A vignette: imagine flying to Morocco on a budget airline flight (which in the end wasn't that cheap) seeing all the beautiful sassy ladies with their light blue headscarves, having a little hand come from the chair behind me touching my arm halfway through the flight cos the baby wanted to say hello... the planes are bright green, interesting colour concept. I was reading the latest novel by Oscar van den Boogaard, Magic Man, now there is a man if ever there was one who deserves to be translated and widely read in the english language (no self interest in that comment of course!) well before I get all preachy on you, well no, let me do just that. He is brilliant!
So there we were flying on the fourteenth of July over France. Last year we were celebrating at the Fireman's Ball in Montmartre, me swatting the men off my younger art school colleagues, who are very naughty, feeling like a right chaperone, and having an amazing bubbly pastis marinated time, having spent time earlier that day taking funny pictures with bananas at Versailles and basically on a collective aesthetic high, but that was a year ago. Look at me now! I thought... so high!
Below us in the darkness we could make out the contours of villages and cities, and suddenly there were flashes of colour, little lights, what were they? Suddenly they connected, this was no isolated incident, simultaneous mini flashes of exploding colour, tiny, miniscule but visible in the night. Then suddenly I remembered the date, and how we crane our necks backwards, and look up at the high!high! sky; fireworks that make you dream. And there I was flying what felt like a million miles higher, watching the silent popping below. So much for our dreaming and our wishfulness. A humbling moment, sheer delight. And then to be so very much touched, having wanted to go to Morocco for such a long time; and then to find, for me, it is such a simple operation. Of the one-way-ness of the trafic flow I am well aware. We saw the queues in front of the embassy of people waiting for a visa to get into Europe. The humiliation people have to go through to visit a relative (yes, a lot of people have family in europe) or even in the wish of finding work, is terrible.
With this ease of travel for us in mind, my gratefulness accrued, and we flew over France and Spain and landed in Casablanca in the dark. And I was ever thankful to land..I shall tell you more soon. Let it be said that I love Morocco and I hope I shall return soon.
tbc.
s2
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