A Brilliant Life

Lisboa in two days

2012-02-08T11:06:00.001Z

And all I have to show for it is this lousy airplane photo.

This trip was not the European lushful romp of my youth. It was a refined, somewhat boring business trip. One in which I was too tired to even the leave the hotel at night and for the first time in my life, didn’t push it, let it go, promised to come back instead. Told myself I would rather see it with my husband and kids anyways. This is new for me. I had to not so willingly but not so dramatically let my facial moisturizer lotion be thrown away in airport security. It was either that or check it and quite frankly I have done too many waits at the Casa airport to bother with the whole thing.

I am writing this in the time before my flight home to Casa and I find myself reflecting on myself (surprise surprise) in the paradigm of Europe, work, adulthood, youthfulness, and relative perspective.

In my youth I raged through airports, I wish I could have a montage of camera footage of every airport passing I have done in my life. We would see some of my worst (never my best) moments and it would make for much humor. I had long crazy hair, was way too skinny, but the rush from that alone made me feel high. I was a young American girl out there doing what young American girls do best. I was being special and unique and gathering stories and memories that will last me the rest of my life. In fact anytime I feel bored or mundane now I can think back to those times and be so grateful that I lived them and remember why I wouldn’t want to go back. When I see young, stylish, European lovers, couples, confused, happy, before kids and marriage and all of the weights that make us not feel that way anymore, when I see them in airports on the way to hear and there, knowing how lucky they are to be living it right now, I feel so happy for them. Not envious or angry or annoyed, but truly happy for them because it is their moment and because I know I had my moment of such, and I know that there will be more that follow them, the next set and they will one day be sitting from my perspective (I hope, for them). I set a goal for myself at that time, and it would appear for all intents and purposes I have reached that goal…kind of.

When I left Paris to return home to the states, I said that I wanted to go home, and get a job that would allow me to live in Europe and travel home, see my family, be a proper part of society. I was not that in Paris. I was a vagabond at best! A brilliant beautiful vagabond that wrote poetry on the scene and lived about every cliché you can imagine about life in Paris for a 21 year old anorexic American.

Anyways, at the time I knew that I loved life there and I saw the women of my age, and I knew that when I was their age I wanted to be proper also, I wanted to belong to that club, have sophisticated clothes (still not there yet!), have gorgeous little kids and a great job and a husband that slightly touches me on the back as we enter or exit cars. I have those things. I imagined it to be in Paris and it is not. My life is in Casablanca for the moment, but I haven’t given up hope for Europe.

That brings me to my final point about perspective. When I only knew Europe, the convenience of America was the best and anytime I went home I marveled at the wonder of it all, anytime I went back to Europe I cursed the inconvenance of it all. Now that I live in Morocco, I am non-stop impressed with European organization and customer service. It’s quite funny really. Perspective is so relative.

For those Americans that think America is the best and that Europe sucks in comparison, I challenge you to go and live in Africa. I realize also that I live in north Africa, in the Maghreb, which is magical and consumer oriented and WAY MORE developed than many other places on the continent and in the region. So maybe the solution is not for me to find a way to move to Europe but to go and spend some time in somewhere less developed than Morocco and then go back to Morocco! Again, perspective is so relative and I am glad for mine, all of it.

I still dream of Paris, but Lisbon is nice too.

Moving to Casablanca…

2012-01-29T12:00:00.001Z

This is a sorrowful moment for me. As I eluded in an earlier post, I feel as though certain of my life’s wishes are about to be fulfilled. Yet I am sorrowful. All of our dreams come at a cost. That has been clear to me since the days of sorrowful packing and kitchen floor sleeping curled up with Shaka in an empty apartment in Piedmont park in the weeks before I got on my flight to Paris and then to here. I said goodbye to a faithful (furry) companion of ten years and it was one of the most heart wrenching things I have ever done. I now have two gorgeous daughters standing in her place, but I still miss her, cry for her, feel guilty about leaving her and wish her the best. I imagine it will be like that for the rest of my life.

And now it is time for another change. You see, Youssef and I moved here because it worked for us. Because I hated Casablanca, because I was stuck in traffic for hours every day, because there was nowhere to take the girls outside for a walk, because there was a balcony and a little girl that lived across the street from us that fell to her death at 7 years old. So we left, we decided that raising our young daughters by the beach was the best for them and we left. We found this place and never looked back. Our girls learned to walk here and yell “abdellah” across the field to the farmer.

They learned all the names and sounds of the farm animals and grew deep love for the other little girls that they play with everyday.

They made best friends and deep loving connections with nannies that live nearby and they became used to seeing the beach on the horizon every day.

Then the day came when we started looking back. The day came that we started thinking about school for our girls and couldn’t figure out a way to get them back and forth. Many many days came and went that I turmoiled over the distance between me and them while I was at work (figuratively and literally). So we found a place in the city, in the right neighborhood, in the right residence with the right kind of doorman and elevator. Then we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t leave. It wasn’t right yet, so we made people angry at us and we chose what was best for us and we decided to stay further.

Then something happened. I stopped caring about the right this and that and started thinking of what made the most sense. I started imagining a scenario in which I could drop my girls off at their school and pick them up, exchange words with their teachers about their progress and their issues and their work and their lives at school.

There is a neighborhood next to my job that I drive through everyday and everyday I started to think about how clean and close and good it could be if we lived in that neighborhood. Then…I remembered.

Once, a long time ago, many many many years ago. When I thought I was stuck in Atlanta forever but was kind of ok because I thought I was living with the guy I was going to marry and I had a beautiful apartment on the park and a great job and a dog that I adored and couldn’t imagine leaving…I used to pray. Now I am not really a religious woman, but I have always believed in ghosts and energies and more…so on the darkest nights, the nights where my heart longed for something more, knew there was a part of my life not yet lived, knew that my soul would inhabit a place very far away again I used to pray and I asked for three things, specifically:

To have children (this was always something I thought was weird because most people start by wanting one, but I always knew I would be a mother of more than one child)
To speak to those children in French
To walk them to school and to walk to work

Now…when I connected all of these dots last month and I realized that the only thing I had to do to actually have all of my dreams come true was just not try so freaking hard and fight so freaking hard for the best and most special and most different, when I accepted that, I realized that actually, I am about to have the life I prayed for, like opened up my heart and begged for. And I feel so lucky, so so lucky. I feel like my grandmother has worked a little magic on my behalf also and that I am not sure what I am supposed to do with my time in this situation. I know that it will not last forever, my work will move, my husband will not want to pay this amount of rent for too long, things will change. But in the time that I have, whether that be one or two years, I have the sense that I meant to create. Whether that be art or life, or both or whatever, I feel that I am destined to do this move. And that, my friends, is the only thing that keeps me from a constant stream of tears. The tears are here, that is certain, but I have this understanding to draw on, to lean on, to turn to and seek comfort in.

How could one NOT be sad to leave this:

And this

Sad is a part of the process, real hurt, not the kind of hurt that I can reason away, the kind that you just have to carry with you, digest, keep in your pocket and hope it makes you a better person hurt, is the hurt I feel to leave this home we have. But I go forward strongly and with the conviction that we are making the right decision. The girls start at their school in a couple of weeks, they will be learning French, I will wake up in the mornings and dress them and feed them and walk them to school before I continue on to my work on foot.

For now...here are some of our favorite memories, the ones we caught on camera anyways:

Oh How lucky we have been.

Moroccan Road Trips

2012-01-20T10:19:00.001Z

I miss travelling. I miss the feeling of hitting the open road in Morocco.

I miss the way the sun feels in summer time. I miss the red walls of Marrakesh and the frenzy of the medina coupled with the calm of the hotel. I miss swimming in gorgeous pools with exotic looking palm trees sprouting out from them. Travelling through Morocco is always such a wonderful experience. I ask myself why. I answer myself with "because it's beautiful - of course it has dug way down deep in your heart and periodically spits up images at you".

When I first came to Morocco, before I (knew I) was pregnant with the twins, we took a trip to Marrakesh on a train. When my mother saw the pictures of me looking out the window at the countryside, she said "I can't tell if you are crying or just really happy".

I told her I was crying because I was so happy. It was in that stairway of a beat up old train, with a door open, speeding by rolling green hills of country side that I realized that I felt really safe with my husband. I was not afraid to sit by the open door because I knew that if I fell, if I slipped and my body flung towards the open air, that he would catch me, he would do what it takes to make me safe.

What a glorious trip that was. When our pride was about our newly re-found love. Our pictures were about us being so proud and feeling so strong and confident to be back together again. it was pure magic. The snails in djemaa el fna, the dinner at chez ali, all of it.

Whenever I start yearning for Marrakesh, it's actually that, that I have in mind.

Of course we have been back sense then with the girls. We had a gorgeous poolside room

and as soon as we got into the hotel the girls fell busy pulling themselves up on the furniture and we set up the cribs and then we found Mae had crawled inside of the cabinet. this past summer I found a picture of myself at that age doing exactly that.

We took a carriage ride at sunset around the medina.

We walked past the koutoubia, we had dinner in the square and took pictures by the pool and the girls pigged out at the breakfast buffet.

We visited a gorgeous guesthouse in the valley, we ate a posh lunch overlooking a beautiful lake.

We drove through Berber villages and decided that if we ever did have a wedding, we would do it there. Then we abandoned the girls in djemaa el fna!

I miss vacation in Morocco. I want to hit the road but it's not going to happen anytime soon. We have other priorities right now so the goal is on making it through this winter for a spring retreat.

Moroccanized

2012-01-16T14:30:00.003Z

I have all of a sudden become very "moroccanized". This was a term that used to be thrown around alot in my first year. People (especially my husband) pointing out little details of altered behavior and endearingly calling me "moroccanized". Except when that used to happen, I used to smile and laugh and think "not in a million f'ing years babe"...but now...all of a sudden...I feel totally enraptured by this culture. It is like a freaking switch flipped and I am back to the 19 year old girl that was so obsessively in love with her husband that she would have actually converted to 'moroccan man' if it were a religion that were open to outsiders. It is kind of like I have just awoken and am seeing this country for the first time. Maybe like the culture shock finally wore off and I am reveling in every moment of it. On the other hand, this could all just possibly be the manic of a manic depression rearing its ugly head? Who knows...who cares...I am all about it.

Yesterday, Sunday, I convinced my husband to visit a huge souk outside of Mohammedia...with the girls...As we pushed our way through people, over dirt and mud and trash and various collections of garbage on sell, I whispered in Sophia's ear "this is your country, this is where you are from...but not me". We twisted along in the flow of people under the Midday sun and I realized that we had decided to come to one of the largest souks in the region, at the busiest time of day to souk shop on the busiest day of the week to souk shop. We passed blaring loudspeakers playing the Koran, a multitude of trucks and vans with the back doors flung open spilling out various goods such as shoes, clothing, baby toys, electrical appliances, dilapidated office furniture, broken down chandeliers, used rugs, new Chinese house skippers and various other miscellany. We finally spotted a juice stand through the crowd of people and managed to shuffle our way towards it, squeezing out of the crowd, and there for about 50 cents, we had the most divine fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice that we split with the girls. A shady oasis of calm in a frenzied public. We then continued on, carrying the girls on our shoulders so that they could see above the crowds. We spotted these babies right here, bargained, did the walk off and I sure you gather from the picture how that story ended.

All was perfect in the world. We then managed to trek back to the car and seriously contemplated paying one of these guys to carry the girls back in the cart.

Considered as in: discussed the price contemplated and then decided...well...ehhh...ok he's already gone - but next time!

After that we got lost in an open field that led us to a small little village/traditional housing settlement not unlike the peaceful haven where we currently live. The locals spotted us from the rooftop of the structure over looking the cemetery and by the time we had driven back to them to ask them for directions, one of them was already on his bike for us to follow him out (again...in love with Morocco). We then made our way to a small three story fish restaurant and ate divine fried calamari, paella and an assortment of other fish, salad and fresh tomato salsa. The restaurant was simple: wooden tables, paper draped over each table with which the remains of the previous customers fish bones is cleared in one fell swoop.

Next up was venezia ice for the ice cream the girls were screaming for in the car without even knowing what the hell it was, just knowing that I had promised it to them during lunch. "ice keam ice keam ice keam"

After this epic family Sunday full of dust, fish, ice cream and tons of little girl kisses we made our way home to show our beloved home to a potential renter to replace us. The guy is french and I felt on the edge of grabbing him by the collar and yelling in his face "IF YOU GET THIS PLACE YOU ARE SO LUCKY DO YOU KNOW THAT? DO YOU? ARE YOU GOING TO APPRECIATE IT AND TREAT THESE PEOPLE RIGHT HERE? THEY ARE LIKE FAMILY NOW! YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!! NO ONE IS". But of course that would have been a little over the top, so I didn't. I just ran and hid in a different room of the house every time I felt myself swelling with tears. Then the girls woke up frm their nap and thought they had a visitor and the landlord who has just returned after 25 years in Italy said to me "CIAO" and I started crying in front of everyone. And then it was really sad and awkward and the guy was ushered out and the landlord was hugging me and telling Youssef we shouldn't go and asking me to stay. Drama. Moroccan drama at it's best.

We are not staying, this is a part of the process, that's all.

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

2012-01-10T12:41:00.000Z

Youssef and I are a couple that married, like officially, somewhere in the region of 4 times. Once when I was 18 years old in the Decatur courthouse. An event to which I wore tan, heeled boots and a light brown knee length dress. We ate at a Jamaican restaurant off of Lavista road afterwards with friends. The second time is when I took this photo:

The third time was this photo:

and I am sure we went to the Habouss at least one other time when I didn't even bother to dress for the occasion. I had no wedding shower, no wedding, no baby shower, otherwise known as the henna party, then we had no baptism for the girls and have really only thrown one Moroccan party as a couple (if you don't count the numerous dazed nights of youthful entertaining we did regularly in the West End many years ago).

I guess you could call us, non-celebratory in traditional terms.

We are moving...finally. I am at peace with moving...finally. I feel as though my destiny is being fulfilled but that's for a different blog post.

Back to the theme of the weddings and the moving...I have an idea. I want our new home to emulate love, our love, our partnership, a wedding that we never had, the official announcement to the community that we are a proper couple. So I am going with a theme for the new pad of something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

Current hodgepodge of ideas:

1.) Thanks to Tahir Shah I am now totally into the idea of salvaging for tables and dressers and an entryway piece.
2.) Speaking of the entry way, to set the tone for the love house, I am going to (enchallah) put a Moroccan wedding blanket on the wall in the entry way.

3.) Something new...well that's going to be a full on Moroccan salon. I. am. so. excited. see example HERE:

4.) Something borrowed - I am just going to consider the apartment as borrowed because it's not ours
5.) For the blue, I am thinking tiles...not really sure yet, but it will present itself to me of that I am sure
5.) We arer planning a carpet buying trip...I told Youssef last night, "Hell to the yes, a carpet buying trip to the mountains, that is like why I freaking moved to Morocco!", he was all "Good...I'm glad you've found your purpose".
6.) I want a piano for the girls, so that will be old as well most probably.
7.) I want a proper dining room table and I have something like this in mind:

but I am actually considering this as well:

8.) As far as my destiny being fulfilled...well...I will explain that bit later, but I mean it.
9.) I want to create an environment to create in. Life is too short. I am in the process of getting my Master's degree and that is for career path purposes but honest to god I am sick of being afraid to create. Being afraid to go for it. Being afraid to write. POETRY and STORIES!!!! AHHHHHHHH
10.) I am reading the artist's way, can you tell?
11.) Plus there is just something about the ancient culture here mixed with the laid back "ma'caine moushkil" attitude thrown together with the crazy stress of the traffic jams from the donkeys in the streets and the black Mercedes zooming around juxtaposed with the beggars and the carts and the free roaming sheep in the middle of the city. All of that plus the changing economy and country lends itself to a lot of inspiration if you can manage to escape the stress. I am working on escaping that stress and allowing the inspiration to flourish. One thing is for sure, February will mark the end of my 3rd year here and the beginning of my 4th year, and I feel luckier than ever to be here. Yes... I desperately miss my family and still entertain ideas of up and moving back but I am not actively fighting to get out, my philosophy is to enjoy where I am at while I am there. I miss my father's land. I miss how it feels to be there. I miss him. I talk to my mother all the time so I don't freak out as bad about her and somewhere in the back of my head, I know that if I stay eventually one day, I convince her to come and live at least part of the year here with me. But the father piece is a bit different. That won't change, I imagine it will only worsen. The only solution I can see out of it is if I have this amazing free life as a writer and we have the financial means to send me over to the US often enough for me to get sick of it and want to be back in Morocco. You know...not asking too much! As far as my point above about the culture and the change...anything feels possible in Morocco. I feel closer than ever to being able to actually do something like that. But it takes work, hard work and vigilance and that is just not where I have been putting the work. This is what I am working on for 2012. Trying to set the wheels of that work in motion. And I sure this will move at the pace of the traffic on the route de j'dida at 6pm on a Friday...but I am prepared to inch along to get there. A great quote from the artist's way is when people tell her 'do you have any idea how old I will be by the time I master that new skill' and she says "yes...the same age you will be if you don't".'

I'll do a proper post about the move update later.

Happy New Year

2011-12-29T12:34:00.004Z

I am sitting in my office working. The students are on vacation. My babies are at home sick with the nanny. Mae is on antibiotics. New Year's Eve is coming and I feel a feeling of peacefulness. Finally, peace and calm. I have Skype on and I am watching my mother sleep. She hasn't been sleeping and has passed out while talking. I think the sound of my keyboard clicking away just now is probably creating white noise for her. I can't bring myself to hang up because I am afraid she will pop awake again into her sleepless grief hell and I won't know it. Thank god for skype. How amazing that I can be there for her like this even while I am at work. I guess it is kind of similar to those fancy daycare in-crib monitors in the US.

Casablanca is cold these days. We almost bought a car, almost as in showed up to pick up the keys and argued about who would drive it off the lot over breakfast. All the paperwork was signed and legalized. And then they asked me to go ahead and hand over a 7 thousand euro advance on it. Don't you think if we had 7K euros we would have freaking agreed to pay that from the beginning. So due to a lack of competence and communication...we have no car. We have not moved. We have not decided on the school. Nothing has changed. I still feel peaceful about that, calmer.

I hope that this New Year will bring us much peace and time together. 2011 has been about acceptance for me. For all of my life I have looked at nothing as impossible, everything magical..Brilliant. This past year of motherhood has worn down that child like ambition that I have always had. I didn't want to live in a suburb of Casablanca, I didn't live my whole life to end up in sidi fucking maarouf. I don't want my kids to be from there...ok wait...actually I just want things to be easier than they are now, so even though I don't want to live there, I'll take it, please and thank you if that means I get to see them more, avoid traffic and have a better organized life.
I want them to learn Spanish and be brilliant and make it into la mission or a school with a European baccalaureate...ok wait, actually we can't afford those schools and I am just fine with this MOROCCAN private school right by my job that would allow me to drop them off and pick them up everyday. Walk in and get them, chat with their teachers, see their world...everyday. I think part of this goes back to: no my grandmother can't die, no she won't, or it is abstract and not real and not happening, certainly not before Christmas...ok wait, she's gone. Death came and I saw it. The leukemia showed up and ravaged her body in two weeks flat and she is gone, but miraculously I got to sit at her bedside and hold her hand and hear the most magical words whispered to me on her way out.

I understand all at once that she is why I am so fucking impossibly, hopelessly ambitious about brilliance. All of the concessions I am having to make as a mother feel like mediocrity but maybe it is just practicality. At the end of the day my grandmother was one of the most practical people I have ever known, with a heart full of magic...This is her wathcing my mom turn 50:

And this is her watching her first great grand daughter being born:

And this is me, once upon a time - on a New Year's eve in Scottland, when I still thought the world was mine:

Damnit I wish I could still fit in those jeans! (see practical things, practical things!!!)

