WALKING ON THIN ICE

2nd full day in essarouia:
lady’s lying in my lap with a bad stomach and a bit of the blues. i stroke her hair, say “poor lady, your soul’s tired, your spirit’s depleted, and your body’s turning on you.” moving always costs a lot of our psychic reserves, as does figuring out the unknown rules of the new strange town - and this place is strange. toss in her on-coming period and this being her 3rd day without hash after smoking for 31 days, it adds up. i’m used to the having/not-having cannabis cycle after my 40 years of serious research. i’m not used to the multiple inner costs of constant traveling and endless homelessness though. fortunately whenever one of us is down, the other steps up.

it’s cooler here - 75 to 85 degrees versus marrakesh’s mid to upper 90s. there the street cats sought shade. here they seek sun. we call our street ‘cat alley’. k’s worried all the kittens are dying. i pointed out if that were so we wouldn’t be seeing all the adult cats. must be hundreds if not thousands inside these walls.

i’m down 3 pounds to 173 again (i’m 6 foot 2 and a half inches - i lost half an inch somewhere along the way). we’ve no refrigerator and only a 2 burner camp stove to cook on. i’ll be down to the 160s before we leave. started the year at 190. my brain’s filling up while my brawn is depleting… i’m losing meat as i gain mind. brain brawn meat mind.

plus lady’s dieting - she wants to lose the last 20 pounds. if she does, she’ll have lost an entire lady k of weight. lost her weight, lost her 5 couches, lost her 1st husband, lost her job, and for the past 10 months even lost her country of origin. but then is it really “lost” when it’s let go on purpose? when lady’s dieting, i lose weight too because she cooks less food less often, and i no longer can resort to my basic food group diet of coffee, cookies, candy, ice cream and pizza i followed before she moved into my life. our usual meal now is cut up cucumbers, tomatoes and avocados in balsamic vinegar, olive oil with smeared garlic.

k’s at the hammam, a public bath. this one’s for women only (normally one side is fem, the other men). sitting here in empty apartment, i realize how little time we’ve spent apart. past 9 months she’s walked the moors once, taken the london subway twice, gone running a bunch, seen the hairdresser a few times, and went shopping twice with the belgium lady. other than that (and a couple amsterdam cyber cafes on my own), we’ve been together 24/7.

i’ve always been a loner, yet now find it strange to be alone. my spirit and soul are no longer only my own. when we first came to morocco, she refused to go out alone due to the horror stories and online warnings - but here in essaouira she feels safe. sitting here alone, i realize this is not my journey, this is lady’s journey - my journey is lady.

have to look both ways before going outside. we’re in an 8 foot wide crooked alley where motorbikes and bicycles whiz by, weaving through foot traffic at amazing speeds. we could be hit simply stepping out our door. it’s a noisy place too - people pulling carts with wheels clacking on alley stones… bicycles clinging bells or honking horns… children laughing shrieking playing… multiploids of people talking shouting arguing in arabic and french… babies crying… seagulls exclaiming need for food and territory in ugly squawking… roosters constantly crowing - a rich tapestry of sound that begins at sunrise and continues past midnight.

day 3:
went walking along the beach before breakfast. since the tide was out, we walked on the bottom of the ocean shallows as well. went out to an ancient shattered rock fort. coming back, a guy with 4 camels came by, sold us a camel ride back to town. when the camel went to his knees to let me off, i would have been thrown had i not held tight. early morning west african coast, low tide sea bottom, and camels - not a bad start to the day.

“clean sheets, redemption, and you” - a line from a russ vidrick poem running through lady’s head. we bought new sheets and a blanket so we can sleep without dust and mustiness and clogged sinuses the next morning.

here’s a foto of our apartment - 2 bedrooms, a sitting room, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom in a 20 foot by 20 foot sort of square (there are no right angles in the place, nor in essaouira or marrakech as far as that goes).

day 4:
found a public bath for men. now both of us can the wash the filth from our flesh. bought a map of the city, found a laundry and super(ette) market. discovered a field of debris where lady can harvest good garbage for her art. each day we’re making it a bit better for ourselves. make it in morocco, we can make it anywhere - maybe even america.

speaking of which, we’re getting tired. after morocco and scotland and london and france (and looking at my wife’s underpants), we’re heading back to cleveland to visit for a few months, then heading down to new orleans to live for awhile. there we can have culture, read poetry in english, lady can continue to speak french, and it’ll have a foreign, exotic and 3rd world flavor as well. can’t wait for next hurricane season. “drove my chevy to the levy” to see what had died.

on our way to the laundry, we went through local neighborhoods. saw folk looking at us differently - they always look, but this look was more surprised. glanced about, saw we were once again a minority of two. said to lady, “i don’t think we’re in tourist territory anymore, toto.”

in the narrow alleys inside the old city, an arab touched my arm. i stopped, thinking yet another beggar, but he spouted angry sounds in my face, whapped my shoulder, stalked off. my only guess is maybe i crossed his path as we turned. he was young and militant, probably doesn’t care for slow moving erratic tourists. i’d resent us were i he. it’s a lose-lose situation for them - they need our money, but most of us are so insensitive and slow it’s hard to tolerate us. still, he was a rude prick. my first example of open anger. lady wants me to shave my moustache back off because i look meaner and more psychotic without it - rather like an amish mass murderer. not many wives talk like that. going to do it too.

yesterday’s camel ride aggravated my groin muscle. so did this morning’s sex. guess that means i can never have sex with a camel.