ya amar
“Things were somehow so good that they were in danger of becoming very bad because what is fully mature is very close to rotting.”
Dear Simone,
I don't know who I am anymore. The little rituals I use to keep myself anchored quietly rotate outside my grasp. I am still getting up to write at dawn, though not as early as I prefer. The woman I was last year was waking before the sun rose to jot down a poem before teaching yoga. I have the luxury of the entire day at my beck and call, and I am standing on a wicker rug on the patio calling who-who-who.
I am sick of smoldering in the city heat. I am in Marrakesh, close to the city center, and I long to be back in nature, by the beach and Sahara. Have I outrun the city, or did it outrun me? It's like a lover; one person changes the pace of the dance, and if the partner cannot keep up, do you let go or slow back down?
I have not had a lover long enough to answer that question correctly. And what is it to be correct, anyway? Those who strive for perfection keep some discontent monster trapped in a cellar without a door! I heard a story from a man from the UK about how the first primitive houses in the desert had constructed doors on the roof so the people could pop in without the disruption of predators. He studied anthropology and read a lot of literature and history books. He touted Shakespear and Spinoza around as if they were brothers. He didn't know any contemporary artists, only the classics. The music he listened to was the same tracks I put on my walkman in high school.
We had sat on the red and gold pillows in one of the clay huts and shared a salad and coffee with Pascal. The salad had tomatoes, courgettes, tuna, hard-boiled eggs, and pine nuts. There were bananas and apples for dessert, though I did not take any. I needed the protein and did not eat enough. I don't take enough nutrients in the desert. I keep forgetting to drink. Last night I had one glass of wine and was a bit tossed by bedtime. I fell asleep during the film, we watched Bohemian Rhapsody while Zak prepared dinner, but I reclined on your shoulder and can't remember most of it. You took my hand, as you do, and led me to bed and tucked me in. The last thing I remember is you saying; I love you.
I have slept beside you in bed for a week and when I leave, I will not know how to be alone.
The only reason people throw stones is that they are hurting. The man from the UK threw daggers at me twice while we were in the Sahara. This was before I met up with you, and I wanted to get away after the first sharp pierce. It went straight to my heart and I never know what to do when I am in metaphysical pain while witnessing the pain of the other.
We were playing the question game. It is as much of a delight to review the process as it is the answer. I relish the response, not so much for what is said but for how it is said. Sometimes people invert the question or drive on a different path than I have laid out. The engineers were of that sort, and the veterinarian surprised me with her quiet contemplation.
No one can argue the beauty of the cosmos. Metaphor is the only way to convey how I feel. I use nature to soothe the tension that occurs through disparaging belief systems and politics.
I don't need to watch where I walk, so I look ahead or upward into the unknown. Every time I tipped my chin upward in the Sahara, I witnessed the bright blue sky or the Milky Way. Looking down gave me my two feet and we all have those. If I crave one thing, it is the unintelligible, the recklessness, the beauty of asking for what I cannot have.
This is my concern for my present self: I keep reaching for the moonlight and missing the steps between where I am and what I desire. I must thrust myself forward without looking. If I looked too hard, I would not do anything. There is a fine line between preparing for an event and allowing spontaneous music to propel one forward. I listen with rapture; I feel for the rupture and when the splitting occurs, I put my hands into the gap.
The seam on my favorite pair of jeans ripped wide open down the inner thigh and I lamented the loss for a moment before tearing the hole even wider. I no longer belong to those garments and left many items in Spain before I flew to Morocco.
I will leave a pile of personal effects here, though what is I do not know yet.
Retrograde is the appearance of a planet moving backward; it is an illusion. I write about astrology and understand very little of myself as a result. I keep wondering where I live in falsities and where I am being my authentic self. The only way to know is to succumb to that sweet solitude, though I have not been alone for weeks. And I like it.
I am becoming someone else in the arms of a lover and enjoy the woman I meet when I surmise this perspective in the mirror. Sometimes, I feel old and a bit pale. Other times I feel like a citrus fruit—about to burst! Ripe and waiting for a sharp object to puncture my skin and penetrate the juicy insides where seeds are contained at the nucleus. I don't hold onto anything so tightly that I cannot let go of who I once was.
Simone, how did you deal with your discontent? Who did you turn to when things felt out of order? What did you look at? Where did you go?
I long for the ocean; the magnetic pull of the tide sweeping back and forth like a broom on the floor is hypnotizing. I fall into a lull and recline in the sound that reminds me of the womb. I want to be held by someone who understands me, yet I realize that I don't understand myself- so how can I ask that of another person?
When the man of the UK threw his petty wounds my way, I caught them and held them in my heart. The old me would have retorted or poked, just a little, to press on the injury of the aggressor. Leave a blessing, Georgina always says, and I thought I understood.
I did not, and for the first time this past week, I sent a blessing to a person in real pain. I felt it writhing in my body and did not push it out. I stayed in the discomfort—knowing that he was suffering and that I could not help him.
There is only so much we can do for each other in the waking world. I offered tea and chocolate biscuits. Grapes and nuts on a small ceramic dish. My deck of silver tarot cards and incense. The intellectuals brought beer and offered a ride to the festival.
He said it was a stupid question I asked, and I didn't fully understand why. The man wanted an argument, and I would not give him that much. I let him have his moment of temper, his meager attack, and everyone listened and watched without directly watching. I held eye contact and the bright green light in my heart and sent him well wishes.
The second attack was similar to the first, and I held the line without protest. Mine beat furiously, and perhaps my cheeks were a little inflamed, though still, I said nothing. The heart does not need protection- it does not want that cage.
There is no use talking to an angry body, and I was not the person the man directed his hapless dialogue toward. We had just met, and my simple questions were not enough to provoke that beast. It had been sleeping a little dejectedly, and I stuck a thumb in its eye. Provokation without awareness of the monster I was stirring within.
We all have one in the well of our being. My daemon is blue with black eyes and a red tongue. She peeks through my lashes when I am bleary-eyed from sleep or drink, like a mole that peeps its nose out from the sparkling gold sands.
The question remains, who-who-who?
I shapeshift as easily as each grain of sand sliding between my toes. I find piles in the corners of the living room where the boys have emptied their pockets. Unintentionally tracing the landscape from coast to coast where we recline to watch Freddy Mercury show his Father that he is exactly enough as he is.
is that the point of all of this—to prove ourselves to each other? To carve out a piece of the puzzle for ourselves even though we all fit into the same irregularly shaped mosaic? We are all mere grains on the vast beach, and the line between sea and sky is blurry in the fog. Without that layer of mist, there is too much contrast. Alas, conflict is born and from the void, we get another cry from the darkness. My sister is pregnant and I am writing a story about a life in question.
We had mint tea with breakfast and I remember my dreams of water and the sun's glare in my eyes. I couldn't see anything. What is blindness symbolic of, in the waking world or in my dreams?
What am I blind to? Always, myself.
I cannot see anything, yet I take in the beauty of what is before me.
A marbled table is laden with small glasses and a silver teapot full of mint leaves. Sugar cubes in a bowl and a dish of Moroccan bread cut into quarters. A knife for the almond butter and the jar will be scraped empty. I rise to get a spoon. I drank my coffee alone on the patio as I liked and listened to the children call as they ran to school. Someone watered the pink flowers above our terrace and the water wet my hair. I am being fed in so many ways, and it is wonderful to be a part of whatever this is.
Photo source.
