Arriving in Morocco was like sliding into a familiar skin, one that makes you cry at the comfort of it, as if you'd been longing to wrap yourself in its folds forever. I don't recall the airport, only the drive to the hotel in Casablanca, the palm trees waving sideways, and the sky a washed-out, film set blue. In Marrakech, it is louder and warmer, and I am pulled into Jemaa el-Fnaa in the old city, leaving my husband in the hotel. He is exhausted and grumpy - I am alive and trembling with the vibrancy of a new place. We argue, and I use it as an excuse to run while he is in the shower, into the fray.
I am not unstreetwise, despite his concerns for my safety. He will catastrophize, whereas I expect the best, and neither of us is wrong nor right. It is just that I do not live the anxiety twice, the fear in my head, and the lived experience where the disaster doesn't happen. I have a small bag over my shoulder, threaded through my bra underneath my t-shirt and tucked into the top of my trousers. It is an old travel habit. I am furious that he thinks I cannot look after myself. In the square, a snake charmer twists his dance. It is early yet - the tourists are not in full throng. But I am happy. Some ancient part of me feels that this is my place, a genetic memory that smiles: you are home, you are home.
In the souks, I weave past rug shops, smiling at men who beckon me into their depths and laugh a no thank you, inhale ras el hanout, harissa, cinnamon, avoid the temptation of leather bags and ceramics. It is no different from any marketplace I have been in the world and extraordinarily different. I have already calmed down and long for Jamie to be with me, though I know he will be angry that I left without him. He loves me and worries, I know, and this emotional resonance of place is hard to articulate to him. How can I explain this connection, this tug of familiarity?
Later, we step out together, eat tagine and chargrilled brochettes in the smoking marketplace, and joke with the sellers whose comedy both entertains and sells. It does not take long to slip into a kind of pigeon banter - a sprinkling of French peppering our English with an Arabic greeting connects us quickly to the people who appreciate our attempts. Later we will be in a transport hub waiting for our bus to leave to take us over the Atlas mountains, and we watch their physical humour - the tap of a friend on the opposite shoulder, tripping people up and catching them make them laugh. We laugh with them. Later I'll trick our guide, Iache, by pretending there is something on his shirt, and when he looks down, I tap his nose. He finds it hilarious, and later, after we have gone to bed, we hear the desert men laughing hilariously. The next day, I see them tap chests and noses with guffaws of laughter.
Waiting for the guide to take us into the desert, I buy a silver pendant on a string of black beads from a man who explains to me the etchings. 'Etois' he says - stars. The small triangles are the Bedouin tents in the desert. It is a pendant for nomads and it makes my heart skip a beat. I do not know if his story is true or is a sales pitch, but I do not haggle.
Iache is a Tuareg man and teaches us how to tie a cheche or a tagelman, the scarf they wind around their heads to protect them from the desert sun and wind. The one the men wear is blue, dyed with indigo. He has never left the Sahara. He is warm and genuine and we form an instant joking friendship, one that makes Jamie laugh as he cannot believe how much I am jesting with this big, dark and intimidating desert man. There is only a handful of words between us. We joke that the big flies will transport us 'sans passporte' to meet each other again. He teaches me the Arabic word for star. I will forget it, but it is written on a scrap of paper along with a drawing of a fly. I will keep it forever. He is my kin. I imagine navigating the desert with him. I do not tell Jamie.
At night we watch the vast spread of stars twinkling through the holes in our hessian tent, sleeping on goat furs. I am awake a long time.
When we leave, Iache presses a stone into my hand. It has been carved by the desert winds over many years. I have never seen anything like it. As we cross back over the Atlas at night in a snowstorm, I hold it tight in my hand like a talisman. It comes with me all the way to Australia and sits on a windowsill in the bathroom where I see it every time I brush my teeth. There is a small glass bottle filled with sand from the Sahara too. Sometimes I pick them up and daydream of northern Africa.
I cried a lot in Morocco. It wasn't that I was sad, except that I worried I'd never return. I made Jamie promise to bring me back. Sometimes I think it was just the light, reminiscent of Australia, and I was homesick for big skies like this when I was cloistered in damp English valleys. But oftentimes I like to believe that in a long-gone life, I walked the Sahara and camped nightly under the stars with a tall desert man.
Postscript: We are returning to Morocco, some 15 years later. As I sit here in a classroom in Australia, it's all I can think about. I still struggle to explain the pull. I still wear the necklace occasionally, reminding me that in my heart, I am a nomad, with a head full of stars.
