Benches

I spend a lot of time on benches. Sitting on benches, reading on benches, people watching on benches, twiddling my thumbs on benches. I'm good at benches. And the reason I'm good at benches is simple, persistent, and unavoidable. I'm always early. Always. I'm early in spite of myself. Last night, I deliberately left my apartment late, so that I would arrive at a dinner party about 5 minutes late. It's fashionable, right? I missed a tram on purpose, took the less direct bus route, and walked really really slowly. Not only did I get there at 7:58, it turned out the dinner was actually at 8:30 and not 8. Benches.

Today is a horrible day for travel. A strike and a snowstorm have been scheduled to ruin everything. Which is why I woke up at 5:15am, hopped in the taxi at 6am, arrived at the airport at 6:25am (in a light, warmish sort of drizzle), checked in for my flight at 6:35am, and began waiting at 6:42am. My flight is at 10:30am. Benches. Well, more accurately, a rickety table in one of those weirdly corporate airport "cafés" that smell kind of like polyester and slightly stale croissants. They have Wifi here (pronounced "weefee" à la français"), which is probably cheating. There's something much less impressive about waiting for three hours when you're plugged into the infamous time-suck of the web.

Remember when you were little, buckled in on long car rides to your grandparents or Florida or wherever families take 8 year olds? Remember all the stuff you'd bring? Books and notebooks and pens and pencils and, as the early 90s gave way to the (over)stimulation of the present day, gameboys and mini DVD players and those TV screens in cars. You needed to be prepared for everything and anything. The preparation approached a mathematical equation: the length of the car trip divided by the attention span of the child equals the amount of different things you needed to stuff into those little pouches on the back of the seats of the minivan. Having a sister helped sometimes. Card games are easier to play with two people, unless solitaire is your thing. It isn't mine.

But something happened a couple years ago. The need for stimulation dissipated. The number of things I shoved in my backpack or purse decreased to such a point where the backpack became unnecessary. Because all I bring is a book. Sometimes a journal. And, most of the time, I don't even pull it out. Plane rides and train rides and car rides have become an enforced period of nothingness. A time when I don't actually have to DO anything. I can just sit. And I welcome that. It's the perfect excuse. Sometimes I wonder if maybe my entrenched penchant for earliness is some sort of subconscious mechanism at work. Maybe I'm forcing myself to just sit. Do to nothing. To read nothing. To think nothing. Meditation by bench.

I have a solid 24 hours of travel ahead of me before I arrive at one of my favorite places in the world to be with some of my favorite people in the world. In 24 hours, I will be home. In the meantime, I will be nothing. And it's gonna be awesome.

Creature of Habit

Habit is a funny, sneaky little creature. He often catches me by surprise. For a while there, I was in the habit of writing on this blog at least once a week. It was just something I did. Often on Wednesdays. And now, it's been well over a month since I've written. Habit is fickle and he has been otherwise preoccupied. School-work for the most part. An unexpected amount of it. Also with choir on Monday nights, a play that I'm assistant-directing on Fridays and Wednesdays, the runs that I take on Monday mornings or Sunday afternoons, and the more than occasional episode of some brainless TV show online. But habit has kept me happy. I appreciate the structure he brings to my life. And his fickleness keeps me on my toes. Everyone in a while, I have to intervene. So this is me intervening. It's time to write again. But habit requires a little coaxing. We need to ease back into things. So I'm going to kick things off with a list. Lists are a habit of mine, as well.

Here are a list of things from the past month.

Things the repairman found in my blocked train this morning:
-1 necklace. Not mine.
-1 cap of a contact lens fluid bottle. Mine.
-At least 7 bobby pins. Mostly mine.
-Lots and lots of hair. Definitely mine.

Things I like sharing with complete strangers:
-A quick snort of laughter at the man across the street who walks into the plate glass. Maybe it's a bit cruel, but that kind of thing is almost always funny.
-Rain-soaked, "I forgot my umbrella", mutual discomfort groans.
-The first snowfall in Bordeaux.

Things on the walls in my room right now:
-A drawing of what I think it probably me (one yellow head, three green-ish limbs, no torso to speak of) and my house (which appears to have an orangey-green moss growing out of the bottom of it) as drawn by the granddaughter of Lizzie's host mom in Strasbourg.
-Several notes/postcards from my friends and family.
-A leaf.
-A scrap piece of paper on which I copied a sentence from an email my mother sent me: "The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing."
-A large cluster of pictures of all the people in my life who make me happy (thank you Evan).
-2 large sheets of paper with the entire history (both thematic, historical, and literary) of the Bible scrawled in barely legible short-hand. Preparation for the 2-hour exam that I learned, on the day, that I wasn't actually supposed to take.
-The semester calendar for Université Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3. Last day of classes: 17 décembre.

Things I find hard to believe:
-That my semester is over in three days.
-That it's even colder in the Berkshires than it is here. It's cold here.
-That I'm going to be in the US in four days.
-The utter clarity of the stars in the winter sky.

Things written on the other lists scattered about my room:
-The train schedule from Grand Central to Wassaic. I almost miss how complicated it is to get home from JFK. Almost.
-Classes for Spring Semester.
-The names of the cast of the play I'm assistant directing. Written on napkin complete with grease stains from a pizzeria in which I sang the entirety of the American National Anthem because they wanted to hear it.

Sometimes it feels like my life is made up of lists. And in writing this, I've realized that this is true in more ways than one. Yes, no matter where I live, there are inevitably scrap pieces of paper or post-it notes scattered about with bus schedules, gym hours, shopping lists, to-do lists, things to remember lists, etc. But there are also the less obvious lists. The faces of my friends. The words of my family. My own words. I am kind of list myself. Maybe it's a little reductionist or a little boring, but I like it. Because I like lists. They never stay the same. You cross things off, you add things, you add things just so that you can cross things off. I've added quite a bit to my list this semester. I think I've probably added more than I realize. And I like that, too.

En route

I'm taking this opportunity, in a dingy little internet cafe in Perpignan, France - a strange little village most definitely NOT originally on my itinery to Barcelona - to publicly thank loud Americans who complain about everything for making me feel so much less annoyed about French strikes cancelling my connecting train, screwing up my travel plans and postponing my arrival in Spain by three hours, if only to spite said loud Americans who complain about everything.

Thank you. By trying to tune you out, I've gotten to pay a lot more attention to the hauntingly beautiful French countryside and, in trying to escape you, I've learned that the closer you are to Spain, the better the bananas are, even at tiny little hole-in-the-wall bodegas. So it turns out it's actually not that bad.

Thankfully (and a bit self-righteously) yours,

Holly

Indulgence

My father travels a lot on business. As a result, my house (and my closet) has accumulated its fair share of international trinkets: wooden clogs from Holland, soccer jerseys from Poland, maracas from Peru (I think it was Peru), and a whole lot of chocolate. Of my favorite such gifts are two globe shaped candle holders from some country that I now forget. They are small, about the size of a grapefruit, slightly translucent, and hand-painted in some mysterious - assuredly brilliant and simple - way such that the flickering of a candle flame causes the painted scenes to dance across the glass surface. The tiny buildings take on an extra dimension, a sort of hazy after-glow that makes it seem like you could reach out and touch the thumb-nail sized roofs. Windows glow in what seems to be the light of cozy fireplaces and stars shimmer in the blue-black night sky. They are at once comforting and fascinating. And they have nothing to do with what I'm about to talk about. I do promise to return to the candle holders. Just indulge me for the next paragraph and a half.

Today, whilst waiting to enter my scenography (look it up) class, I was scanning a bulletin board filled with posters and event listings and bemoaning my general lack of culture. I have attended one play since coming to Bordeaux and I would love to have those three hours of my life back. (It was Really Bad). I entered the classroom feeling uninteresting and uninterested. Three hours later, I walked out and noticed a new poster. "Les Bonnes" de Jean Genet. Opening tonight, playing for the next couple of days. Now here was an idea I could get behind. I impulsively reserved a ticket for tonight and spent the rest of the day reminiscing about the production of The Maids I was in last spring and anticipating a night of pretty incredible French theater. After letting the cast and crew of last year's The Maids know where I was headed, I jotted down directions and hopped on my bike. It's a pretty perfect night for a bike ride. Crisp, but not to cold, and the moon, waxing full, provides quite the nightlight. And then I got lost. Like really lost. Like call Kate with one hand while braking with the other while looking at the useless directions with the other while not having enough hands lost. The soft light of the moon became the harsh lights of high-beams and florescent gas-station signs. The wind-swept blush in my cheeks became a sweaty, stressed-out flush. As I circled around parts of Bordeaux I'd never before seen, I watched the time. 8:17. 8:24. 8:31. Missed it.

