My Cry

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...

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

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:

1.   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
2. 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.