andrea (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} mumblebee) wrote,@ 2006-04-13 14:42:00 |
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Swally LJ unplugged, for true fans
These are the roughest notes from the trip I giddily dubbed Business Travel for One. I spent two days in Tangier completely on my own, to attend a salon du livre, book fair with writers and roundtable discussions. Then I spent another two days in Fes, with my mentor, a Moroccan professor and novelist. It could be the best time I have had in my entire life.
Meredith and Megan’s two-week stay in Morocco. We laughed often, picked up stories and jokes like a snowball or tumbleweed. Meredith described the trip as so wonderful she didn’t want to talk about it afterwards, similarly to how she still can’t talk about the movie The Hours. Guard it.
giddy to eat my chicken shwarma, fries and mango drink in my small, high ceilinged hotel room in Tangier.
Alone in a crowd at the salon du livre, drinking a coffee before the start of a discussion
I coasted around Tangier gleefully thinking of Talib Kweli rapping “I’m like Magnum P.I.” I coasted around thinking “I’ve gotta bottle this stuff!” The sentences in my head, my recounting of my world.
shaking slightly with nervousness and elation
staying in an $8 hotel room. Each time we spoke, a friendly, sleepy looking employee who studied English was on the brink of laughter. I imagine he was amused that I was staying there.
MOVED
la fête du quarantième jour
When Touria introduced me to her brother-in-law he said “domage” (too bad!) about his wife and kids. Many women kissed me on the cheeks and called me habibti before we left.
befriending so many kind women on the trains
Just the phrase “lunch in the garden” pleases me. That is what Touria, her sons Mehdi and Amine and I had yesterday afternoon in the sun, near a tree they pointed out had just flowered pink. Almost spring. We ate from a dish of meat and quince. The boys asked me if I was used to eating with my hand. I replied pridefully, “Of course I am. I’ve been here six months.” Someone noticed I hadn’t eaten any meat so Touria plopped a huge chunk onto my plate, the only individual plate on the table. I cut it with my fork and knife and put half back in the communal dish. I began to eat the meat with my utensils and the boys asked, challengingly, why I didn’t do it with my hands. I said it was easier this way. “With meat,” I qualified. They egged me on to try then watched silently as I began. I wiggled the meat hilariously between my fingers and thumb, trying to tear off a bite, and they shouted with laughter, flying back in their seats.
Touria’s wonderful family, chillin’ on the roof with one of her son’s as he smoked a discreet cigarette. I asked for a story about living in France during his studies and he told me about when les flics, the police, broke up his twentieth birthday party. I asked if his parents knew and he
Fell asleep thinking sleepily, undramatically, “I am so happy I should die now.”
Waking up to pop music in Arabic from a stereo in the kitchen, everyone laughing and yelling, fresh cornmeal cakes on the table. Breakfast in pajamas.
Reading Abdellah Taïa’s Le rouge de tarbouche, a book of stories from the life of its young author, traveling from Salé, Morocco, the city next to Rabat just across the Bou Regreg River, to Paris. gay. Met him at the salon du livre in Tangier and had him sign my book. He scrawled my name and a short note, signed it, then hesitated and added a sunshine sketch at the top of the page. I found him so delightful I didn’t know what I wanted from him—to be his best friend, girlfriend, mother, lover? When it was his turn to speak at a round table discussion of young Moroccan writers, he spoke slowly, faintly smiling and said insightful things. I craved his lack of pushiness, his steady lucidity. Reading his book on the train home to Rabat last night I shivered, the skin on my back and scalp suddenly chilly. I put the book away and looked out the window at the low green hills. A pink-cheeked young woman in hijab, across from me in the compartment, watched me with warm eyes. I think she saw how happy I was and we shared it between us.
Like, I’m gonna barf with happiness.
I described it to Touria yesterday morning in one of her salons: many unexpected and wonderful things happen to me here. She told me again it was a pleasure to have me and that she was so happy to meet me. I admire her and find her mysterious, shrewd, emotional, commanding. We chatted for a few minutes then said nothing. She got up to attend to something in the kitchen and I curled up in the big leather chair and read my book.
I have had thoughts and feelings that have thrown me. Things I cannot record. Certain grooves, fleeting flashes of understanding. Revelations. I have thought many times in these past weeks, “Yes, this is the feeling you need to guard.”
I threw a surprise birthday party for my friend Laila today, and when she read the card I gave her her eyes welled up and she told everyone she would always remember this day. Adrianna gave me a “10” for food presentation. I arranged a fruit salad—plum slices surrounding an apple-slice-well filled with oranges and strawberries, with hidden bananas on the bottom—an herb and cheese spread on crisp “toast” crackers garnished with tomato slices; and mini crêpe rolls with Nutella, arranged in a small pink bowl. Chris and Alex brought a mocha cake with one crisp layer from our favorite bakery, Majestic. The 12 or so of us grazed on all of the food and chattered happily in the salon, kitchen and terrace, enjoying the sun.
What I gather is Arab sentimentalism, romance, love talk. Touria’s daughter Ghita copy-and-pasting a lovey song in English to a male friend. I asked her twice if he was “un ami, simple” and she said of course he was. Just a close friend.
I’m finding everything I can to keep from working on my Fulbright presentation: making a poor man’s mocha, crunching on wheat crackers, remembering a deliriously happy time this summer: at Clara’s parents house with Stacie and her. We watched some bad reality TV (The Bachelorette?), read The New Yorker, and drank in the living room because her parents were away. Clara was cooking some elaborate pork roast. Then, we spread out upstairs on the floor and on Clara’s little bed, laughing insanely then looking at her old books and CDs. We climbed out a window and stood on the roof.