December Days

2011-12-17T22:18:00.000Z

Well I'm back. I haven't written in a while because I didn't want to always be a whining mess of indecision and strife so I took a small break. Alot has happened in that time. I went to America and back. My grandmother died. We decided to move back into the city and found a place and started packing. Then we changed our minds and unpacked. (apparently we are having a hard time leaving this place)

The part about my grandmother dying deserves more attention. The week that I went home to see her ended up being the last week of her life and I ended up with the shared and tragic honor of caring for along with my sister. What a thing to do. I sang her songs that she taught me to sing to my kids and washed her hair and held her hands and kissed her head and told her I loved her a million times. She told me details of her life so that I might write it one day. The details of what we all experienced are coming back to me one at a time in a fog and as hard as it is to go through this, it would be a lot harder if I hadn't gone. A lot harder. So I am grateful for it. Everyone back here has been so kind and caring and supportive of me. Inviting me to eat and calling me and extending their condolences. I love that about the culture in Morocco. Death and birth and marriage are such big deals. But then again I think people make big deals out of it also in the states and that maybe it is just part of being an adult.

The girls had to suffer through a week of their mom being gone and then a week of their dad being gone and now we are all back together and I am so grateful and happy for it. They are happy for it as well. It will be many many years before they will understand just how special their Gigi was. Everyone knows that when you loose your grandmother it is horrible but there is a significant amount of people on this earth that had the pleasure to know my grandmother that are currently mourning her loss through playing her favorite songs and videos of her singing, remembering her favorite sayings and celebrating her life through the tears cried from the news of her death. Those people are located on three continents (that I know of) and divided into many states. She would get such a kick out of that.

Right now it has been less than a week since she passed but before we know it it will be more than a year and then many years (hopefully) and then I will be staring at my own inevitable fate as well. That did not escape me. But I think this experience was the first one for me in terms of accepting death. Being even maybe comfortable with it. Seeing that even when it is a horrible viscous cancer like leukemia that shows up and erases you from the inside out and you can cease to exist in two weeks flat, that even then...it's ok. You can go with love and if you're lucky you can whisper the sweetest most special things in the ears of the people you love.

I am going to try to get better at writing more often on here.

The Nanny Diaries

2011-11-12T11:02:00.002Z

I have suffered. It has been going on for years. I hope there is an end in sight but I am not sure. Since I have arrived in Morocco I have been put off by the “maid” thing. It is second nature for most Moroccans. The maid thing inevitably, with the arrival of children, has turned into the nanny thing. My family knows my woes quite well. My daughters are now two years old and this is the situation I faced when I came home last night:

Scene: Dust flying out from behind the station wagon as I zoom along the dirt road not even caring if I happen to actually run over a duck this time…I need to see my kids. I have been gone since exactly 7:20am and it is exactly 6:00pm. I spent the past two weeks with them all day every day and I KNOW exactly how much I missed today in those 11 hours. I pull the car in front of our white house, get out and find the big steel doors open for me, make it to the interior garden and find the kitchen quite but see a light at the end of the house. The screen door is open for me as well. Mae is at the end of the hallway, she sees me and runs at me with an overwhelming rush of loving energy. She clasps on to my legs and I kneel down to hug and kiss her, before I even get halfway down she wiggles away from me and runs to…her nanny. She loges herself on her and hugs her. Caresses her arms and pushes her face into her, looking back at me only to make sure that I will not try to take her away from her. I have at this point made it to the brown rug in the living room where the nanny, Sophia and Mae were sitting quietly reading and waiting for me. Sophia is absorbed in a book. She lets me kiss her and immediately starts pointing out the characters. I am trying to ignore the Mae situation, be fine with it, not care, and tell myself all of the things that people have told me to help me deal with this exact moment. An anger starts to gurgle its way up my throat and out comes the mother I hate myself for being. Me: Sophia, you want to go bye bye with mamma. Let’s go get Baba. Mae: bye bye? Me: not you, Sophia is going with mama you will go home with Hanane. Mae: clings to Hanane more tightly. Hanane: also caressing Mae’s hair, and kissing her. Me: fighting the urge to rip my daughter from her arms. Only fighting it because I know that if I do it will only end in many many tears spilled between Mae and I. Sophia: bye bye? Me: yes, let’s go get dressed. Hanane: yallah Mae, zidi a mama. Me: no, no, ma cain mushkil (no problem) Mae goes with you. Hanane: nervous laughter. Me: In the room dressing Sophia, hating myself for working and then reacting to the consequences. Mae: finds me in the hallway getting their shoes and asks me to go with them. Me: okay benti (my daughter) of course you will go with us. We are going to take hanane home and go and pick up Baba and go and play. I kneel down again to try and kiss her finally. Mae: runs away from me and grabs onto Hanane again. Me: trying not to be angry again, getting Sophia ready, dressing myself, acting like everything is fine, apologizing to the nanny for the long day, showing her the dark circles under my eyes so that she understands that I was out working, that I really do love my kids but that I have to provide for them and I am not out partying or having coffee with friends.

Finally we made it out, we dropped off the nanny (me profusely thanking her and insisting that the girls kiss her and say bye bye), we met their father, they played in a soft play, and we had a blast. 5 hours later, I lay on the living room floor beside my sleeping husband after just having finished a Woody Allen film and sobbed myself to sleep over Mae.

I wish I were a less selfish mother. But I am coming to understand that this is how I love. I am selfish and all consuming and I hate betrayal, I hate not being the most important. I hate the competition and eventually hate the beloved when betrayed. My mom says that my kids are NOT HERE to fulfill me emotionally. She is right, so so right. I totally agree. But I think this issue is more about the way that I love than what I need from them…anyways, this is my truth.

Medical Leave

2011-11-09T23:14:00.000Z

I have been on sick leave for the past two weeks and have so so much to write about. I was supposed to write it all down as it was happening but I became so entangled in the daily drama of running a home, being a mother to two toddlers, reacquainting myself with higher education as a student, remembering and finding out all of the millions of details that equal everything that happens in life between 7AM and 5PM Monday through Friday. I was also busy reaffirming that I could not work from home, that I want the girls in school, that I also want to home school them, that I want to move back to Casa that I want to stay here in this little village...see where this is going. I found myself and almost "done lost my damned mind" in the process. Or actually maybe that should be the other way around...

also...I found snow in Morocco. More on all of this soon. I promise.

Two and counting...

2011-10-11T14:06:00.001Z

Dearest Sophia and Mae,

Tomorrow is your 2^nd Birthday. We have made it two whole years. In October of 2008 I was still living in my little apartment off the park in Atlanta.

I had not yet decided to come to Morocco. I was in Paris on vacation in October of 2008. I had NO IDEA that within a year I would be giving birth to two twin girls. That I would be reunited with the love of my life and that we would turn into the vessels that would birth you and then care for you and then (now) begin to make decisions that will affect the rest of your lives.

Every decision that we are faced with feels so heavy. I try not to analyze it all at once or I feel at risk of a panic attack. My god, how do parents, how did my parents swallow this responsibility. Or maybe it’s not so hard for everyone? Maybe some people make these decisions easier. Maybe these things are not as difficult for everyone. For me, though, for your mother, these decisions are huge. I am graying in the hair, I am wrinkling around the eyes. Yesterday while sitting in traffic and trying to accept the magnitude of what it means to be responsible for your lives I was actually able to empathize with the presidents of the United States - past and present. My thinking went like this:

“Holy crap, what is wrong with me. Why does this all feel so huge, am I making the right decisions? Are we making the right decisions for them? Will the decision that we make now about what school we put them in affect the rest of their lives? How will we ever save enough money to send them to college? To retire? To take another vacation? Oh my god, we need more money – no wait, we don’t – we have everything we need. I need to look at myself (opens the mirror) fcuk I am turning gray over this, look at those hairs, and oh my god my face is pale and ahhhhhhhhh this is why the presidents all go gray. I am graying over which freaking pre-school to enroll my toddlers in and a family savings plan and they are, in a way, responsible for so many lives not just in America but all over the world. I mean if THESE decisions feel big to me just imagine how THOSE decisions feel for them!”

So couple that with the keen awareness of the 99% movement in the states and the rough economic times that the United States are facing and the confusion over where to live and when to move and what to do, and you’ve got Madame (gray hair remember, no more mademoiselle) Basket case!

Anyways, besides all of the worrying I do…will continue to do…I also do the following:

I am still able to sweep you up from your beds in the morning, with your languid bodies plastering against my chest. Hold your hands to walk around the house. Get you to give me sweet intentional kisses. Make you laugh your heads off by throwing a really (not very funny) ugly face your way. Sophia you have learned how to throw except that you walk right up and throw hard, at close range, in the face of whoever you are throwing to. Mae, when you are sick Sophia becomes the ‘Mae is sick Sophia’. She is bad, she jumps on you and takes stuff from you and acts really like a controlling little tyrant. She also acts goofy and expresses all of these desires and emotions that I think she usually suppresses when you are well, because her personality has developed in relation to yours. But Mae, when Sophia is sick, it is the opposite, you listen for her cry and accompany me into the room. You bring her Dora doll to her side of the bed and kiss her on the head and are careful not to accidentally hit her. You translate her whines for me and call it to my attention if I overlook her needs. You are sweet and caring and make sure she is ok. I am so proud of you Mae. You are a good sister.

Sophia you are too honey, just not when Mae is sick! But when you are both well – you Sophia, you willingly give Mae your toy if she is screaming for it, maybe because you don’t want to listen to it or maybe because you don’t really care either way and prefer for things to be peaceful. Sophia you are able to lay with me for hours or even lay alone and read books. You are very outgoing and you don’t cling and will go to anyone that offers you a kind smile and open arms.

You are both so loved and adored by your father and me. We can’t even remember what life was like before you got here, even though that was only two short years ago.

You have also started talking to us. You tell on each other, you tell on the neighbors, you know the names of all the neighborhood kids and ask to go and play with them and the cows and the donkeys on a daily basis.

This past week we considered moving you back into Casablanca to facilitate your lives. Since you have been born I have had the distinct impression that I am only the conductor of your fate, that I am not the decider. I have the impression that you two were born with your own luck, your own money and your own destiny and that my job and your father’s job is simply to be open enough to listen to your fate and simply help you connect up with the wide range of possibilities that are out there for you. This debate about staying out here in the country or moving back to the city at a certain point made me revisit this idea that I am only a conductor of your destiny and that your home, the place where you are meant to live, will come to us and that we only have to be smart enough to recognize it. Well…it turns out…we are already living in it. We found this country house with ease. We found it for the price we need, your nannies presented themselves to us in a month’s time after we moved here and we have been in peace every since then. You have both learned to walk in between the raised beds in the garden and not to step on the vegetables. You have taught yourselves to imitate the noises of all of the animals you see every day here. Your skin gets sick if we take you away from the ocean air and it gets better again when we rub salt water on your legs. I dare say – your home is your home and you are not meant to leave it yet. You are not meant to return to Casablanca and live in an apartment and have a maid pick you up from school.

We just had to be smart enough to understand that. Now we get it. We are staying…until the next thing presents itself.

In the meantime, Happy Birthday little darlings! Thank you so so much for every single day since you were born. All of the worry and enormity of raising you is worth every single second of it. I am humbled and overjoyed to be the conductor of your fate. I look forward to seeing your lives unfold and I have absolutely no doubt there is greatness in store for you at every turn.

Working mother syndrome

2011-09-24T10:44:00.001Z

Many of you are well aware of my on going confusion and uncertainty about ~~everything in my life~~ how I will educate my girls. I publicly declared, for the benefit of things working out how I want them to, that I want to home school my girls. I still believe that homeschooling and world travel would provide the best education possible for them but I am also coming to realize that it is a full time job. Full time mothering is a full time job. I have a full time job and for a while there thought I could fit the homeschooling into the extra. Being the sole provider of their education is not something for the extra. In the time that I am not at work, I am struggling to be one hundred percent present at home. We read books constantly, we take walks regularly, we do bath time and breakfast time and dinner time daily. On the weekends we go out and tend to the garden and cath up with the neighbors. I put them in their pajamas and we tuck them into bed every night, only to wake up and do it all over again the following day.

For those of you with children this will be something that you can easily relate to. For those of you that have full time jobs with two toddlers that you have to say goodbye to everyday and slink in guiltily to every evening, this will also sound familiar to you. Unfortunately I do not have any friends that have to leave their small children that age and go and be away from them all day. This is probably because I live in Morocco and it is not common. I have some work colleagues that also work all day and miss their kids, but they are older. I had one colleague that had a child the same age as mine and you know what? She quit...to be around him more.

Anyways, this post is not about me feeling bad for myself for having to find the balance between work and kids. I could quit too, or go to part time or just find a well paid part time teaching job somewhere. I am not willing to do any of those things because I am ambitious and because I have worked hard to have my career.

I know this is a hot button subject and I don't say this meaning that stay at home moms are not ambitious. This is not a comparison, I am simply analysing myself and tyring to understand my own decisions. I am coming to see these years of heartache over missing them during the day as part of the work I have done to have a career. It is a choice. I chose a very long time ago to get into my field, I had good fortune and a good work ethic. I gave it all up once, I got it all back. I am not quitting now. I am proud of it. Would I rather be with my kids all day than at work? Yes. Am I hoping that as they grow and begin to have their own lives outside of our home, that feeling will get better? Yes. Do I know that I will never ever get all of these days away from them wathcing them grow and need me and being able to guide and love them to their maximum back? Yes. I know that. I do not have it so mixed up that I think that what I do all day is more important than that. I guess I am just trying to make it through though. I am trying to hang on tight and make it through these years of heart break. I am trying to do the best I can, go in as late as possible and leave as early as possible. I am delaying haircuts for six months at a time. I do nothing outside of work if not with them. I am putting aside me because I want to give as much as possible to them in the time I am not already promised somewhere else.

I know that won't last forever either. I know that soon I will scoop them up and take them to the hairdresser with me. They will sit quietly behind me in good behavior so that they can get their hair done after (if they ever get any hair). I will watch them as the hair dresser makes a big to do as though he is 'doing' their hair (this will happen because it is Morocco and no one would say no to it). They will be beautiful and we will talk and shop and go to plays together. They will be kind little companions. I already see it. We already share some of these moments, but then they are slashed by a two year old fit or a dirty diaper or running off and an inability to reason because they are still just my sweet little babies. I am not rushing them. I love these days, I love it when one of them cries out in the middle of the night and I have a good enough excuse to go and get her out of bed, clinging to me then cuddling down into the space between my body and the pillow.

I am just trying to do the best I can I guess. It is hard but it is beautiful.

I meant to write about wading my way through the education system here today. But I will save that. Trust. It is on the way.

Thanks for letting me share!

Work Stress

2011-09-14T09:35:00.001Z

So, it is that time of year again. For the past 6 years Back to School (BTS) = high high stress for me. I will only very vaguely mention my job on here, so I won't go into details of why or how BTS is stressful but let's just say that many of these days end with me crying or falling down or picking fights with my husband because I just don't have it in me to be gracious about anything. These days mostly begin with a battered, fatigued version of myself mustering up the energy and strength to make it through another 12 hour work day and then checking emails from home afterwards.

Yesterday, was a combination of everything I just listed above. ~~ALL OF IT~~ Most of it (I didn't pick a fight with my husband, I tried but didn't succeed. He was really great actually). The midnight emails, the falling down, the raging fit of tears, plus yelling in meetings, swearing off people and knowing that I am powerless to change an entire professional culture and that actually NO MATTER WHERE I AM IN IN THE WORLD, BTS = STRESS.

You know, I kind of think of it the same way I think of my Fernbank years. Fernbank was EVERY Friday night. And still four years later, I feel lucky to have Friday nights free. One day...I will be so grateful to enjoy September without the stress of BTS.

Back to yesterday and then again today and probably tomorrow and DEFINITELY Friday...my mantra is going to be this: I don't feel sorry for myself, I am not a victim, I am grateful for the life I have, I am very lucky and I love my life.

This is the mantra that will get me through this Back to School BS.

I wish you a wonderful day.

I'll just be over here.

In the corner.

Rocking myself back and forth and repeating my mantra in the moments when I am alone.

Running up and down stairs and in and out of rooms and meetings and interactions in high heels, dresses and make-up for the rest of the time.

Thanks Harmony

3.) Friends like this make it magic:

4.) Pools like this make it magic:

This photo of Eldorador Club Palmeraie is courtesy of TripAdvisor

5.) Food like this make it yummy:

This photo of Eldorador Club Palmeraie is courtesy of TripAdvisor

6.) Champagne Dinners that end up looking like this make it magic:

7.) A night out on the town with my husband make it magic:

8.) Restaurants like this make it perfect for me:

9.) Wine like this make it really enjoyable:

and this:

10.) Oh my are we already at TEN!!!

Speeding through a wild palm oasis with my husband listed above at midnight after enjoying a bottle of wine listed above, in the restaurant listed above after a day at the pool listed above with your kids listed above and those great friends listed above MAKE IT MAGIC:

That about covers it!

Oh and Spa treatments help also!

My Cry

2011-08-25T10:27:00.000Z

I finally cried. Last night, over a tick bite gone red and a stumped toe. I was in heaving sobs. My husband just held me through it and rubbed my back as I had my annual "I miss my family" cry. I am still less than one week back and the people that I was surrounded with everyday for a year are still very much in my daily thoughts. That doesn't mean that they are not always in my daily thoughts, it just means that the details of their nows are my now as well. We shared space, we reconnected. The girls are still saying things in English all the time but I fear everyday that the English will go and the Arabic will be all that is left. I know that is not true. I know that I studies multilingualism and relish in raising my daughters trilingual and I know that I am so so so proud of them for already being able to understand three languages BUT (and there is always a but) I fear the English will go. I fear it will become foreign again. And when they mention mimi or papa or bud bud or awma or gigi or caitlyn, I fight back tears. So the tick bite that I got in south Georgia that is still red coupled with slamming the left half of my left foot on the bathroom door was enough to send me into deep heavy sobs. Finally, I cried about it. I cried because I miss my Dad and my Mom and my grandma and my Shaka. I cried because my Dad's wife was so kind to us and because I miss watching the way she smokes her cigarettes after dinner. I cried because I miss how Caitlyn bursts out into her hellos at the girls. I cried because I miss cooking and watching what I am eating with my mom. I miss our shared jokes and glasses red wine at night. I miss my grandma's waddle across the apartment floor and I miss seeing the girls give her big kisses. I miss sitting in Kate's living room talking to her about the most personal of personal. feeling free and alive again. I miss spending the next morning talking to her husband about interesting topics to which he offers interesting opinions. I miss the way Harmony is calm with Atlas and gentle with the world. I miss the way Ceci and Yo are just like sisters. Speaking of sisters, I miss my other two sisters so so much. I miss they way their bigger kids jump and cling for a hug. I miss being around the only two other women in the world that have the exact same parents as me and therefore a very different shade of the exact same issues.

I miss America. I miss my aunts and uncles and friends and the houses and the yards and the cars. I miss how nice everyone is. When I left, I was ready to come back. And even through this sadness I do not wish i was there. Well, I do but only in a parallel universe kind of way. And that is the hardest part of the missing. Because I can not just wipe up my tears, blow my nose and make a plan to get back. I can't do that because everything has changed for me. I don't that I am 100 percent headed back. I don't feel 100 percent staying here, but I have no idea where I am heading, so the missing has no end. It then becomes a hollow part of my heart and I do not like for any part of my heart to be hollow.

I have no tidy end for this post. I am going on vacation next week and I am sure that will help. I feel like I need to see wide-open beautiful Morocco outside of Casablanca and where I live. I have been missing that too.

America is...

