On the Flip Side

And I'm not in Morocco anymore. I am, instead, sitting in my parent's home in Wisconsin. The hills are rolling, the forests are flush with newly grown leaves, the birds are riotous... in general, the land is in high gear for summer, and you can feel it. The air is humid, and it smells of chlorophyll, damp soil and plant sex. For the first time in about two years my hands are healing. They have been plagued by chronic eczema all this time, forcing me to wear rubber gloves for all washing, and obsessively applying lotion, all to no avail. Now, in the blessed humidity, they heal on their own.

This is quite the adjustment. Morocco is... I wanted to say a world away, but it isn't. I feel like it's a world away but it's actually part of this world, just a distant part. Me, I'm a child of forest and field, at home amongst cows (I love to let calves suck on my fingers), a lover of cheese, a wanderer of hidden leafy glades. I got used to the rock and cliff and medicinal herbs of Morocco. I loved my mountains of spices, forever smelling of rosemary. I mourned the floods that carried away the remaining topsoil. I was AT HOME there. More comfortable there than I am here now. I know I will get used to short sleeves, tank tops, shorts, hair let down, tight clothes, humidity, the color green, the availability of fancy stuff, driving my car EVERYwhere, and more... but part of me doesn't even want to. I don't want to take this for granted. I want to remember how priviledged we are to have topsoil. How decadent it is to be able to travel 50 miles round trip just for lunch with a friend--in a personal vehicle, by myself, and spend only 90 minutes on the road.

I like appreciating these things. I like knowing that I'm absurdly lucky. It makes me feel a little bit smaller. It makes me thankful. I wish the rest of my fellow countrymen and women understood. I think we would be happier with our lot in life if they really understood. I think they might choose to use what we have more wisely, that it might continue to be there in times to come. I hope these things despite the knowledge that people are greedy just as often as they are generous. Stubbornly hopeful in the face of reality, because that is something I learned in Morocco as well.