Ultimately, and dejectedly, I made my way back to charted territory (after asking for directions from a lovely man who made me feel slightly less stupid and made sure the lights on my bike were functioning). I was angry at myself. Angry for forgetting my map, for not writing better directions, for not leaving enough time, for blowing my own moment of spontaneity. Yes, so I'll go tomorrow instead, but by tomorrow it won't be spur of the moment! It's like leftovers. Who wants to see left-over Jean Genet! For those well acquainted with me, you know how good I am at finding all the reasons why I should be unhappy in a given moment, especially if something has gone wrong. I was in mid-self-chastisement when I looked up and noticed l'Eglise Saint-Pierre and the Cathédrale Saint-André, softly lit and looming into the night sky, and exuding that same soft, tactile after-glow as the tiny paintings on the candle-holders on our mantel. I slowed down, looked closer, and experienced a little bit of an inward struggle. Self-indulgent bad mood versus really pretty churches that remind me of home on a lovely fall evening. "Fine", I said, aloud and begrudgingly, "I'll stop now". And so I did. I stopped berating myself for getting lost. I stopped worrying about the potential consequences if the strikes in France continue. I stopped feeling bad for not finishing a book I'd planned to finish this weekend. And, in a symbolic gesture, I stopped holding on to the handlebars. Almost fell off. Held back on.

Baby steps.

At the risk of sounding obvious, indulging in flickering candles, shimmering sky-lines, and a autumnal breeze is much more interesting and a lot more fun than indulging in self-pity and self-critique. There is a time and a place for constructive criticism and it is not all the time nor is it in every place. I need to give me a little break. Thus is my resolution to myself:

Pretty things are pretty and I'm gonna look at 'em. Especially when they make me change my mind.

Chocolate and Arachnophobia

This past weekend, I treated myself to an all-day wine tour. I'm in Bordeaux and thus, this was necessary. The weather was perfect; sunny and crisp, tasting of ripe leaves and earth. The tour was small and personal. I found myself cruising through the Bordeaux vineyards with a couple from Australia, a couple from Florida, and a couple from Colby College - one of whom is on the same study abroad program in Paris as a girl I know at Williams - because the world of private, New England colleges isn't small enough already. Over the course of eight hours, we tasted over twenty different bottles of wine in three different tastings, watched short films about wine making with laughably melodramatic voice-overs, ate Sauvignon Franc grapes right off the wine, and listened to an embarrassingly American woman from California talk about "her" grapes as the silent, sturdy Frenchman behind her swiftly and dexterously proved that they were much more his. In between tastings and visits, we stopped in the bucolic and postcard-ready town of St. Emillion for lunch. The couples dispersed and I ambled leisurely along cobbled paths, reminiscent of both San Francisco and Piza, searching for the perfect spot to indulge in a private, three-course meal. I ended up in a surprisingly sprawling cave of a restaurant, with sloping, irregular walls and dim lighting. It was, suitably enough, exactly like a wine cellar. Over the next hour and a half, I never once had to reach into my bag for my book, the just-in-case-I-can't-handle-the-alone-thing backup. I just didn't need it. I was perfectly happy to sit and enjoy myself by myself.

I have felt similar rushes of gratitude in solitude over the past couple of days. Riding my bike home from the university in the setting sun, running along the quays with the wind whipping at my back, cooking dinner to the sounds of Miles Davies streaming from my computer. Recently, I have caught myself indulging in the occasional piece (well, bar) of dark chocolate after dinner. Not only am I getting this whole being alone thing down, I'm also turning into an adult! (My reason being that only adults eat dark chocolate). Needless to say, I've been feeling pretty smug, secure, and grown-up lately. That was, until I walked into my room the other night and found this



His name is Woolf Spider and he is terrifying. He also has nothing to do with my happy little adult dream world. In fact, he makes me want to renounce everything having to do with adulthood and independence. After a panicked few minutes, during which I'd exhausted all of the options involving me not having to do anything - make my mom/dad do it (wrong country), make my boyfriend do it (wrong country AND hates spiders more than I do - sorry, Ev, but it's true), make my neighbors do it (I don't have neighbors that I'm aware of) - I decided to heed the advice of a friend who'd responded to my urgent Facebook message. In the ensuing battle, I squealed a lot, lost the stupid spider, tore my room apart, found him again, and considered moving to Finland where it's too cold for Woolf Spiders. I finally managed to trap him between a folder and a plastic cup, which was barely able to hold him and was also unfortunately transparent. I then threw the whole cup out the window, feeling only a mild pang of remorse for my litter but mostly glad I hadn't given the thing the chance to crawl out of the cup and seek his revenge. It's been two days and still, I find myself scouring the room every couple of hours, certain that his progeny will be back in an organized coup for vengeance.

All of which is my way of saying that dark chocolate, solitary meals, and wine tastings are all well and good, but I still really don't like hairy, crawly, leggy things in my living space and I am perfectly okay with that. And sometimes a bar of Hershey's chocolate is delicious.

Black cats, spilled salt, broken mirrors and other stories

They say bad things happen in threes. For a long time, I didn't believe it. Bad things happen in other numbers, too. Ten, for instance. There were ten plagues. Two is also an option. There were two world wars, no matter how many times sci-fi writers latch onto the intriguing, proverbial prospect of a third. Bad things can happen in ones, too. Mononucleosis. You can only have mono once. (In other news, I just figured out why "mono" is such an appropriate prefix). Lately, however, I have become somewhat of a believer. When I arrived in Paris this weekend, I was at number two. Number one was the week long shenanigans surrounding my apartment disaster. Number two was getting my credit card information stolen. I'm not sure how it happened, but someone managed to spend $1500 of my money on airline and train tickets to, from and potentially around Peru. Whilst in Paris, wandering around the Cimitière de Montparnasse (where you can find Jean-Paul Sartre, Marguerite Dumas, Eugène Ionesco, and Ricardo who I thought was a very loved cat but turned out to be a person who just really loved cats, as made evident by the very large, very porcelain, and very colorful cat that marked his grave), I mentioned to Yanie and Michaela that I hoped having two buses drive straight past me without stopping on Friday morning might have constituted number three. Yanie reckoned no. She was right.

While exiting the metro on Friday night, lighthearted for being in the presence of women I love and excited for the bar we were heading to in the Marais, I skipped happily into the waiting arms of a Gendarme (I recognize that this is an incorrect use of the term, but I'm appropriating it here for dramatic effect), all uniform and stern face. He would like to know if I could please show him my validated ticket. I could not, thank you very much, because I had thrown it away, I'm so sorry, Monsieur. This was a lie. In fact, I had not bought one. This is besides the point. This particular bout of being-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time cost me 40 euros and my good mood.

However, as I stalked angrily up the stairs of the metro station, I found myself unable to wallow in my misfortune. In fact, as we walked along in the crisp (read: a little too cold) Parisian air, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I was done. My bad things had come in threes and I was finished. I considered buying a lottery ticket. But then, as I sat in the Quatre Etages (thanks to Margot for the find) with my girl friends and my snifter (I've always wanted to use that word) of delicious, if over-priced, Amaretto, I realized that I have all the luck I'll ever need.

Of course, I now find myself compelled to knock on wood for writing an entire blog post tempting fate. There. I just did. Superstitions exist for a reason and I've decided it's time to take advantage of the opportunity to relinquish a little control to fate or luck or karma or this counter top which I've just realized is not wood at all but vinyl. In the meantime, I'm going to go find something wooden.

What to do when a puppy is impractical.

I just bought my first house plant. It is called Spathiphyllum, which I think is short for Peace Lily. According to the little tag that came with it, my Spathiphyllum is going to purify my air. Which is awesome. But, more importantly, it's like a happy, green little being that will keep me company on particularly lonely evenings. And I only need to water it every 10 days.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say.

En France, enfin.

