<-- The Rif mountains from the car.Is it just me or are there these certain moments in life that resound permanently in our minds and hearts?: they have a distinct, almost poignant feeling of time standing still, of every element crystallizing, of complete and total perfection.
I seem to be blessed with having more than usual of these moments lately.
I went on a most amazing hike through the Rif mountains Saturday. It was just what I had been yearning for: to get further into the back country of the Rif. My breath was taken away so many times. Although we had a very chatty and social group, on the way back the car was quiet. Our driver had Tajwid music playing: it's the solo, emotive half-singing, half-chanting of the Koran by a man, usually with a pinched and passionate tenor voice. I find it quite meditative and have come to love it. In this perfect moment, I was looking out the car window while my classmates snoozed or stared at the scenery in silence as well, watching these gorgeous mountains speed past. In that moment, there was this sense of timelessness and total gratitude as the thought hit me: I'm in a mini-van, listening to this gorgeous music in Arabic, winding through hairpin mountain roads, somewhere in the countryside of Morocco. In that moment, I felt incredibly moved by the simple beauty and wonder of just being there.
Maybe it was all the months of planning and stressing back home to get ready for this trip. Maybe it was the anxiety or unknowns that had been building for so long until I arrived here. Or maybe it was the long stretch of rough times I'd had in the previous chapter of my life that made this moment- and several others like them lately- taste oh so indescribably sweet.
Interestingly, with what I'd heard and read about Morocco and women traveling alone here, I was expecting to be emotionally exhausted on a regular basis: I was expecting to be always on guard, always with my walls up. But the opposite has been true. I've actually felt strikingly at peace here.
It's quite metaphorical, too, that I'm here during the month of Ramadan as I feel like a woman whose soul and spirit had been parched and hungry for meaning, readying for some bigger, more fulfilling path to unfold; and now, finally, I am sitting before a most generous and bountiful table of blessings, of pure soul food.
I had a second moment like this Saturday on my walk home from being dropped off in town just an hour before iftak. Walking through the medina before the sun sets in an adventure- there are so many people rushing to get home for the first meal of the day, for the breaking of the fast, that it's often difficult to even walk though the streets of the medina. Still, I love doing it. I actually love the hectic feeling, the strong odors of the fish market, the noise, the shouting, the chaos of people going every which way. For some reason, it makes me feel calm inside; maybe because it's not my culture? As I was slowly shuffling past an older man selling many kinds of dates, our eyes met and I smiled reflexively; he responded by reaching out his hand, full of dates and motioning to me as if to say, “these are for you.” I reached out my hand and he dropped the dates into them, beaming at me. As I thanked him heartily, the man waiting for his turn at the stand smiled too. What a beautiful act of humanity- here I am, just some strange woman walking past his stall who happened to smile at him and he decides to give me a handful of dates with the sweetest smile. That was another one of those moments where I feel a connection with the world around me in a way that feels truly divine.
Regardless of nationality, race, religion, skin color or gender, in these moments we are just people, experiencing the world, learning from each other, living as best we can, tasting the sweetness of a moment that reminds us what we're here for.
My hope for my life is to be able to string these sorts of moments together to live, as often as possible, in deep gratitude and awe of all life. This is what I imagine true peace or enlightenment-or whatever you want to call it- to be.
Of course, it's not always possible to be in this state of mind. I don't mean to imply that I'm in this state more often than not; there are days where I still find myself worrying about things, maybe even just out of habit. I recognize that life is made up of a spectrum of experiences, from blissful to painful, from inspired to humdrum. But my goal is to integrate these crystallized moments (that seem to happen more often for me when I'm traveling) with the rest of my life (like the life I lead when I'm not traveling).
It's also about integrating days I had like the one in the Rif with other days I have where I just don't feel all that great. I don't want to go home (eventually) making travel out to be the only savior for me; it's a tool for my awakening but I need to integrate it with every other part of Tamara so as not to make it an escape from anything.
In any case, I cling to these spiritual moments of connection just like any of us cling to hope of any kind; hope for humanity, hope for ourselves, hope for a link between the two. And I try to give myself the grace that life is in flux, changing from day to day; even as I string these sorts of perfect moments together in my own search for meaning in this life, the less than perfect moments, I remind myself, are no less beautiful (and perhaps important, too).
So as I find myself awakening in new ways in this culture, feeling a new stillness, feeling a wonderful sense of connectedness to my fellow human beings, even if I struggle to communicate in their language, there is a sense of home, a sense of place growing in me, reminding me that wherever I am, I am not alone.
