Back to Reality

After that wonderful two week Morocco break from the daily grind, life in the everyday routine was bound to seem monotonous. Surprisingly, I am still sane and happy with my lot. I know this is narcissistic, but I constantly look inside my head to see if I miss my work schedule, my coworkers and that feeling of being productive and being paid for my work. So far, my self-esteem and sense of who I am seems to have survived the lack of workplace excitement.
That is not to say I have been idle. I have rekindled my old liking of creating original recipes. Mostly, I start a recipe, discover I don't have a vital ingredient and scramble to cover the gap with what I do have and what might work in the mix. Voila, a new star is born! Well, they are not all stars, but some I might brag, actually went over quite well. So that has given me courage to start a cooking blog. We'll see where this takes me.
I feel happy that I finally ended the blogging drought. For the past few months I have not written anything and the guilt was gnawing at my procrastination, being an annoying reminder of the things that need to be said. Well, a sudden attack of insomnia has been turned to good use as I get some thoughts out of my head. More to come, my reflections on the death of true friendship and the march of the networkers.

Morocco Mon Amour

Riding camels in the Sahara Desert

City of Essaouira on the Atlantic coast

Sunset on the Atlantic, in Agadir

Morocco Forever

Appetizer Course in Fez

4 storey carpet store in Fez

Kasbah Ibn Haddou-Oldest kasbah in Morocco

Morocco-The After Effects

It has been almost six months since we travelled to Morocco. Yet the memories remain as warm and happy as the day we landed in Casablanca. I have realized that words cannot begin to express the joy and wonder we experienced on this trip. I have instead chosen a handful of photographs to express what my words cannot.

Worshipper in Casablanca

Tomb of Mohammad V

City of Moulay Idris

Tanneries of Fez. The yellow in the corner is made from saffron, the most expensive spice and color.

Just because

I cannot believe it has been three months since I wrote a line here. Especially now that I am retired, as everyone ceaselessly reminds me. Am I liking this extra time for myself? Am I happy? All good questions but I don't have the answers. Help, I'm going to fail this test!!

The Quiet One

Today I'm taking a break from rhapsodizing about Morocco, though there's more to come of that. Today I want to think about Meredeth Kercher, the English foreign exchange student who was murdered in Perugia, Italy four years ago.I just read that both Rafael Sollecito and Amanda Knox, convicted and then freed of all charges of murder, have a book deal with Harpercollins and Simon and Schuster for 4 million dollars each. With all the sensation that has surronded the case, it is hard to know what really happened.
I do not want to debate whether Amanda Knox deserves the attention and millions she is getting. I do not see any merit or hard work on her part that entitles her to a book deal. And if surviving four years in a foreign prison is reason enough for memorializing, then there are many wrongly convicted prisoners lingering on death row with more heart wrenching stories.
My opinions are based on newspaper reports and I know that can be misleading. Instead, I want to remember Meredeth Kercher, the quiet unassuming girl who by all accounts was the studious type. No one seems to remember her academic dedication and hard work in a foreign country. No one seems to take into account the fact that while there's ample opportunity to not study, to take the path of fun and frolic, Meredeth did not do so. She deserves the book deal, in my opinion, of how to keep one's focus and dignity when everyone else around her are losing theirs.
I'm sure the papers in England are talking about her. I hope they are. I wish the media in the US would treat the world as their backyard, instead of their backyard as the world.

Hold my hand, I want you to hold my hand

I heard this song a long time ago, I think it was by Hootie and The Blowfish. This line kept running in my head as we entered and walked through the Medina at Fes.
A Medina is the old town in any Moroccan city. Sometimes they are walled cities and in some places the walls have crumbled down. In Fes, within the walls of the Medina lies a vibrant and bustling center of commerce. This was the highlight of our stay in Fes and I was eager to make my way through the narrow alleys.
The first thing I saw as we got out of the car were the donkeys carrying sheep, camel and goat skins to the nearby tanneries. Moroccan leather is world famous (this is where the Italian designers come shopping) and Fes is where it all goes down. As we walked down the narrow cobbled street, flanked by old houses on all sides our guide told us to stay close and keep a firm hold on the kids. " If you get lost here, you'll spend the rest of your life here". Charming as the old town sights and smell are, I'm not sure I want to settle down here. So we huddled and clung to each other's hands for dear life as we walked single file. There was only room for one person going in opposite directions, but somehow it all seemed to flow smoothly. Fast forward inside the tannery where we are handed a sprig of mint. As we get nearer, the reason is clear. I need my mint if I want to breathe. So there I was, sprig in one hand, other hand tightly grasping a six year old. The stench is awful but the sights of those leather bags and jackets in red green blue orange and yellow is breathtaking.All organic colors. Orange, my favorite, is made from henna while yellow is made from the very expensive herb saffron. Naturally, yellow leather products were the most expensive. I fell in love with a yellow coat, but decided in the end to stick with my longtime ally, orange.
The Medina is huge. I mean gargantuan. With tiny narrow alleys that zigzag, curve, go uphill or down. On both sides are shops with handicrafts (carpets, leather, brass lamps, woodworkers), food vendors (brochetters which are barbecued meat on a stick, flaky cinnamon pastries, nuts and dates) and wrought iron furniture. A shopper's paradise, though the shopper might get lost in her meanderings.
A picture is worth a thousand words. So here are a few glimpses.

