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Took off to the mountains with Barakat to several nurseries… in search of the perfect bamboo (to decorate his restaurants). With so much mountain air drive-time, I got to chat and hear so much juicy, insider information about Moroccan life, about entrepreneurial heart and soul, about the King of Morocco and how recent world events have shaken things up, about how real business works in Morocco… I got all the nitty gritty, the lowdown, the skinny…

Before heading back to Marrakech, we stopped at a rooftop cafe overlooking the valley of green, green foothills beneath the mountains…

A Berber boy was playing his piccalo flute, and we had him jam for us as we drank our mint tea…. sitting next to us at the next table, some businessmen were getting entertained by a couple Moroccan prostitutes (Barakat explained)… they all pretended to be unimpressed and unaffected, like they weren’t witnessing, at that exact moment, the most amazing flute they had ever heard in their entire prostituting lives…

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I think if I did not have any family, I would live here… Marrakech is rocking me and seducing me and letting me fall madly in love with her…

I originally intended to be on my way to some other town a few days ago, but I ran out of cash and my bank declined all attempts at the ATM… cut me off cold… assuming that any activity in Morocco would be fraudulent (yes, I forgot to tell them I was coming here)…

So I was completely out of money for 3 days, stuck in Marrakech, unable to get a call through to the bank to explain… my hotel was sold out full and Muhammed kindly put me up on a cot on their 4th story rooftop… they fed me and watered me and so generously took care of me… with sit-down, home-cooked style Tajine meals… (just me and the hotel maids and hotel clerks)… where each sitting becomes an intimate, hand-to-mouth, family circle as everyone digs their bread into the center community stewing plate (no forks, no spoons)… and laughs and tells hilarious stories… in Arabic… no English…

I finally got thru to the bank with a clever, crazy scheme… Skype and my sister’s two phones, all daisy-chained… I got some fresh cash, and went back to hang out at an amazing restaurant I found a couple days ago… stretched dinner into a 3-hour pleasure treasure… the owner happened to drop in while I was getting a personal lesson from the chef on how they make their Moroccan mint tea… step by step…. (pushing my way in with my steady persistent curiosity)…

Barakat (the French-Australian owner) and I hit it off swimmingly (he used to own several restaurants in LA) and he invited me to run errands with him into the nearby mountains tomorrow… olay.

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Time has become meaningless again… especially here… there are only light hours and dark hours… no weekdays… no weekends… It is always “today.” Hungry, eat… Sleepy, sleep…. Dreamy, dream…

A million miles away from home, the same rules apply here…. Love everyone you meet…. Always be true… Help each other… give something away and expect nothing in return….. give free light… a free smile… a free memory… a kind word… a generous ear… the contagious gift of timelessness…. give.

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Dear Souls,

My heart is swelling out of its cage and bursting its seams. THIS is true home. Not a physical place or geographical spot on a map, but rather, the state of mind and joyful ache that comes from freefalling into the unknown and explodes when lit on fire…

I am the prodigal son returning from a lengthy separation… from a careless squandering and wasting of precious time…. letting distractions keep me from life’s honored calling…

This is the place where solitude and heartache and tearful happiness live and breathe… this state of heart… is home…

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In the middle of this carnival freakshow is an island of restaurant food stalls. Once inside this net, it becomes its own dinner theater. The piranha barker vultures are all competing with each other to get passersby from the overflow of the freakshow…. There are over 100 stalls, all BBQ-ing their lamb and chicken kabobs, all have the same menu, all have their memorized rhymes and lines to rap and hypnotize any unsuspecting victim into their den…

At some point, it does work, or I have a breaking point and my resistance wears out and I cave in… So I ate. Meanwhile, or all the while, the perfect dinner music is seeping in and throbbing just outside the island of stalls in the ever-growing, steady steam train of tribal drums and lute and throat yodelers… as it fills any possible hope of quiet peace… a non-stop wall of constant rhythm and chanting and singing… Bon Appetit…