2011-08-08T14:32:00.000Z

HUGE

Beautiful

full of family

full of friends

full of emotions

full of food

full of people from all over the world

abundant

wealthy

poor

convenient

full of really good tv

I have become hooked on celebrity rehab!!!! My girls are speaking english. I can't figure out if they have non-native accents or just, you know, two year old accents. Sophia says 'pazzie' for pizza and 'apple' for open. I made mole enchiladas with real sweet potatoes and collards and homemade refried beans last night. It was divine. Southern-Mexican soul food fusion. We are spending time with family and swimming and eating. i re-joined weight watchers because I gained my American 15. That will be the official name for the weight gain while here. I love weight watchers. I can eat such good food and still loose weight. I have lost half a pound in two days, Not bad at all. Sophia and Mae are one hundred percent HOOKED on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I miss Tagines. I miss the view from my house. Some days I miss my office. I miss my husband. by the time I leave I will be ready to go back. This I know. I will miss here so so much then. I will miss here, I will miss them. I will miss miss miss so so much. This I know. In the meantime you can find me singing...with my grandmother...and my kids.

Home

2011-07-18T11:55:00.000+01:00

I am learning that no matter where you leave, how much you hated it there, how much you pined for a different life while you were there – no matter how many decisions you made and plans you executed and hours you spent working on those plans to get OUT – once you are gone…once you start doing this again in your new life…your old life seems like…magic.

The above (run on) sentence is true if and only if – you also loved that place that you were trying to leave and you knew that too. I did this with Paris first. My love of Paris is one of the most continuous romantic themes in my life. I love that city, I loved her from the first day up until my last one there. But I also suffered and eventually I made the decision to leave.

I went back to my beloved Atlanta and throughout the next 8 years made a life for myself that included a HUGE support network, pretty furnishings, a beautiful neighborhood, a great job and most of all a really tight relationship with my parents.

I also spent that 8 years trying to get back to Paris. Then – my roof fell in and all of a sudden it was then or never. So I chose then. And I came here to Morocco to be with my Youssef (again after those 8 years) and to be closer to my Paris and to inhale the culture that had enraptured me before Paris.

It has been almost three years and I will say this – I actively fight the urge to plan my way out of here. I am happy here. I go to sleep at night listening to the ocean (which yes – induces tsunami fear some nights but I can still appreciate how cool that is), on the weekend and after work we take our kids to the beach, my babies taught themselves how to imitate animals from all of the farm animals around us, the farmer that lives next door gives them organic tomatoes to eat like apples when they visit, I have learned how to get seeds from my plants and dry herbs and will solarize my garden plot, my babies love tagines, eat WAY more sweets than they should (this really shouldn’t be on the goods list but I know it would be at the top of their good list), they also understand Arabic, English and French, we do yoga poses in our big open Moroccan living room, I am teaching them how to meditate also (Sophia loves to “OM”), Youssef has fishing poles (he went fishing twice – but still), and he started sailing lessons (ok he took one- but still again) – in short we are having a good time. I have even started figuring out the restaurants I can go to that make me feel like me again.

I have fallen in love with my life here and for so many more reasons than I have listed above. So many reasons to love it here. I feel lucky to be here. I know that no matter where I go and live and raise my children that these years that I spend here in Morocco will always for the rest of my life be magic.

Just like the magic that I miss so much about my home - Atlanta. Somedays I pine for the options, convenience, beauty, lack of trash on the streets, green parks, pubs, gatherings formal and in, endless world cuisine choices, rules and laws that you can’t break and can’t bribe your way out of, rights to certain services that you don’t have to tip someone for doing their job. SO many more reasons I love my Atlanta as well.

All of this being said…I don’t know if I am ever going back to Atlanta to live. Every year that I stay gone the thought of going back gets harder. But I also don’t think I am here forever either, I have not accepted that. I feel about here – the way I felt about Atlanta, I love it – I know that I love it and will always always miss it, but I will leave it, and I will return to visit it, but I will make a home somewhere else. Loving somewhere is not good enough reason to stay. Like the saying goes about relationships ‘Love isn’t always enough'. I guess I subscribe to that thinking about places as well. BUT FOR NOW…two things:

I am visiting my beloved hometown in less than a week!!!!!!!! AHHHHH YEEEEAAAAHHHHHHHH so excited to take my kids to the acquarium and see family and visit the high museum and shop and eat Mexican food and pawn my kids off on family so I can go out and not just feel like me but BE ME. So So excited that I get to recharge those batteries again this year – because it is not a given every year
Already looking forward to coming back “home” – I already can’t wait to see my husband in the airport and give him his kids back – as in “take these brats away from me” and try not WAIL in public about how sweet their reunion will be. . I Know that I will be happy to walk back through my front door. I know that I will be so happy to see his family again and show off how much the kids grew and how cool they are and how much English they speech now. I know that I will be excited to go back to my job and make the drive from home to work and then back again. Just pure magic.

Those feelings…are a good place to be.

How to Bargain in Morocco

2011-07-13T17:14:00.000+01:00

This really needs to be a series not just one post! Let me just say though - I think I am getting better at this skill (not that I was ever bad at it). I offer you a list:

   1. Never show excitement over a particular piece. Even if you feel like you are going to DIE if you don't have it - POKER FACE
   2. Never show that you must purchase something then or that you intend on purchasing a large quantity
   3. never ask for the price to soon
   4. Never let the merchant wrap up the goods before the bargaining is almost finished
   5. Never accept the first price
   6. Don't be afraid to really really give the merchant shit about his prices
   7. Throw in personal details as to exactly why you can't pay his price and if you have it hard facts of his price inflation
   8. Throw in any and all Arabic words you know
   9. Never offer the price you want to pay - always go lower so you can bargain up
10. Be prepared to leave but know that if he doesn't chase you down the street then you will not purchase it
11. If you have the bag in your hand and your money is on the counter but he is not happy with it - then try to leave the store with it
12. If he chases after you - give him five dirhams - usually at this point the range is between 5 and 20 so really...it is okay to give a bit because you have probably already knocked off hundreds of dirhams from initial price
13. Don't smile and celebrate until you are around the corner
14. Have some mint tea to assuage the feelings of guilt and lessen your own perception that you just robbed someone as well as to calm the adrenaline rush
15. ENJOY!!!

PS - I broke at least three of these rules today and still made out like a bandit!

Firsts and Lasts

2011-07-04T14:07:00.001+01:00

Ok So I know I have already been over this here but upon rewatching this (yes, I periodically REWATCH a video dedicated to me...turning thirty...about me...being fabulous in my twenties) it struck me that this video spans so many cities and states and major moments - yet it is only me that knows which ones and why. Each photo, the random babies, the friends, the significance of tel and tel family member...all of it so rich for me and yet known only to me. I did not explain any of it - just put a collage of photos together. So...in the following video the following places and moments are represented:
London, Sicily, Paris, Frankfurt, Munich, Atlanta, Chicago, Oaxaca, Mexico City, Tennessee, Edinburgh, my graduation from college, my first in-career job, the first time I saw my niece, the first time I saw Coleman, the first toddler I feel in love with (Paloma), the first pregnancy I totally participated in (Harmony). So so so many firsts and lasts, the last days I spent in America, the last apartment I lived in in Atlanta, the last time I saw Paris, the last moments I spent as a mother to my Shaka, the last moments I spent with my sisters before I got on the plane to come here...

So without further ado...

Busy July

2011-06-27T14:31:00.000+01:00

It is not even July yet and July is already over for me! Well the first three weeks are already over for me. I kind of can't stand months like these. You know, the months when every weekend is booked and many of the weeks have multiple during-the-week events. I have a busy July at my doorstep. I have a very important work visit. I have a conference to attend. I have private lessons to give, intensively. I have a weekend work event at which I will have to give a speech in french (again - YIKES). What else? Oh yes, the travel preparations and the paperwork and the loose ends to be tied before travelling for a month.

And about the travel in a month: I have decided to look at my 17 hour travel ordeal that starts at 3:00am as a positive thing. HA! You gotta do what you gotta do right? I cannot go into this journey dreading it. So I have decided to look at it positively. I am going to look at it as a fun experiment to see how long I can stay awake while meeting the needs of two toddlers. It's going to be great! See...aren't you psyched also? I am so psyched!!!! WOHOOOOOOOO - can't wait. (are you convinced yet?)

It is a positive thing to get up in the middle of the night (or in my case not sleep at all). It is a positive thing to wake up two sleeping toddlers and get them to the airport and then have to tearfully say goodbye to my husband, their dad, who I have to be without for one month, at 3am to get on a plane where I have no idea if they will sleep or just plain scream. Then it will be positive thing to arrive in Rome (we're in Italy girls!!! look, there's the Colosseum) at what will be 6am there time after having a night of (hopefully) interrupted sleep and wait for 3 hours for our layover. It will then be a positive thing to board a plane that will be in the air for 11 hours before we reach our final destination.

I am assuming that I will be tired and stressed and possibly covered in fever blisters like last time from the stress of the journey and the lack of sleep. BUT I will be home. And HOPEFULLY I will not be too much of a zombie to miss my cousins wedding in south georgia that I will get in a car from the airport and ride two and half hours to get to. I want my cold Budweiser damn-it! Actually f-that I am having my dad have my "modelo especiale" waiting in his cooler - with limes.

SO...until then and in between all of these plans, I have to look forward to and savor in the small moments, the calm moments, the good stuff. Here is a recent after work beach day - these outings to the beach after work are some of the most special days to me and I know they are the stuff that magical memories are made of. When we do this, it really reinforces for us why we live where we live. It makes the commute worth it and leaves us both feeling really lucky to be living here now.

Mami Hajaa

2011-06-23T10:40:00.002+01:00

In french grand mother is Mami. That was quite hard for me to accept as it sounds exactly like mommy. I took me a while to grow into my name as mamma as I always assumed that I would be mommy. Never the less, I got used to it. The girls have a fabulous Moroccan Mami here. I have always called her hajaa. So now - I call her mami hajaa. I know some people make fun of it - but I could care less. I love calling her that and I am teaching my girls to do so as well. Important to note the irony in my dad choosing papa as his grandfather name and papa being the french word for dad. That situation is easy enough though because the girls call their dad the arabic baba and we all love that.

So back to Mami Hajaa. This woman was my friend while I was preganat and emotional and had no family. She made sure I was dressed correctly, knew who everyone was in the family and their life stories. She took me under her wing and those wings do have such a very large span. I love her dearly. She has never, not even once, engaged in an argument with me. She has always chosen the high road. She puts her son's happiness first by not interfering or trying to turn him against or make him or choose or any of the other weird things that a mother in law can do to alienate their son from their wife. She came to my home everyday all day for 40 days after my children were born. She made me breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea after I woke from napping and left me alone in my room to breastfeed and nourish my two premautre babies back to health. I will foever be indebted to her for her acts of kindness and her gentle loving and above all classy spirit.

She is not easy to take sometimes, she orders everyone here and there and no sooner have you started to do one task she asks of you than she tells you to do another. She is relentless. She does not stop working from morning to night. She is 70 years old. My children love her. Sophia dances like her. Mae's middle name is her first name. We are here just now...more than any other reason...to be near her. To spend these years with her. Every single time I get ready to throw in the towel I think of her and how I want my kids to have this time with her. But the beatuiful thing is that she wants what is best for us and would support any move we decided on. Currently - We see her once every two weeks sometimes more sometimes less.

My parents are younger and there is a huge space in my heart and in my girls life from not having all of their grandparents around that no one single person can replace...but I am very thankful for mami hajaa. I hear horror stories of other people's mother in laws and relatives and everytime I am so grateful for Youssef's family.

My girls will know her and carry her love with them for their entire lives.

Here are some recent photos of the girls with her:

Schindler Elevators

2011-06-16T23:00:00.001+01:00

Dear Friends and family I am writing this down now before my memory of today’s events become convoluted and lessened with time’s healing touch. I had a (what I perceive to be) near death experience today. And that death could/would have been one of the honest to god saddest and painstaking deaths one could imagine for me. I was stuck in an elevator – that malfunctioned and fell. I was with three other people. Those people were Moroccan English teachers that I employed from amongst stacks of applications. In this moment I am in awe of their courage and bravery and pure human kindness*. The entire ordeal lasted about 30 minutes…the worst 30 minutes of my life.

We had just finished an end of the year wrap up meeting and the four of us got into an elevator together leaving one of the teachers just behind to get another one. That person is a woman named Aida. Aida is an English professor at my school. She contacted me before the start of this school year. I told her I didn’t need her, then the week before we opened I had a team member back out and I called her and she said “when do you need me to start?” I hesitated and she said “oh – so yesterday?”. And that was the first of many laughs we have shared since then.

Aida was born to a very prominent well to do Puerto Rican family with very Spanish blood. I have learned her life story over coffee and eggs and baguette at countless morning breakfasts. She was named after an opera, she has a photographic memory, she was a spelling bee champion, she is a Spanish and English professor and has been in Morocco for 10 years. She spoke to my mother for 30 minutes, a month ago, explaining to her why she thinks we are still safe here and why she shouldn’t worry about me during all of this unrest. She lived for 13 years in Athens Georgia and I know – without a doubt that there are people that I know and love somewhere in Georgia that know and love that woman too.

Aida was who I called first. Because she was on the other side of the door, because I trust her and because I knew that she would get us out of there. When the doors finally did open and I saw her face, it was red and her hair was wet from sweat of worry. She lied to me on the phone. I told her we were stuck on the first floor. Because the elevator had acted like it was going down and the numbers said it was descending and then when it said zero the doors didn’t open and it fell. The fall was broken and we just assumed that we had fallen from the ground floor maybe to basement level. Aida told me on the phone “you are not on the ground floor – but you are not far – you are just like, you know, in between the first and second floor – so don’ t worry”. I did not share this information with my teachers. No need to worry them right. I fought back tears– they comforted me. I called my home and spoke to the nanny and managed to eek out the words “je suis attraper dans une accenseure donc je ne sais pas quand je vais arriver”. The nanny told me that Mae had a temperature of 103. I started crying. The teachers comforted me more. We waited and waited and waited. Then…Nawal – the secretary knocked on our door and said in French “oh you guys are still on the fifth floor”. The teachers did not have a tip off as to the fact that we were not on the ground so to them that was crazy and they shouted back “no we are on the ground floor”. I knew then that we were on the fifth freaking floor. Nawal works on the fifth floor. I heard her say where we were and I knew that Aida had already prepared me for the fact we weren’t on the ground floor. One of the teachers started knocking harder on the door and asking her to repeat where we were. I told them maybe it is just best if we don’t know. The only thing the people on the other side were responding at that point was “you are ok, we are going to get you out, it is fine”.

Aida mentioned to me on the phone that it is a Schindler elevator. This is when I really freaked out and I will tell you why in just a second. I will say first, that at that point I opened my laptop and looked at pictures of my girls. Usually when I play out morbid me-dying scenarios I always feel this selfish ‘I will miss them’ feeling. This time was different. They LITERALLY looked like angels in the pictures or maybe that was just my eyes welling with tears, but I swear they were glowing in my photos. I felt exactly what it feels like to kiss their heads and then my overwhelming feeling was pure gratefulness that they had made the final years of my life so filled with magic. Gratefulness that I had known them, gratefulness that I knew what love like that felt like.

So why did the Schindler elevator freak me out…MOM you listening…you already know why don’t you?

Last weekend I watched Schindler’s list for the first time (I know, I know) and it really struck me. So I did what I do and I looked up as much info as I could find on it and then deduced that this guy Oskar Schindler was a real hero; an exceptional human being. I told my mother this over skype and she totally agreed and then mentioned that they still have the Schindler elevator company in Jacksonville. So less than a week ago, the words Schindler elevators had escaped my lips and now I was stuck in one. What freaked me out was that it was my mother’s lips that those words had escaped from and as you all know about my mother the woman is psychic. When I heard Schindler elevator…I thought I was done for.

Eventually the doors opened – after a lot of silent praying. You know that I am not a religious girl but have always believed in an underlying energy in the universe. Now…this is an energy that I can pray to in times of calm and clarity but this experience – as similar to being stuck on a turbulent airplane- brings out the 10 year old catholic in me. I was praying to the god I was taught to pray to. I mention this as an anecdote and to be truthful about the matter.

So when those doors opened, the faces that were on the other side are about the kindest looking faces in the world. I was immediately ushered into arms and given a cold cup of water to drink with trembling hands. There were a whole lot of “al humdulilah”s* being flung around and by the time I made it to my car the parking guardian even asked me “madame – c’est vrai t’etait dans l’acensor?”. We talked for a second and then he ‘al huldulilah’ed me about three times and I took my leave.

As I was driving home it finally hit me that Morocco is home. Casablanca is home. And the people here take good care. This is when I decided to write all of you to tell you that I love you each and every one of you so much. And that I truly miss you everyday but that I am ok here. So don’t worry. There is so much Baraka* here. The guy in the gas station screwed up and gave me 20 dirhams change when it should have been one dirham. I tried to object and he reasserted that was the correct change. I knew it wasn’t. I walked out the door and then went back in with it and we re-did the math together “Ritter Sport” – 19 Ds, “femme du Maroc magazine” – 50 Ds, phone card – 30 Ds. That leaves 1D. He looked at me confused and shocked that I came back in to give him that money back. But I knew it was my Baraka. I felt like the energy of the universe was cutting me a little slack somehow hugging me a little bit. Still, I didn’t want to take that guy’s 20Ds. This is a third world country, people generally don’t screw up with their calculation because that 20ds could buy milk and eggs and bread, literally. Bread -2 Ds, Eggs- 1 Ds each and Milk- 8 Ds so that could be a half liter of milk, 6 eggs and 3 pieces of bread and guess what THAT is a family dinner. So that 20Ds was not something I was interested in having at the expensive of that guy. BUT – I still think it was a hug of sorts. I knew I was going to be ok and that I was welcome in this land. Like every time tragedy and emergency has struck my life here. I am still ok, happy even and above all thankful to be alive and to be able to raise my children for another day. Al HUMDULILAH!

*those three other teachers ALL called me before I could finish writing this to check in with me. And to ask about mae…

*al humdulilah = thank god AND the saying that is said anytime ANYTHING happens in Morocco. Whether it is good or bad! Particularly if you are complaining the al humdulilah means shut-up and thank god you are alive!

*Baraka = blessing of sorts, this one is harder to explain- but interesting to research

Stay at Home Mom - Could I do it?