My Blogger welcome page informs me that I last published on August 11, 2010. At 2:49 pm, to be exact. It has been 45 days, 6 hours (actually, I just looked at my clock and it says 2:49pm, which reminds me of an earlier post titled On Coincidence, but there is a time difference to take into account), two different jobs, several suitcases, lots of packing, a couple of airplanes, and a foreign country since that day. When it comes to such lapses in time in my own journal, I always feel obligated to spend a couple of pages filling in the gaps, recounting all the significant events that I have neglected. I feel the same impulse here. But I will resist for two reasons; the first being that I don't want to bore my lovely readers or myself. The second is that there is something almost blasphemous about writing what has been when what currently IS is so much more...well, now.

For this reason, I will not go into detail about my first week in France. It was not pleasant. At the time, it seemed insurmountable. If you are curious, I would be more than happy to rant at you for a little while over Skype. But not here. Because I've started over. I have a new place to live - the walls are a burnt orange that reminds me of a pair of crushed velvet bell-bottoms I might wear were I a teenager in 1968; the door to the bathroom is broken, and the window in the bathroom faces east, meaning that it is bathed in a lovely autumn light each morning. I have discovered the French version of Pandora (deezer.fr for those currently in the +33) and have been treating myself to an odd assortment of French pop and American hip-hop. And, of course, the occasional Edith Piaf ballad. I AM in France, after all. I have discovered a plethora of supermarkets, pâtisseries, open air marchés (including a bizarre sort of antique/yard/get-rid-of-everything-you-don't-want-in-your-house sale next to the Cathédrale St. Michel where I was given a very dirty strainer as a gift), and épiceries. I have opened a French bank account. This week, I will be renting a bike that will become my own personal chariot for the next 4 months. I have attended my first class, a comparative literature class called "Oeuvres, textes, et contextes in which the professor lectured for two hours about the history of the bible. I have plans and ideas and hopes. It feels like, 12 days after getting off the plane in Bordeaux, I've finally arrived.

More specific and, hopefully, more frequent updates to follow. For now, I leave you with a quote from The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho - a book I read while in Morroco. It is a touch didactic and overly moralistic at times, but has its moments of profundity. In this case, a camel driver explains why he is not concerned by the threat of war:

"Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man."

On Coincidence

How many movies have you seen in which either some gruff, unshaven middle aged man or a trim, well dressed young woman says "Coincidence? Bah. I don't believe in coincidence"? I'm gonna go ahead and guess that it's a lot. I, on the other, do believe in coincidences. There has been an increase in coincidence in my life of late.

August 8th, around midnight. Flipping through an old journal, I read aloud an entry from a very difficult, and vastly different, part of my life. It was about faith. And God. I didn't notice the date of the entry until the next day. August 8, 2005.

August 10th, early afternoon. Perusing the blog posts of a close friend, I noticed that the name of her blog, and the subsequent sub-title, is a quote from Beloved, my favorite Tony Morrison novel. "It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind". It is this quote that I, upon reading it one day last winter, immediately transcribed into my journal and, later, wrote in a letter to a friend of my mind.

August 11th, midday. Reading through past entries on my blog, I came across a comment left by another very dear friend. She had, unbidden and from a country oceans away from me, responded with clarity and care to fears and questions that had quite suddenly overwhelmed me the night before.

I don't claim to know or even suspect that these moments, along with several others that are less poetic, but no less significant, are signs or clues to some hidden truth. I highly doubt that, several days from now, CSI New York will come busting through my apartment door, waving fingerprint ink in my face and shouting "Now it all makes sense!". But there is something oddly comforting about coincidence. While divine intervention is a bit beyond the scope of this blog, I will say that at least, to me, it implies a sort of universal ordering of things. And, if you have ever seen my closet or my desk, you will understand that a little cosmic order makes me feel right at home. And so, yes. I do believe in coincidence, in the same way I believe, wholeheartedly, in sticky-notes and paper clips.

Subway Strings

For the second day in a row, I have been greeted by the haunting sound of a string instrument upon entering the stuffy, unbearably hot subway platform. Last night it was a cello on 34th Street. Today, it was a violin at 7th Ave.

I have always held a deep admiration for the people I see busking in New York City, in Paris, in Pittsfield, anywhere. I envy them, too. I realize that there is much more behind street musicians than a desire to be heard. I do not claim to understand or know those reasons. And yet, still, I envy the ability to share with the world a piece of yourself into which you have put a bit of your soul. I have trouble with this. My journal is filled with poetry, short plays, character sketches, monologues, and stories. Other than myself, no one has read them. Even this blog has been difficult for me. Not many people know about it. If you are reading it, chances are I love you.

I'm not sure how much this has to do with the two different musicians who have, in the past twenty-four hours, made me stop, lean against the hot and sticky walls of the subway platform, and listen. But I want to perpetuate them in some way. And so I pass them on to you; the few, but very important people who take the time out their day to read my ramblings. Perhaps this is a bit of plagiarism on my part. The cellist and the violinist gave me a bit of their souls, and now I've taken them, appropriated them, and woven them into my own narrative. Plagiarism or post-modernism or pretentious(isms) aside, I bequeath those bits to you because, if you are reading this, you have both inspired me by sharing yourself with the world and you have nurtured me by accepting that which I share with you. So thanks. Have a small piece of violin or cello music from the subway. Do with it as you will.

L.O.L.

My life has been marked by a touch of hilarity of late. Maybe it's the 90 degree heat. Maybe it's the 10 to 6 job accompanied by the production assistant position. Or maybe it's just my body's defense mechanism. It's my subconscious way of protecting myself from insanity.

This week, I have been busy. I have been tired to the point where hyperbole escapes me. Just as the Hot Festival begins to wind down at Dixon Place, the fast-paced scramble to settle the fall season kicks in. On Tuesday, I felt as if I'd been pushed off a cliff and told to fly. I left work with a headache, a stomachache, and an aching desire to GO HOME. Instead, I went to a production meeting for Manon/Sandra on the other side of town. We sat in the lounge of the SITI studio on 8th Ave and went over all the things that were, and still are, going wrong. It was one of those days. The meeting was adjourned at nine, not because we had resolved any issues or come to any conclusions, but because we were just. too. tired. Tina, Pia, Jessi, and myself hung around in the computer lab for a while afterward, desperate for a little girl time, for company that was purely non-business. We ended up staying in that small little room for another 45 minutes. I don't remember how it started and I don't really care. All I know is, by 9:15, we were bent over double, tears of laughter rolling down our cheeks. What a breath of fresh air that was.

Today at Dixon Place, the atmosphere was similar. In this case, it was Kirby the British bulldog's outrageous, freakishly child-like antics, that had me in paroxysms, holding the partially unwrapped toner I was about to insert into our finicky, freakishly child-like (in its constant need of supervision and care) printer. It was the kind of laughter that makes it difficult to hold things or perform precision tasks. In my case, it made it nearly impossible for me to manipulate the box cutter I was using to slice through the foil wrapping of the toner. My body's way of telling me to take a break.

I started of this post by referencing helpless laughter as a subconscious safeguard against insanity. I'd like to retract that statement. I think laughter is an escape from the sane. It is a relief from the mundane tasks that threaten to overwhelm our sense of joy. It is a reminder that sometimes, it's okay when things don't make sense. Sometimes, you really just need to laugh at the way the British bulldog is attacking the vacuum cleaner with a vengeance most commonly associated with Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Because it's just plain funny.

The Flaw in Blogging or; Flawgging

I've discovered, since revamping this blog, that it has begun to run my life. It was subtle at first, but now I've started to notice more and more how I analyze each encounter, each chance observation, every thought and feeling and impulse of my quotidian life for it's blog potential; it's blogability, if you will.

This phenomenon is both frustrating - every time I answer the phone (which is a lot of times), I think "Oo! Please say something unexpected!" and then I forget what I'm supposed to say - and self-defeating - they never say something unexpected. This is why so many poets write bad poems about writers block. Because they have writers block. And they are searching too hard.

By way of example, I'm going to share some choice selections from my search for inspiration.

Yesterday, at the gym. I was stretching and a Suzanne Vega song came on my iPod. The lyrics were beautiful.

"If sand waves were sound waves
What song would be in the air now
What stinging tune
Could split this endless noon
And make the sky swell with rain"

And I thought, "YES! Something profound and original and touching! How inspiring." And then the song ended and Bedrock by Young Money came on. For those less familiar with the lyrics than myself and the rest of my a cappella group, I include a brief sample:

"Oh Baby,
I Be Stuck To You,
Like Glue Baby,
Wanna Spend It All On You,
Baby,
My Room Is The G Spot,
Call Me Mr. Flintstone,
I Can Make Your Bed Rock Girl"

Right. So much for inspiring.

