I am Moving to Morocco!

No, really, I am.

I have been tormenting my friends and acquaintances for days now with cryptic comments about exciting new developments in my mundane little life, and the day has finally come when I can shout it from the rooftops: I’m moving!

I just signed a two-year teaching contract with an international school in the legendary city of Casablanca. I’ll be teaching music to students from Kindergarten to Grade 5: my dream job, my dream climate, my dream of dreams in every way.

Peterborough, of course, has its dreamy side. I sing in a fab choir. I build volcanoes with cute kids. I deliver tantalizing theory lessons. I own a house, a back yard, and a very comfortable hammock. I have precious friends nearby, and a devoted family on the far end of the 401. My trusty Subaru happily shuttles me from place to place; and the stars are beautiful when I look up at them from my driveway on a summer night.

But there are stars over other driveways, too. There are choirs, and kids, and hammocks. There are theory lessons. There are fascinating people. There is even family. And for those precious individuals who aren’t so portable, there is Skype. It’s time to enlarge the dream.

Oh, dreams. They can be such flighty things. They can be real flirts, batting their eyelashes and darting away whenever a bit of reality steps in. And one must be careful about posting too many inspirational epithets – you know, those calligraphic memes that only pain those of us who squash our dreams on a regular basis, just to stay sane in a heartbroken world. But indulge me for a few paragraphs here. Let me tell you about my own life dream.

Someone once asked me what I would do if I didn’t have to concern myself with bills and other such banalities. My answer was immediate and decisive: I would travel the world, writing quirky little stories about all the things I see and do. I would find out what it’s like to live a different life than the one I now live, and I would think interesting thoughts about it. I would write those thoughts down, and people would give me money for them; and then I’d go somewhere else and do it all again.

Well, that precise arrangement hasn’t exactly presented itself to me yet, but that’s okay. Sometimes one has to take one’s dreams into one’s own hands – scuff them up a little, cut a few corners, and see where things go.

And this August, “things” are going to Morocco.

It occurred to me, as I endured the longest, coldest Canadian winter on record, that one does not need to live in a cold place when the world contains places that are warm. One does not need to eke out a living from a patchwork of tiny part-time positions, when there are full-time positions to be had. In warm places. With palm trees. One does not need to pretend to be a science teacher when there are oodles of music jobs out there. And one does not need to stay in the same habitation, year after year after year, waiting for someone else to come along and drop an opportunity into one’s lap. The opportunities are there. Just go out and get them.

So that’s what I did. I applied for positions all over the world. I had interviews with schools in Brussels and Vienna. I got job offers in Cairo, Kuala Lumpur, and Dubai. Recruiters in China and Kuwait courted me. None of these scenarios seemed quite right.

But Morocco… Morocco! Morocco is everything I want. It is cosmopolitan. It is perched on the tip of Africa, teasing the south of Spain, with traces of the Middle East, Europe and Asia in its blood and on its tongue. It is welcoming of Westerners, but still distinctly different. It will happily teach me French and Arabic if I am so inclined (and I am). And it is warm. All year round.

And to think – there are people in existence who will pay me to go there! I will get to spend my days singing, dancing, and playing instruments with little people from all over the world. I will spend my evenings and weekends exploring the sights and sounds of Casablanca. I will spend my holidays traveling. I will join a French choir. I will swim in the ocean. I will cycle to the market. I will write, and write, and write; and what I write, I will post, so you can join me on my journey, and dream my dream with me.

I’m moving to Morocco, and you are coming too, through this daring little bit of cosmic prose.