2011-06-14T10:49:00.000+01:00

Since I have had my children I have constantly, as in everyday Monday through Friday between the hours of 7:00am and 6:00pm, contemplated being a stay at home mom. When they were younger it felt harder. Or maybe I have just gotten used to leaving them. Homeschooling is something I have become interested in through reading homeschooling blogs and having the opportunity to work in a primary school. After my maternity leave I took a job at a K-12 here in Casablanca. I was the EFL specialist, the pay was ok and the vacation was great. It was a HUGE adjustment to leave them every day to return to work, BUT I finished at 4pm and always had the promise of one day being able to integrate them into that school. That school is more expensive that any school I would ever consider enrolling my children in…so the fact that they would be mostly free was a big plus of the job HOWEVER that school like all of the other Anglophone schools here in Casa had major discipline problems. My colleagues were some of the most passionate, caring, creative people I have ever met. They were invested. They were there early and left late and those kids were THEIR business. EVEN still it was through working at that institution that I started to understand that there is no direct correlation between price and quality in education. The most quality education you can give your child is an education that involved student led knowledge and skills acquisition and an education that nurtures the child’s particular learning style. This is why homeschooling is an issue that I contemplate everyday as my children hurl towards school age. I know I can teach my kids better than anyone else…

NOW this is the thing and bring us back to the title of the post, Could I be a stay at home mom? I romanticize it, but would the reality of it suit me? Would I feel lost and lazy? Would I want to dress up and get away? Would I start creating outings for us that involved other mothers that were supposed to be for the kids but were really just a social outlet for me? I think the answer to all of those questions is YES. Yes BUT. Yes but I would adjust. I might feel lost at first, but I think if I laid out a quarterly schedule with learning goals and outings and what not that I could easily fill every of all of our days educating my children, writing on this blog, toiling in my garden and cooking for my family…

The reality is though; we are not in a position for me to do this. BUT maybe…maybe one day part time work will come along…who knows. I just know that I am curious…very.

la vie est belle

2011-06-07T14:32:00.000+01:00

This is the direct - non-edited email I sent out on march 2, 2001. I found it pretty amusing...like I was kinda funny! What IS funny though is that I was already preparing THIS post:

My Life

I am feeling the need to document what is happeningi n my life because somedays it feels so fleeting. Like yesterday as I was sitting in my kids room wondering about what it will be like for them when they are in their twenties and then remembering my youth and my years in Paris and it all felt so very very far away. And it dawned on me that that was it…that was my youth and I think I made the best of it? I think I grabbed hold and squeezed as much adventure and drama and magic out of it as I possibly could have… Still…the thought left me a bit sad that that was it. And that as much as I know that this is it also – that this is my youth also

Blah blah blah...let's just transport back to that youth...back to where that journey began. When I wrote this email I was 21 years old and had been in Paris for about two months...enjoy!

warning this is a long one!!!!!!

salut mes amies!
so, donc...
think brady bunch theme song

this is the story, of a girl named (insert my name
here)
who went to france 2 months ago
and she never wrote home
to all the people
to tell them all the new things she knows...

let's start with my living arrangements, i live on the
7th floor so in france, that means 8 flights of stairs
because, the first level for the french is our second
floor, or somzthing like that, when you enter the
building it is the R.C. and after that on what would
be our second level it is their first level, make
sense?
so yea i live on the 7th which is really the 8th, i
live in a very bougeois area, the 16th arrondissment,
but i live near a very famous shopping street called
rue de passy and there is beaucoup d'argent ici.
but of course it is still really mixed and there are
all types here, i dont mind where i live because it is
a good location metro wise, i can get anywhere pretty
quickly, i walk to my school it takes me like 30
minutes, or less, when i put on my head phones and
walk fast.
my school is alright, but as i am sure it will come as
no surprise, i have already started skipping, like for
example, right now- i am skipping school! i fucking
hate school, all school, its as simple as that, which
brings me to my french progress, i do learn a little
in school, but not really enough to enchant me with
it. I can speak french, like a total foreigner of
course, but its doable for me, when i first got here i
was all shy and shit and thought i would never learn
it and didnt understand anything i heard or read and
now i can read signs in the metro and i understand
what people are talking about and with non frenhc
people i talk alot of french, aka other foreigners
here, cuz they understand and they dont look at me
like i am from mars when i start speaking french, alot
of the french that know english so prefer to talk that
with me, i guess they dont want to hear their precious
language slaughtered by me, but cest la vie, i am
trying damnit!
i can have really good conversations in french when i
can control them (but i guess i am the same in english
huh?) i mean when i can inject the subject matter, i
still default into deer caught in head lights whenever
someone suggests something, and the funny but horrible
because its so easy to do thing that i do, is when
someone wants to do something and i am not sure if i
want to or whatever, i just act like i dont understand
so i have those precious few seconds to figure out how
i feel about it. funny huh? but it is nerve wracking
when you are talking with your friends and then all of
a sudden something is chnaging and someone is coming
or going and asking you to come or go or whatever and
i just turn into miss, "quoi? je ne comprend pas" oh
but when you say that in real french it sounds more
like "quoi, jcomprenpas"
last night i started working on talking really fast
like that, like it is such a problem with all of the
french people i know to like slow it down and seperate
the words for me, thats why it is so much easier with
the foreigners because they had to learn it that way,
but anyways i think the french language works like
that and like it is obligatory to blend all the words
together.okay so enough about that, i guess to sum up,
i am really enjoying learning a new language and i now
feel and know that it is possible to learn a language
when you live in the country and you have like no
choice but to do so...oh and i am also learning how to
curse in hungarian and slovakian.

umm, the toilet where i live is horrible, me and my
freinds call it the turkish toilet, i dont know who
started it and i dont know if the damn toilets like
that originated in turkey or not, but anyways there is
basically no toilet, you stand or for me squat over a
hole in the ground basically and that in itself is not
so horrible, but the damn thing has like not been
cleaned in the past 70 years and it is
horrible!!!!!!!! i hate the toilet!!!!!!!

paris is a very manic city i think, before i came here
all the people that had gone to paris and knew paris
were like, oh it is so crazy there blah blah blah, and
when i got here i was like, what the fuck, this place
isnt crazy!!!! this place is like more laid back than
atlanta, i really thought that french people were just
not acustomed to a fast paced life and that is why
they all think it is so crazy here, including the ones
that live here, but so since i left paris for a week,
i so understand, i went to the south of france near
spain, on the atlantic coast, and anyways for the
first time in two months after like 3 days of being
there, i started getting floods of thoughts and
memories that i just hadnt felt since i left atlanta,
i realized that paris is like fucking sensory
overload, there are soooo many people, and so many
people from all over the place and like everyone is
doing something, everyone has some kind of story or
intensity or quirk or whatever, and there is alot to
do, i feel like the social life here is massive, and
it is like always working eating taking the metro
seeing friends drinking coffee smoking cigarettes,
like that, like always something, like i never sit for
just hours in a day, it is always
"on y vais" always on the move, always on the move,
yet so maybe it just feels that way after you are here
for a while because so much emphasis is put on the
relaxation aspect of life, yea i think thats it. now i
feel like as humans we are like entitled to really
relax and now when i eat to fast i feel as though i
commited a crime for not taking two hours to eat and
the same for coffee, were talking minimum one or two
hours a cup. also the french eat pretty different,
they utilize their forks and knifes to work together
to get the food precisely cut and into the mouth,
whenever i eat around french people i feel like a
damned barbarian, i always wait until others start
eating and then watch, and then attempt it!!!!!! but
strangely enough you can like totally eat with your
elbows on the table ir sittin all funny or anything
like that, the manners are different. the first time i
ate in a french persons home, who was like people my
age and friends and stuff after all the beer and wine
you can say i got a little relaxed and well one hting
led to another i ended up being to relaxed and totally
burped, like really loud and really big- lets just
say, i still dont think the host has recovered from
this!!!!
so theres that and what, oh, doors, keys, public
bathrooms,my personal bathroom, tight pants (its like
illegal to wear baggy pants here), cell phones, bread,
cheese, wine (its not just a cleche), dogs and dog
shit all over the street, tons of people from all over
the world, wind rain snow and sun on the same day, the
hours of the day and the weather are both masculine, i
love imaginging these objects that we have no
masculine or feminin connotation with as masculine or
feminine, beautiful old buildings that after a while
all look the same, bonjour everytime you walk in a
store or anywhere and au revoir whn you leave- very
polite, weird shoes, but good shoes, oh GREAT music,
great hip hop and rai and R&B, which is different
than americas R&B.it is like this rap, dance singing
stuff and when the french say R&B they say "air&B",
beautiful things that you stumble upon sometimes like
a bathroom window that you can see a beautiful view of
all the rooftops or when i am on my way home and the
tour eiffle is totally sparkling, or when you find
like your spot in the universe in a cafe in a
neighborhood that you love by a window with a view
thats great for people watching, thats paris you know,
like, most of the time i think life sucks, but then
all the time my life is filled with moments, paris is
a bunch of moments, good and bad,but mainly the
moments are magical.
I have made some great friends and we totally stick
together, me and my foreigner freinds, i have allot of
friends from eastern europe only one american friend
and yes i do have french friends also and i like them
alot also.
that is the most important thing right there, but you
know i love people so much and i feel quite blessed
with the pleasure of meeting so many kind and
interesting and good and speical people here and in
america.
as far as the polotics, it is pretty different, people
are very aware of the social problems that exists, but
people just kinda go on about their business, there
are huge manifestations (protests) alot of them are
about the north afrcan population here with no papers,
deportation and racism, the police check for national
identity in the subways on a regular basis, they do it
totally based on the way you look, as in, do you look
north african or not. there is alot of mixture of
people here, which to me is my favorite part about
this city, i love talking to so many different people
and finding out peoples opinions on this and that and
stuff like that.
so thats about it for now, sorry so long, hope your
not asleep now!
until next time
-moi

The Snake in the Garden

2011-06-01T17:14:00.000+01:00

Yesterday found youssef, the girls and I on a walk. We took the girls over to see Abdullah the farmer that lives next door. They love him and I like it that he is a farmer, I feel like it somehow connects them to the essence of their grandpa in America. So we visited Abdullah and he showed us a huge Garah Hamra - red squash, still growing on the vine. Sophia, bless her little heart, fell on top of it almost fracturing it from the vine, he was cool about it but I could tell he was a little freaked out, as in checked vine damage three times to make sure. I saw that she had in fact bent the vine, Youssef couldn't see so just kept asking and Abdullah just kept insisting there was no damage. I mean, what is he going to do say "heck yeah the weight of that bald headed toddler just broke my squash from the vine about two seconds after I just told ya'll it wasn't ready"? No... but that would be their grandfather's reaction! I just swooped her up and declared the daily visit to Abdullah as over. Poor clumsy Sophie girl! So sweet and precious she is. So then we meandered down the path to the ocean. Once we passed our neighbors returning from somewhere or another and were enough out of ear shot we sang songs, from Sesame Street, as well as clapped hands and made our Moroccan drumming song sounds. We made our way back up the hill towards the house, avoiding cow poop and imitating sheep and donkey sounds. I emptied Mae's pockets of the snails Abdullah had put in there for her. She was a little pissed but I distracted her to get away with it.

We saw Abdulluah's cousin Abdullah that lives on the other side of us and greeted and chatted and then made our way back onto our homestead. We were contemplating if the gravel area that we built out from the house was too much of an obstruction to those that use the path and saying, yes, probably and that is kind of jerky of us and let's go ahead and reduce that corner...and in this contemplation is when I saw it, a really big snake. It was lying at the foot of the fence facing towards the wall to the inside yard of the house. I told Youssef and he had JUST called over the other Abdullah to discuss the fence (getting confused about which Abdullah is which - welcome to my life). That Abdullah called his son and he showed up with a pitchfork and between the pitchfork and the rock, the snake was dead within a minute. Then it was paraded around the little settlement on the pitchfork, doors being knocked on, wives being told to come out and see it, all kinds of words being exchanged about snakes and so on and so forth.

Later when Youssef asked me, "so how did you see it?" I took the opportunity to up my street cred a bit by reminding him that I grew up in the American South and that I had already told him that I can spot a gator a mile away and I guess it is just in my blood. (he wasn't convinced but couldn't really argue with me as I was the one that saw it) I love moments like that! And without further ado...

This has brought up a weird issue for me though...The snake wasn't poisonous...and they KILLED that thing...quick. Youssef was like "well - what are you going to do, leave a snake like that where your children play?". I agree, the thought of that sounds weird to me also BUT then I remembered back to a couple of summers ago down in South Ga when I was making my way to the field and came upon a HUGE snake. Within seconds my cousins, father and uncle were all there. They were there with loaded guns too...Yikes. Anyways, then the strangest thing happened, they just moved that snake on out of the way and everyone returned to their normal business. My aunt explained to me after that "we don't kill snakes that aren't poisonous, we let them be". When I explained this to Youssef he, of course, thought me to be - you know- trying to open a nature reserve or something like this...and that is fine...he didn't grow up around snakes, he doesn't really know. My thing is though...Did those guys kill that snake for our benefit? Would they have moved it right along if it had been in front of their house? Do snakes get killed - period - end of story whether or not they are poisonous around here? Sounds like I need to have a talk (translated of course) with one of the Abdullahs on this matter.

Marrakesh

2011-05-03T09:51:00.002+01:00

As usual my life is a hot pot of contradictions and mixed emotions. Generally speaking I feel very lucky to have everything I have in my life. I am very grateful for my career, my marriage, my children, my home, my ability to travel internationally, my grandmother's miraculous recovery, the well-being of my family. The other side of this is the fear of it all falling apart. The dark thoughts, the paranoia I just can't shake...something will happen to my husband, to me, to one of my girls, my job, my parents, my siblings, my nieces...no where on that list was 'something will happen to make you afraid of Marrakesh'. If you asked me a week ago whether or not Marrakesh was safe for visitors, I am positive that I would have judged you just a bit for even ASKING...And now...I feel like the joke is on me.

My heart goes out to you Kech. I have loved and supported you for as many years as I can remember. Before I came to Morocco I read about you obsessively in this book. In a way Marrakesh, you are responsible for everything I have now. it was when I visited you that I felt at home in Morocco. It was your stories and your history and your hosting to foreigners and artists and musicians from far and wide that drew me to you, that welcomed and seduced me. You are the jewel of Morocco. And I fully support you.

And this is not a good-bye. This is not a breaking up. But I need some time. To move on, to digest. I need some time. And that even hurts me to admit. Because if you had asked me a week aGo if I would like to go to Marrakesh for the weekend, I would probably judge you a bit for even having to ASK me! Because the answer would be a resounding YES. YES, YES, and YES. Anytime, any day, Marrakesh, Djema el Fna, the Medina, hell yes, I am there.

It is in the most solemn of humbleness that I offer my condolences to those that lost their lives last week. It could have been any of us.

Lavender

2011-03-22T10:19:00.000Z

You are right. It was once upon a not so long ago that growing fields of lavender was my dream. Images like the one above, dramatically purple heavenly scented bouquets of lavender, captivated my imagination...my soul...

There some things in our lives that never happened that we know, in our bones, could have happened. Maybe a would have been lover that never was, maybe a takeover of the family business that didn't happen, maybe a farm on family land that could have grown your dreams, that never did.

That being said, somewhere, very far away from the original lavender fields of my heart, there is land asking to be grown on. There is lavender waiting to be cultivated, cared for, introduced to little grabby hands and pressed against smiling faces to smell.

In a way, I am even closer to my lavender dreams. I can walk outside my door and plant it. I can fly to Provence in 2 hours and buy the species of it I want. I can start here and return it there. That family land, still growing, my father keeping the earth worked and ready, will remain, like an open invitation. Even after he is gone and I am gone, maybe one day Sophia will run and fall in the middle of the field grasping at strands of lavender all around her, shaking and smelling them compulsively, desperately trying to remember the lines on my face and the stories I told about her grandfather. Maybe Mae will grumble upon her and urge her up, mumbling about her sentimentality but secretly wishing away with all of her soul to be able to return to that one summer that mama planted that crazy lavender filed in front of the white house in Tamaris...

which one is which

2011-03-16T13:57:00.000Z

Hi everyone, I have written two poems below, which is about Mae and which is about Sophia?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I wake with your face smashed against mine
hand down the front of my shirt
curved in and clenched
your mouth slightly agap revealing traces of grown up breath

as you call out in anger of having been jostled
hand removed from my shirt
face removed from my shoulder
it takes you but seconds to sit up and
SMILE
clasp your hands together and start your desent to the floor

You call out for your pappa
you look for your sister
you start closing all of the doors around you
slowly you make your way to the other room in anticipation of finding sister and cartoons and pretzle sticks
life is good for you in the morning
and I...
am a most humble observant

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As we sat round in a circle on the floor
pappas prayer mat scrunched up beneath him
the activity table game brought into the living room
pappa and I decided to hide all of the pieces and dispense them to you both one by one
we gave the first one to your sister
it was a triangle
she fumbled trying to make it fit in the triangle hole

you watched intenetly
impatient and expecting
you understood that you were next but not prepared to wait very long
when I pulled out the green circle piece and handed it to you
you slammed it into the circle hole faster than I could say circle
pappa said "mashala" and kissed your head
I said bravo my daughter and kissed your mouth

How one could move to Morocco with their Family - PART 1

2011-03-09T17:14:00.001Z

1.) Set a date, proper planning can be executed in year and a half (maximum) So currently it is March 4^th, 2011. A year and half from now equals September , 2012. Remember that date, September, 2012!!!

2.) Start an internet search for a job and contact your friend Carrie that lives in Casablanca to alert her to keep her ears open or possibly (depending on your relationship with her) keep doors open, like with her elbows as she pushes her way in with your resume.

3.) Enroll in French classes

4.) Start mentally preparing yourself to LEAVE EVERYTHING BEHIND, this might mean a rented storage shed for some, or a shed in the back of a parent’s house…or…nothing at all. It might mean just that. You could, for example, decide to give away all of your most precious belongings to those that you love so that they can live with a little part of you everyday and so that you can leave a little part of your soul there, that you can use as a portal for visiting them through creative visualization…whatever works for you.

5.) KEEP going to those French classes

6.) Did you send Carrie your CV yet?

7.) Start planning a visit within six months of this date, so that you have a year to execute this plan upon your return. This will be a good opportunity to see how people are living, check out which city you want to live in and also to have a great time with your friend Carrie.

8.) Morocco has a booming economy just now and has an affinity for foreigners looking to share what they have to offer with them. Is there a business you could start? Think of it.

9.) Sit down, with yourself (and your husband and your child – if you have those things) and decide if you are selling your home or renting it.

10.) Start stockpiling stuff for ‘your time of the month’ as that shit is expensive over there, take it from Carrie, she knows.

11.) Ditto for high thread count sheets

12.) Look at these school websites for your rug rat:

www.cas.ac.ma/

www.gwa.ac.ma/

www.americanacademy-casablanca.com/

La leche league

2011-03-08T13:45:00.004Z

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

My dearest Sophia,

So we are here now: the end of our breastfeeding relationship, never to return. How it happened: well, you got sick. You had an outbreak of fever blisters on the outside and inside of your mouth and it became too painful for you to drink. After that you no longer wanted the breast or the bottle. I feel a little mixed about it. I feel so so grateful that you choose it. You were so much more outwardly connected to the boob. You were kind of obsessed with it. I am also so so grateful that I did not have to have some big final feeding with you and then listen to you cry and beg for it.

I am glad it happened this way. I have cherished and I mean cherished our time together like this.

I remember when you were first born, two days after and everyone said you were too little or two weak to feed and I was so scared and I fought so horribly with your father because I wanted to hold you in my arms and feed you my milk. It was so important for me to give you my milk. Well, so, I finally got the clearance from the doctor and I went to the NICU and took you in my arms and the nurse in there showed me how to pop my boob into your mouth and you latched!!!!! Like right away! It gave me such confidence that what I was doing was right, that you really needed me then. And you just sucked and sucked and sucked until they came and said no more. They told me you would get too tired. So I went everyday to the NICU and I pumped and left my milk for you. Even then when I had to leave you in the hospital and go home without you for the two longest days of my life. I went back three time a day to drop off my milk. I will never forget that feeling. That was before your father and I had a car and he would take me on his little scooter. It was October so it was cold at night and my feet and arms would freeze and I was scared to death of how your father would weave in and out of traffic so I would hang onto him so so tight and close my eyes and listen to Buena vista social club on my headphones and I could never get there fast enough. Neither one of us could. When we would pull up to the clinic, he would say, “go, just go, I’ll be there in a sec” and I would jump off even before we stopped moving and throw him my helmet and run inside and then knock on that damned door and then go in and put on that damned dirty smock they made every one share and walk over to your and Mae’s little plastic cases and I would just cry and cry and tell you both through the plastic how much I loved and missed you. Then I would pull out my kit and, still being so new at it, slowly assemble my mechanical pump and pump out as much milk as I could and leave it for you. I don’t want to remember the details of what it felt like to leave, to say goodbye…

Then when I brought you home from the hospital, I fed you every time you cried, non-stop for months. It was CRAZY. You would SCREAM so loud and for two whole months all you and Mae did between 5:00pm and 10:00pm was stay latched on to the boob. I would just lay in bed with you two and not be able to move for hours. Your father hated it. He was so worried about you two. He didn’t think you were feeding enough. We disagreed. But he was still very helpful. He cooked us dinner every night and did all of the dishes and straightened the whole house. And that was after he would work a 10 hour day.

