All the Things

I am finding it helpful to focus on having one or two positive experiences each day with the kids, and with travel, rather than taking the day as a whole. No surprise there--this seems to be a lesson I must learn again and again, to manage my expectations. One Saturday the positive event was finding a fantastic Indian restaurant in Grantham and then introducing the kids to Costa coffee hot chocolate; one Sunday it was the lovely service at St. Mary and St. Peter, Harlaxton, and the nice chat with parishoners and my Meet-a-Family from 1998; it's been a nice walk along the Grantham canal, or our first walk as a family along the mile to the Greg, or the beautiful sunset behind Belvoir Castle on a Friday evening, after introducing the kids and Ben to Eton Mess. It's been seeing the kids' excitement and adorable-ness when they tried on their school uniforms, or gratitude that they have playmates here, or the beauty of the fields post-harvest around the manor. It's getting stuck in to the fifth installment of the Maisie Dobbs series that the librarian graciously bought for me, getting to know some new colleagues, and seeing the kids find the Harlaxton bikes (thank you, Zyggy!). There are many, many kind people here at Harlaxton, and I've enjoyed my students, too, grateful that I seem to have a good group from Baker. Oh--it's the first bubble bath I've taken in 12 years (glorious) and the fun of watching people discover the joys of travel for the first time.

Figuring out transportation to school has been a larger, more ambiguous and more frustrating task than I'd hoped. There are six primary-school-aged children at Harlaxton this fall, and, while we were informed in July that we'd need to taxi the children to school, the numbers (and even our family, on outings) requires a minibus or two taxis, and costs £18 each way rather than the £6 that we'd heard and begun to budget for. We considered multiple alternatives and it's been like a logic puzzle; we even joked that maybe we should consider boating the children to school on the Grantham canal, but we always came to the same answer with respect to cost, time for the children, and energy given for the accompanying parent. The smartest financial move was to rent a car, which cost us roughly $12 a day for the three months we need it. We got the car on Saturday this week (school started Monday) and I felt immediate freedom. I am also disappointed in myself, as I wanted to be a person who relied more on public transportation and saw Britain again by train, as I did in 1998 and 2003, but ease and freedom win, and we are privileged to have that choice. Update--we're now three days into school and I am so relieved we went with car. Easy for me to say as I wave to the kids each morning as they drive away with Ben, but I did get to do pick up yesterday afternoon and all is going smoothly. Ebi made "9 friends" on the first day and is having that intense pleasure of being a novelty--she starts Girl Guides on Monday and has met another Eboni in her grade, and the boys just report that "the other kids were naughty, but I listened, and there are computers in my classroom." Sacou is learning to read and we sat last night on a bench looking out over the vale of Belvoir, so, all in all, not a bad place to read with one's child. I still have some anxiety about the academic demands of school in the U.K., but they are young, and seemingly open to change, and I am grateful for that.

We took advantage of that vehicle-having-freedom right away on Sunday and traveled to Calke Abbey, which I'd read about this summer in Bill Bryson's latest, The Road to Little Dribbling. It's a once-great-estate (I'm sure I read 28,000 acres in its heyday) that saw the passing and near-financial-ruin of its last direct descendant in 1989. The National Trust has chosen to repair, not restore, the property and there is peeling ceilings and paint and dusty rooms filled with treasures--the Harpur-Crewe family were great lovers of natural history, and collectors, particularly during the Victorian period, and were basically hoarders as we'd understand it today. Prior to the last descendant's passing, many rooms of the house were closed off to save money at the end of the Edwardian period, and it's all a bit sad, and creepy. As a psychologist, it's clear evidence of a family history of mental illness, too--one baronet only communicated with his servants by note, shut his once-a-lady's-maid wife off from the rest of society, and asked to have the dining table set for company every night but always dined alone. I loved the gardens, the good-ish weather, the playground for the kids, their engagement with the house itself, and all the sheep. Calke Abbey is near Melbourne, England, home of Captain Cook, so Ben made some fun connections too. There's also two bird-hides on the property and lots of room to run, so it was a good day.

Last Friday I took and early train to London to visit Freud's home with students--it exceeded my expectations, and reminded this "seasoned" psychologist how much I owe Freud for the profession I love. Outside of being in his space and admiring Freud for his genius and curiosity and liberal-mindedness, I loved the education director, Stefan, and experienced not a little transference! in trying to impress the clever young psychoanalyst with my questions. I was back by mid-afternoon (after a shameful and comforting stop at Chipotle) but I liked being reminded how easy it is to get to London, even for half a day.

