Alienation is a Friend of Mine

Not sure where to begin... The hackneyed starving artist quotation "A writer writes!" will do as well as anything. Before, I was broke in another country, but hopeful of a job starting at the end of Ramadan... But my shredded nerves had other plans. (Props to the Foreign Service, and all their bustlingly professional sorts in consulates around the world, specifically one Pamela Hack.) When I arrived in the consulate in Casablanca, I was either embarrassingly drunk or else in need of medical attention. But I don't drink. I was perilously dizzy, perpetually falling, and sometimes hitting the ground. My speech was affected, as one might find in a person recovering from a stroke, slurred and mumbled. Three of my five senses were disrupted. But my family (by which I mean my blood, no one else since I'm not yet married, I'm old-school like that) got the message quickly and helped me out. Surely it was a poorly planned trip, and surely the lack of necessary measures was informed by my urgently felt need to escape from where I'd been. Ironic, then, to end up where I began, but in worse circumstances! Often I have felt ignored, overlooked, neglected, swaddled in a silence ostensibly justified by placing me in a safe location. Safe enough, but psychically draining-- easily bored, the only real entertainment I found was in substances. Given their inherent evanescence, obviously a waste. Only what is created matters, and of that, only NOW.

Some Thoughts

Mediocrity. Paranoia. Blindness. Oppression. Identity and its emptiness. Boredom. Sterility. Analgesia. Slavery, but consentual. Anonymity; would you know the difference? It was an idea informed by the environment of its birth in the hospital, and colored by the relative weakness of culture. But I won't let it go, even if it alienates everyone around me. Like that has ever stopped me. But a quote comes to mind, from a woman who works for the Algerian consulate: Never say die. It took me a bit of time to figure it out, but eventually I did.

Back in the _____ Again

God, it was good to be there for a little while... It became quickly apparent that I had prepared poorly. Though it must be noted: if you are going to be broke in Morocco, Ramadan is a good time to do this. True, I have benefited by returning...in some ways. Ways more valuable to others than me, considering I would make the same choices again. I regret that I have chosen rather expensive hobbies, but mektoub as we say. Carry on, and come up with a more sustainable way to serve these ends.