mad'ouk
“What the Darkness tells them cannot be interpreted in this plane. Darkness is insane, it is a wild god, it is a crazy god.”
Dear Simone,
I'm sitting with a pot of lavender on the terrace with my coffee. I make the same french press every morning with a bit of milk heated on the stove. My habits have changed, and this small ritual gives me a seat to sip and contemplate my new person.
Everything changes so swiftly when traveling. The dynamic landscapes, distinct cultures, and fullness of the people I meet allow me to transform rapidly. I had a lengthy conversation with Clara yesterday afternoon, and her voice in the Moroccan streets made me desperate to be home. I'm surrounded by these beautiful pink walls and luscious green fronds that conceal lemons in their boughs. Or limes.
The tartness is set into my skin; I'm tight and brown as a nut, and my hair smells like the blankets warm from our bodies.
I wake up in the stark cold of the night, wrapped in his arms, and I recognize myself against his body when I sigh. If it weren't for the sound of his breathing, I might forget I was not alone. I'm used to the thick brown and blond curls I find on the pillow sheets and shower walls.
Comingling like this is foreign to me. I've never spent an entire day with one person where we stay in the same room. It was different on the boat with Greg. We had the entire spread of the sea to throw our bodies and swim out and away when the friction became too great.
It is not like that here. We've been side by side since Thursday, and the week passed without my knowing. The cave of the heart is dark and deep.
I feel uncomfortable by the lack of solitude, though I become needy if one of us leaves to get groceries. He left for eggs yesterday, and I felt as if a planet had dropped its rotation around the sun. We are each in our own orbit, spinning at particular speeds in one direction around one thing.
Love. Love of experience. Love of life. Love of self.
Love of each other.
He said it first though I had flung it out into the wild when we were in the dunes together. I had sat in my wrinkled silk dress, its pink straps sliding down my burnt shoulder blades, on the sandy floor of the blue and red tent. The clouds concealed the cosmos. When I tipped my chin upward, I was hoping for his mouth instead of the stars. I did, and he zipped the tent up and leaned back to catch me in his arms.
He had hitchhiked with Martina, Haro, and Ayoub to M'hamid over two days from Taghazout. I took a bus from Marrakesh and booked my own stay for the weekend. I spent one night at my hut and the last two at the festival camp. With him.
Riding the desert's crest is like being in the open sea; only I have more autonomy. On the boat with Greg, I negated myself to fit into that lifestyle. My ardor for the ocean eclipses the desert, though being off the land for so long was disarming. On the sea, I had no control. The dunes present the illusion of control. I could walk to the cafes from the festival to purchase my espresso and water. From the water, I relied on the boat's services, which were inconsistent with my needs.
Serenity is the ecstatic dance, and I surrender to the natural world and offer myself to the dance of paradox. I long to be on the fringe- away from the mainstream that propels society toward greed, power, and untruths. However, I lust for the hum of the city, its cacophonous throb, the color, texture, flavor, and conflict.
So much of what I do has nothing to do with the thing in question. I walked each morning to M'hamid from the camp in the desert to get an espresso just to see the locals push their carts up the road and the nomads roll from their vehicles in colorful robes and sparkly sunglasses. Festival attire is the most fun, and our camp dressed majestically as the rest.
The darkest secrets of the self are whispered in the sands of the desert. I slept lightly, listening to the laughter and snapping bark as it was thrust into the fire. A group of young men stayed up to watch the sunrise, and as they slid into their sleeping bags, I slipped from his arms into the world to see the light bleed over the listless bodies.
We danced heartily on both nights of our stay at the festival. The first night, we had so much space to ourselves. The constellations were clear from sunset to sunrise, and we made a wide ring beneath the moon, stomped our feet, and shook our hair on our bare backs.
Saturday evening was the headliner and hundreds of people flooded the desert around the stage. We took up a spot in front of the stage. Groups flocked to the center to dance and sway, sipping beers and smoking joints and carrying kids in knapsacks on their backs. European girls with long legs wore macrame vests that dragged in the golden sand. They winked and flirted with everyone they touched, covertly pulling small brown bottles of beer from a wide bag. Our crew had grown to nearly twenty, and we created a circle to dance to the first band. I shook so hard my body was slick and he held my hands and spun me around and around.
The stage was flanked by hundreds of people who had set up places to sit with blankets, and as the second band took the stage, our crew moved to join them.
I leaned back into him and we wrapped a long orange, purple and white shawl around us. Concealed by the sateen, I felt his lips on my face and relished our privacy. Hidden in plain sight, he swayed and my body followed. When I peeped out from his bangs, the sky moved by the music.
Sand billowed everywhere and when I took my first breath, I felt it in my throat. Yellow lights flashed and lit the swirling sands in the sky, so we were all awash by its glow and grains.
I've never felt so protected and part of something.
I've never felt so alone on the rock we call earth.
Everything was writhing and moving so slowly that it was barely perceptible. The crowd bucked and swayed, and the singers jutted their hips and stroked their instruments, but the sky and the sands shifted like molasses in winter.
Queen, Lover, Partner, Child, Sister, Woman, Bride; I can choose to become so many things and the cracking opens slowly, too slowly to see.
The goddess herself grows up, and he took my hand and a few of us left the music and waded through the cold back to camp.
Someone started a fire and we put the pots on the embers to heat pasta. He lay on the blue mat in my lap, it was my turn to hold and his to receive, and I chatted with the Brazilian girl, Ana. We listened to the music shift from rock to country and as the macaroni puffed in the pan, the clouds broke and stars appeared.
I am always looking for Mars, that red planet of passion.
Blissful and desirous knowledge opens up the nature of reality.
Immersed and saturated in the presence of the divine.
We seek the things that mirror what we are. I should look for Venus, the planet of love and beauty, its soft white aura an invitation to create intimacy.
When the pasta was ready, Haro mixed tuna and spices into a sauce for us to share. We passed one spoon around and he fed me bites from my lap. We finished dinner as the concert ended and heard the buoyant laughter as people walked toward our camp. The Israeli girls and the Spanish boys, the French couple with the trailer, allowed us all in to charge our phones and check our complexions in the mirror.
I fell asleep sitting up and eventually, he took my hand and led me to the tent. I slept on my Yak scarf with his arms around me and my white socks pulled up to my thighs. He slept hard, gently snoring against my back, and I lay awake for hours listening to the varied languages and banter.
Though I can feel for the answers, I cannot understand much of what is being said. Much is expressed through gestures, and I may miss the details, but I pick up the overall sense impression.
I felt thirsty and sick and pushed myself deeper into him to the ground. I enter the timezone of his body, a pace that is deeper, slower, softer, and deliciously sweet.
I feel more acidic and crisp, like a firework that pops too loud and close to your ears.
I told him I'd never done this before, spending so much time with just one person. He said, me too, and then kissed my shoulder.
I don't understand a lot, but I understand a little to know that I am happy right now.
While I write by the lavender, he sleeps in the white bedroom. His habit is to wake up, make us tea, and prepare breakfast, but I will do that today. He has been cooking Moroccan dishes and treating me to so many new things, though today, I crave a little taste of home. I want eggs and toast and tomatoes.
What I would give for a slice of sourdough bread, lightly toasted, with oil and salt and a bit of cheese. This is what home tastes like to me; sourdough and coffee.
I do not want to leave him, yet I will. I will go to Brazil. I am saying this more to remind myself that I must go and my heart will come with me.
Photo source.
