Productive Staggering, for a Change

Against all odds, I actually got a job!! No small feat in Ithaca, my placid town where being trilingual is not much of a distinction, and even less use. I am happily employed at Ithaca Coffee, where I spent 5 hours today learning how to do a few useful things. There will be more useful hours to come; inshalla'ah I will learn how to use the cash register in time. It's an agreeable place with an excellent beer selection. And it leaves room for the writing gig in a few months: I will be able (if all goes well) to handle both. Cross your fingers.

I am pleased as punch to be useful again. Even if I am the oldest member, even if I work with a girl who was born when I was in high school--it doesn't really bother me. This is all on the way back to where I should be. God bless our every move.

Let the Questions be Answered

Because it's her birthday. She's 21 today. Jalila Benlali, she's awesome. She didn't believe me when I said that her looks would turn heads in New York. But I don't lie about legs like that. Enough mournful drooling.

So God has commanded you to write; and offers no comforting justification. Do not write of yourself. Write instead of a fierce land clinging to the edge of a sharp stone, nestled in the sand. Only by God's mercy and grace is the land made green, any shelter found therein. For you are blessed in the eyes of God, who commands you to follow the Path He has cleared. The Way has never been clearer, so embrace and cling to it. In time, you will learn and grow. Do not lose the Path.

In Brief Response...

It is raining again in Ithaca, while it is warm and clear in Meknes. I know Morocco poses many problems that America does not, but it still seems like a much more proper place to me. I regret my many lapses and sins, and I pray that I will be allowed to return again. I am still sad, but I will continue putting one foot in front of the other, to take me down this path. And insha'llah I will arrive in a happier place one day.

Cryptic, ha!

Wide Awake on a Dark Plain

I will tell you what happened in Chaouen. The world became beautiful. This is not to say that the images presented by my eyes took on the attribute of beauty: but rather, that which beauty was, the world was made of that. It was in everything, as clear as a bell. The trees on the mountains, the curve of the hill, the angle of the sun. It was not only within me, but everything I saw. And things stayed like that.
I never forgot my vision, even though it dulled after months. I believe that I will find it again in the beloved land, and this remains my ardent hope. So when I say how things seemed so much clearer there, that is what I am talking about. I haven't talked about it more because I think many of you would think I was nuts. Or I lack the sufficiently eloquent skills to describe the feeling welling up in me from the vision.
I still feel it now, though it's faint. I need the strings of my heart to pull it back, and these are tied to things far from here. Without them, I am only half a man.
Bound to familiar sights in this country, you will not understand. That is clear. So I will wish you asalaam walaikum and hope that you see one day as I have. Insha'llah.

Not much to say at the moment. I thought I'd put up another picture from Chefchaouen: me and my buddy Zohair. We had a good couple days hanging out together. You see the blue glow on the wall from the glaze in the street. You see the tiled pavement. This was a nice small house. I wish I'd stayed longer there. I'll be back.

Walking This Stony, Sunny Path

I don't get it, but I guess I don't really have to... For no reason other than the apparent natural progression of things, my starkly black mood here in the gravel heap lifted, and I am still here. I still haven't met any other MS people, but this will come in time. In the meantime, I have other tomatoes to slice: a writing gig! ?!?!?!
I have known for awhile that I have some considerable writing skill, a predilection for matters literate and expressive and linguistic, but had I ever thought of applying this to employment? Haha! Of course not! For various quirky psychologic reasons, I felt obliged to a path which did not necessarily suit me... But moving on from the stage of interminable fits and starts to http://www.virtucomgroup.com/! If I pull this off well, this could be a redemptive boon to a puzzled career.
So how did I come to meet the owner of a dynamic and successful startup? Because he and his husband (shades of pink prejudice, but I think married gay couples are adorable) bought the folks' house in King Ferry! A veritable chance encounter, one of the sort that lead to marked mutual benefit. So the gig would essentially be online catalog copy writing. Content production, as they call it these days. Sorting out fluff to add new fluff? Something like that. A superior hourly rate has been floated, conditions were broadly described, and the potential for distance employment was offered.
A heroic return to my beloved country wavers before my astonished eyes. Life in Morocco on an American wage?! Even modest by Yankee standards, this is too good not to stake everything on. As if I ever do things by another strategy. So we will take the next steps over the next few weeks, and also find another place to live. I am very pleased by this development.

Besmillah er Rahman u Rahim!! Dima insha'llah, la79ash min Allah kulshi ja'in, wa kulshi bekhir t7at sma zerqa. Z3ma insha'llah, wa dima amin.