These are the roughest notes from the trip I giddily dubbed Business Travel for One. I spent two days in Tangier completely on my own, to attend a salon du livre, book fair with writers and roundtable discussions. Then I spent another two days in Fes, with my mentor, a Moroccan professor and novelist. It could be the best time I have had in my entire life.
Meredith and Megan’s two-week stay in Morocco. We laughed often, picked up stories and jokes like a snowball or tumbleweed. Meredith described the trip as so wonderful she didn’t want to talk about it afterwards, similarly to how she still can’t talk about the movie The Hours. Guard it.
giddy to eat my chicken shwarma, fries and mango drink in my small, high ceilinged hotel room in Tangier.
Alone in a crowd at the salon du livre, drinking a coffee before the start of a discussion
I coasted around Tangier gleefully thinking of Talib Kweli rapping “I’m like Magnum P.I.” I coasted around thinking “I’ve gotta bottle this stuff!” The sentences in my head, my recounting of my world.
shaking slightly with nervousness and elation
staying in an $8 hotel room. Each time we spoke, a friendly, sleepy looking employee who studied English was on the brink of laughter. I imagine he was amused that I was staying there.
MOVED
la fête du quarantième jour
When Touria introduced me to her brother-in-law he said “domage” (too bad!) about his wife and kids. Many women kissed me on the cheeks and called me habibti before we left.
befriending so many kind women on the trains
Just the phrase “lunch in the garden” pleases me. That is what Touria, her sons Mehdi and Amine and I had yesterday afternoon in the sun, near a tree they pointed out had just flowered pink. Almost spring. We ate from a dish of meat and quince. The boys asked me if I was used to eating with my hand. I replied pridefully, “Of course I am. I’ve been here six months.” Someone noticed I hadn’t eaten any meat so Touria plopped a huge chunk onto my plate, the only individual plate on the table. I cut it with my fork and knife and put half back in the communal dish. I began to eat the meat with my utensils and the boys asked, challengingly, why I didn’t do it with my hands. I said it was easier this way. “With meat,” I qualified. They egged me on to try then watched silently as I began. I wiggled the meat hilariously between my fingers and thumb, trying to tear off a bite, and they shouted with laughter, flying back in their seats.
Touria’s wonderful family, chillin’ on the roof with one of her son’s as he smoked a discreet cigarette. I asked for a story about living in France during his studies and he told me about when les flics, the police, broke up his twentieth birthday party. I asked if his parents knew and he
Fell asleep thinking sleepily, undramatically, “I am so happy I should die now.”
Waking up to pop music in Arabic from a stereo in the kitchen, everyone laughing and yelling, fresh cornmeal cakes on the table. Breakfast in pajamas.
Reading Abdellah Taïa’s Le rouge de tarbouche, a book of stories from the life of its young author, traveling from Salé, Morocco, the city next to Rabat just across the Bou Regreg River, to Paris. gay. Met him at the salon du livre in Tangier and had him sign my book. He scrawled my name and a short note, signed it, then hesitated and added a sunshine sketch at the top of the page. I found him so delightful I didn’t know what I wanted from him—to be his best friend, girlfriend, mother, lover? When it was his turn to speak at a round table discussion of young Moroccan writers, he spoke slowly, faintly smiling and said insightful things. I craved his lack of pushiness, his steady lucidity. Reading his book on the train home to Rabat last night I shivered, the skin on my back and scalp suddenly chilly. I put the book away and looked out the window at the low green hills. A pink-cheeked young woman in hijab, across from me in the compartment, watched me with warm eyes. I think she saw how happy I was and we shared it between us.
Like, I’m gonna barf with happiness.
I described it to Touria yesterday morning in one of her salons: many unexpected and wonderful things happen to me here. She told me again it was a pleasure to have me and that she was so happy to meet me. I admire her and find her mysterious, shrewd, emotional, commanding. We chatted for a few minutes then said nothing. She got up to attend to something in the kitchen and I curled up in the big leather chair and read my book.
I have had thoughts and feelings that have thrown me. Things I cannot record. Certain grooves, fleeting flashes of understanding. Revelations. I have thought many times in these past weeks, “Yes, this is the feeling you need to guard.”
I threw a surprise birthday party for my friend Laila today, and when she read the card I gave her her eyes welled up and she told everyone she would always remember this day. Adrianna gave me a “10” for food presentation. I arranged a fruit salad—plum slices surrounding an apple-slice-well filled with oranges and strawberries, with hidden bananas on the bottom—an herb and cheese spread on crisp “toast” crackers garnished with tomato slices; and mini crêpe rolls with Nutella, arranged in a small pink bowl. Chris and Alex brought a mocha cake with one crisp layer from our favorite bakery, Majestic. The 12 or so of us grazed on all of the food and chattered happily in the salon, kitchen and terrace, enjoying the sun.
What I gather is Arab sentimentalism, romance, love talk. Touria’s daughter Ghita copy-and-pasting a lovey song in English to a male friend. I asked her twice if he was “un ami, simple” and she said of course he was. Just a close friend.
I’m finding everything I can to keep from working on my Fulbright presentation: making a poor man’s mocha, crunching on wheat crackers, remembering a deliriously happy time this summer: at Clara’s parents house with Stacie and her. We watched some bad reality TV (The Bachelorette?), read The New Yorker, and drank in the living room because her parents were away. Clara was cooking some elaborate pork roast. Then, we spread out upstairs on the floor and on Clara’s little bed, laughing insanely then looking at her old books and CDs. We climbed out a window and stood on the roof.