Your auntie and your granmother from America were there and they fretted and tried to help and I spent so much time being locked up in bedrooms, keeping you away from people and feeding feeding feeding. It was my job, it was my reason to exist at that point.

We went on like this until I went back to work and then I would leave pumped milk for you, but we always had a bottle of formula in the house just in case. Sometimes we would give you a bottle a day, sometimes none. We played it by ear and you two just kept growing and getting so big and healthy. I was so so proud of you. Then people, the same people who said you were too small before, started to say you were too fat! I thought it was great.

The breastfeeding relationship changed and got easier, gradually, once you started eating. We didn’t go down to two feeds a day until you were around 14 or 15 months. That is when I stopped night feeding you and two…oh my god, you fought it SO HARD Sophia. You were so so mad that I would not feed you at night. You would twist and scream and yell and wake us all up every night. Finally it got easier and you stopped demanding it at night, but then every once in a while you would “reclaim” and demand that I feed you at night.

Until, at 17 months, you, shockingly, self-weaned. I totally respect your decision and I am also very proud of you. Sometimes you still want to see the boob and lay your head on it. And ALWAYS when I pick you up you put your hand down my shirt and rest your little hand in between my boobs. This may sound funny and weird to talk about if you are reading this before you have kids but once you do have children of your own, re-read this. You will understand it better.

I love you so so much. Thank you for latching on when you did. Thank you for not letting go until you were ready. Thank you for being you baby girl.

Love,

Mamma

And Mae…then same goes for you. You were even smaller than Sophia and when you latched in the hospital, I was indescribably vindicated. I KNEW that my babies needed to feed even the little one that they said would not be able to. Mae you latched on and started drinking like crazy and SCREAMED when they took you off. And you were not even 4 pounds!

I will never ever forget, the feeling of, once I got you home, looking down at you while you fed. Your big HUGE eyes would stare up at me and you looked like a little alien! But you were so determined to grow and survive and you drank so much. You drank all the time and before we knew it you were bigger than Sophia. Your father and I would laugh at the sounds you two would make while you were feeding. He called you the Williams sisters (see female tennis players) because they make funny sounds when they hit the ball and you two made funny pleasure sounds when you drank. So you drank and drank and drank and pooped and pooped and pooped and that was our life, For a long long time. That was our life: Breastfeeding and dirty diapers.

And Mae…as you grew and started to walk and be independent you would go long periods and not care as much about the boob while you were awake, but really really need it at night. And now Sophia has quit and you know it. It is the strangest thing. A few weeks ago you could totally forget about the boob for a day or so at a time. But every since Sophia has quit you have totally revitalized you commitment! You scream and pull at my collar and unzip my sweaters and throw yourself on the floor and wake up in the middle of the night to breastfeed. It is like you are trying to tell me that you don’t want to quit. I get it, I hear you and I will not force you. Ok? I promise. I will not force you. If you are not ready, it is ok. We can keep going. I have a conference in a month and we will be apart for a week but I have decided to take a pump with me to keep a little milk in case you still want to feed when I get back. So don’t worry baby girl. We will keep going until you are ready too. I promise. And you know what…not just for you, for me too. Sophia decided and that is her right and she certainly didn’t ask me. I totally supported her decision but if you are not ready, then I am not ready either. And when youa re ready, that will be fine with me. I will probably have a good cry and then a long sigh and then be done with it. But as for now, if you aren’t ready, I’m not ready and we will just keep going. That’s a promise. I love you.

Love,

Mamma

How Tired I am

2011-03-02T20:24:00.002Z

I am so tired
I miss Sophia and Mae
Worker not Mother

-------------------------------

If the above Haiku is any indication of my state of mind right now then I have written it well.

Oh how I miss poetry...Oh how I have been meaning to paint a peace for my walls...Oh how I want to start going to Hot Yoga once a week...Oh how I miss my family...Oh how I fluctuate between happy and sad, joyous and mad....Doesn't it ever even out? Or maybe I need meds for that...that's what my mother thinks:

You've been sad since birth
That's what Mother says to me
Why does she think so?

Okay so none of those reference the nature or any of that other fancy stuff for haiku, but there you go. Courtesy of Pioneer woman for inspiring me to dabble again into poetry...

Oh poetry, how I MISS You? with my whole ripped up heart. I long for you POETRY
At one time you pulsed through my veins, that was the best time
At one time I awoke from sleep to scribble down lines that haunted my dreams
and now...those words
are SILENT
those lines
are SUPRESSED

Harmony...do you hear me?????? Kate....do you HEAR me????? Julie, remember when we started that poetry club...that was good.

I MISS POETRY!!!!!!!!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Okay, now that I go that out of the way...back to your normal programming....

Here is a photo. My husband took it in the South of Morocco on a trip I did not go with on because I didn't want to leave my girls...I missed out huh?

Where I've been and Where I'm at

2011-02-05T14:14:00.001Z

It is funny, in some moments, the surprise ones, I find myself marveling at where I am, remembering where I've been, amazed at that too. Most moments of most days are filled with the here and now. From time to time though the images of my past collide with the beauty of my now. The walk I took today was not unlike the walks I took regularly around piedmont park, except that now I live in a beach town, in the country, in africa.

When I used to alk around my beautiful, midtown neighborhood, I knew, in my bones, that I would be forever haunted, for the rest of my life, by the memory of the beauty of those walks. Today was not unlike that. As I walked around through the fields of agriculture and dirt pathways to emerge onto the coastline and then enter the little beach village and circle aorund up the big hill and back around through my the other end of the dirt road to get back to my home, I knew, in my bones, that I would be forever, for the rest of my life, haunted by the beauty of these walks.

There was an addition to that, I knew that my husband will be haunted too. I knew that we will leave here together and that somewhere on a starry evening maybe a little tipsy on too much red wine, after the kids are all asleep, we will share that sentiment. It will bind us.

It wasn't necessary

2011-02-03T09:16:00.000Z

It wasn't necessary to have been strapped to the table and left there lying and crying alone while the anastesia wore off. It wasn't necessary to keep my husband blocked out of the room and not not even let me touch my babies once they were born. It wasn't necessary that I was discouraged from holding them, touching them, letting them feel their mother's warmth for an entire day after they were born. It just wasn't necessary. As happy as I am in my life here, this is a beef with this country that I will always have. And yes, it feels a bit small when I look at them today and they are so big and strong and full of life. But when I watch the birth stories of others, I know that it wasn't necessary. And if we had been in other circumstances, my husband and myself could have had a much more serene welcoming for our little girls. And maybe the rift between us, the one that rears its ugly head unexpectedly, occasionally, would not be so profoud...maybe.

a mother of two

2011-01-22T21:58:00.001Z

I have been asking myself the following: Who was she? Where is she now? When did she go? Do I miss her? I know I think fondly of her, but do I wish I were her? Am i jealous of her? Do I feel bad for her? Do I even feel like protecting her? Why don't I care about her more? When did she go? Where is she now? She feels so replaced by...a mother of two. Those are the words that have been lately pushing out all traces of her. Those are the words that jump up from dirty toilet stalls with no lights in them at loupi land. Those are the words that have been haunting me and enthralling me for a while now. Those are the words that I never mention in relation to leaving work early or coming into work late. Those are the words I secretly yell at incompetent, small minded and incidentally, mother of one co-workers that I hate. Those are the words that I am trying to understand and swallow and get out of pocket in every one of my pants. Those are the words that silently speak on my behalf when I don't feel the need to speak anymore.

And her...well she was a mother of not even one. A mother in waiting if you will. She always knew she would one day be a mother. Probably of three. When she saw the round shapes on the screen and tried desperately to NOT FREAK OUT, she didn't yet have those words, that mother of two vocabulary. In fact for the longest time, she just felt lucky and happy and terrified. She didn't feel like a mother of any.

Then she started to feel like a mother, generally, then a mother specifically, then...she...disappeared all together and left standing in her place this...mother of two...a little confused as to how she got here and where the other one went. But, you know, being a mother of two, she doesn't have that much time to dwell on it.

Just in the stolen moments, husband out of town, the children asleep, lights out, teeth brushed, had fallen asleep but woke up again to write this...

Happy New Year, Happy old year

2011-01-01T18:59:00.000Z

2010 was an unequivocally happy year. As I browsed back through all of the posts and all of the photos, the one thing I kept saying over and over again was that I was so crazy happy. I think it is the combination of having a marriage, finally, having children finally and being in a second year here in morocco. This country is not the easiest of places to settle in, but once you do and once it gets in there, it gets in there deep. It gets in there real and it fuses with every single part of your soul.

In my second year here, in the second year of marriage and motherhood and Morocco...I have been quite happy. I will greet 2011 looking forward to continued Independence. A continued return to myself. More vacations, more family moments, more writing, more growth, more more more. More life.

As a disclaimer before I post this I would like to clarify that my life is not all roses and fun and happy and yeah. But I am a huge believer in creating your own reality and the reality is that I have a lot to be thankful for and I have spent years wallowing in my own self agony and I am just simply not going to do it anymore.

I am going to embrace this phase of my life and keep trying to move forward, keep loving and living and trying to be positive everyday so that I can muster the strength to make it through my days. So that I can meet the challenge it is to be a wife and a mother and an employee and an artist.

The girl who landed here...

2010-12-27T09:15:00.000Z

She was quite something that lady. She had been badly wounded recently enough to still let her mind wander into it's memories. She had been operated on just three weeks before. They pulled FOUR of her teeth. As the anesthesia set in and she felt all of the muscles in her body relaxing her into oblivion, the surgeon came in the room and looked her in the eyes and said, "so you are moving to morocco?" she grinned and relaxed back into the darkness. When she had awaken her mother was staring at her and crying. She was somehow already weeping. It is so strange to wake up already crying, unaware of what has been done to you. She started to remember short little memories like little flash backs from a film. She remembered asking the nurse that walked her to recovery if she could see the teeth.

As she convalesced in her mother's bed, eating chicken soup and chocolate pudding cups, she would ask her mother repeatedly what she thought about him. Her ex husband. What she would think if they got back together, what she would think if they had a family, did she think she was in love with him. She was...but she needed her mother to tell her it was OK. She needed her mother's blessing to move forward.

Her mother told her this, "When you see him, you will know. You will either be attracted, or you won't be and you will know right away".
Her mother has a way of being right about most things that concern the love a woman is capable of feeling.

So the weeks passed and the swelling in her jaw rescinded and eventually the morning came that she had to tear her tear soaked face off of her father's shoulder. She had to walk what felt like an eternity to get in the red pick-up truck he had given her where her two sisters awaited her, watching, probably bemoaning her drama.

At the airport, she sat in the same bar she had bid farewell to her older sister in, six years earlier. When that one packed up and moved away for love and to meet her destiny. She ordered a vodka martini, devoured the olive, hating herself for never being able to wait until after the drink to eat it so that it will have soaked up the vodka. As the hazy buzz f the vodka started to set in she and her younger sister exchanged words and promises and it somehow felt hollow. Her younger sister was trying so hard not to feel it, fighting it so hard. She only knew that when she received the desperate text from her declaring her love and admiration before boarding the plane.

She landed in Paris without incident and found her way to her hotel room on the right bank where her dear childhood friend was waiting in the cafe attached to the hotel.

They set out on two days of drinking and dining and reminiscing and catching up. Those two days came swirling to an end over a leisurely Vietnamese lunch when the girl checked her ticket and realized she had miscalculated and that her plane to Casablanca was leaving in exactly two hours. She threw the napkin down, bid farewell to her friend, grabbed her suitcase, and RAN RAN RAN to the metro, managed to catch an arriving RER to the airport and run to the gate just before check-in closed.

She had a nice seat on that flight, in the front row, first off the plane.

When she arrived in Casablanca, she knew he would be waiting. She took her time to exit into the general population because her heart was beating soo fast and she was soo scared to see him. Scared she wouldn't love him, scared she would. Either way it was nerve wracking. They had been eight years separated, five years since she had seen him.

As the crowd parted and she recognized his smiling face, her mother's words RANG IN HER HEAD and her whole body became a buzz with excitement. She was too embarrassed to really look at him before they left the airport, but once the exited through the sliding doors and they were shrouded by darkness, she gave him a once over as he fumbled for his lighter and she knew she loved him so so much. She knew it could work and that was it and they were done. She knew he loved her too, she knew she was foolish for the fear she felt before exiting to meet him. She knew she knew she knew.

Oh...Morocco...ohhh...you.....

2010-12-14T12:29:00.000Z

Prompt: Appreciate. What's the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it?

So, if it is not obvious by the title of this post, then I will go ahead and say it. In this past year, I have come to appreciate many aspects of life here in Morocco. I love everything that has to do with summer here, grillyards, the beach, the big huge expansive African skyline, the "anything is possible" attitude, the flexibility, the multilingualism, the laid back approach to life, the safety of my children from public violence and kidnapping, the cops that you can tip instead of getting ticketed...all of that is the stuff I appreciate about Morocco.

Letting Go

2010-12-06T15:05:00.000Z

On letting go... I have been yearning to write something about this for quite sometime. But really...it has felt too big and too painful. So When I saw this prompt for my reverb10 project, I could not ignore it:

Prompt: Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

So...The answer to this is not as past tense as the question asks. I am in the process of letting go...
of myself...
my former self.

You see, everyday, after leaving your home, trading in one country for another, uprooting yourself from everything you know and love in order to create that same space around you in a different place, everyday, is a process in letting go.
Transforming.

I loved my old life, I love the people that were in it on a daily basis. I love the places where I lived and worked and played and passed all the time in my everyday. And because I hate doing things that are not my idea, I have really fought this process of letting go of those places and people and ideas about who I am.

What does this mean?

Does it mean that you don't love the people you love anymore?

No.

It means that you accept that they are no longer a part of your everyday life. They are not watching and laughing your childrens' milestones, nor you theirs. They are not the ones that you call crying, angry, broken and needing to be put back together again, they are not the ones inviting you over for a warm cup of tea on a boring winter evening. They are replaced by new faces,new places. They are reluctantly accepted and constantly compared-to your old life.
Your old government, your old way of changing lanes while driving, your old holidays that you always call or text your seasons greetings on are all replaced by the equivalent version. But then it is just that, it is the equivalent, not the original. You...well I...always have a reference of what-was, therefore, what-is becomes second place, necessarily accepted. The choice between having it or not. Am I making sense?

But then time works its magic and you find yourself more able to accept the equivalent, aware of the new protocol, offended in its absence, transformed. Heavy Hearted for knowing it. Never forgetting, but accepting the letting go never the less.

My evidence, in the form of a very personal letter to a very close friend:

I had such a great evening with you! It was so brief and I wanted so much more, but I am so thankful for the time I had in your home. This is it you know? Our lives...our friendship...I realized the other day that I have, for years now, wanted more from our friendship, in the sense of like wanting to see you on a weekly basis. Since I have moved here I have somehow convinced myself that the distance between myself and my friends is somehow temporary, that our relationships are awaiting for us to be joined again physically and then I had an epiphany while driving home from work that this is it. This is the friendship. Through emails and one night steal aways and maybe week long vacations if you and your family come to visit or me and mine come to visit you. But that it is not going to change and that the friendship actually dwells in our hearts, not in the physical space between laughing faces.

kinda sad, kinda cool.

xoxo

That letter, that this-is-it moment was a turning point for me. Acceptance...horrible, passive, wise, unjust, grown up, complacent, necessary, heartbreaking acceptance.

My moment

2010-12-06T08:47:00.000Z

This past year has consisted of so many moments, so many ups, so many downs. The moment that I felt most alive is very hard to single out and it really comes down to two separate moments for me. Since I can only choose one, I will describe the feeling I had when I first climbed the outside stairs and beheld the breathtaking view from my rooftop terrace. The Ocean on one side, the fields of vegetables on the other, the livestock roaming around freely beneath. In that moment I felt the distinct weight of knowing that I was alive and that I was so so incredibly lucky to be about to embark on the adventure of living on an African farm.

Let me back up...Before I left America I watched the movie out of Africa so so many times I almost memorized the entire thing. By the time I finished healing from my wisdom tooth surgery, two weeks before I moved to Morocco, my mother told me, "shut the hell up with the out of Africa lines"!

So let's just say, back to the moment, when I first climbed the outside staircase and saw the gorgeous panoramic view, the first thing that popped out of my mouth was, "I had a farm in Africa". Because I knew then that one day, I would be very far away and remembering this time in my life as a dream. This time when I lived on a farm in Africa, when my babies were babies, when my marriage was young and my hair was long again, this time in my life will be forever cherished and when I climbed onto my rooftop terrace for the first time, I knew I was home, I knew I was alive and I knew I was so so blessed.

One word for 2010

2010-12-01T15:53:00.000Z

Babies. EVEN though they were born in 2009, this year has been all about the babies.
Next year? I am thinking creative parenting and life living solutions...oh sorry, that's not one word!

2011 = Art

Because...when there is art in my life, there is everything else. When there is a lack of creativity and art in my life it is because I am bogged down by the mundane, or in this case, completly fucking submerged! SoIi am hoping that in 2011 I can return into the world of lofty thought, beautiful spaces, drawn out philosophical conversation, moving ....

I swear to god, I promise on my life, as I was typing the previous sentence, I paused exactly at moving and jotted down the following list:
bleach, oven cleaning pad, dustrag.

Oh captain, we are in trouble. I mean what the hell, really? Really. I am not kidding. Even the thought of art and all things beautiful was too indulgent to my mom brain right now and I was overtaken by obligation and responsibility to write down that list before I even finsihed this post...
I am confused...I think I need therapy...most probably some kind of ART therapy!

"This is the wurst Thanksgiving Ever"

2010-11-29T10:15:00.000Z

Not really. Well yes, really the actual day of was a very bad day. A day involving mean spirited colleagues, human vomit stinkiness in Marjane, evil students, mid terms, sounding like fun? So when you take that and compare it to what I knew I was missing out on last Thursday in the US, you have a heavy hearted Carrie. But I managed to suck it up and cook a Thanksgiving dinner anyways. On Satrday. Which we can add to the list of things I like about living in Morocco, you can cook thanksgiving whenever the hell you want to.

Other things on that list:

The immense skylines
Palm tree and mosque dotted horizons
The grill yards on the side of the road
mint tea
tagines
the multi-linguistic environment
and the fact that you can pay for near about anything which equals: "anything is possible in Al Maghrib"

Anyways, Thanksgiving! I had over some friends yesterday, Sunday, to pig out on all the homemade classics: sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, gravy, (chicken a la marrocaine) and pumpkin pie.

It is good for the spirit to socialize and be merry like that. It reminds one that there is more to life than work, house, robot, ahhh!!!!

Also, Youssef and I finally got to go out on a date. A date that was suppossed to be for his birthday but wherein I dragged him to a way fancier place that he wanted to go to and ordered drinks and food that I then could not finish because I was having stomach issues that were leaving me well, nauseuous. Now...doesn't that sound romantic? I guess I owe him one. We are just trying to get through the winter!

No fun till winter!

So the days after Thanksgiving officially mark the most nostalgic time of the year for me. I have my pathetic xmas tree, and I think I will spend a bit of energy this year trying to get it a little less pathetic looking. Last year I had my mother and sister and niece and brother in law so the tree looked just perfect and everything felt very xmas like. This year...not so much. But there is still time to get into it.

I still have a lot of posts to get caught up on like the slaughtering of the lamb and the making of the baby beds...All in due time, all in due time.

xoxo
Carrie

A Photo Response

2010-11-15T08:44:00.000Z

This is a photo response to this: http://feeduscheap.blogspot.com/2010/11/basic-vegetable-soup.html

On a quite Saturday morning, in the Moroccan countryside...

While babies were sleeping behind closed doors...

While vegetables were rotting in the fridge...

And more vegetables were growing in the garden...

There was a girl from Atlanta, very far from home, thinking about that simple vegetable soup recipe she read about on feeduscheap.blogspot.com

And so she started cooking...

And the aroma started to fill the house...

