Anxiety, Headache, Prayer

Two weeks ago, I had a persistent sinus headache. 

The worst thing about not feeling well is that it seems you have to face your pain while facing your anxiety about the future. Fear of the next few days, even the next few years, can plague me, hitting me when I'm down. On Thursday, as I was walking in sunlight that felt too bright for my sensitive eyes, I started to cry out to God in my inner whine. It slowly began to match my walking rhythm. It became this mantra. 

Thank you for this moment.

Thank you for my pounding head.

Thank you for the Beauty.

Thank you for what happens next.

I will not waste this moment by wishing it away just because I have a headache. There is beauty somewhere in it. And whatever happens next, God is still God there, too. 

"Mustapha at the Bat"

Let's talk about D period seventh grade. 

Try getting these kids to all be quiet at the same moment! I spend about 20 out of our 50 minutes together quieting them. But in the remaining 30 minutes, we somehow manage to cover more ground than any other class. I just finished inputting preparation grades, and these kids are statistically an absolute mess. Fifteen out of 22 kids forgot some essential piece of their supplies this week. 

I have never had to strain my voice to be heard as I have done with them. But I have also never seen such unexpected cooperation as I saw today. 

Youssef is the jewel of the class. The dragon and the jewel. He has an extraordinary aptitude for most things, and a lack of self-control that is just as extraordinary. I told him before we began today that we would be reviewing a story from last week. When that started, he was welcome to find an alternative activity: drawing or reading. 

"Here's the book you can read, here's the paper you can use; stay within this area."

I noticed him getting paper occasionally, as I began our review of "Casey at the Bat." They had read it last week, but their comprehension was still low. As I set the scene, I found that we were more than re-telling the story; we were re-reading. So I embraced the moment. I asked for a student to be Casey at the bat. 

"Hold your arms like this," I explained to Mustapha as I held an imaginary bat. Haytham insisted on being the pitcher. Mohamed insisted on being the catcher. Three umpires were suddenly named. We had an outstanding out-fielding complement. The audience, like all of Mudville, was riveted.

The pitcher found a wad of paper that at first I rejected as unnecessary until Youssef the Off-Task brought over a long, rolled paper bat he had been improvising since the beginning of class and handed it to our much-obliged Casey. Youssef somehow anticipated that we would be acting out the whole story. He had made a bat for the occasion. He had also nearly memorized the entire poem, and was able to fill in all the blanks I left. He became my dramatic reading partner. 

Every second I feared this thing turning into a gruesome riot. And every second this nutso seventh grade group surprised me. 

They acted out the entire poem in cooperation, then put away the bat and ball, retired their imaginary gloves, and sat down to answer all the forthcoming questions with perfect comprehension.

Later, maybe Youssef stole someone's phone. And maybe he didn't do that. I cannot say. But I can say that our class today was such fun.

Casa Loud and Casa Quiet

Yesterday was the big, big holiday, Eid al-Adha, the holiest feast of the Islamic calendar. I've written about it here before, too. Kind of like Americans obsess over turkeys on Thanksgiving, sheep are the distracting center of this holy day. Yesterday was all loud prayer and sheep slaughter in the morning, and all quiet fires and cooking throughout the afternoon.

Margaret and I stole around the block looking for a few sheep scenes. As we walked, we avoided the swinging machetes of men whose function all day was butchery. If the machetes weren't enough to identify them, their clothes were covered in drying sheep's blood (we assume), and they wore huge, satisfied smiles.

We also found merry gentlemen on the street corners, burning the skin off of sheep heads, cooking the cheeks and brains for later. All this is done with a similar ease as I recall the men in my family going out to fix something on a car after the Thanksgiving meal. Most sit or stand while one or two does something useful to the task. The difference in Morocco is that no one is holding a beer. But here are those men.

Cool guys burning sheep heads.

Later in the day, I was visiting a neighborhood outside the city, and I don't know how common this is, but some children had dressed up in the fresh sheep skins, and were dancing and singing for tips. It looked and smelled so strange. This photo makes it look like The End has come, but in person they were not the least bit intimidating.