Today, walking down Ludlow St. I saw a bicycle cosy. It was pink and purple and red and it was attached to a bicycle. It looked crocheted. Or possibly knit. It was the most ridiculous thing I've seen in a while. Unfortunately, I am so loathe to look like a tourist that I refuse to take pictures of anything in New York where someone could see me, so I have no documentation of this bicycle cozy. It was so not inspiring. Funny, though.

Tonight, in my kitchen. I haven't been home in time to cook dinner in a while, so I decided to go all out tonight and make a giant batch of pasta salad to eat for the next couple of days. As I set about making the dressing, I wondered in what container I was going to put the leftover vinaigrette. Tuperware in my kitchen is oddly shaped and rarely useful. I was just about to recycle the olive oil bottle I'd just emptied when I thought, "Aha! A container! I'll even peel off the label so it looks all pretty and green and chic. How innovative. How inspiring!" So I spent the next thirty minutes scrapping infinitesimal flakes of pulpy glue and paper off of the bottle, while running it under hot water, while trying to make sure the pulpy glue and paper didn't go down the drain and block my sink, while trying not to burn the vegetables, while talking to my sister on my cell phone. The result: a sort of pretty used-to-be olive oil bottle with two large, square shaped smudges that are irritatingly sticky to the touch. Holds the salad dressing though, so there you go. Practical. But not blogable.

The clever reader will realize that I'm contradicting myself. This entire blog post is utterly reliant on the unblogable. A paradox. Who shaves the barber?. Well, maybe not quite so clever.

And so, the moral of this story is that there is no moral. Another paradox? Maybe. Anyway, the point is, if you look hard enough for what is meaningful and profound, you will inevitably find what is foolish, funny, and human. Like a purple, pink and red knitted (or possibly crocheted) bicycle cozy.

Snap Shots

One.

Union Square Park. Nighttime. Secluded, grassy section, removed from large crowd observing contortionist in fluorescent tights. 6 Ephoria girls. Tight circle. And So It Goes. Minus the alto two's. Performing to and for ourselves.

Two.

One of our commission artists at Dixon Place. Tall, chiseled. A warm, firm handshake. Holding on longer than most people do. Direct eye contact. Comforting. An ease and honesty in conversation that defies his stutter. Spoke of writing and golf and laughing paper.

Three.

Vegan noodle restaurant. Mediocre food. Delicious cookie. To The Lighthouse. Sudden, intense downpour. Small Chinese man handing me a white plastic garbage bag, the kind with the drawstring, to wear as a poncho. Fashion statement of the year.

Four.

Burlesque show at DP. World Famous *BOB*. Nipple tassels and vagina sequins. Her story. Her hug. Her joy. Her love. Inspiration.

Five.

The view from the Manhattan Bridge at night. All dusty sky and lights. From the inside of the cab, I feel a bit like I'm flying.

Grand Street Station; An Exercise in Infrastructure Failure

The Grand Street Station, which deposits subway travelers into the heart of one of the many Chinese markets in Chinatown, has a very particular smell. It's the smell of raw fish, rotting vegetables, and garbage. It's none to pleasant. If, when getting on the subway on the other end, you don't line yourself up just right so that the door through which you leave is positioned at the foot of the one set of stairs leaving the tracks, you will find yourself in a sea of impossibly slow moving people. They are invariably either quite old and carrying canes or quite young and pushing strollers. This makes for a frustrating and sweaty morning, Grand Street being the stop I use to get to work. This morning was no exception. I found myself, due to an error of judgment, in a car much too far away from the staircase, and as such, spent the next five minutes plodding my way up one staircase, through the turnstiles, and up another. I was not happy. But as I was about to break the surface, instinctively holding my breath, I caught sight of a man, moseying up the stairs to my right. He was old, maybe mid 60s, and Chinese, wearing charcoal suit pants, smudgy gray socks, black crocks, and a faded forest green tee-shirt, which had a slogan printed in the yellow on the back. It said "Noodles Never Die". Well. There you have it.

The reason I was so poorly positioned on the subway this morning was because I was coming from uptown (I usually come from Brooklyn), where I had a breakfast meeting with Pia, the producer/director of Manon/Sandra, a French-Canadian play that she is presenting at this summer's Fringe Festival. And, as of this morning, I am her new production assistant. Due to some STI related contacts (thanks, Ev), Pia found out that I was looking for some more creative-type things to be doing. And suddenly, I'm a production assistant. Working 9 hours a day for a different theater will make things slightly more challenging, but I'm excited to see what happens. I will be joining the group this Saturday morning for rehearsal. Apparently they lead viewpoints-style warm-ups each morning. I'm invited. It will be my first rehearsal in several months and I am very much looking forward to being in a space filled with creative energy.

So, it seems, the moral of the story is: ask and you shall receive. Stay tuned next week when the moral of the story will inevitably be: don't bite off more than you can chew...

Some Questions

-Why is bubble tea so good? (For the curious)

-Does carrying an umbrella around, even when it's too hazy for the sun to shine, really help keep you cool?

-How many people in New York City are, at this moment, reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? If we were to take a sample poll of people on the subway, I would say the result would be alarmingly high.

-Why have I not yet taken advantage of half-price cinema tickets if you go before noon? Inception for 6 dollars? Yes, please.

-I really wish avocados weren't out of season. They are so good. Oh wait. That's not a question... WHY GOD, WHY!? There we go.

-How do you keep ripe tomatoes from molding away in your fridge? I welcome responses here.

-What is the meaning of life?

-How did I become one of those people who give directions using North, South, East, and West instead of Left and Right, after spending so long scorning those New Yorkers who confused me with such orienteering?

-Why does the almond butter at Whole Foods cost twenty-one dollars?

-How do I carry a bike up and down four flights of stairs without hitting myself in the eye with the handlebars, scrapping my thigh with the chain, staining my clothes, and throwing my bike down said stairs in consternation? Again, suggestions welcome.

-Why can't I think of a creative, probing, profound question on which to end?

Answer to all of the above, as supplied by most parents/babysitters/siblings of a four year old:

Because.

A weekend in the country

On Friday, I went home for the first time in three years.

They say home is where the heart is. That is certainly true. I have felt at home in a number of places over the past few years of my life: Williams, Sweden, Cape Cod, New York City, Morocco, etc. However, moving to Sweden, for all the opportunity and experience it offered, also brought a feeling of displacement. I love Stockholm, but I will never truly claim it as my own. Even my house in Windsor, which has, for the past three years, stood empty and shrouded, was no longer my home. The empty rooms and barren walls contained no warmth, and childhood memories took on a bizarre, warped quality that seemed distant and not a little foreboding. But on Friday night, with my whole family piled into the car as we hurtled up the long dirt drive, I saw my house in a new light, a soft glow in several of the windows, cars in the driveway, and a tractor out front. It no longer looked ghost-like and imposing. The inside of the house is an odd blur of activity and production now; swatches of different colored paint (egg-shell versus gingerbread) checker the walls, furniture is scattered in odd corners, tools lie in unexpected places. The container holding most of our furniture and belongings is still slowly chugging its way across the Atlantic, so we are making due with what's left in the house. And despite all the activity, I felt so settled. Finally.

I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday morning, in time to drive Lily to Holiday Farm, where she is working for the summer. When I got back to the house, I headed out for a run, ignoring my mother's warnings about the vicious deer flies. There's no way anything sane is up at 7 in the morning.

False.

I lasted 15 minutes, before turning around, booking up the driveway, flailing milkweed stalks in both hands in a vain attempt to discourage the persistent creatures. I fell into the house, crying "I SURRENDER!". It felt wonderfully melodramatic.

The rest of the day passed in a both active and comfortable fashion. Breakfast on the porch, impromptu head shots taken by a colleague of my father's, a visit to our family farm, fresh picked vegetables for lunch, the pleasure of polishing a tarnished silver bowl that belonged to my father and his grandfather before him, the scent of earth, air, and trees that I've been missing so much, and the discovery of an old photo-album of my mothers - all long legs, tube socks, seventies hair-cuts and adolescent boyfriends.

