Homing In

As if I promised my mom I’d quit blogging in airports.

Forget that. I am in an airport with two big, empty hours between me and my flight, and I have thoughts in my head. Blog I will.

What sorts of thoughts, you ask? Travelling thoughts, of course. I am thinking about the first time I entered this airport in Casablanca, six months (years? decades?) ago. Ah, the idealism of youth: the naïve vision of a sparkling future ahead, with dreams wide open, waiting to be absorbed into ever brighter, ever-evolving realities…

Well, okay. It was half a year ago, and not entirely sparkly. I stepped off the plane onto the melting tarmac (Tarmac? Seriously? No portable space-age tunnels to beam me from one climate-controlled existence to the next? And what? I have to walk?). I entered a shabby building stuffed with jostling, djellaba-ed strangers. The signs on the walls were incomprehensible. I had no idea where to go. Which “line” do I join? This mob, or that one? Hey, how did all those people get in front of me? It’s hot. I’m dirty. I’m sweaty. Everyone is. Welcome to the new reality.

Six months ago, I had my entire identity crammed into four suitcases. Once I checked my luggage, my four tiny suitcase keys were the only evidence that I owned anything at all. No house. No car. No classroom. No moorings. I was deliriously, unsettlingly adrift.

Emerging at last on the other side of one mob or the other, I was greeted by a swarm of vultures, vying with one another for the honour of lugging my identity around on a cart. I unwittingly paid one such predator ten times the going rate. He was helpful. But not that helpful. Welcome to Morocco.

Now I am sitting peaceably in the same airport, awaiting my departure. The building seems sleek and modern. Polished, even. Ventilated. Twentieth-century. There’s nothing in my suitcase but some underwear and another suitcase. And I am ready to go home.

But what of the sparkling dreams and impending adventures? What of the delirious liberty?

Oh, I’ve had adventures. I’ve slept in the desert. I’ve jumped off cliffs. I’ve (sort of) surfed. I’ve been ripped off in medinas. I’ve peed into ominous holes in the floor. I’ve jumped out of moving vehicles. I’ve declined marriage proposals. I’ve dodged donkey carts. I’ve eaten live sea urchins on the beach, and molten chocolate in Madrid.

I’ve scaled mountains, mounted camels, and modeled Berber bridal crowns. I’ve disrobed.  Multiple times.  I’ve been stitched up.  I’ve missed trams, trains, and taxis. I’ve sung in Arabic and haggled in French. And, more remarkably than any of these daunting feats: I’ve peered (yea, delved) into the jungle of that most perilous breed of African wildlife: the Moroccan child.

They. Talk. Nonstop. They “negotiate.” Endlessly. Endlessly. Endlessly. “But Miss! But Miss! But Miss! But Miss!” They are walking (swinging, hooting) ostinati. They are maddening.

And they are marvelous. Spirited. Sweet. Inquisitive. Dancing, squealing bobbing corks. Wiggling, chattering, vibrating wonders, with identical names and spectacular hair. They are a nation of wriggling, squiggling sound.

I do not always like to be immersed in a nation of wriggling, squiggling sound. I have abnormally sensitive ears and a profound affinity for silence. I do not always like being surrounded by camel poo, goats’ heads, and argumentativeness. But despite all that, I’ve got a good gig going here. I have a gloriously well-stocked classroom and a modern apartment with an ocean view. My administrators are dynamite and the school lunches are gourmet. My salary is modest but I receive a total of one (yes, one) bill per month, rarely totaling more than $30, to cover my use of the school cars. I have solid friendships and a sense of purpose in what I do.

So why, oh why, would I want to go home?

Well, let’s see. I’ve OD’d more than once on tagine and mint tea. I’ve had enough of being gawked at like a well-plumed zoo animal. And I could use a haggle-free, hassle-free week with people who’ve known me since I was born. Some pork. A furnace. Potable water. Anglais. Home.

