Laayoune, in shorthand

It's four hours to Marrakech from Rabat, four more to Agadir, and 12 hours from Agadir to Laayoune. 12 hours on the road in almost constant view of the ocean. Cities tottering on the edges of cliffs, coves appearing out of nowhere, stark, high dunes, the flat, green tide pools. No one around. No camera could capture it; a comforting thought for me who didn't have a camera. The question of what to do with it all. How to hang on to it, that is.

It's very easy to hang onto on this sofa in the living room of my friend's house in the dark, where the house smells like the ocean and tonight we ate the best fish pastillas I've ever had, (although, to be fair, I'd never had them before tonight.)

The wind is strong in Laayoune and sounds like my dad's imitation of the wind. When my sisters and I were young, how he'd tuck us into bed. "Wshyoooooh," he'd howl, "It's negative 30 outside. There are wild animals on the prowl. But you're safe in your little igloo with your pack of dogs on guard, wshyoooooh." 

Today I felt tuned into the simplest pleasures, like a radio transitioning from static to the clarity of voices. The two bus drivers taking turns napping, breaking bread at a gas station, peeling an orange for my friend and I, tearing it in half to share, the juice running down my arms. They all seemed to me ancient gestures. The hot shower tonight. And now, soft sheets, a warm blanket. My friend gave me a clean kaftan to sleep in while her mom washes my clothes. In the other room, the voices of people who love each other, who won't go to bed yet; they have too much to say and, even more beautifully, nothing at all. 

This morning I said goodbye to the sisters we'd been staying with in Agadir, their mother, their friends. I didn't want to leave, they had grown so familiar and dear. So many people out here who, as they put it, "get in the heart very easily." Their hugs and kisses this morning, people who were strangers just two days ago. So many little rooms, so many bright faces, all the roads between them.

"Don't worry," says Mary Oliver, "sooner or later I'll be home / red-cheeked from the roused wind, / I'll stand in the doorway / stamping my boots and slapping my hands / my shoulders covered in stars."