Vive Le Maroc!!

I don't speak French. Running the risk of massive grammatical errors and thus becoming the butt of jokes for all French speaking and knowing friends, I will give this post a French title. Going by the example above, I can give anyone a run for their money with run-on sentences! But back to the topic of this post.
As I might have mentioned in an earlier post, this is my flirty fortieth birthday. As a special gift, my dear husband bought us all a trip to Morocco. As a kid, he lived there for seven years (oh Brad Pitt think how much better a movie that could have been!) and I have always been mesmerized by the glamorous and exciting stories of Marrakesh (which is written Marrakech is French) and Casablanca.
I was pinching myself as we got off the plan in Casablanca. I am here!! Truly really in Morocco. It was blindingly sunny, mildly chilly and there were palm trees everywhere. Also, everyone is speaking Arabic and/ or French. Not a bit of English to be heard in any corner.
There are too many things to talk about. So in this first post, I will talk about Volubilis. Between the cities of Rabat and Fes, tucked away near the town of Moulay Idris in Northern Morocco, are the Roman ruins of Volubilis. I knew the French had colonized north Africa, and also the Dutch and the English, but I had no idea the Romans got there first. In hindsight, why not? It's right next to Spain, and the Roman generals weren't exactly stay-at-home types anyway.
The ruins look much like those in Rome, with the stone remains of beautifully planned villas. Wide and straight streets, under which were built in sewage drains. Roads ran North and South. There was a main road the connected the entrance gate to the city with the Arc d'Triomph like structure at the other end. One side of the street were for villas of aristocrats, the other for commoners. Much like our right side of the tracks versus the undesirables. There were meticulously planned courtyards with fountains, baths and forums (open public meeting spaces) that would have pleased a Caesar or a Claudius back in the day.
What struck me at Volubilis are the amazing two thousand years old mosaic floors! Each villa we passed through could boast at least one room where the mosaic floor still depicted Greek themes like Ariadne by the beach, or the Labors of Hercules or Diana hunting. The unexpected beauty of this ancient Roman colony left me speechless. The symmetrical lines of the columns, graceful arches and the detailed attention given to planning this remote outpost left me in awe of Roman civil engineering. Here are a few pictures before we enter the maze of a Medina at Fes.

Missing U

My laptop is old. Like most things which get old, it frequently refuses to listen to my tapping fingers. Today, the U key has decided to go on strike. All day long I have been sending emails in gansta speak as my yous are all yos, and all my u-words have mysteriously become nknown, nforeseen and nfamiliar. Can I live withot a syllable? Live a little on the wild side...

Off Center

Masao Miyoshi, reputed Japanologist wrote a book years ago called " Off Center". I liked the title I have shamelessly appripriated it for this post. The book I think was about non-mainstream perspectives on Japanese culture. My post however is all about harmony and the need for an anchor. Yoga and new agey fusionizing philosophies have all discussed this. Our need as people to find a focal point somewhere in our life or deep inside, where everything is in complete harmony. The yin and the yang working together, working well, so that even if the outward trappings of work or school or neighbors and friends are not always in sync, the inner harmonious voice will remain the voice of calm and peace.

What happens when this inner calm is shaken so hard, it feels as if all aspects of life is falling apart? We see evidence on TV daily of people behaving berserk, of families communities and countries developing cracks because their core belief that things will work out no longer seems credible. Chinua Achebe wrote a wonderful book "When Things Fall Apart" about change and its vicissitudes in an African family. I wish I had a quart of his skill to write about changes in an expat family, in a transplanted nomad existence where change is expected and mostly welcome, but harmony and balance is still crucial. As I battle through my feelings of fear and anger, I am trying to keep this inner balance, keep peace inside my head. The outside will calm down. But our inner calm, once shaken, takes much longer to settle down. For my sanity's sake I must fight to keep things on an even keel so that tomorrow, the world will look better.

The Elephant in the Room

I looked through all my older posts and realized: every time there has been significant emotional change in my life, I shy away from talking about it. Why? How can I change it? Should I change it?

What would Booth do?

Retired!!

I am now retired. Seems only yesterday that I started the 50 mile daily trek to Snoqualmie, to make a living. But that was six years ago. Feels a little strange not to wake up at 5 and make a dash for the door, before the rest of the house wakes up. Even the dog :-)

What does not feel strange is lack of a commute. Snowbound, rainslick, windswept, parking lot, I have seen all the faces of eastbound Washington traffic. But I have never seen the smiling faces of my boys as they wake up. Which is why I am loving the luxury of having breakfast together. The joy of some quiet time to think. Plan what I want to do next. Life has been bountiful and I am grateful. I hope I always stay humble and grateful.