Weirdo neighborhood kids after the Eid feast.

The feast having lasted all day and late into last night, Casablanca was a sleeping child at 8:30 this morning. As I walked home from breakfast with Margaret I realized I had never walked more peacefully through the streets. I opened the gate to our villa, and the sun was just beginning to shine on the roses in Habiba's garden. It smelled like heaven come down. The wind whipped up some dried bougainvillea petals on the walkway, and I heard a child laughing on the rooftop apartment of the mosque overhead. It was the sweet kind of laugh where you just know someone is tickling him.

Habiba is my landlady, and she keeps the most beautiful, healthy roses.

My heart is extra light knowing that the poor of the city are eating well this week, because families who can afford it buy not one but two sheep to slaughter, and give up to half the meat to the needy. Beggars are invited inside. The Kingdom come.

In other news...

• Margaret leaves for Jordan today; and what a wonderful time it was to laugh and chat freely while keeping her from accomplishing her schoolwork. Maggie is a friend from Lancaster, visiting Morocco between semesters in Jordan. And this is us holding Mexican flags at an American-style burger joint. 

Now you are a bit of two of my homes, Maggie!, Lancaster and Casablanca!

• With the holiday behind us, my students will be coming back to the city in time for the second week of school, making this Wednesday the de facto first day of classes.

Song 43

v1
God, would you clear my name?
These people! What the HELL?!
They weigh me down with their tricks and their cruelty.

v2
You are God, and I count on you to be there for me.
It feels like you've abandoned me.
It feels like you've consigned me to walk around with
my heart on my sleeve, despite the danger around me.

v3
Send out a guide to find me here in this mess.
Bring me close to you.

v4
I want to come to your very feet.
I will praise you there, in the only ways I know:
with dancing and singing, O God!
I will write you a song.

v5
Why am I freaking out?
Why am I so sad?
Oh, Soul, trust in God.
Look forward to the time when you will praise him!
Oh, you will!

Reset Button

What did it take me to get here, in Casablanca? 

The flight was less than seven hours, a red-eye from DC to Casablanca. I even had the great honor of being able to sprawl across three seats because by luck my row had not sold out. That afforded me three hours of low-quality sleep. Three hours of sleep provides you with just enough energy to stand in passport control for over an hour, but not quite enough energy to remember how to get to the train station from baggage claim. Missed that first train. Whatever. 

What did it take me to get here, in front of a computer with thoughts?

It took me some crying, a good video chat, dinner with friends, time in prayer, twelve hours of sleep, two cups of coffee, a load of laundry, two episodes of something on Netflix, and a banana. 

It was good to be in the United States.

It is good to be back in Morocco.

Favorite Spot

I have to practice letting worries roll off me. The more I can do to signal to my worries that that is my intention, the better off I am.

I sit in the blue chair in the dining room at Plum Street, and the worries know it's time to clear out.

Summer Intermission

Right now, this summer is in six or seven drafts I've only begun with a title or a line or an image. The past month has been so full. Since school ended on June 21, I have seen so much of Morocco, Ireland, Northern Ireland, my own heart, my family. I don't have a mechanism to process all of what I've seen. I like to stare at things long, be in a room for a long time, have long conversations. In this deluge of sensation, where the plan is no more than a few nights in any given place for two months, I worry I will forget.

I do not want to forget a single bit of it, not even the stuffy and smelly queue Rachel and I waited in at the Fes train station: not even that memory.

I do not want to forget the smell of the market around the bus stop between Chefchaouen and Casablanca; dry dirt kicked up by vehicles, tanned leather, and bathrooms...

The relief of my friend's listening ear; my cousin's belief in me even when it seemed I had lost my mind; my aunt's joy in picking out dates and saffron in the market...

The sound of the endless ocean on the cliffs of Castlerock...

The translucent jellyfish on that beach, what the ocean must sneeze out when it's sick with jellyfish...

The sweet and sweaty heat of Washington DC when we came out of the airport and I stepped on my homeland's pavement.