Into Morocco: The Romantic Version

Going back to Morocco involved deliberation. From Paris it's about a three hour plane ride and there are many flights per day carrying French tourists to it's no longer protectorate in Marrakech. We left many stones uncovered the first time, just skimming the surface, romantic notions noted but not lingered in, it was an imperative to see if these could be sustained or were we just dreamy tourists on a quick trip? We were. And were again. But Morocco is a dreamy place.

Itinerary went: A day in Marrakech into the color of the souks, into the small anthropology museums and defunct palace ruins of Marrakech and we jumped in a rental car (we paid cash for, no questions asked) and somehow found our way out of the city towards Ouarzazarte into the Atlas mountains along what was once one of the most important trade routes in North Africa, passing and stumbling around crumbling kasbahs, once strongholds of warlords, sultans, pashas, caïds. We passed deep green palmerais and slept in mud villages. We picnicked amongst white flowering almond trees and olive groves, rose estates, high snow-capped peaks, low salt baked plains, small villages, large towns, markets filled with donkeys goats sheep spices loud music and tomatoes from Agadir, 'til finally we reached a small section of shifting sands, the Erg Chebbi in the Sahara, in which we hopped out of the car immediately onto camels and into the dunes where we slept under a krillion stars. 

This is the romantic version. 

If I told you I just wanted to go to Morocco to buy a silver pouf, it would be much less interesting...more to come.

My Friends, Inspirations

In which I find great inspiration in my women friends and the hows and whats of what they say to the world:

"A: I hope that it says we are about love, kindness, finding beauty in the little things, and loving each other for exactly who we are and celebrating it. I also hope that the friends who visit feel welcome, comfortable, and cozy. That our home is a little escape from the everyday."

Melissa's answer when asked what she thinks her home says about her. 

"...I can't know what it's like to be the other kind of child" Sarah Manguso, Believe It or Not

(suggested reading)

"...In another, Dolores drove into a tree before we

were ever even born; in another, we owned a house

with a garage that kept the rain off, the rust out,

and the paint nice; in another, it was all mine,

we’d never met; in another, yours and someone else’s...."

Jennifer Knox, Pimp My Ride (first published in the New Yorker)

"At night, lying in bed, you think:

I haven't figured out my life yet.

Had children. Bought a house. Landed a career I love. Made peace with myself. 

I can't do all the things that will make you proud if you check out so soon.

Will they even mean anything to me after you're gone?...

...When it's over, I want to say all my life 
I was a bride married to amazement. 
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. 

When it's over, I don't want to wonder 
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.  

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 
or full of argument. 

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

Persephone Harrington

On connections between childhood beautifully considered, it's singular impressions, possibilities of its unfolding, pear-shaped and back again, how we can try to control the ways life gets done, how we strive to understand ourselves, what has happened to us, through what we make, the stories we tell, the lives we are joined with, the lives we create, watching it unspool until we wind it back up again; these, our responsibilities. 

The above powerfully good women in the inspiring ways that they do, I am thankful for the above in my life, I am thinking about my father who would have turned 92 this week, I am thinking of going back to it, now that the only thing I've done so far today is create an opportunity to think about the above, ruminate, move through it. Maybe you can see it better than me.

top 2 photos of Melissa's interiors by marichelle

3rd is mine, 4th is Robert Doisneau: Papa’s Airplane, 1934, 5th is of my parents by Alexa Vachon, 6th is by Jim, in Marrakech in the Badii Palace 

Everything's Coming up Violets etc.

What is it about violet? It's misty-ness? 

 

And bright orange? It's sunny-ness?

And a bright mixture of hot pink, safety-cone orange, pistachio green? It's floweriness?

Another 2 days on Fab.com. But Spring will be here longer.   And Spring? It's Springing-ness? Happy Spring.

Home and Another Fab.com Sale

My Paris Diary lost steam as I got busier with appointments in Paris. When Jim finally came a week later we paid homage to some beautiful art at the Louvre for his birthday (his b&w photo above) and then a visit to his favorite restaurant where none other than Catherine Deneuve, sunglasses and glory, sat behind him. I watched her elegantly pick up her rare steak with fork and knife, similar to what we had on our plates and thought how nice it was we all shared the same ability to chew, that celebrity means little in the face of a good Parisian lunch.Later we had a lot of fun with old and new friends, drank Calvados and walked and walked. The next day we flew to Morocco, the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert but that's a story for tomorrow. Today...

 

 

 ...at 11a.m. is Fab.com sale number three, Spring colors. 
Pass it on...

Paris Journal 2012: Apartment Therapy

Day 2 More: Saturday brunch at Sebastian and Noriko's on Rue Poulet right upstairs from the African Market. From outside, a beserk cacophony of hawking and action and baskets of tropical fruits and chilis to inside, a warm and cozy Paris apartment with a new baby named Iona and old and new friends. Each time I am here in Paris, I sink in deeper and deeper. Anyway.

Menu: poulet and galettes, tango music, multilingual election talk, game of pass the baby, apartment therapy. A full day of Paris leisure filled with style and love and not to mention, that hot pink wall kills.

Paris Diary 2012: Day 2: Just Do It