So many people go to the woods and stumble upon a great discovery. Thoreau discovered enlightenment in the form solitude. Rosalind discovered independence in the form of Ganymeade. The cast of "A Little Night Music" discovered a whole lot of things. And me? I went to the woods and found my home, right where I left it. It was, and is, refreshing beyond my ability to express.

a lengthy meal

From July 12 to July 25, it's Restaurant Week in Manhattan. Misnomer notwithstanding (Restaurant Two Weeks doesn't have the same ring to it), it is a chance for food lovers big and small to put on their fancy pants and wine and dine at New York's swankiest eateries. There is a prix fixe menu at all participating restaurants. 35 dollars for appetizer, entree, and dessert. The catch, and the bit of marketing genius, is that the wine portion is not included. 35 dollars for dinner and nearly double that for alcohol. But it's worth it.

On Wednesday night, after a Darlingside concert that looked more like a Williams 5th year reunion - a great show that was evocative of both the Decemberists and Vampire Weekend, with a non-insistent indie-funk vibe that mixed well with the drinks, the hip clothing, and the relaxed, post-liberal arts degree chatter - Augusta, Yanie, Margot, Eve and myself headed to Rayuela, a chic "Estilo Libre Latino" inspired restaurant on the Lower East side.


Two bottles of wine, four courses each, an adorable Polish waiter, talk that included discussions of Babeland (if you are a woman and you haven't been, you should go), French men, beautiful women, and muscle relaxers, and three hours later, we lightly tripped into the night air. (Note the romantic use of "lightly tripped". It's probably a euphemism). With promises of a reunion in France, we made our way to our respective subways. It was, to the last drop of wine, exactly the kind of evening that makes me both content with the present and excited about the future.

I recently came across a passage in Jane Eyre quoting Solomon:

"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, then a stalled ox and hatred within".

With all due respect to Solomon, a dinner of red velvet cake and gazpacho where love is is even better.

On reasons for over-sharing

I moved to New York City almost two months ago. (Has it really been two months!?) Brooklyn, to be exact. My room is small, but bright, and one of the few downsides to the place is the 4th floor walk up which makes using my bike less than appealing.

I work for Dixon Place, a non-profit, experimental theater company dedicated to presenting works in progress and, in particular, allowing gay and lesbian performance artists to present their work in a supportive, nurturing, and more often than not, sparkling, environment.

Our logo is two dogs. They are humping. We sell tee shirts..

This is Dixon Place. We have a cozy bar, a beautiful black box theater, very expensive chairs, and an enthusiastic bulldog named Kirby. Stop by. We'll give you condoms.

I am the administrative intern at DP. It's a lot of work. It's fulfilling because I gain satisfaction from being productive and because the people I work with are fabulous. Lately, however, I've been suffering from a lack of creative outlet. I miss acting and singing and writing. So.

Consider the renewal of this blog an attempt to stave off creative atrophy.

In the meantime, I'm on the look-out for theater workshops of all kinds: clowning, singing, lighting, etc. If you hear of anything, I'd love to know. For now, Jane Eyre and the occasional, whimsical, nonsensical blog-entry will have to suffice.

The Things I Do Not Know

My plan for my last few days in Morocco was to visit all the places I hadn’t, say good-bye to all the friends I’ve made, and have some experiences that would help me wrap up, perfectly and succinctly, all the various observations I’ve made about this country thus far. Instead, I got a stomach infection. As such, I’ve spent the last three days mostly confined to my bed. After three days of being unable to eat more than two pieces of bread at most and waking up the fourth day with a fever of 100.1 I decided – well, my mother decided – that it was time I visited a health clinic. I now have at my disposal a lovely little invention called antibiotics as well as stomach soothing medicine that, when poured into a “half-glass of water and stirred vigorously”, is more than vaguely reminiscent of watery mud. Thanks to the combination, I was actually able to walk out of the house today to meet my friend for a good-bye tea, of which I even managed a few sips, at the beautiful little café at the Oudaiyas. On the walk to meet Chakib at Rue de Consuls, I started mulling over what I would write in this, my final blog entry. I was thinking about it as I instinctively walked left when rounding the corner in the road, knowing he would be leaning against one of the cars parked there. It was on my mind as I veered sharply into a small, dark blue alley in the café, knowing that it would lead to another, hidden section of the place, with a view even more beautiful. I was thinking about this entry as I said goodbye to Chakib, automatically leaning in to kiss both his cheeks Moroccan style instead of awkwardly going in for a hug. On the way home, as I took a back way on the outskirts of the medina so as to avoid the sounds and smells of the market – something my stomach just wasn’t capable of dealing with at the moment – I searched my brain for something cathartic enough for a FINAL ENTRY. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, even as I was extra careful not to step on the loose cobblestones in the street – they inevitably douse the bottoms of your jeans with water – and to wave to the fruit guy, who always gives me a good price. It was when the fruit guy waved back that it hit me. I know this place, I thought. I know where the short cuts are, where to buy the best fruit, and how to avoid getting splashed with water. Overjoyed at my discovery and ultimate blog topic – Knowing a Place – I made an automatic right onto my street and looked around, preparing to take it in for the last time. It wasn’t my street. Not even close. There is no way there have been that many shoe sellers on my street without my noticing. I backtracked to the main road and realized that, while I knew which road I was on, I had no idea where my street was. Did I miss it? Had I not gone far enough? Well. So much for Knowing a Place.

I got back home easily enough. I just hadn’t gone far enough down the first time. I took a right by the first mosque instead of the second. I’m glad I did. It reminded me why I love to travel to new places. Coming to Know a Place is a wonderful feeling, but one of the most amazing things about being in a foreign country is all that you don’t know. I’m writing this post with semi-dried henna on my hands. I didn’t realize two things about henna. The first is that it is actually clay like and thick, drying like small lines of mud on your hand. The second is that you leave it on overnight and then wash it off in the morning. I’m pretty happy with my decision to leave the tips of my fingers clean. It allows for typing. Eating, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about. I guess I’ll find out tonight.

And that is, I think, where I will leave things. I can find no conceivable way to wrap up an experience from which I am still learning. And so, with henna on my hands, an infection in my stomach, a suntan on my face, and whole lots of pictures on my camera, I leave this country knowing only that I will one day come back.

Here and Now

The Moroccan Ministry of Culture, which houses the Institute of Dramatic Arts and Film Animation as well as the Institute of Archeology (a fitting combination if I’ve ever seen one…), is set back from a winding road on the outskirts of Rabat, surrounded by the skeletons of buildings that have been abandoned in the process of (de)construction. I was told on the taxi ride to the Ministry today that it was a good thing we (two Moroccan friends and myself) did not take the bus. We would have never gotten there. We did though, and good thing too, because we brought the drums. Today, Daha Wassa, a Moroccan theater company founded by young artists associated with the Institute of Dramatic Arts, performed their production called “Trois nuits avec Madox” in the basement of the Ministry. The room was small and cold. The cement walls were painted in bold colors, the shadows of dancers in bold black strokes along the front wall and Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald along the back. The house was an extension of the stage, consisting of twenty or so folding chairs and several light-blue wooden benches along the edges of the room. A bench ran across the back wall such that the players were completely surrounded by the audience, all of whom were on their level. Horizontal theater. The set included a small table, a few shots glasses, several bottles of alcohol, three chairs and a bar. The people sitting on the back bench could, if feeling particularly disruptive, reach out with their feet and knock over the table.

The play was a little over an hour long and was entirely in Moroccan Arabic. Of which I understand nothing. Armed with just a brief plot outline and my senses, I sat down. As the play progressed, I experienced in miniature what I can only assume happens to the deaf. With the loss of verbal comprehension, my other senses sharpened. I couldn’t understand the words, but I could understand the sound of liquid being poured into a glass, the smell of the cigarette smoke, and the dynamism with which the actors moved about the stage. The sound effects were my favorite part of the evening. For rain, a woman seated on the back bench poured tiny pebbles from one large plastic bottle into another. The wind was a low whistle from a source I could not locate. A man carrying a large metal sheet covered with pieces of packaging tape of varying size created thunder. When they were not on stage, the actors sat in the first row of the seats, as part of the audience. I was delighted by the fluidity with which they transitioned from audience member to player, at one moment laughing at the taxi driver who flailed around like Kramer from Seinfeld and the next having water violently splashed in their face by the woman with a water bottle simulating rain as they entered the bar.