All the while looking at this from her kitchen window:

And then the babies woke up and the camera batteries died and all hell broke loose!

BUT the soup was excellent! The veggies I had on hand were: carrots, zucchhinni, tomatoes, fennel and green peppers. It was divine. I ended up combining it with a pot of navy beans and adding tumeric, paprika, and cumin. My husband came home and made a ground beef topper and we shredded cheddar on it.

Voila CHILI!

Bonus shot = My olive tree:

Has it gotten any better yet?

2010-11-10T10:49:00.000Z

Not really. Maybe. Kind of? Nah. It still sucks. If the girls need at least two weeks to adjust to the daycare and the move, we are obviously going to need that long as well. I am so tired that I am serisouly struggling with trying to make anything brilliant or even interesting. Our lives right now involve work work and more work. Work at the office, work in the car and work at home. And to answer your question...the home work is the hardest, the longest, the most back breakingest of them all.

BUT we did manage the follwoing moments this weekend:
a long walk along the shoreline with the girls in the stroller
a leisurley ~~cafe~~ beer at a beachfront restaurant
the girls beds are put together
the girls clothes are unpacked and sorted
all of our work clothes are washed and dry
I made home-made chocolate chip cookies
and roasted garlic with tomatoes and onions
and fruit salad

The daily torture routine of two full time working parents with twin babies

2010-11-02T12:46:00.000Z

Mae: Day one

So…we have started the, what feels like a marathon, daily task of getting the girls and ourselves out the door and into the city by 7am routine.

Day one = wrinkled pants disaster day, with neither mom or dad being able to do any work due to the stress of the morning (and the uncertainty of the impending evening)

Day two = things were going a lot smoother until I fell flat on my face scraping both knees while closing the courtyard door. (so I can say day 2 actually involved blood)

Oh wait, I forgot Night one wherein Sophia woke up and puked all over me and the bed and herself!

One sweet thing about day two’s fall…Youssef took the blame for it. Even though he was not there when it happenned. He actually said, “It is all my fault you fell I am so sorry, you can totally just blame me” and for some reason it actually helped me a little to, you know, stop crying.

We will get better at this. We are sure of it. We are so sure that we actually took out meat from the freezer this morning so that it can defrost which means that we are planning on making dinner in more than one pot tonight. That is a major feat around ours lately as evenings involve (and must involve) the following:

cleaning babies, undressing babies, re-dressing babies for bed, unpacking bags, re-packing bags, more bags for lunch plus my lunch, taking my shower (“can you ask your mom and Souad to wash the girls tomorrow Youssef, I think it has been a few days since they had a bath”), ironing clothes plus don’t forget to get the clothes off the line plus is it normal to have this much to do plus is it normal to drag two babies out of the house at 6:45am and not bring them back to that house until 7pm?

And I haven’t even mentioned the grandma’s house then work then grandma’s house then daycare then work then daycare then home portion of my day!

Falling

2010-10-28T17:07:00.001Z

This fall is finding me, as usual, quite ready to nest, totally inspired to ~~cook~~ bake, and really appreciating the weather. Last year I didn't appreciate the beautiful sunny Moroccan fall we have here. I thought it an unsettling dis rupture in what fall means to me. This year, I feel a little more secure about fall in general, the existence of, the continuation of, the fall baking fruits and pumpkin that show up regardless of the absence of crisp autumn days. This is my fall.

I read my thankful post from a couple of months ago and I truly remember feeling that thankful and that happy. I fell from that. And I hit the ground hard. I went from, "oh my god I am happier than I have ever been, I am so worried about it leaving me" to "I am more miserable than I have ever been and I don't even know where to start digging to get out". But you know what, during my miserable time, I never questioned it. I never worried about it leaving me or when I was going to get happy again because the miserable stuff is what I am used to. It felt normal. I just functioned. I am still trying to get back up from that fall. I am trying hard to be positive. I am afraid that fall is to blame for my positivity and I am afraid it will leave me again.

A month ago I added my mother as a contact for a new skype account that I use sometimes during the day. She and my grandmother got on and I showed off my work outfit and we gossiped and talked and I told them stories about the kids and they complained about Shaka and we laughed and were so happy to be able to see each other and share info. After we hung up my grandmother went into the kitchen to make herself lunch and she fell down. She went to the hospital and has basically been in and out of the hospital since then. She was diagnosed with rapidly transforming into leukemia MDS a week ago. The whole world has fallen down for my mother and all of the rest of the people that love my grandmother.

The day that I called my mom and she told me that my grandmother had fallen down, I was calling to actually tell her that my daughter had fallen down. A month ago today Sophia fell down between Youssef's legs as she was practising standing and hit her head directly on the hard cement floor we have. Youssef said that when he picked her up to comfort her, her body was trembling. She is fine now, the bruise just cleared up a week ago.

Once many years ago, I was rollerblading outside of my new apartment by piedmont park. Shaka was really young then and still quite rambunctious. I used to take her rollerblading with me because that was the only way I could get her the exercise she needed at that time. We would go zooming up and down really steep hills on pavement. I wore pads for my knees but no helmet. One day shaka stopped or jumped or something and I went hurling into the ground scraping and bloodying my palms. Shaka came to me to lick my wounds and make sure I was okay from the fall. I was so angry that I actually bit her when she got close enough. I have never forgiven myself for this. I hurt her because I was hurt and I was angry that she had caused the hurt. My mother and my grandmother moved into an assisted living home this week and I have no idea where my Shaka landed. After over 13 years of loving and caring for her, she is no longer with me. My heart falls right down into my belly every time I think about this, which is often. I just received an email titled 'shaka's relocation to Casablanca' and my heart jumped instead of falling. The email was a response to a quote request from an international pet relocator. they said 5000 dollars.

Less than a year ago, I rushed my baby, blue and listless, to an emergency room here in Casablanca. I had given her CPR and eventually just started begging her not to leave me in the moments before someone finally arrived to take us to the hospital. When we got there the doctors grabbed her from us and rushed her into the NICU and stayed in there for half an hour trying to stabilize her breathing. After that, the head doctor charged into the room where Youssef, his sister and I were standing and yelled at them in Arabic that the child was in the process of dying when we brought her in. Youssef would not tell me what the doctor said but his sister translated it for me into french. She said "en train de mourir". My legs collapsed beneath me and I fell down onto the examination table I had been leaning on.

My mother and I went for breakfast the morning of my pa's funeral. We were self healing by allowing ourselves the small luxury of bagel and lox at the Buckhead Bread Company. When we noticed we were pushing it on time, we rushed back to my Nana's home to get dressed and head to the funeral parlor. I got out of the car first and rushed inside as my mother grabbed her stuff. I heard her screaming my name seconds later and rushed out to the carport to find blood squirting from what looked like her eye. She had fallen on the way inside and cut open the thin film of skin right above the eye. We missed the funeral, but we still laugh about the experience. She greeted people at Nana's that night dressed and made-up impeccably with a huge bandage over her eye. When she came out of the extra bedroom after having spent hours in the emergency room and the crying over missing the funeral, I was stunned at her beauty and grace. I communicated this to her and she whispered to me, like she was telling me a secret and she meant it, "I function pretty damn well under the worst of conditions". I have never forgotten this and I try to embody it when things get tough.

I am wearing brown leather boots today, they keep falling down from my knees to around my ankles. I am trying not to be too bothered by that.

Sometimes things start with a fall, sometimes things end with a fall. Sometimes we just randomly fall and sometimes the thud of our bodies hitting the earth are heard and felt oceans apart from one another. Some falls we never forget and some falls we will never remember.

70 people and a Moroccan tent

2010-10-25T08:27:00.011Z

Sophia and Mae turned one!!!!!! WE MADE IT!!!! So what did we do to celebrate? We threw a party, this can only be described in pictures.

The proud parents (more on the jacket later)

The tent

The cupcakes - you wouldn't believe how hard these were to find here

The above referenced 70 people - woah

The castle cake

The mayhem - we sang Happy Birthday in three different languages, as is the custom here, I love it. (doesn't it look like Youssef is grabbing that kid's nose?)

The proof in the pudding, or in this case the cupcake.

How did you celebrate your kid(s) first year birthday? My parents dropped me off at my Aunt Sherry's house and went to disney world with out me. When I was psychoing out planning this shin-dig my mother actually said to me, "I feel like I didn't really know that the first birthday was like a big deal until I had grandchildren". No further comments on that.

So the jacket...I lusted after that thing for like four months, I waited as the store closed for a summer vacation, re-opened and dsicounted the hell out of it. It is a silk beaded, pale yellow, butterfly jacket and I love it. I had envisioned wearing exactly what I did to their birthday party when I first laid eyes on that thing. Well guess what happened? MAE! (click on the photos to get the full scope of this incident)

Now there is the money shot! Welcome to parenthood.
- If I look like I have surrendered here it is because that is the second time she grabbed me/it. The photographer(thanks Stacy) was kind enough to take that picture as I was reacting to the first chocolate cupcake handprint!

Pathetic pathetic pathetic

2010-10-25T08:13:00.004Z

I am changing this! I am recommiting to this; I am blogging again! There is so much brilliance in my life to share with the world and I really think this is the best way to continue to do so. So there.

For some updates:
We have moved to the country (will be eating lots of peaches)
have garden, will chronicle growth here
have a kids room to design will chronicle progress here
have an amazing kitchen will chronicle food that comes out of it here
Sophia and Mae turned one!!!! (and into to total brats!) will chornicle them here
have free roaming cows and geese right outside my door, will chronicle them here too
miss my family and community in the US desperatley, will chronicle that here
trying to navigate my way as a young thrity somethinger through marriage and twins and work and living in Africa, will chronicle that here

So what is that picture? That is the view from my rooftop terrace to the ocean. This is where I plan on spending a lot of time as soon as winter is finished. Will chronicle here.

These are the times

2010-08-23T22:00:00.002Z

the best of times for me. really. ever. And I am not writing it down. I am too consumed with living it. I have a twinge of regret about this every time I remember that writing makes my heart go pitter patter. But then I usually just say, oh well, whatever.

I want to write it down because I want it known, for the record, that I am happier and more grateful for the things I have in my life than ever ever before. I am grateful for the lives I have lived that have led me right here, to this busted up faded blue upholstered office chair in my in my living room.

There is a patch of dead skin, on the big toe of my left foot. well, basically, I hate it. It is so touch and I tried to get a pedicure when I was in the states and the lady said I didn't need it razored and I said oh yes I do, I haven't had a pedi in a year, you take a razor to my feet now. Well she did and then it started to crack and now it just turns the color of whatever shoes I wear, which are usually black. Point? I even love that patch of dead skin. I love and appreciate that ugly and annoying patch of dead toe skin. Because it was a part of getting me right where I am.

A mother of two very very brightly shining stars.
A wife to a very very sincere and loving man.
A professional occupying a very very sweet gig as a director...again, at 31 years old.
A driver of a very very awesome (french) station wagon.
A renter of a very very beautiful apartment which is very very centrally located.

you see here I go again with this compulsion to rattle on about all of the suffering and disgust and angst and tear jerking madness that preceded this current phase of my life. But I won't - not tonight. Tonight I will just say...thank you universe. Thank you energy that inhabits all of the world and conspires at times to torture and at times to delight us. I am happy, so happy and so blessed and it is NOT lost on me. I am not taking any of it for granted. I am thankful and humbled by it everyday. I live in constant fear that it will be taken from me. Constant anticipation of doom. But today...just tonight actually...I am enjoying it. I am saying thank you, I am exhaling and I am going to sleep with this old french proverb floating in my head.

'earthworms bury their heads in the earth so they won't fall so deeply in love with the stars'

goodnight.

World Cup 2010

2010-06-30T08:55:00.003+01:00

I am really really enjoying this world cup, but it is with, at times, a heavy heart. The games, the nations, the excitement, the analysis of the players and the significance of the teams...It all reminds of the last world cup. How different my world was four years ago. How not a single thing is the same. I literally, sat in a bar last night with my husband, my kids at home with a sitter, having a cold draft, watching the game on a large screen while thinking, "is there any one thing the same about me?". I contemplated this for a good five minutes and decided that the only thing the same about me sitting watching that game last night and the girl that sat in bars and watched the game 4 years ago is that she has the same eyes. It was the same eyes watching the game. Some parts of my heart are the same, but many many parts are changed forever. New people and places now occupying previously empty spaces in there.

It was the first time in MONTHS we had gone out for a drink. And it would have been so much easier for me to stay home, not to insist, put my babies to bed, extract my joy in life from them and their little angel faces and smiles and sweet soft skin. But I chose to go with him, I chose to insist on he and I being alone, however inferior we are to them, for the evening. To watch a game in a bar, to have other interests, other things to share and discuss. And we had a blast - A blast. We decided to do it again, for the final.

Also, on a side note, how cool is it this world cup is all about Africa and I live in Africa? I love it, love it, love it. The games are on a VERY convenient time schedule for one thing and I feel somehow united, somehow a part of it.

Ghosts, the ghosts of my world cup past, do haunt me. It is not lost on me. Watching Spain and Serbia and knowing the other three are out there, watching, analyzing, celebrating, maybe boohooing it a little, thinking of us all, thinking of the times and the games and the memories of us all together to argue and make fun and become excited over it all...it is not lost on me. I am not separate from those memories. It is a little hard to digest at times. So I sit with it. And I watch.

And I know that the memories that fill my head four years from now, will be so excruciatingly different from these. The memories that fill my head four years from now will be of little bald headed babies that I carry from room to room, that run around this huge apartment in their walkers and that we put to sleep at half time. The memories will be of breastfeeding them one by one while watching the end of the game and then slipping out into the living room to analyze the game with him. There will be memories of me riding around on the back of his scooter, singing 'si yo fuera Maradona' and watching Maradona youtube videos and my husband filling me in on "the schools" of football, The Brazil School, the Argentina School. Each world cup I find new idols. Last time it was Zidane, this time it is Maradona,on the sidelines, slapping butts with his rosary wrapped around his fingers. (I know, welcome me to the world out from underneath my rock).

Such a wonderful, magical, precious time in our lives will be fondly remembered, I am sure, with a heavy heart and teary eyes at the next bar, over the next draft, in another four years (wherein Youssef swears that we will be watching in Brazil...and I smile, 50% because I believe him and 50% because I have heard it before, from different lips, concerning different places). Damn I love the world cup.

I miss the creativity of American Life

2010-06-24T08:33:00.003+01:00

I probably need to read back through this website to remind myself a little bit of the things i don't miss. One thing I know for sure is that I miss the inherent creativity of life in America. I miss the possibilities to grow your own food and raise your own chickens and the art walks and the parties and sense of community. In Morocco tradition rules. You cannot even be creative about the food you serve and in what order it must be served at parties. The American in me is always trying to mix things up, try new recipes, inflict my sense of culinary adventure on potential visitors and party guests. But that is not how it works. That is scandalous. So when the girls have their first birthday party/announcing to the community that two new muslim babies have been born traditional things must happen. No venturing with recipes, none of my veggies and mole enchiladas served up. Will there be cake? Yes but it will be store bought to serve everyone from the finest patisserie so that people won't call us cheap or comment nasty things about us. The same food and the same procession of drinks - first juice, then mint tea, then sodas will be served in that order.

As a visitor to this country and a guest at one of these parties it is down right charming, the tradition, the magic, the wonderful cookies and the yummy dishes served, the traditional clothing and all of the people gathering for hours to chill out and eat without alcohol. But as a resident of this country and someone who attends these parties on a regular basis (though I do still love getting the invites) it feels downright suffocating (and tiring and expensive to do it right).

So we compromised (which is what an intercultural relationship is all about). We will have two separate parties. One for their birthday and that will be ours and we will invite friends and I will make whatever I want to make and we will celebrate making it through this year and the other for the community (and for their Dad so that his obligation to do this is fulfilled) and we will invite everyone and their mother (literally). Oh yeah and we will have to slaughter two sheep at the community thing. I don't have to watch. And they will be donated to charity, which I like. Poor people will eat good meals because my daughters were born.

And then there were four

2010-06-10T08:12:00.002+01:00

So, it has been so long since I have updated because I have not been able to access this thing. I have had so many thoughts come and go in the last two months. There is no use in me trying to recapture them. I will just...update - document where things are at now.

Sophia has two teeth. TWO! She spent all of last night nursing and chomping the air, I think she is in pain. Mae cries out loud in her sleep all the time. She only has one tooth currently, but I am sure her second is soon to follow.

They have been to the beach twice so far and the pool once. They LOVED the pool. The loved the floating around and swimming on my belly. Youssef dunked them. It was good fun.

I am finished for the summer in one week. ONE WEEK! One of the best parts of being a teacher is, I think, that you get to be a full time mom and wife for part of the year but you don't have to be committed to that all year long. I am so looking forward to that time with my family. And about family...I can't wait to go home and see the rest of my family and friends, and eat Mexican food, and scratch Shaka's white patch underneath her mouth, and kiss her furry face, and have a glass of really good wine, and sit on porches, and walk the field in south Georgia, and visit the graves with the girls. Introduce them to their heritage.

This past year and half has been so wild. So. friggin'. crazy. I will be returning home with one less appendix and two offspring. I will be returning home as a married woman, a mother and an educator. How much can change in such a small space.

I hope that I will miss my life here. I hope that i will see that it is not that bad. I hope that I will come and back and be fine with life in Casablanca for a bit longer. I am sure I will do all of that. There is a part of me that already knows I will miss this place and even long for it after a bit. Of course, half of my heart wills till be here with Youssef so there is that. But it has also become home. When I am here I only have the home that i com from to contrast it against. I am looking forward to being in that home and feeling like Casablanca is home.

I know for certain that I don't want to be here forever, but I do want to feel good about being here in the time that I am here.

~How I Feel About Paris Today~
I have been Paris longing again. It never leaves me. The desire, the fire inside of me for Paris might look like it has gone out, but it is as a flame that can be seemingly extinguished by the wind but as soon as the wind calms you see its jump back up again. Paris holds my soul. For now, forever.

Finally

2010-06-09T19:37:00.002+01:00

I can't believe I got access to this! It has been over a month since I have been able to post and so many many thoughts to publish. I will update soon!

The Names of My Daily Life

2010-03-10T08:15:00.005Z

So so many names, where do I start?

There are three Fatima's, one of them my daughter, the other her grandmother and the other a maid. There is a Sophia, my first born daughter, a Safia, my first Moroccan friend here and a Soumia my closest sister in law. Soumia has a Sara and there is another Sara that is my good friend. There are two Souad's, one of them a name I say everyday all day as she is my daughters' nanny. There are two Leenas and one Lila. There is a Riyad, who brought me here. There is a Hasnaa and a Houda and an Asmaa and a Mounia. There is another Fatima who is kind and meek that I work with. There is a Boubcar that I get copies from and a Karim that prints out pages for my lessons. There is a an Anouar that assigns me classes I don't want and a Hassan that I am constantly trying to get money from (the accountant). There are two Aicha's and one Jasmina. One Kenza and two Zinebs. There are two Ghitas (pronounced Rita). There is a Hamid and two Mustaphas and one Martin. There is a Faiza and an Issam. There is an Abdel Haq and a Nabil who were there when I married (again) There is only one Youssef, one Mae and one Sophia. I am the only Carrie I know.

This does not include all of the students, oh the students beautiful names: Ghizlane and Camelia and Khalid and Khadija and Ayoub and Alla Eddine... so many others!

The streets that I walk on and the neighborhoods I inhabit: There is Ziroui which I live on and you pronounce that Zirwowi. It intersects with Zerktouni which takes you to the Maarif and you do all of your shopping there. For the beach there is Bouznika and Tamaris and Ain Diab for ice cream. There is Ghautier, the neighborhood I work in and Souktani and Jean Juares the streets that intersect at l'embassie Italien. There is Jean Jaquesman and my favortie rue Dejla. There was a Galilee that I went to everyday but then Jill left and now Martin May lives there but I don't go to visit him. There is a Nousair which intersects with Galilee and there lies our favorite bakery. There is Moulay Youssef just up the street from that. It is lined with beautiful palm trees, looks like california and holds the American Embassy. There is the park de league Arab, one of Casablanca's only green spaces. Around the corner is Oliveri which has the best ice cream in town. I wrote the frst letter to my daughters there after I found out I was pregnant, in between teaching a class at Axa, the major insurance company who I covered with.

