She's at it again

Back to the land of wakha, shkoon, khssni, and bzzef! Those words that lie in concrete in my brain, sharing bunks with all of my fossilized errors. Maybe I can bring them back to life so I can kill them. And then fossilize them dead.

In Amman there are no old guys sitting on haystacks looking out into the distance. On the train through Morocco heading north, there are tons of them. It’s useless to keep score. Morocco will always win. For “Tangier Take 5: Case Closed” I’m throwing projects out the window, and all I intend to do is sit and stare at the sea and try to understand the conversations happening around me.

O, how the tables have turned!

I once yearned for a space where no one knew me or knew my last name and where I could sit and write about the funny things around me like chickens wandering around cemeteries and cats climbing ladders.

But it is a new era and I should just be thankful that I am not “lost in a gutter somewhere” as my mother so lovingly puts it. But Mom, I find some of my best things in gutters!
Scribbled notes.
Little baggies.
Doll heads.

I didn’t expect the hijab to make such a marked difference in my public presence but it is truly a whole new world out there. I have not been harassed at all with one exception, and even his delivery was so sincere it was more like he felt bad for me. In fact, most strangers have been overly nice to me and I suspect it is because they think I am a Syrian refugee. Sometimes they ask me if I am and I don’t deny it.

And Tangier is taking good care of me.

Swaddled in 30 Dirham wool pajamas, I wake up to pancakes every morning, which I buy from the shop before the sunset prayer each night and put them in my purse for safe keeping.