When the play drew to an end, three men at various points in the room began to play the drums, including the ones we have placed in the back of the taxi. In lieu of a curtain call, the five actors danced back on stage and proceeded to grab audience members at random until two thirds of the house was jamming to the sound of drums and laughter. It was this incorporation of the audience into the company combined with the audience itself – funky art students with crazy hair and lots of oversized jewelry – and the plot of the show – a story of five strangers united by suspicion, confusion, disbelief, and an ultimate acceptance of the volatility of reality – that reminded me why I love this kind of immediate, actual theater. Daha Wassa, when translated from Dareeja, means Here and Now. And that’s how I felt tonight. Without being able to understand a word, I was seamlessly incorporated into a here and now that was a construct of both the actors on stage and the audience members laughing on both sides of me.

"His throne was on water"

The Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca is the largest mosque in Morocco and the third largest in the world. When you get off the train station in Casa, the mosque doesn’t seem all that impressive. In fact, it looks a lot like the many other mosques dotting the horizon. And about the same size. But then you start to walk there. And you keep walking. And as you walk, you realize that the minaret you thought was a few hundred meters away is actually much farther. The many roads that lead to the colossal structure are small and run down, exhibiting yet another paradox in the Moroccan capital of industry. The blue and green tiled minaret towers above it all: the satellites that populate every rooftop, the skyscrapers that are such a shock after a month in Rabat, and the cranes that dot the horizon. Hassan II is not only impressive for the height of its minaret, but also for its girth, two thirds of which juts over the Atlantic Ocean. I found myself, as I stood there craning my neck and blinking in the wind, thinking about the other religious monuments I’ve visited. Notre Dame de Paris came to my mind first. For me, the mystical and powerful quality of Notre Dame lies in its age - in the number of people that have passed through its doors and poured their souls into its confessionals, altars, and pews. The stairs that lead up to the cathedral are worn away by the footfalls of millions and the building is alive with their prayers. Unlike Notre Dame, upon which construction began in the mid-1100s, Hassan II was opened in 1993. And yet, as I stood there, so buffeted by the wind off the ocean that I could lean forward without falling, I found myself awed by a similar sense of power. Perhaps the mosque has had less time than Notre Dame to accumulate prayers, but the prospect of building such a structure requires an equal amount of dedication.

Now that it is on my mind, I see this dedication everywhere I look. It was present in the way the woman in the bathroom at the train station retied her head scarf, peering into the mirror to ensure that the pin fell just right and that sides framed her face perfectly. And then again as another woman on the train did the same thing. She had no mirror, but did it by heart, her gnarled fingers familiar with the manipulation of the fabric, swooping her hair back into the green scarf with an unassuming grace. A few minutes later, still on the train, I watched a young boy reach into the pocket of his black Reebok wind pants and pull out a 2 dirham coin. He shyly crept out of his seat and placed it in the hand of a woman in a spotted headscarf who was asking each passenger to spare her some change. It’s always something small: the press of a young woman’s hand into that of the blind man on Rue Souika as she guides him across a puddle, the orange the man at the fruit stand hands to the giggling toddler, the schoolgirl reaching down to pick up the vegetables that have fallen off a vendor’s cart. Even in the case of the giant mosque, it is the individual mosaics, tiles, fountains, and columns that combine to inspire such awe. And so, with a little over three days left in my month in Morocco, I am reminded of the importance of minutia in the face of a structure into which St. Peter’s Basilica could fit with ease.

She sells sea shells

In the past three weeks – has it really already been three weeks? – I have done a lot of learning. I have learned how to tie a head scarf, how to describe myself in Classical Arabic, several odd and unrelated words in Moroccan Arabic, how to eat with my hands (three fingers, right hand only), the fastest way to get from the house to my classroom, at what time the sunsets and when it rises, that art escapes definition, that prices are never fixed, how to eat a Sharon fruit, that the best macaroons are at the end of my street, that almonds from the Rif Mountains are like nothing I’ve ever tasted, how to make a cup of Moroccan mint tea, that a smile and a nod go a long way, that sometimes it’s ok to be late, that Berber is actually a Roman-like language - written from left to right - that has been practically erased from written memory, why the men on Mohammed V feed the pigeons (to prevent them from swarming the markets), that the most interesting people are those that know how to look, that Moroccan minarets are square, and that cockroaches, when burned in a fire, emit loud pops and sparks just like pine needles do.
In celebration of all this learning, I’ve decided to do a little teaching. The other day, I accompanied my friend Conner to a small, blank classroom on the outskirts of Rabat where he teaches English every day. The class theoretically takes place between 4 and 6pm, but since “being on time” isn’t really a concept in Morocco, most students showed up around 4:45. But the ensuing hour and fifteen minutes was some of the most fun I’ve had in this country. As Conner, who’s been here for four months and counting, knows well, a curriculum is sort of beside the point. You never get the same group of students twice and the range of abilities is huge: some unable to understand either the French or English alphabet and some fairly fluent in both. So teaching becomes tangential. And fun. We played head shoulders knees and toes, we SOLD and BOUGHT the same red marker about 10 times, we learned tongue twisters and spent too long trying to describe a PECK, and we read as many different clocks as I could draw. In the meantime, the students made fun of my Arabic and tried to teach us some Arabic tongue twisters which I’m convinced are just a combination of the hardest sounds known to man and don’t actually mean anything. But as I watched their faces light up with joy each time they remembered or word, or when I made a fool of myself by taking off my shoes and wiggling my TOES around, and when I watched the way the oldest (a man about 25 years old) urged on the youngest (who may have been 9), and when I felt their little kisses on my check when the class was over, I realized that I’m still learning.

In an attempt to combat the outrageous amount of (delicious) food that I’ve been consuming in the past couple of weeks, I’ve started running in the mornings. Rabat is a different city between the hours of 7:00 and 8:30. The streets are practically empty and the soft light that infuses everything as the sun slowly rises makes me feel somehow full and energized. Or maybe it’s the sea air. Or the women that I see, some running, some walking, decked out in baseball caps on top of headscarves and full-length sweat suits under their wind proof pants and jackets. Or maybe it’s the sea gulls that are, for some reason, less obnoxious and more romantic early in the morning. Or the little speckled dogs who trot after me for several meters before deciding that I am far too boring and slow. Or maybe it’s just running. Whatever it is, it feels good.

Things to do in my last 6 days here:
-Go to Casablanca
-Learn how to prepare couscous
-Have tea on the terrace of one of the beautiful houses in the Oudaiyas
-Go surfing (!?)
-Get henna-ed. The kind that I actually want. While I’m sitting still and not trying to walk away.
-Visit Chellah, the dusty old fortress at the edge of Rabat
-Fill up my little journal with contact information and promises of continued communication
-Keep on learning.

The Red City

Marrakech, sometimes referred to as the Red City, is true to its name. The walls and houses of the city are a dusty pink in the afternoon light, a rusty red at night, and a pale orange in the first light of day. The feel here is quite different from that of Rabat. I suddenly find myself surrounded by tourists and my blonde hair, which is so easy to spot in the narrow streets of Rabat, is no longer distinguishable among the crowds of Americans, Swedes, and Germans.

I have been spending my time in two very different and equally incredible places. The first is the house where I am staying for the two to three nights that I will be in Marrakech. It is in the medina, not a five minute walk from the central square. The walk to the house is winding and quiet. The door is easy to spot as it nearly completely covered by a vast and beautiful vine of some kind that spreads tiny purple flowers on the ground beneath it. Upon reaching the door, the vine is the only clue as to what lies beyond. The door opens into a cool, tiled hallway which opens in a courtyard that feels like a personal rain forest. A giant tree is the dominating feature and it rises up the 3 stories and splays out onto the terrace. All of the rooms in the house are open to the air. A winding spiral staircase connects each floor and ends on the terrace, which is more of an extensive series of balconies. I woke up at 7:30 this morning and spent 2 hours there, reading and watching the line of shadow slowly retreat across the clay as the sun made its way into the sky. When I returned to my room, I found a small bird in my shower. After frantically flapping against the closed window, he fled to my dresser, obstinately refusing my help. I opened all the windows and left the room, giving him enough privacy to make his escape. I walked up to the terrace and watched as he winged his way out of my small window and fluttered about the tree, cleary wondering why on earth humans lock themselves into such small, dark closets to bathe.

