livsnjutare
“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”
Dear Simone,
What is it to connect with someone? I feel alienated from everyone I was once close to. Proximity is the biggest factor that's changed. It used to be easy for me to connect with women; I had yoga and pilates as the source to meet the strong-willed women I still revere. I'm trying to rebuild in Rabat, though the people I've encountered lack the tenacity of the women back home.
I want the luster that comes from polishing the hard surface of the jewel. I want the gentle glow that comes with hours spent buffering hard edges. I want the muscle ache that comes from working to draw the light from opaque facets. I enjoy pursuing and insisting on what I want; I want to break a sweat and suffer a little in discovering kindred souls at the further borders of the world.
I am losing hope, Simone.
I feel restless and have projected my insecurity onto him, and I cannot tell if he feels it or if I am catching my own anxiety rebounding back at me. The boomerang is shaped like a star with six points that have punctured my lungs. Each time it comes back, it carves a small wound into the front and back of my chest. Here - the star says - your wound is where you will discover the wonder. Face your pain, and pleasure will follow.
Why do we need a promise of better days to get us through the tough times? Maybe there are no better days. Or bad days. Perhaps this can just be called 'life' or 'living with integrity' and riding the neverending ride of ennui.
I have been in Rabat for nearly three weeks and want to leave. This is how I feel today, though tomorrow may be different. It will be based on my experience of the Barre de Sol class. I wish I could say I am more resilient than succumbing to my mood and the efforts of those around me. I am flakey and whimsical, and I long to attach my soul to something or someone stronger who will guide me through this passage of heartache.
He cannot help me. I firmly believe partnership should be left out of the equation when one drinks themselves into a state of sorrow. My beverage is hot water with honey, lattes with oat milk, and black tea with mint, in that order. I sip consistently. No one can say I am not committed to what I set out to do.
I struck out to be here with him. For my writing to flourish, I need to be rooted somewhere. I chose to be here with him.
I am questioning my choice.
I don't know where I would be otherwise.
Where I would choose to fly off to if I were not in Morocco.
It is wintering season and the stillness ails me.
I feel frost-bitten though it is an even twenty degrees in Morocco. My feet are cold, my blood has slowed, and my lips are pale from the lack of dialogue.
Movement breathes life into my body and I cannot dance enough to leech the lethargy from my bones!
I want a playmate. I want someone to recline on the woven rug to discuss poetry and philosophy. I want a lover who understands what I am saying without having to translate the wonderful words I choose.
We sleep thigh to thigh, our toes touching, our arms interwoven, our hair tangled on the white pillows. His dark curls and my long blond locks.
I have never felt more alone in my life, Simone.
Is it him?
Or is it me?
Quietly refusing to move into the next phase?
I have been planning a trip to Egypt. I want to see the pyramids. I want to visit the dunes and the hieroglyphics carved into the stone.
I want to walk the streets in October 6th City.
I want to put my feet in the sand where Egyptian kings and queens were buried with jewels tied to their bodies.
Do angels fly because they take themselves lightly?
I am too serious sometimes.
I imagine my passage through Egypt to listen to the messengers of death. I want to see the West Bank Wall. I want to touch the stones of segmentation. I want to go to the source of my religion - the stories I heard as a child were focused on Bethlehem.
I am of Isreal; I am of the golden grains of sand. We are each born of the Dunes and blown across the continents until we settle like those fluffy dandelion seeds that sprinkled themselves through the garden.
I am not a Me; I am a We and do not know when or how this shift occurred.
I cannot tell if it was in Marrakesh in the three weeks we spent together between M'hamid and Tagazhout. On All Hallows Eve, he slept and I chanted silently to Shiva on the terrace under the olive tree. I repeated the lines that give birth to destruction; did I destroy myself to accommodate him?
Or was the coupling born in the absence- when I was in Brazil, alone in the jungle? My companions were the dark flies who drew blood from my shins. I am still nursing the wounds and my legs are spotted with tiny white scars from being torn at the tooth.
We spoke every day via text, voice memos, or phone calls. There were two days that we did not connect, each time due to illness. On both occasions, the person waiting for the ball to be returned experienced a minor state of panic. We talked it out in the days following.
I feel that this was when we became a 'We' in the gap between dialogue during the state of questioning.
When he was sick, it was a Friday. I waited all day for my message to be returned. I requested voice memos. I missed the sound of his voice. I longed for the sensation of his body next to mine, and the audio files brought me closer to that desire than reading his words.
I waited all day and was up all night wondering if he was still receiving me.
It is a curious thing to wonder if the other person is still holding the line with you. During the day, I created a story that he was busy. By nightfall, my questions bled into certainty; I was no longer in the foreground of his thoughts. Something had replaced me, or he had simply stopped caring as much as he previously did.
My heartfelt distraught. My mind was tangled. I was up until dawn wavering on my commitment and working through the acceptance of what had become between us.
A month is a long time to be away from someone.
Giving and taking is the process of expressing vulnerabilities and making choices that include the other person. It is a process of dedication, faith, and unwavering discipline to include, nourish, and sustain what you have.
Be it small, such as returning a text message.
I moved to Brazil based on a fantasy. I moved back to Rabat for love.
Are they not the same thing?
The wisdom of humility.
Regardless of his intention, or shifting intentions, mine were set and had not changed. How do you negotiate space with someone when this is the question- what is your intention?
Intentions change.
Desire is a moving target.
And duty?
Duty is fixed.
His heart is strong, and that is the quality I held on to in those twenty-four hours of not knowing. Call it hope, call it faith, call it devotion, call it whatever you want.
I held on.
I still am.
Photo source.