This calm, clean Casablanca airport that I’m leaving today feels a little bit like home already. It has made a nice show of providing waste baskets that differentiate between papers and plastics (of course we all know it’s a farce, but whatever). As I make my way to my gate, the cryptic Arabic gives way to friendly, familiar English and French. Soon I will be in a place where I can read both sides of the cereal boxes, and check a price tag without becoming trapped in an inescapable vortex of aggressive over-persuasiveness. I am on my way to my happy, harmonious Shire.

Six hours later…

What the heck?! I’m in Paris, and I’m only staying for an hour? What was I thinking?????

Yes, the giddy voyageur in me returned before we even landed. “I’m flying over France. This is what France looks like from the sky. Soon I will be in France. I have always wanted to be in France. To be anywhere, really. Is that the Eiffel Tower? No. Is that? No. That? No. These towers are not one bit Eiffel-ish. I will need another few hours to spot the real thing. I will need to leave the airplane. I will need to leave the airport. I will need to stay a day or two, or maybe three. And then, perhaps, I’ll make my way to the countryside. Think of the used bookstores I could find. The cafés. The croissants. The art. The un-Arabicized French. Yes, I definitely need to stay a week or two.”

You see, I have always wanted to be Somewhere (Everywhere), and Here I am at last. I am, in fact, surrounded by Very Interesting Countries. I could hop on a plane and end up pretty much Anywhere. And Here I am, hurrying through the tacky souvenir shops so I don’t miss my flight to…

Detroit.

You heard me.

Detroit.

Have you been to Detroit? No offense if it’s your dream vacation, but it’s not Paris. It’s not really anything, or anywhere. It’s just this industrial conglomerate of concrete, billboards, and asphalt, populated by people with sad lives and weird accents. I’m sorry, but it must be said. I am leaving you, Paris, for another city. And it’s Detroit.

Fortunately, I won’t be there long. It’s just the third of the four cities (countries, in fact) that I’m visiting today. And really, it’s not so bad. There’s English there, and pork. And a bridge to normality.

So, even with Detroit on the menu, it’s a pretty good life I have, to be walking around with the currencies of four different countries in my wallet; to know that I’ll be singing in Dublin in a few months, and that I have a few other countries on my roster before my next trip home; and to feel that stepping onto a giant piece of metal and leaping over the Atlantic is really no big deal at all.

It’s good to have adventures, and it’s good to come home, knowing that more adventures await. It’s good be (un)settled, and to have spanned the great, wide world at last.

Seven Days Later…

Oh, what a week I had in sublime, snowy, civilized Canada. Everything was just as I left it. Sane. Safe. Streamlined. One can walk around without a purse-full of toilet paper there. The facilities are just that reliable. Oh, what a paradise for the wanderer’s heart.

I had a chilly, but heartfelt reunion with my (real) bicycle. I visited all of my indoor belongings, neatly boxed, labeled, categorized, and stacked in my mom’s most gracious basement. I dipped into this bin or that one like a kid at Christmas, gifting myself with familiar little possessions to take back to the African wilderness with me. More importantly, I spent time with the people who matter most to me; I said what I came to say, and heard what I came to hear.

And now I am back in my tiny penthouse overlooking the sea, and readjusting to life in this Other Place that also bears the name home. I was delighted to meet my neighbour at the airport in Paris, where we caught the same flight to Casablanca. We commented idly on the inefficiency of Moroccan lines, and then formed a human shield to bar the way of the plump, djellaba-ed grandmothers who were shamelessly attempting to elbow their way in front of us. No mobs or vultures this time. No confusion. No panic at the baggage carousel. Just a smooth ride home with our friendly neighbourhood chauffeur in his charming, dilapidated taxi, conversing pleasantly about picnics, blue skies, and green, green fields of wheat. The rains have made the whole land smile.

And I am smiling, too. Adventuring is fun. Homecoming is fun. Not knowing which is which? Well, that’s just fun, and fun again. I sure do like waltzing this way and that across our splendid little planet; I am a dancer, dancing on the clouds.

Morocco in March