When I'm not in my own little palace or wandering around the streets of Marrakech, I am in the Palais Bahia. It is a 19th century palace that housed the king and queen of Morocco and then the French colonizing force when they arrived. It has been turned into a national gallery and currently hosts an exhibition of Moroccan art. Part of my job while in Marrakech is to help disinstall the exhibition. Last night, I was in the palace from 8pm to midnight, alternately helping to take down and pack up paintings and marvel at the stars above the several beautifully tiled courtyards. One of the exhibits is housed in the old receiving room of the Moroccan king. The room is enourmous, with doors about two and a half times my height. For the past couple of months, it has housed a work of art of Alice and Wonderland proportions, meant to recreate for adults the sense of being a small child in a world created for grown-ups. The furniture in the room, which is set up as a monolithic bedroom, dwarfs even the tallest visitor. This morning, as I glanced around the room, I spotted the same species of bird that visited me this morning, perched on top of the giantic mattress sprawled on the ground, recently pulled off the even bigger bed. The appearance of the tiny bird, who I like to think of as my friend from this morning, as unlikely as that may be, lent an even greater sense of distortion to the space. I walked out of the doors, only to find myself in an expansive courtyard beneath an even more expansive and eternally blue sky. Sometimes it's nice to feel small.

With red clay, art work, palm trees, and love. Bisoux.

Palm Trees and Scaffolding

Today, I discovered the art of imitation. I found the deep blue of the Kasbah walls in the brilliance of this morning’s sky. The wooden fishing boats, scattered about the beach like giant jacks (of the dozens of boats in the marina, I have only seen two actually floating in the water like boats are supposed to do), are painted with large strips of color: yellow or brown for the sand they rest on, blue for both the sky and the ocean, and white for the clouds overhead. While leaning out of the second story window of an English school outside the city, I waved to a group of schoolgirls, who waved back, beaming. They kept watching me and waving so I smiled as wide as I could, inadvertently scrunching up my nose in the process. The smallest girl, perhaps eleven or twelve, laughed out loud and scrunched up her nose in return, then blew me a kiss. Mimicry has become a defining characteristic of my stay here. Yesterday, I told the headwaiter at the juice bar, who has become a fast friend of mine, that I’m learning Arabic. “Adrus al-fus-ha,” I said. I’m studying classical Arabic. “Tatekalmeen arabi al-fus-ha?” He asked in Classic Arabic. You speak classical Arabic? “Shway-a,” I answered in the Moroccan dialect. A little. It’s hard to avoid picking up dareeja (the Moroccan brand of Arabic) here. Moroccans laugh at me when I use both dareeja and fus-ha in the same sentence. I find their laughter contagious.

Yesterday I met my friend Chakib – the painter from the Ensemble Artisinal – for tea at the beautiful little cafe in the Kasbah. At one point I asked him how to say seagull in Arabic – he told me and I promptly forgot ten seconds later – and the conversation drifted towards our shared childhood dream: flight. He told me about a painter who used to share his studio, who decided to paint the Kasbah from a bird’s eye view. It’s an uncommon angle and I found myself cocking my head to the side and closing my eyes as I tried to imagine the result. The ocean becomes the ground, the mosque a simple circle. The narrow streets of the Kasbah become an intricate network of lines that connect the dots that are all the people and houses in the city. It’s an interesting perspective and the image stays with me.

Unexpected things that have happened in the past couple of days:
-The soldier, looking imposing in his green uniform and severe beret, tiptoeing gingerly past me so as not to step in the puddle that might ruin his shiny black combat boots.
-The sun.
-The chance to spend the weekend in Marrakech, after much uncertainty and phone-tag.
-Yto Barrada, an artist who opened an exhibit at l’appartement-22 tonight, whose husband is from Massachusetts and who knows of the Berkshires. Small world, n’est-ce pas?
-The impressive amount of business cards I now have in my wallet, thanks to the large number of artsy, intelligent, and sort of crazy people I met at the opening tonight.
-The pleasure I experienced in watching two men smear mortar onto a foundation and slowly lay brick after brick, knowing that what was at that moment a complete outline of a house had once been a single brick.
-My own ability to accept that sometimes it’s okay to not know exactly how each day is going to pan out. Mushi mushkil.

Until next time (perhaps from Marrakech), inchallah. Bisoux.

The Tour Hassan, where I was attacked by several henna wielding women. When you tell them you don't want your name written in Arabic on your hand in henna, thank you very much, they roll up your sleeve for you and do it anyway, because "you so beautiful". And then when you don't pay, you have to figure out how to wipe it off using that scrap piece of paper you happened to have in your bag. The result looks a lot like jaundice.



The cemetery below the Kasbah. Rain in the distance. The dark blue line between the water and the sky is actually water. It is the point where the clear water meets the murky river runoff.












My gimbri playing friend. He swung his head round and round while I took the picture so I could capture the tassel on his hat.











The view from my stony patch of sunlight in the Andalusian garden. I spent an hour here pretending to read but really watching various children scramble about the garden, throwing seeds at each other and somehow appreciating the beauty more than most of the camera toting tourists (guilty as charged).

The way it smells after the rain

(This post is in two parts. The first something I wrote yesterday and the second from this morning.)

Remember those new shoes I bought? The (canvas) All-Stars? They will never be dry again. After having hid out in a small cafe during the worst of the rain storm today, I was overjoyed at the sight of the sun peeking through the clouds and decided to do some aimless wandering about town. I ended up at a juice bar with Camille. It turns out that “juice” in Morocco is actually a smoothie. Mine, called Hindi, was avocado, mango, and dried fruit. Sounds weird, tastes delicious. In my excitement over the warmth of the sun and the taste of my smoothie, I forgot the way rain works here in January. Which is more than once. As we headed out from under the protective awning, the sky visibly began to darken. By the time we had walked for about five minutes, Rabat was in full downpour mode. We waited under another awning for the worst of it to die down, by which point the street was ostensibly a river. Unfortunately, we needed to cross this river to get back to the medina. Initially, I tried to hop nimbly on high spots in the road. This failed. I ended up in water above my ankles and this is why my shoes are sitting mournfully in the corner of my room, stuffed with an Arabic newspaper in the vain hope that it will sop up at least some of the water. Mushi mushkil.

My shoes dried after all, thanks in part to the newspaper but mostly due to the sudden appearance of the sun on the most beautiful day I've experienced in Rabat thus far. This morning, a rainbow arched gracefully over the tiny cemetery at the base of the Kasbah. You know how it's nearly impossibly to see the point at which a rainbow begins (or seems to begin, if we are being scientifically accurate)? I could see this one. It emerged from the jetty, licked by the white-tipped waves crashing over its edge. It rose above the murky water and plunged into its depths at precisely the point where the sea seems to split, where the clear ocean water meets the chocolatey brown run off from the river. I sat on the small stone wall that borders the cemetery, relishing the feel of the sun on my back, and watched the rainbow slowly disappear. It seemed to be drawn into itself, slowly rising from the ocean until the last speck of color vanished from the jetty. As the rainbow converged, colors reunited into the soft white light that is so common, and welcome, after rainstorms.

Moments that have made me smile in the past couple of days:
-The sound of the call to prayer from the Andalusian gardens in the Kasbah. You can hear the calls from all the different mosques in the city. It becomes something like a call and response, each voice responding to the variations in tone and pitch of the others. As one dies down, another slowly, subtly takes its place. It is vaguely magical.
-The young Moroccan girl who passed me on the street, beaming, and gave me the best compliment I've ever received: "Tu es bien comme une princesse". You are just like a princess
-The scraggly little kitten in the Andalusian gardens who, while snoozing in the sun, did not realize that he was falling off his perch until he woke up in mid air, scrambling frantically to latch onto the stone wall. He succeeded. I was very proud.
-The two little birds that flew in through a gap in the ceiling today and visited for breakfast. I offered them bread, but they were content to peer around, shake their heads a bit, and fly off. The sky is always better.

With sunshine and sea breeze. Until next time.

Camel Skin and Espressos

(This is once again backdated. Google does not seem to function on the connection we've established at the house, so I wasn't able to update last night.)

