oriour
“I want my whole life to be
Lived with you
Lived with you.”
Dear Anias,
I am in Marseille. Sipping a coffee from a heavy ceramic mug with a square handle. It is on a table that looks much like the one I gave Clara. Dark wood, an auburn that is warm and matches the four chairs. It is round. The design where I am staying is simple and intentional. Long white linen curtains graze the floor like a bride's gown. Dried lavender tied in bunches, set in green glass vials. White sheets with tapioca and mustard pillows. Blond wood floors. Raffia fans and wooden bowls on the shelves. Portraits of lovers in black and white on the walls. The ceiling is high, with wooden beams alongside the drop-pendant lights. The lighting is exquisite. Soft and insistent. I feel very much at home here. The doors are heavy. The toilet paper is bright pink. The kitchen fixtures are black porcelain. Leather handles pull the sliding doors wide in each washroom. One for the toilet and one for the shower. I like when they are separate, even when I am alone.
There is a school and a community garden just outside my bedroom window. I woke to owls cooing and children laughing. Currently, four little girls are planting seeds with their hands full of dirt. The boys are digging and churning with their trowels, their sleeves rolled back and trousers hiked up. Not the little women; they're in it to their elbows. Smears of mud on their chins and cheeks where smiles greet the caterpillars and beetles.
Wading through the muck, what do we discover? I've been on the road for a full year. I see how limited my scope of society was before I left Canada. I did not understand how geography affects our state of being.
I don't remember where I heard this statement. It is not mine. It is a good one.
The universe is the kiln, and we are Her clay.
Such piety contained in those nine slender words!
What a statement and I have indeed been molded somewhat by each city I've been in. Adapting to the swift shift in dress, speech, sound, and steady actions that give contours to each day. It is too simple to say that is how it is over there while looking outwards. One must take steps to be there to be able to claim such grandiose statements. And even then, how can I say that I've identified with the people in each place I've visited? I can't. The histories are too rich; a few months is insufficient to comprehend the depth and nuance of the spaces I've inhabited.
France is very cold in climate and social reception. I read somewhere that you are either from France or not from France. There is no in-between.
No one cares that I am American. No one asks me questions or inquires about why I am here; or what I am doing. A lack of hospitality. In Berlin and Barcelona, there was a camaraderie with the locals. I've met very few expats in my travels. I don't know where they frequent. I am not part of the nomadic community; I do not understand how it works. Even in Tagazhout, I met very few travelers and it is known for being an expatriate city!
There are many wonderful words for those who leave home to lead a nomadic life. Vagabond. Wanderer. Wayfarer. The letters that end the alphabet are for those who drift further from their motherland.
I watched a woman clip and buff her nails on the train to Marseille. It reminded me of the woman I sat beside on my first bus trip in Morocco who took off her socks to tend to her toenails.
I've so many small snapshots of the past year that flicker like sunlight on water. If I look too hard, I get dizzy and the image disappears. It's best to receive each as they come, as the waves rinse and recede.
Also, on the train, men ate dinner and competed for airspace to watch television programs. Neither had headphones or wanted to wear them. Seated in the same row, each man turned up the volume a wee bit louder every few minutes until the car was filled with their noise. The crunching of bags and slurping of drinks falling in between bursts of the television series. I pushed my hair in front of my eyes and focus my gaze between the strands on the French countryside. The sun was setting, and soon it was too dark to escape into the scenery. I was forced to be on that train with everyone.
My arrival at the new home took me up five flights of stone stairs! Each step is laden with tiles in blue, yellow, and red. It's beautiful and rough. I did not worry over each step though the space in between each was so tall I had to lift my knees higher than I normally do.
The halls are very narrow and the walls are made of stone painted the same colors as the stairs. The lights did not work, so I took out my phone and lifted my arm above my head. My backpack was wider than the stairwell with my yoga mat strapped lengthwise to it, so I had to angle my body accordingly as I navigated the path.
Stairwells usually move in a clockwise fashion in France. In my experience so far.
My train was over an hour late, it took me some time to get a taxi, and then the driver was a bit slow, so the six-minute drive took over twenty minutes! My taxi driver did not understand English or how to use a GPS. He could not see the phone screen without squinting and could not back out of the alleyway when we got stuck behind a garbage truck. We waited nearly ten minutes for the truck to finish collecting the trash bins. It was past ten pm at that point, and the woman waiting for me at the unit was distressed.
What a state that must be to work in for the taxi driver. He could not figure out how to use his machine to process my credit card payment (via Apple Pay) and dropped me three blocks early because he didn't think he could drive up the road even though cars passed us.
Given the difficulties he encountered in one trip, I wonder what his life is like outside of that car. His challenges had nothing to do with me or the language barrier and more to do with technology and navigating the streets of Marseille! I wonder if his whole day goes like that, every action a steep learning curve and a struggle. If it is, it must be very difficult.
I wonder why he chose to be a taxi driver. Perhaps he did not choose this life. Or if it was a choice.
I chose Marseille for the space on Airbnb. I picked Marseille to be close to the coast. The selection of apartments limits me; the concentration helps me to choose. Sometimes I feel pulled in one direction, other times, I don't and flick through the photographs online until something strikes me and I move with it.
Intuition is the best way for me to draw conclusions.
Photo source.