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MARRAKECH
It’s a sunset circus freak show…. as the daylight sneaks away, the town square plaza becomes a hornet’s nest of swarming mobs around drum circles and giant, hypnotic campfire chant-singalongs….. henna tattoo pushers (in full burka), monkey grinders, snake charmers, transvestite belly dancers, midget dinner violinists, dentists with jars and jars of teeth, 3-Card Monte game hustlers and scammers, lute and drum jammers, medicine men and storyteller preachers, the beggars and the cheats, the crippled and the contortionists, barkers and showmen and carnies, oh my…
a whirlwind of beauty in the carnival chaos…

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BREAKFAST AT HEATHROW
Being in the world presents an awkward crimp in my natural disposition of wanting/needing personal space and insulation from other people… the trespassers… however, it seems God has a cosmic sense of humor, and refuses to let me have my way… or rather, knows what is better for me… and continually kicks me out of my comfort zone into the oncoming traffic of others’ lives…

This morning, the airport was hopping…. trying to find any breakfast privacy was impossible… and I got thrown onto a shared table and suffered through… and of course, I had the most delightful conversations… first with a friendly, green-consumed eco-speaker, on his way to give a carbon-footprint-free speech in Dublin… we got to talk about high school teen heroes and various youth-dreams… lovely…

As I started to leave, an elderly man sat down, settled, and I offered a polite, obligatory welcome to “my” table… as I kept trying to leave, he unintentionally kept reeling me in with his starry-light eyes and hilarious life stories. He’s been a catholic Irish priest in the UK for over 50 years, and was finally taking a vacation home to see family in Belfast. I was glued to my seat for an extra hour as we talked and talked… his cheerful, holy sweetness would disguise his incoming f-bombs that laced such precious jokes and yarns (each time was a sucker punch surprise and I tried to keep a straight poker face to hide my shock and awe)…
I asked him if he ever had doubts about his career choice when he first started out… not his FAITH (as all humans inevitably do at some point in their life), but whether he ever considered a different job… he said, “Of course, but that happens to everyone, no matter what they choose to do.”

I am always in amazement at someone who has devoted their entire life to helping others in their suffering… how much weight and sorrow to carry… to feel that much empathy and to be able to give hope in the worst of times… how that would naturally wear your own heart out from exhaustion….

He shared many light stories from his life and we never once talked about God or the church… it was a long, long morning that ended in a flash… like any perfect breakfast… and I finally rushed off to the security check point to get myself frisked and felt up… like any perfect morning…

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LONDON
Flew in to London today… immediately jumped on the tube to kill the day and float around the middle of town… accidentally missed a stop and landed at Leicester Square… it turns out this was opening night for the big BFI London Film Festival, and I stumbled in to the crowds of cattle lining a red carpet entrance…. after several inquiries to different Christmas-eyed, pre-starstruck gawkers, it was clear nobody really knew what or IF anything was happening… George Clooney or Anthony Hopkins and other guesses were supposed to arrive soon…. but after 15 minutes, I was too wounded from boredom and couldn’t suffer any longer (even for the paparazzi-style photo op) and continued on my happy exploration….

It didn’t seem like I had strayed too far off the beaten path, but at one point, I noticed people were getting friendlier and their eyes were hungrier and I could feel I was getting more attractive by the lusty glances and slow motion, lip-syncing to some imaginary song… a real hero’s welcome!

A gentleman stepped out of the shadows and appeared to have a serious, urgent message for me… some important secret that only I was privileged to hear… he whispered in such a low tone that I couldn’t make out a single word.
I stepped in closer.

ME: “Pardon me, sir?”

GENTLEMAN: [Repeated something inaudible]

I stepped in still closer.

ME: “Sorry?”

GENTLEMAN (in a low, thick, South African accent): “Sexy gurlz?… Titties?… Sexy gurlz?… Any-ting you want…”

ME: “Me no want.” I slowly stepped off the curb, looking to the RIGHT… to find some food and light…

I kept wandering until the night ran out of steam, and made my way back to Heathrow in time for breakfast…