying water. She started to scrub me and her mitten was course but I loved it and dissolved in her hands. She was going to take care of me and I needed someone to.

She grabbed me and forced her hands on my shoulders pushing me down onto a plastic stool. Taking my hair, she forcefully combed it out, tugging my head back and forth with it. I was pretty sure I would have no hair left at the end of this exercise, she was that rough and strands of dark were left on my soaked back. I was wondering the entire time what she was combing with but I kept my head down at her disposal. She had become rougher with me as the dirt melted away and my skin softened and rouged to pink. She set down what the comb was considered and I recognized it as a tool you might use to clean the rice bits from the bottom of a steel pot. I touched my hair in a bit of a terrified state, reminding me how I identified too closely with my long dark hair. It was vain and I knew it.

When I was naked and my hair was long and wet, it did not matter any more, I looked and could have been Moroccan. A dreamy sense of unity set into this moment and maybe I could belong in this place, among women and children, in a place immersed in filth but bathed in light. As bodies, we are always the same, as we are in hearts and souls, separated only by miles.

I admit, with no shame or discomfort, there are few things I love more in life than public bathing. It is the whole of it and it is the details and nuance. I believe this affection comes from my father. He used to sit in the Swedish sauna that he had built next to our pantry in our beautiful stone house in New York. Winters always brought countless feet of snow and every afternoon, Roubik would leave the office and go skiing for a couple hours and then come home and sit in the sauna. It seemed like therapy, he loved to be alone in there, glasses off, as the aroma of the cedar warmed. I heard after we had sold the house, someone had turned that part of the house into a spa.

The first time I was in Morocco, I went alone to a public hammam in the middle of tiny Essaouira. My mother insisted that I cash in the venturing for the day and head downstairs with her to the hotel hammam, but no, after lunch, I went around corners and through archways and found the sign made of falling paint that indicated the entrance, the women’s being more decrepit and much smaller than that of the men. But I had made a mistake and come at the wrong time, hoping to miss the crowd, the women were asleep in the changing room and I was embarrassed that I had interrupted them. One of them grumbled and sat up, motioning me to take off my clothes and do it quickly. This woke up a few people and caught the attention of some of the bathers that were finishing their session. Taking your clothing off in front of one person can certainly be daunting, either a lover or a doctor but it can be terrifying to undress in front of a group of people who are talking about you in a language you have yet to understand. Later, alone with my lady in the hammam, she seemed to forgive me for interrupting her nap when she saw how I responded to her scrub with gratitude.

The discovery of the Russian Bathhouse on Tenth Street in the East Village came as a revelation during my maiden visit. Consequently, this also included my mother. She thought there was no better way to recover from the red eye from San Francisco. Vladimer scrubbed and forced us into the cold pool. We gasped for air as we came up, a most beautiful invigorating gasp for life. Many visits after this one, Victor grabbed the pulse on my throat forcefully after a platza treatment and said you have strong eyes so you must have a strong heart.

I have a fantasy about being the hammam lady and working in the heat and water, touching and scrubbing people and seeing them ease back into life, the dead skin falling off of them. It appeared to be honest and delicate work and there is always strength in tasks with ones hands. To be able to take care of people and their skin. To teach them to take care of themselves and forgive them for not having done so.

AM /// June 2014

Los Mallorquines

Ses Illetes lies below, for walking. These quiet hours that make one new, rewalking the steps that have been passed over, eased away by the sea. Beach flotsam, an ocean in a shell, the gold of the azure. One thousand years yours, one ear in France, one eye in Spain, space swimming in these eyes. Floating shade and ebbing light, making ornaments of accidents, a strange force inching it all together, the warmer current of water. 

Where mothers had been raised as sisters, these strange family connections, origins intertwined, before presence, the woman and solar birds. The subtext, a magnetic and unconscious way of tracking each other before finding one another. Taught early to share a decadent peasants lunch, pa amb oli, pressed golden from wild olives. This, is passed through the blood, the red of it brightening. 

Scales echoing, the room breathes like a fish, built to sway with change, the primary colors stay. More expressive as they grow older, brutal yellow and the blue, consumptive and tidal. An atelier, the gift of four inhaling walls to Palma, still to this day. This place, a canallún, where he burnt all the work away to begin to trust the simplicity of it. The simplicity of the pleasure of it, a half life of love. Felicidad tranquilidad, an eloquent silence, that lifted the temper of even the malagueño.

The view down from the hills of Son Abrines is composed of climate and knots of wind that proof the time of year, the character of land lays a thin film on you, of honey yellow, and on the sunned grasses. The seven o'clock sol is picking up the stray light as it starts to dip into the sea. A color flash, oiseau-éclair, the slightest moment for the birth of what is wild, hands flying off towards constellations, off towards the reflected sky. Expanded infinitely, because there is more sea than days.