Last night, the four of us who are staying in the house met up with a couple of other students/researchers and we all went to see a Gnawa band play at one of the local restaurants. Gnawa is a type of music brought to North Africa with black slaves from Mali, Guinea and Ghana in the17th and 18th centuries. It is both a fusion of African tradition and Islamic folklore, taking the form of music as well as healing ritual. We didn’t see the full ritual last night, the players having to contend with the sound of dinner chatter and the frantic waiters scurrying past them every few minutes. Despite that, and perhaps only due to the power of suggestion, the incense they were burning combined with the power of their singing felt like it had the ability to heal. One of my favorite images from last night was the juxtaposition of the three men, in their traditional robes, wearing the little red hats that take their name from the city of Fez, and the sleek silver espresso machine that would intermittently spit out coffee into mugs placed surreptitiously above their heads. Morocco.

Today, while exploring the kasbah – the oldest part of the medina – I came across a man playing the same instrument that one of the men was playing last night. He saw me looking and started to smile, telling me to take his picture. Taking photos of Moroccans is generally considered rude and intrusive, so his permission was both sweet and unexpected. I asked him about the instrument. It is called a gimbri, and is made of a single piece of hollowed out wood (apparently his was from the saf-saf tree) with camel skin stretched over the top. It has three strings and it looks for all the world to be an ornately decorated cardboard guitar that pre-schoolers fashion out of rubber bands and a shoe box. I still can’t believe the sound that comes out of its hollow center. It manages to be deep and mournful while having a cheerful quality that makes you want to dance. It reminds me of Morocco. An oxymoronic combination that somehow makes perfect sense.

Places I discovered today:
-Tour Hassan II, the enormous unfinished minaret intended for the Hassan mosque, built in 1196.
-A stall in the souk where I bought myself a fluffy pink bath towel.
-The Oudaïa Kasbah, a fortress at the edge of the medina, with buildings of blue and white stucco that evoke Andalusia.
-The surf hut on the beach, where I drank tea and listened to Jason Mraz in the rain.
-L’ensemble artisinal: a goldmine I stumbled upon. It houses a number of Moroccan artists who use it as a studio, a residence, and a marketplace. I met a young painter there who was eager to answer all my questions and welcomed me back anytime I want. I will be sure to take him up on that.

Until next time. Bisoux!

The Sacrifical Rooster

Today, I fell in love with Morocco. I knew it would happen sooner or later, at some moment in one of my days, whether profound or ordinary. It happened when I was walking down one of the streets in the new city, sucking away at a kumquat (for some reason I am always surprised by the size of these fruits. I feel like the name connotes something much larger), almost shivering at its sourness. It wasn't a stunning sunset, a gorgeous building, a kind person. It was just a feeling. Very sudden and definitive. So I did what any normal person would do. I turned to Will, who was walking next to me, and I said "I love Morocco". And then I bought two of the best macaroons I've ever had. 1 dirham.

One of the many sounds that have become part of the ambient noise of this house is the crowing of a rooster. Just one rooster. I know roosters. I've worked on a farm. They are mean and annoying and, contrary to popular belief, they do not actually crow at dawn. In fact, they crow at every other hour of the day BUT dawn. But this is no ordinary rooster. It yells. Literally screams. When I first heard it, I thought a small child was being tortured. It turns out that this rooster is living downstairs, in the basement. He has been there for a couple weeks. The others in the house tell me that he is going to be killed at some point. I think he knows. Thus, I have deemed him The Sacrificial Rooster.

Among the several things I did not bring to Morocco, the thing I am regretting the most is a towel. For some reason I just assumed I would be given one here. A symptom, I'm sure, of a hotel lifestyle. Last night, after my shower, I spent much longer than I wanted to drying myself with a 1.5 by 3 ft hand towel. Mush muskila. It was also damp. The thing about Rabat during January is that the air is so heavy with moisture that nothing ever truly dries. Socks, shoes, towels. Hanane is taking me to the souk (open air marketplace) tomorrow to help me buy a larger towel. Moroccans get much better prices on items than foreigners do. This is annoying, but I always find myself admiring natives who take advantage of tourists. Why not? We are fairly obnoxious.

Things I Bought Today:
-1 scarf. The first of many. I love scarves.
-1 pair converse sneakers. My poor moccasins are very wet and very dirty and not going to hold up for much longer.
-1 sharon fruit. Kind of like a small, incredibly sweet pumpkin. Delicious.
-5 kumquats.
-2 macaroons. And what macaroons!

Until next time, inchallah. Bisoux.

Mush mushkila

It means no problem. And it a stock phrase in Rabat. I heard it today [NOTE: I actually wrote this yesterday, but couldn't post because the internet was cut for some inexplicable reason] in the taxi, when the driver spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out what road I was referring to. I heard it in the same taxi when we finally figured out that the road was about 500 meters from the hotel where he had picked me up. I heard it from the women who pointed me to the CCCL (where I am taking Arabic classes) when they found me standing in front of the door to someone's house (it was locked...I checked) because I thought it was the center. It turns out the tiny blue sign that said CCCL on the side of the door was actually to let me know that I was ALMOST there. I heard it from my host mother when she let me borrow her cell phone charger because I accidentally sent mine back to the US. I heard it again when the charger didn't work and she brought me to buy one on the street. I heard it when I charged my cell phone only to learn that the Swedish phone doesn't work in Morocco. And I heard it when I went out again (I think for the fifth time) with Hanane to buy a Moroccan cell phone. Mush mushila. No problem

The house where I'm living has two floors. Hanane and her impossibly cute daughter - Jeanette, 9 months - live downstairs with Muhammed, Hanane's husband, and her brother. Hanane's mother lives upstairs. I'm staying downstairs with one other girl from Germany. There are two American boys upstairs. The girls are not allowed upstairs. Nor are we given keys to the apartment. The boys are, though. We must be back in the apartment by 10:30 at night. This curfew does not apply to the men. The Western part of me is, of course, slightly annoyed. The feminist part of me (thanks, Mom) wants to stand up and say "I'll come and go as I please, thank you very much!". But in the end, it just doesn't bother me that much. This is a way of life. It is not my way of life. I would not choose it for myself. But this is how it is. Custom. Just like the way the call to prayer happens 5 times a day, including 6:30am. It is loud. And beautiful. Custom. And we say bismallah before we eat. Custom. Perhaps one that needs to change. Or will change. But for now, I am willing to accept it as part of the experience.

Other parts of the experience:
-My resignation to the fact that the family has a Turkish toilet (look it up), as told to me by the CCCL coordinator, and my overwhelming, pampered sense of joy when I walked into the bathroom to find a Western style toilet, toilet seat and all.
-The sugar cane juice they squeeze for you using giant metal presses on the street. Diabetes in a cup. Delicious.
-The snails that people seem to take shots of, also on the street. Not applicable. Sorry. The line has to be drawn somewhere.
-The Avenue Mohammed V, the most famous street in Rabat. At 8pm, it is so packed with people that you cannot move. Hold on to your pockets, but be sure to look around. The mix of Western junk (anything you could possibly want and don't need at all) and traditional Moroccan merchandise is bizarre and somehow beautiful.
-The fact that Moroccan arabic is about half French, half standard Arabic (I think). No berber here. But I can recognize about every 6th word.
-The way that Hanane holds my hand when we cross the street.
-The way you cross the street. Which is carefully. Cars don't exactly stop for pedestrians. It is our job to dodge the cars. Like I said; carefully.
-The way the medina gets dark before the rest of the city, because the streets are so narrow that the sun can't reach them much later than 4 pm.
-Accepting my dismal sense of direction and the fact that getting lost is part of finding my way.

Until next time. Bisoux!

A List, of sorts

Im squeezed into a stuffy, second floor internet cafe, trying desperately to find the hidden punctuation marks on this cryptic keyboard. The apostrophe still escapes me. Below me, on Avenue Hassan II, a group of people march, clad in different color reflective vests, clapping and shouting in what I imagine is Berber. In the pouring rain. They carry signs that might clue me in to their purpose, but my Arabic is limited to the ability to sound out words, without a clue as to their meaning. This doesnt stop me from being absurdly proud of myself when I do manage to sound out the words, however poorly. Reading sans comprehension. Thats like halfway there, right?

Ive only been here for a few brief hours, so instead of going on at length about my experiences thus far, I will leave you with my to do list:

-Find the apostrophe
-Find a map. I could really use a map.
-Get some Moroccon coins so Im not forced to pay some guy the equivalent of 13 dollars for carrying my luggage to the nearest taxi. In my defense, I thought he was the driver.
-Find out where the women in this country eat. Thus far, nearly every cafe and restaurant I have passed has been occupied solely by men.
-Discover.