leaving on a jet plane redux

from yesterday:

i had every intention of writing an entry about home sometime after my plane touched down here at dallas-fort worth international airport six days ago. but somehow, as it has a tendency to do, time went on, and now i’m here again – gate e37 – waiting for the plane that will carry me to los angeles and the next chapter of my life.

this morning when i woke up, the weight of leaving immediately settled on my shoulders, like the misty fog which shrouded our little house, a holdover from the heavy grey thunderclouds which dumped inches of rain on east texas yesterday. i spent the morning semi-frantically stuffing items of clothing and papers forgotten until the last minute into the one bag which i am allowed under the new baggage policy. some things have changed since i left the united states in january. all of my clothes, neatly rolled, were laid into my blue hiker’s pack, and i was amazed once again how well everything fit – some things haven’t changed.

before i knew it, though, it was time to leave, and i took one last good look around the home i was so excited to get to less than a week ago. when my plane from london touched down, i had jumped from my seat, jockeying for a space in the aisle before power-walking through the carpeted hallways of dfw, waiting fifteen or twenty foot-tapping minutes in agonizing anticipation, and finally throwing myself into the arms of my awaiting family.

an hour and a half later, over a series of massive texas highways, we arrived at that same house which i found myself leaving so quickly: the open kitchen, exhorting its inhabitants to “live well, laugh often, love much,” before blending seamlessly into our living room and my bedroom beyond, where it is neatly tucked next to the bathroom, with it’s green towels and red bicycles, and my parents bedroom in soothing lavender and deep purples. i’ve never been one to associate “home” with a specific place, and yet this little country house on the corner of mulberry and michigan has carved a little hole in my heart. maybe more because of the memories that we have made as a family there. maybe because it’s the first house, in the traditional sense of the word, that i have real memories of. regardless of the particulars, this space of peace and tranquility is also a place where i am deeply and truly known, and after a semester of wandering half a world away, that’s a really lovely feeling.

so here we are. all of that is to be left until i have another four or five days at the other end of my summer, in august, and i find myself wondering what in the world possessed me to accept this internship at ucla medical center. but even in the time it takes to write that sentence, i remember again my love of adventure, the exhilaration of change, and the promise of something new. my independent streak wells up within me, and i smile...

waking up

after crashing late last night, i was awoken (far too early) to my roommate's frenzied packing efforts. over the course of yesterday, boxes and bins and bags had appeared out of nowhere, been filled with something, laid in a somewhat scattered fashion around our room, forming a sort of low fort-like wall around my roommate's bed and unpacked possessions. this morning the last of it was thrown in. the shifting and slamming of boxes on our bare linoleum tile floor was my first sound for the day, and it spelled out an ominous reminder.

i remember when i came home from sierra leone, i felt as though i had passed from a sort of dream back into reality, or perhaps fallen from reality into sleep. whichever the case may be, my life in van, texas, boston, massachusetts, or wherever seemed completely disconnected from the two and a half months i had spent living in the little house on a hill in freetown, sierra leone.

as i sit now, surrounded by my packed bags and the last, sad-looking vestiges of my life here in morocco, i can't help but brace for the same feeling. but how does that work, exactly? the roots i have put down here are larger and stronger. five months worth of shared homework headaches and cultural fumbles and travelling adventures aren't as easily shifted to the side. modern technologies like email, skype, blogging, and facebook definitely make the separation easier - but you and i both know that however convenient, those forms of communication are nothing compared to the real face-to-face contact and experience of living life with any one particular person.

to be perfectly honest, the chances of seeing any of the other foreign exchange students is relatively high. concentrated, for the most, on the highly academic northeast corner of the country, travels for long weekends or big events is entirely feasible. but for the girls here, the moroccan students, with whom i have found a special connection...i feel helpless in predicting the future. and while i am so excited looking forward to the crazy, rootless life i have ahead of me in 2008, i can't help but yearn for that security of knowing that things can just stay the way they are.

i've also written before about the sucking, popping sensation of breaking bonds with people, pulling up roots, and saying goodbye, and i can't help but feel that again, so strongly, now.

friendly faces and countless adventures await me, as well as that long and beautiful process of unpacking this experience and realizing the fullness of how these past five months have wrought in me a unique change. i cannot complain, and yet...

i guess i just don't want to wake up.

home in essouira

so it's been a little while since i last wrote, and as i sit down to my computer once again, i realize that my two or three week absence is related to a few different things. first, after returning from spring break, i literally buried myself under a pile of books and worked on final projects and papers - a tactic which came in quite handy as finals approach and i actually have very little work left to do. second, i think i've hit a little bit of that dry spell. let me explain.

if you've made any change in your life (in this case, my location) for an extended period of time, you get to a point where the things that were so new and exciting and different and exhilerating and overwhelming at first have calmly blended into everyday life. it's a wonderful moment when you realize that seeing women in the hijab or taking a grand taxi ride or the crumbling medina of a city doesn't really register on your radar. so despite life perhaps feeling a little less exciting and despite the sensation that there really isn't anything to write about, i rejoice in reaching this point in my time here in morocco - it's become normal. it's almost become home.

this past week especially emphasized that fact for me. with a long weekend beginning on thursday, eva and i weighed our options and decided that, having faithfully attended all of our classes thus far, we could take the first half of the week off, relatively guilt-free, and explore more of morocco's south. a series of misadventures (including miscommunication over bus times and 42/105 degree heat) brought us to essaouira several days earlier than we had anticipated. it's been the happiest mistake of my time here thus far.

a unesco world heritage site and the backdrop for orson well's othello, the medina of essaouira is, like most medinas in morocco, a beautiful mix of crumbling decrepitness blended with functional livability. the upswing of european tourism has led to the refurbishment of many of the medina's riads, and we (for much cheaper than we ever imagined) found ourselves in a beautiful little apartment tucked away between the sea wall and the twisting allys and hanuts (corner shops) of a functional residential community.

i awoke every morning this past week to a veritable symphony of sound. the steady bass line of the crashing surf overlaid with the chatter of childrens' voices punctuated by birdsong and the occasional moto roaring down the narrow lanes. this was the morocco i had dreamed of experiencing and, suddenly, the idea of life here didn't seem so far away.

by the end of the week, i had developed little connections with the people in our community, little tendrils of relationship that - if given time and attention - could easily have turned into roots. the green grocer whose fair prices and smiles had drawn us to his stall in the first place. the ancient spice man whose hunched back and pristine white prayer cap placed precariously on his head made a distinguished and almost sacred space out of his heaps of brightly colored spices and herbs, delicately meteing out one dirham worths of cumin, ginger, cinnamon, and so forth. the corner bakery where a dirham bought you a round, rough loaf fresh from the oven. and the hanut owner who was the only store open early enough to pick up some breakfast eggs but who won my heart with his patient indulgence of my broken arabic.

rolling out on the grumbling ctm bus on saturday evening was definitely a sad moment, but i left with the calm assurance that i will make it back to 'souira some day. hopefully not too far away...

as i got back to the university and began the long and arduous process of sifting through a week's worth of emails and facebook messages and world news - i realized that there is an important part of home that i have been missing, too. it's the connections that i already have; those roots tying my heart with those of the one's i love that have been stretched almost to the breaking by distance and difference and non-existent communication. my brother graduated high school on saturday, and all i could manage was a quick message on his cell phone answering machine. maybe i'm ready to go after all.

whatever the case may be, i'm happy to have the memory of essouira fresh on my heart and mind as i get ready to leave this country that has so patiently and graciously hosted me these past few months (one bag is packed already), and i'm happy, too, to have something worth talking about to share with all of you...