Now there are new names and neighborhoods. There is a Oasis in my life now, pronounced like Waziz. There is a rue de Papillion which I am so excited about because it means butterfly street. Now Brahim Roudani and blvd. Ghandi will be in my daily life as well.

So many many many names. This is a glimpse into the string of vowels and consonants that pass through my lips each day.

Bergamots

2010-03-08T22:13:00.002Z

Ummm, total update on the lemon post!!!!!!! They are called Bergamots and they are totally a thing. I thing that is usually used to flavor earl grey tea actually!!! So excited to live in a country where BERGAMOTS are this plentifull!!!

Thanks David Lebovitz!!

These are my mornings

2010-02-18T09:13:00.003Z

I wake each morning sandwiched between two little souls, their mouths puckered and gulping periodically throughout the night. I pull each one to the contour of my body and take the greatest pleasure in rubbing the lines on the perfect casing for their little hearts and veins and brains and breath. In the night if one cries and the other is just fed I whisper to Youssef , “quick pull that one over, hand me this one, shh, quite, is she moved yet, hurry before the other one wakes”. We are in it together and it feels like we are robbing a parent or something like that and have to hurry quick before someone turns around or comes in a room we shouldn’t be in.
When Youssef rises for the day, he takes one with him, whichever one I just finished feeding and he changes her diaper and I hear all kinds of going and gahhing and laughing and “oh my god Carrie you have to see what she is doing” coming from the bathroom. Then he will bring the one back and take the other or if he is ahead of the clock that morning he will put the dry one in a stroller and take the other one and then take them both out of the room. This morning he left me with both, but brought coffee to make it better.

I finally crawled my way out of the mountain of blankets and pillows on our bed and found my way to my slippers, half disappeared under the edge of the bed. My legs stiff and muscles sore from yesterday’s return to working out. I stretch and slowly make my way to the kitchen to make him breakfast. I relish in doing so, to be able to do something so little but so important for him.
Because he does so very much for me.

So many dinners and lunches. So much paper work and taking care of business, his whole life seems dedicated to working for us. So I love making him his breakfast in the morning. My favorite part of doing it is when I fold the aluminum foil over the breakfast sandwich and fold two little paper napkins onto each other and put the whole thing into a nice plastic sack that we have saved from the previous evening’s baguette. I set the precious goods on the table and he finds it and takes it with him.

Each morning as I am folding the napkins, I think about two things: One- I should really write him a little love letter on one of these napkins. And Two: I wonder if he notices the extra touch of my napkin fold, I wonder if he knows it means I love you and I think you deserve a folded napkin each morning with your egg sandwich.
After that there is usually laughter and conversation and sometimes I follow him around as he is getting ready, sometimes I am already back in bed with the brats sucking away at me again, Sometimes I say good bye a the door and then over come with emotion swing the door open and yell after to him to be careful on his motor bike, to come back safe to me, to please protect our happiness. Protect himself.

How about these lemons!

2010-02-16T08:26:00.004Z

Ok, so...I have not been this excited about a new fruit/veg thing since jerusalem artichokes. There are these lemons here. I swear, I promise, that are more fragrant than any lemon I have ever tasted or smelled anywhere. They inspire me to lemon cake with lemon zest, lemon squeezed over large plump strawberries. These lemons taste and smell like perfume, literally, ummm, err but in a good way. Not in a yucky, gross, I accidentally sprayed my perfume in my mouth kind of way.

These lemons just kinda appeared on the scene about a month ago. The first time I had it the maid drew it to my attention. She came over one day with about four of them and let it drop that the markets have some special seasonal lemons out right now. First, I smelled, then smelled again then compulsively a third time. I said oh no, wowzers, it must be some kind of lemon-heaven hybrid thing, this is too good to be just a lemon, have you heard of Meyer lemons, we have those too and...sniff sniff sniff, no...I have never smelled anything quite like this before. Thus life has proceeded for the past month, I am constantly trying to find appropriate ways to cook with these bad-ass lemons. I love them, they deserve an entire post dedicated to them.

Youssef actually had the audacity to come home with a sack of waaaaaaaay inferior lemons from the Turkish chain store Bim. Needless to say he still regrets that, as we have never let him live it down! Poor thing, I think he has learned his lesson though.

So yes, that is one of the major joys of my daily life these days, the lemons and the strawberries and the fennel and the oranges, and the beets - so many good seasonal foods available in the market these days... In times like these when we are struggling financially to make ends meet every month (don't scoff, the maid is actually the nanny too which is an absolute necessity), it is a blessing to be able to eat strawberry salad and have an array of fresh fruits and vegetables that fit into our 20 dollar fruit and veg budget for each week. It is all organic, it is mostly local and it is all seasonal.

One thing I should be better about: canning!

A tale of two Mobiles

2010-02-03T09:16:00.004Z

Dear Sophia and Mae,
Your little rose budding lives are almost 4 months old at this point. Most of our days are spent, inside, rocking and singing and changing clothes and diapers. You also spend your time crying and eating and sleeping and looking and sometimes smiling. Your father and I are happy. We love you both together and separately so much. He sings Bob Marley to you and does this Moroccan drum procession thing with his voice and hands and I have gotten pretty good at doing the hand clapping accompaniment to the drum procession. We have fun with it. Sometimes we bathe you together. Generally I sleep in a little later in the mornings because I take turns feeding you two at night and he works early. So the deal is that he gets up and changes you both and plays with you so I can sleep a little longer.

Sophia, you are so friggin' intense. You scream and scream and scream all the time. You a re screaming beside me, in your swing, as I am typing this.

Mae, you are sweet and smiley and understanding and patient. You have noticed Sophia already (no wonder with her always screaming beside you) and you smile at her and at your dad and at me. You laugh out loud and your sister Sophia clicks instead of laughing, which is pretty adorable.
I have been thinking about and knowing that it is time to, you know, make an effort with myself. Well I have made progress, I get dressed everyday now and I even put on a little rouge! But I know it is time to like, stop eating a pack of cookies everyday. The thing is I have turned into a total sugar fiend! Probably because I am still breastfeeding you both.
Some days I get tired of pumping and working and feeding and going back and forth. But I keep going, I find the fuel. I do it because I love you both and wouldn't even consider doing anything less than I am now. In fact I know all the time that I can do more. For example I have tried to get better about changing your diapers. There have been days where I have forgotten to do so for like 5 hours or something crazy. Sorry. But I am getting better now about that being on my radar.
You two are full of life and personality and you can almost sit up on your own and I put you in your frenchie little sleep sacs everyday and parade you around the house. Sometimes on the weekends we go out. We sling one of you and put the other in the stroller. Because we live up 3 flights of stairs and have no elevator it is hard for me to take you out on my own during the week.
You have TWO nannies. And they both love you so much. Their names are Fatima and Souad. Fatima comes in and will put one of you on her back while she cleans. You love it, both of you. It also makes you sleep immediately. Yesterday I saw her praying with you on her back. As you know, praying involves getting down on your knees and putting your forehead to the floor. You just stayed right on sleep through the whole thing.

For Xmas your aunt Chelsea bought you a mobile. In my excitement I threw away the box and put it together and got it on the crib...only to find out the motor was broken. Because we had no box we decided to try our luck with taking it back. But then we ran into your aunt Soumia on the street on the way to take it back and because she is much better at things like that done, your father asked her to take it back. I didn't think it was a good idea but the whole exchange happened so quickly that the mobile was ushered off before I could even say no. Enter Soumia' s kids, your cousins, Sara and Ryan stage left. They found the mobile in the car and proceeded to fight over it and broke it into two pieces.
Your father and I could not let her pay for it because of everything they have done for us, so we kindly just took it back and your father then dismantled the mobile into, and I am not exaggerating here, about 100 little pieces. Everyday I would look at it all strewn about his work station and get angry all over again and miss my sister and feel bad for my children for not having a mobile and then berate your father for giving the mobile that MY sister bought to HIS sister in the first place. This went on for an entire month.
And then I came home from work all unsuspecting on a Monday night (last night- Feb the 2nd, remember you got the mobile on December 25th) and there is a beautiful new mobile hanging over the crib for your entertainment purposes. How wonderful. How lovely. Finally...a Mobile. You done good Dad.

Pick Up Stix

2009-10-29T08:28:00.003Z

I am not a huge game player, I have always been way too competitive. I am one of those known to display behavior that ranges from flipping the board and pouting off to straight up cursing and accusations towards those I am playing with of ganging up on me. Charming, I know.

BUT, pick-up stix has always been a favorite, as it is a game of sheer skill and cunning fine motor skills. From a very young age I have enjoyed the thrill of being good at extracting the next stick without the entire pile tumbling. (I was good at operation also)

On this sunny fall morning, from my first floor view (it's actually the third story) of the park across the street and after seeing Youssef off to work, with the babies asleep, another spotted night of sleep and feeding behind us, I must say that I have the same satisfied feeling with my life as I get when I am successful at a game of pick-up sticks.

Some days, it all feels like luck and destiny and the way the world wanted things to be for me, but this morning, it feels like a choice. It feels like I was living a different life, I was a different girl that had a different job and a different address and thought different things about...now here it would be easy to say I thought differently about love and family and marriage, but that is not true. I thought differently about two things: Youssef and myself. Separately and Together.

He was always kinda there, as a concept, a memory, my first love, the guy that I resented, but wasn't mad at. The story I loved to tell, the reason my heart got broken so bad in the first place. Youssef, the crazy, the philosopher, the muslim, the cook, the accident prone, the self absorbed, the sensitive. I never once thought, that I would be reunited with him. I did not know that I could make a choice and give him another chance and that we could love again, so profoundly. I did not expect that we would make a family and that it would be the most important thing in my life.

Now this is where the second thing that I thought differently about comes in. I did not expect any of that because I thought differently about myself also. I thought I had 'been there-done that' and evolved way past it. And it's true that I had evolved past the girl (teenager) I was then and the young 20 something he was then as well. But I hadn't evolved past Morocco. I hadn't evolved past this strong tie to family and cozy palots on the floor and not drinking alcohol for weeks and not even noticing.

The woman I had turned into before I came here, was brilliant, but maybe a bit more flashy (well she definitely wasn't wearing a leaky breast milk stained tank top).
She thought she so had her shit together and that she knew exactly what she was doing and who she was and that she was not someone that anything that she wasn't already could penetrate.

8 months later, to the day, that woman is gone, I picked her up with two sticks and laid her to the side. In her place is an even more complicatedly positioned stick. But I am not afraid of trying to get at that one because I am learning to trust myself and rely on the dumb luck of physics, the way the sticks all fall to the ground and my fierce motor skills.

How I birthed my preemie tiwns

2009-10-22T18:46:00.007Z

Not at all as I expected, let's just say that straight out.

My girls decided to join me, first thing in the morning, on Monday October 12th. I had a very uncomfortable night and did not sleep at all due to a dull pain in my abdomen and constant trips to pee. When Youssef woke up, I told him 'I think something isn't right, it hurts so much, I don't know how much longer I do this, I hope I can wait till my doctor comes back from vacation (I know...right) and blah blah blah'. Youssef, by the way, was used to hearing this every morning so, we both didn't think that much of it all.

He asked me if I needed the bathroom and he entered to get ready for work. I sat down on the edge of the bed and all of a sudden felt a wet gush. I knew immediately what it was. I went into the bathroom, got Youssef out of the way and sat on the toilet and started to cry. I kept saying, "it's too early, it's too early, it's not right, it's too early, please stay in more, please stay in there, I need you to stay inside more, I'm so so sorry for complaining, I didn't mean it...". Youssef of course was already dressed, running around in circles, calling us a ride to the hospital asking me about my suitcase(s) and trying to reassure me all at the same time.

Eventually I pulled it together, got dressed (in all black, which was a fitting outfit that i ended up eventually leaving the hospital in, five days later with no babies) and went downstairs to get in the car with his sister. He and I held hands through gushing contractions and rush hour Casablanca traffic.

When we arrived at the hospital, it turns out that there had been a steady stream of pregnant women since 4am that had showed up. The place was crowded, they put me in a pre-birthing room with another woman in there.

I would have been waiting on my doctor, the infamous, the experienced, the wonderful doctor I had researched and sought out and totally trusted and felt safe around, except that he had left the country three weeks previously, without telling me, and wasn't going to show up. The doctor that replaced him, turned out, to be a trusted colleague of him and just as good of a doctor. But this is where my woes began.

I was terrified. I trusted no-one except Youssef and he and I were about to be separated against our will. I was like a harnessed birthing lion that was about to have her babies taken from her and I knew it, i felt it.

So the new doctor comes in and said, "Cesarean and now, you've got an infection, your babies are at risk , we are doing this, no discussion". "Can my husband come in the room with me?" "absolutely not"...

An argument, of course, ensued. He yelled at Youssef that it was, and I will never forget this, "a truc de couple" basic translation - a stupid couple thing. I started crying at that point and basically did not stop crying (constant crying) until 3 days later.

So Okay, It came down to my worst case scenario, me on an operating table, alone, strapped down, with two very tiny babies taken out of me and immediately rushed away. The doctor was kind enough to let me see the first one for a second. She was screaming and I kissed her head and she stopped crying (that was Sophia, I call her now my zen buddah baby). And then second one was taken away from me before I even knew she was out of me. I kept asking 'what about the other one, why wasn't she crying, why didn't you let me see her, where is my other baby, is she okay, please answer me'. Silence...

I remember the very beautiful face of the anesthesiologist assistant staring over me and smiling trying to keep me calm. Eventually I just stopped asking questions and asked her to please just hold my hand. She did, it helped a bit. I prayed, alot.

The doctor was giving me brief and rapid answers, they told me that the other one was 'fine, but small' but they wouldn't explain anything else. This was all taking place, mind you, in two other languages. All of the medical terms were being thrown around in french, they were all communicating basic things in Arabic and I was pleading with them for news in french and too doped up to understand their answers.

Eventually I got out of the operating room. Youssef was waiting just outside for me and I was being wheeled around. I started asking for my babies, 'please let me see them, please let me see them, they need me, they need me to touch them, I have to hold them, please'.

Youssef had seen them when they brought them out of the room and followed the doctor into the room where he was 'reanimating' them. He assured me they were very little but both were okay and they were in NICU. He arranged to have me wheeled in to see them before I got to my room.

The next 24 hours were a blur. I did not sleep even one wink. I had perfumes rubbed all over my body and hair and a stream of visitors bringing money and flowers and food and dates from the mecca. I had people sitting by my bed trying to console me as I teetered back and forth between tears and delirium. I had a small room and I felt like I couldn't breath, and there were dogs that howled outside my window all night.

Eventually I had the visit I was waiting for. The pediatrician that was responsible for NICU and therefor my babies. He came and started trying to talk to me about them when there were like 7 other people in the room. I, naturally, threw everyone out of the room (blaring dismissal of standard protocol #1) except for one of Youssef's sisters (not the oldest, blaring dismissal of standard protocol #2) and proceeded to grill this guy about the state of my kids (blaring dismissal of standard protocol #3, this job normally belongs to the family, not the hysterical woman that just gave birth). I wanted every shred of information possible, I did not, could not have, even slightly anticipated the repercussions for these actions on my relationship with my husband and his family in the following days.

He (begrudgingly) answered my questions, he promised me I could give them my colostrum, that he would not give them any formula and that i could see them and try to feed them the next day, when I was strong enough to make it to the NICU. He said I could hold them and touch them and that everything would be fine...
He also mentioned that there was no way possible I would have enough milk supply to feed both of my babies. I told him that when he says things like that to me, it makes me question his professionalism and psychic powers. He took it back, literally, he said, "I take it back, I'm sorry".

Now this is where it gets interesting. He then walked out of the room and told the entire rest of the family that he is not responsible for any harm I do to the children and that I am basically whacked in the head. I didn't find this out, of course, until the middle of a midnight screaming argument between Youssef and I about those exact points, milk and touch.

The anger I feel in my heart for him (the doctor) would be all consuming if I didn't have two beautiful babies to hold and love right now. I don't have the energy or desire to hate that guy more than I already do, so I've just let it go.

Okay, so no sleep that night, at all, no sleep the night before that and then no sleep the next night either. You can imagine what I looked and felt like after abdominal surgery, three sleepless nights and very limited access to the children I had been carrying inside me for 8 months.

I was a mess. I felt that I had been plundered, body and soul. I trusted no-one, no-one. I felt completely alone and savagely protective of my babies. The day after the birth, I waited until the first sign of a cleared room, the first second I had alone I got myself up, limped to the bathroom, with my IV in toe, dressed my self, stuck my head out of the door and asked the nurse for a wheel chair. She, of course, ran and got my mother in law. 'Oh no, the crazy American woman that won't stop crying is on the move'.

My poor sweet mother in law did not know what to do with me. She said ok, she would go with me but please not to move too much because I had just had a surgery. She cried alot in those days after. I told her I hated Morocco and I hated my doctor and I hated the hospital room and I made the biggest mistake of my life having children there. Still, she comes to my home everyday and tells me the same thing, "don't move too much, don't do too much, don't sleep with your husband, don't pick up heavy things, don't walk around too much. 40 days, it is in the Koran, take care of yourself, if you don't it will hurt you later in life." She is wonderful and understanding.

So,Youssef showed up on his lunch break and talked me into waiting on him to eat and then us going together. He had already been filled in, mind you, on the apparent danger I posed to the children by holding them (just google preemie twin touch, I dare you). He was scared and he didn't understand, I can see that now. As strongly as I felt I had to do it, he felt equally as strong that it was not right. The good news is that they have two parents that love them that much and are willing to stand up for them, even if it means against one another, to protect them.

All of this I need to hold them, I need to touch them, they need my milk was coming from a place deep inside of me. It was not anything I had read about, it was just an instinct, so things were confusing for me too but I trusted my instincts.

I got my way, I held one, and a very ugly scene ensued between Youssef and I. That is the point where I would say my depressed desperation turned into depressed hysteria. Youssef left the NICU to return to work and I stayed and held my other baby as well, with two nurses standing over me gossiping in Arabic. I asked them to GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, and they wouldn't, of course, they thought I was crazy.

I then returned to my room to find more visitors. Nieces and people's husbands and more sisters. This is the point at which I stopped trying to stay composed, the point at which I felt I no longer had the support of my husband and therefore had nothing else to loose by acting like I gave a shit about it all. I flipped out. In front of everyone. I mean full on, sobbing, inconsolable howling, unrecognizable angry sobs and desperate tears flying from my face in all directions. My mother called in the middle of it and was put up to my ear, it didn't help. Some of the women in the room started crying with me, because they understood, because they knew what it felt like also. That made me feel a little more normal.

And thus we proceeded. The director of the hospital eventually got tipped off to the fact that there was a serious problem with me. She arranged to have me changed to a different room, and she visited me herself the next morning in my new beautiful room, and talked to me about how I am feeling psychologically. She gave me pamphlets on breast feeding and told me to go and see my babies whenever I am ready.

I went down to the NICU and all of a sudden it was a different world. The nurses were nice and encouraging me to breast feed the bigger twin. They set up a feeding schedule for me to come down every three hours and feed or pump for them. Things were friendly and professional and I was able to breath.

I heaved more crys when I left the NICU because I felt like somebody somewhere finally realized I was right, or looked it up or got paid off or whatever. I was not sure what had happened but I felt better. That night Youssef and I decided that we could recover form the deep abyss of a disagreement that was instantly formed, like an earthquake, the day before. He then did something that literally changed my life, he went out of the room and asked the nurses to give me a sleeping sedative through an IV. My ass was OUT. BIG TIME. And it was pretty much all gravy after that.

Youssef started on an around the world trip of filing all of the insurance and social security papers. I saw him for all of five minutes everyday and I was so impressed by what he was getting done. While he was out zipping through the city getting our little girls legal and getting us financially covered so I and the kids could leave the clinic, I was wandering back and forth between the NICU and my room, pumping and having massive uterine contractions in the hallways of the hospital. I had DVDs set up to watch and I ate food that his mother sent to me everyday and I slept and drank lots of water and waited for my milk to come in.

Then they said I could leave on Friday, Sophia on Saturday and Mae on Monday. I was actually relieved that I didn't get to take either of them home with me the first day. It would have been too hard to leave the other one. So I left, actually ran out of the hospital to keep from breaking down, trying to calm my breathing in the car and went home with the air of being in a funeral procession. The next morning we went back for Sophia. We went back that night to pump for Mae and check on her and then twice the next day. I showed up at 9am on Monday morning to get my Mae and they would not let her go due to the damned paper work still not being finished. So I sat with Mae until 4:30pm that afternoon. I had breast milk sent to Sophia at the house and I waited for the call from billing telling the nurse to let me take my baby out of there. This was a very happy moment for me.

Since then we are all home and tired but happy and they are both thriving, drinking more everyday. Mae is slowly learning to trust that she is safe now. With lots of love and care showered on her. Sophia is just calm and zen like and only cries when she needs something. They are so different and so wonderful. We are totally in love with them.

The end or I guess I should say, the beginning.

L'hamraak Garagh

2009-10-08T17:32:00.008Z

This is a type of pumpkin or winter squash that is very common here. It is called in Arabic L'hamraak Garagh, which actually means pregnant pumpkin. I feel like one of those right about now! I long, however, to feel like a glass of overpriced champagne in lieu of desert after a small but satisfying meal of knife and fork eating accompanied by a bottle of red wine.

I have these shoes. They are strappy, gold, high heeled sandals and I usually wear them with this boxy, white silk dress. I bought the ensemble to wear to my dear friend's soft opening for her restaurant. These were one of the three pairs of heels I chose to make this move with me. Today as I was grunting to rub my anti-itch cream all over my swollen body and periodically yelping out in pain from having to turn half an inch to the side, the sudden image of me putting those strappy heels on made me burst out laughing. I was laughing at the pure absurdity it would be to try to shove my "shrek feet" into those strappy gold heels. Never-the-less, I want to be a woman in those heels again! I want to wear red lipstick and show off my legs and show up way over dressed for something. I want to sniff a glass of red wine and act like I know way more about it than I do.

There is a part of me that desperately misses my old bedroom (the last one I occupied before here) because I have so many memories of getting ready for evenings where I felt like that. I often contemplate how my life would have been different had I stayed in Atlanta, what kind of a woman I would have become.

I feel that my twins and this pregnancy are magic, they are my reward for having the courage to leave, not my burden. Had I stayed in Atlanta and not made this move, I wonder if I would have continued to drink away my thirties and find myself ridden hard and hung up wet in 5 years, with no magical African born twins and salt and pepper haired husband to show for it. I often think that is the case.

In this state, in this perpetual state of physical expansion and discomfort, I long to feel like that budding late twenties woman that drank and smoked and still thought that people weren't really as bad as I now know they can be.

The third trimester SUCKS

2009-09-30T10:47:00.006Z

I may look like this:

but really I feel like this:

Okay there, I said it. I am suffering, big time. Here is my list of complaints:

my feet and ankles are swollen unrecognizably
I have itchy skin
I am so heavy it hurts to stand up, sit down or roll over
I can't cook or clean or prepapre anything for the babies arrival
socializing is almost too much of an effort for me at this point
I can feel myself OUTGROWING my MATERNITY CLOTHES!
I live with a constant deep and insatiable hunger
trouble breathing due to the transverse baby across the top of my chest
totally psychadelic dreams
totally bitchy attitude to the husband unit because let's face it...he did this to me
a feeling of being totally handicapped
I can't even think about bending over(or forward more than two inches)
and then some other not so pleasant pregnancy symptons that i will spare you from having to contemplate

But really truly the worst and biggest one of all of my complaints is this constant awareness that I want my babies. I am ready to hold them and love them and feed them and not sleep because they are on the outside of me. That is coupled with the keen awareness that they have to stay inside for longer and that I can't wish too hard to see them just yet. I have, at minimum, another 5 weeks to go. That will put me squarely at 37 weeks.

I always thought I would be the picture of grace and ease during pregnancy. Way more Grace Kelly than Elizabeth Taylor's Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf. But honest to goodness, while there are definite sweet and beneficial times to being pregnant, it really really really can suck. People who say otherwise, I am convinced, ARE LYING. Or they had really easy pregnancies. I think the fact that I am already carrying the baby wieght (over seven pounds of baby between the two of them) of a 9 monther of a singleton pregnancy is greatly contributing to my complete and utter discomfort. I also realize that even with singleton pregnancies it can be really really challenging for the woman. I have women soemtimes tell me, oh well, you are suffering double than her or stuff like that and I don't agree with that attitude at all. In fact, it pisses me off for pregnant women everywhere! I think that each body is made differently and maybe mine is made to carry a twin pregnancy better than some women are made to carry a singleton pregnancy.

Okay, off the soap box now and done complaining, thanks I feel much better now! (not really) Going to make myself have contact with the outside world.

Writing to save my life...or at least my mind

2009-09-23T11:02:00.007Z

With the crisp fall air swirling around my mostly housed-in head, I have been feeling the urge to write again. To reflect, speculate, bedazzle and proclaim.

~How I FEEL about Paris today~

I still dream of Paris. I still long for Paris. Especially NOW as the last time I was there was this time of year, a year ago. The last time I was there I bought my brown trench coat and wore patterned scarves. I ate beef tartare and drank a 13 euro bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape from the grocery store. I was certain that my life would be taking a different direction than it is now. I thought I was so set in my identity, my comfy, cosy, American, successful, working identity.

I was a red wine drinker, a connoisseur, a poet, single, short haired and fabulous. I had lovers but I wasn't willing to call it love. I was known for my alcohol drenched black forest cake and the various stamps in my passports.

This feels like so very long ago. For now...a year later, I am less than two months away from being a mother, of two children. I have had to give up fashion for comfort and red wine for pregnancy vitamins.

When I see fashionable women walking in clunky heels and flowing fall skirts around Casablanca there is a part of my heart that just jumps right out of my chest and into the middle of the on coming traffic. I long for that feeling so desperately. I long to feel sexy and have a neatly compressed waistline. I long to be stressed out from doing too much, lifting too much, stressed from working too much to bring home the bacon and the weekend dinner party and the friend drama and all of those aspects of normal people life that I have utterly withstood from for the past 8 months.

While this pregnancy and this time in my life is one of the most precious and wholesome transitions I have ever experienced, I am ready for what comes after. I am ready to show my husband that I am more than a 200 pound rolly-poley that can't flip my own self over.

Speaking of him...my god...what a blessing he is. In my eyes he is the only man on this entire earth that can manage to make me feel that I am still desirable while in this state.

Does he want Paris? He, like everyone I have ever loved, would move to Paris for me in a heartbeat. The difference between him and those before him is that he actually has changed continents for the love of a woman, he has lived in North America, the middle east, Asia and Africa. All of his own accord, all working and traveling and taking his cheesy smiling photos along the way. He has been in debilitating motorcycle crashes and had his entire kitchen staff conspire against him. He has opened restaurants and ended relationships and returned home to care for his mother. He has done so much. I am quite impressed with his life resume. I think he is my soul mate and I fear that he will be taken from me every second of every day. But I am so thankful that we have this time together and it is him who made me pregnant.

So yes...back to Paris, I have more faith in our ability to change our lives and venture out into the world together than I have ever had in any relationship.

All of that being said, I don't know if Paris is within my reach anymore. I don't know what kind of a job it would take, to get papers for a family, to rent an apartment for four instead of one. To make enough money to happily raise two children living in the city. I know people do this in Paris, lots of them do this everyday. I am not giving up completely, I am not saying it is impossible. I am just saying it seems a little out of reach. It was out of reach when it was just me but now it is me plus three.

to be contd...

A little bit healed

2009-09-22T19:35:00.002Z

I am happy to report that now, over a full year later I am starting to feel a little bit healed from the traumatic events that pushed my life forward and into the exciting direction it is facing now. I hope that makes sense. I guess what I mean to say is that time heals all wounds and I was really really wounded on July 14th of 2008. It has taken me this long, not to feel better, but to feel not afraid or hurt when thinking of certain subjects or people.

I think that is progress, I think my heart is truly healing. I can listen to certain songs, talk about certain subjects, and again remember certain people without it, at the very least, rendering me very uncomfortable.

I have gotten here, to this healed place through massive amounts of love, affection, hope and grace. This is undeniable. I am now looking forward to continuing to trod this path of healthy loving trust in the good things in life.

(anyone think I'm just hormonal?)

Ramadan Update

2009-09-11T15:56:00.006Z

So...Ramadan has been good...I guess.

I'll say this, I have enjoyed the food and the night life. Casablanca comes alive around 9:00pm every night. I also come alive and then STAY alive until about 5am every morning. People don't eat and drink anything until 7pm so the earliest you could possibly go to sleep would be 12am but really it is more like 1am or 2 am, because you know, who can work all day, then eat, then drink, then rest, then go back to sleep. No, that is not the way people roll over here during Ramadan. Instead you go out, meet friends, go shopping, have coffee, hang out, whatever. Then everyone is tired all day (which actually works perfectly for my very pregnant pace just now).

On Working during Ramadan:
Business meetings are relaxed, the shops and banks and businesses close down at 4pm latest and re-open afterwards, so I have started doing night classes and I love the night schedule.

On Street Fights during Ramadan:
There are daily fights around 5pm and I mean EVERYDAY. We go up to the roof to watch them and sometimes they even have machetes, no shit. I am all "isn't it like really bad if you machete someone to death while you are fasting?" and Youssef is all, "nah, well, I mean I guess it'll get you like 7 years in the clinker".

What else? OH yeah, everyone's breath stinks!!!!! Horribly!!!!!!!! And no one wears perfume or cologne during the day, only at night.

On Breaking the Fast during Ramadan:
I have gotten super awesome butt kicking bad ass at preparing the breakfast (called f'toor in Moroccan and Iftar in Arabic). In fact, since the first week Youssef can't time an iftar on his own to save his poor little starving self if his life depended on it.

On Me-Walking-in-the-Street during Ramadan:
One of the best Ramadan perks EVER is that I do not get harassed on the streets!!!!! Not by beggars or incredibly perverted men that got a thing for the belly bump. It kind of pisses me off though that the entire male population of Casablanca is so damned able to be respectful and decent and NOT ogle me as I go buy, but normally just choose to do so anyways, you know, when it's not Ramadan. It means that these schmucks are capable of controlling themselves and their utter daily harassment is a CHOICE they make every time they choose to harass, whisper at or follow a woman on the street. Which, okay, of COURSE it is. But I guess the fact that it not so deeply ingrained that the worst of the worst of the harassers are able to be respectful, because thinking sexual thoughts would break their fast, is just a little insulting.

So there you go. I have turned into a vampire, I get to break all the rules because I am pregnant and a foreigner and we get invited to eat out alot. Oh and I also added a fourth meal to my day, AT MIDNIGHT!

My Life in Twos

2009-09-03T11:42:00.004Z

So I feel like I have a lot of things in my life this year that have come in twos. I have two cities, speak in two languages, have two families, two sets of friends, two countries, two parakeets. We are looking for a new apartment which would be two apartments and finally I have around two months left to wait for my two little girls.

Names, for the film buffs this should be easy:

Bonne Ramadan

2009-08-22T14:08:00.004Z

SO...it is the first day of Ramadan and I feel a little let down by the whole thing. I mean for the past 6 months all things have revolved around the impending holiday season of Ramadan. Things in my life as well, for as soon as Ramadan is over, we are so almost there with the babies. But on to the disappointment stuff...

All talk of vacations, visits, the summer, the really good stuff that my life generally revolves around has, itself, revolved around Ramadan this year. So any good Muslim would never show disappointment or anger or the, you know, "why the hell does my summer vacation have to be interrupted by Ramadan" attitude. So everyone has been all positive and accepting and totally zen about Ramadan coming, for the past 6 months.

In the recent weeks leading up to Ramadan there has been a general excitement over the food that will be eaten every night and the dinners that we will all attend and that kind of thing. I think it is an example of psychologically psyching yourself up for something on a national level. It is good, it makes sense, I mean who wants to listen to whining and resentment and agony over something that will be happening regardless.

So in all of this getting 'pumped' for Ramadan, I have gotten a little swept away in the excitement as well. I also managed to get myself right slab in the middle of a river of nervous anticipation about when Ramadan actually begins. Everyday for the past two weeks I have been asking everyone that mentions Ramadan, if we know yet, if the moon has been spotted yet, how will we know, who will announce it, how will the people that don't have TVs know it is, in fact, Ramadan, and Aren't you worried about it, how can you just sit there calmly and not FREAK OUT about EXACTLY when the first day of your month of fasting begins?!?!?!

In my questioning, I was told the following things:
there will be loud speakers that announce Ramadan all over the country
it will be announced from all the mosques
the king will announce it
there will be a procession of men that come through my neighborhood with trumpets and horns (people generallly do the obligatory gesturing and bemmp bemmmp bemmmp sound mimicking a horn for me at this point)
these same men will come back to wake everyone up at 4:00am and remind everyone to eat before sunrise

So, Ramadan began today and do you know how much of that happened???? NONE OF IT! That's right, the only reason we even knew Ramadan was beginning, was because Youssef got a phone call from one of sisters. I was all, noooo, that can't be it, how does SHE know? Where are the guys with HORNS? Where are the LOUD speakers? I don't believe it's Ramadan tomorrow, I don't think YOU really know what is going on with this whole Ramadan thing YOUSSEF...

So we turn on the telly, search for a Moroccan news channel and sure enough, it's Ramadan...just like that. I think the highlight of the moment was a visiting uncle from the states blurting out, "yep it's Ramadan, manyana no comida".

Totally anti-climatic!!! I am still upset about it and I am not even fasting, I would be PISSED if I were actually fasting.

In fact I even ran to the windows a couple of times thinking it was the horn guys or singing from the mosques. Youssef was all "It's just a motorbike going by, they aren't coming, accept it, move on", but...but...maybe they will come later, "yeah I don't think so, but maybe you'll hear the 4:00am wake up thingy".
Great.
And I didn't.

On Being Pregnant and Turning 30

2009-08-05T13:19:00.003+01:00

I have really been avoiding this one. It is just so big. I haven’t really known where to start. But here goes.

As I was zooming through the city in a petite taxi, on the day of my 30th birthday, clad in a zebra stripped one piece swimsuit and large brimmed red hat, I started to contemplate the irony of the day. My first day finished with work, my first day being 30, pregnant with twins, wearing a one piece (zebra stripped). I thought back on the wildly ambitious previous decade of my life. The decade I decided to leave my husband, house and dog and move to France. The same decade that I came back from France to settle into a life of trying to get out of America again. The decade during which I was constantly employed, constantly chasing promotions, whether it be to bar back or director. The decade during which I mended family ties, fell in love and had my heart broken over and over again, put myself through a university degree, learned to speak and read and write two other languages. That decade, of being 20 to 29 was soooo intense! Towards the end I became very tired, weary. I remember during my final days in Atlanta just wanting to sleep for a long while. I remember not being very ambitious about getting in the out and about in Paris while I passed through the past two times, I remember just wanting to get here to North Africa and rest for a bit. Sleep for a bit, take my time, and enjoy my life. Learn to cook better, learn to forgive those who hurt me, learn to garden better, grow up a bit, and start the rest of my life afresh.

So we are back to the taxi scene and my contemplating all of this and I suddenly realize that it is my first day as a basically stay at home mother. I made it to 30 and then I stopped working and had kids. What? Huh? How the hell did that happen? When was that EVER part of the plan? Oh yeah right, the whole time. I always knew I wanted children, I always said children when I said “I want children” not, I want a child, which never felt right to say. I always said “I want to have children out of the country”. Check. “I want to give them different languages, preferably French, to go with the English they will inevitably speak”. Check. “I want to take it at least 6 months to be with my children after I have them”. Check.

Now I know I am fast forwarding a bit here and projecting way out into the future, but this is the job deal, my work closes down for the month of August and September, after that I am on maternity leave for 3.5 months minimum. I am not sure when I will go back to work but I am thinking sometime after 2010 hits, probably around April of 2010. That will give me time to feed the babies and get used to being a mom and get myself ready for whatever comes after.

So while I am not really a stay at home mom because we have chosen that I should stay at home and do that roll, I am a stay at home mom to be by default. Because twin pregnancies are tough and I need to rest, not teach and pace and walk too much.

I look forward to getting my ambition back one day, I look forward to wanting more than exactly what I have right now, but let me just say, this is nice too. This contentment and respect for a slower pace of life. For those of you who know me I am sure it will be hard to imagine me taking this much time to do things. But I have had to slow down with everything I do. That is pregnancy. I have had to slow the pace at which I walk to a near crawl, otherwise I get horrible cramps and have to stop walking completely on the street. I have had to slow the pace at which I eat. The pace at which I stand up and sit down and plan vacations has all changed. That is being pregnant and so far that is being 30. Like I said, I am sure things will speed up again and I look forward to that but for now, this is me, just being.

The Pregnant Kaftan Look

2009-07-20T15:43:00.001+01:00

Tha kaftan is a traditional Moroccan dress reserved for special occasions such as weddings and pre-wedding celebrations. I have spent the past two months of my life fretting over my debut pregnant kaftan look. We were invited to a wedding that was deemed such a big deal that not just any old wear a kaftan any kaftan would do. I started my preparations at first mention of the wedding, having learned the importance of the kaftan from the last wedding I attended, which was two weeks after I arrived.

I bought the Femme du Maroc issue with the Marrakesh kaftan show photos. I picked out the cut and envisioned the pattern and material I wanted. I consulted with the family kaftan maker and picked out braiding to go with… and then I got busy and woke up with two weeks left until the wedding and no kaftan in sight.

That two weeks turned into one and then I spent almost every day for 7 days, trying to find a kaftan. I browsed in and out of shops, I was escorted into peoples homes and given kaftans to take with me. I had appointments set up with even more shops, learned that in kaftan rental protocol you do not, in fact, get to try on every kaftan you like. I was introduced to the market of kaftan rental shops that are not shops at all, but rather peoples homes, sometimes small homes sometimes sweeping villas full of women trying on hundreds of kaftans in the back rooms.

I got my hair done, my eyebrows waxed, bought shoes and finally decided on a kaftan (rental for one night as they cost around 6500dhs to buy). At the end of it all I was out by about 1000dhs and countless hours of my energy, but I had a kaftan I felt good about and I learned a lot about how to do it better next time.

I also became a lot closer to one of my sister in laws who took me under her wing to secure my adequacy. So here is a big big thank you to Soumia. Thank you for taking me to the doctor in the middle of it all, taking me shopping everyday of the week last week, and calming me down through every hormonal tear filled out burst that I experienced through out the process! Thank you for talking me into attending the henna party the day before the wedding and not wearing a dress but instead just wearing the damned kaftan I had been given for the day.

~How I Feel about Paris today~

I really miss Paris sometimes lately. I want my babies to know the city and sometimes I long for it. I long for the food and the sidewalks and the fact that I was always single and childless and not with swollen belly while there. The truth is though, I love it that I have that time. The time I had in Paris and Atlanta and everywhere else in between that I traveled to. I am thankful that I am pregnant now and the woman that I was before this took that time and went to those places and walked around without swollen belly, ignorantly blissful and eternally suffering.