One other struggle we've had, and this is the outside of my sharing comfort zone here, is figuring out the right balance on managing the kids' behavior and our expectations of the kids. There's been some highs--they sat through convocation last week and the high table dinner, and were delightful--and they are generally respecting our rule that we eat dinner as a family (not with their peers or college-student buddies). The challenging behavior is all expected--picking on each other, resisting bedtime, trying to eat multiple desserts, having a food fight in the new rental car (THANK GOD it wasn't in the refectory)….and that's tiring but part of it. The tough part of managing behavior is doing it a) with an audience of 200 people and b) with the underlying terror that I'm doing it wrong and not enough or too much or in a way that means that we'll not be invited back or will become a family that stories are told about or the kids who break something priceless or end up at the bottom of a well somewhere in the woods and then the news follows us for three days until Sacou (because it would be Sacou) is rescued and then there are follow-up stories on every major milestone he hits and we get a Wikipedia page and we become the people that get talked about like the family whose son got in the gorilla cage or was drowned by an alligator at a Disney resort or I'll spend the whole fall so anxious about it all that I won't be present and who wants to remember those five months of their childhood that mom was a glass case of emotion because our family comes first, even before Harlaxton and IT'S EXHAUSTING so let it go already and why can't they just appreciate how marvelous this is and just get over the stupid broken crayons in your cheap packet that I bought you as a distraction so I could wonder around the market, dammit. Another update: This has gotten WAY easier since school has started and since all three of our children have fallen in total love with the Baker students who have spent the past two evenings riding bikes, playing soccer, and even cutting up their dinner for our kids, (who are wholly capable of cutting up their own dinner). Sacou had a dream this Monday evening, (just before the first of two Harlaxton fire alarms) that he and Thor saved one of the students from a fire and has been talking about it on the reg--he is very proud of himself, and one can assume that Sacou was hero and Thor just had an assist.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was a great day--"gong-ing" the start of British Studies in the morning, doing my first barista shift in the bistro, having a day date with Ben at The Greg, and even reading for pleasure a bit. I'm having the joy, once again, that comes from travel, of re-evaluating the way you do things at home--not having all the time planned, rejecting FOMO, and just sitting and talking with your partner, which is sometimes difficult to do in our life in the U.S. I had two glasses of wine before bed and watched the Bakeoff with some colleagues (my favorites are still in), so a fantastic day.

This weekend we're off to Cambridge and the coast, just day trips, and Ben is going to a nature preserve on Friday to go birding while I teach. Friday evening we're getting the "secret tour" from Andy, who will show the kids secret staircases, and Monday and Tuesday are time for the first round of exams.

Thanks for reading-

R

Photos from Gotland

A Spider Bit Me in Sweden, or, the Rest of Our Time in Sweden

Hi all! I'm writing from our lovely flat at Harlaxton Manor, where the weather is lovely, the people are lovely, the surgery in nearby Croxton Kerrial is lovely and efficient, even when they are squeezing pus out of your forehead….ah, England, where everything feels safe and comfortable. I'm so glad to be here.

First--I don't want to give short shrift to our final few days in Sweden, so I'll start there. It's difficult, however, to keep perspective on all that, now that I feel at "home" and have ready access to iodine patches to help my spider bite heal…

On Thursday last week I had the challenge of driving a rental car, sans GPS, from Arlanda airport to our Airbnb flat in Stockholm--easy enough on the E4 south, a bit more challenging once I was in the Sodermalm. Ben and the kids hung in the foyer of our flat after check out time and until I arrived, and, after a courage-giving kanelbullar and coffee, we headed south to Nynashamn ferry terminal to catch the ferry to Gotland. I liked driving a Volvo, and the kids were interested in the ferry experience, particularly the loading and unloading, and we arrived at our sweet little Airbnb stuga about 9 p.m. It was a small local cottage that had a nice porch and deck and a very different feel than our urban apartment in Stockholm, but I'd neglected to understand the Swedish well enough to know that we needed to provide our own sheets and towels, so our host scrounged what she could and we made it for four days on one towel (we washed it every day, don't worry, and dried it on the radiator…). 

Gotland is very beautiful. We were a short walk from a place called The Pancake Tree, build from a felled tree on the island that was moved and made into an epic playground where you can make your own pancakes on a giant, wood-fired griddle. We spent much of Friday afternoon at the Pancake Tree, where the kids played, Gabe and I took a long walk by the ocean, picking blackberries and watching bunnies and boats, and Ben got lots of photography time. We learned the next day that the builders of the Pancake Tree built the place in memory of their two sons, Max and Charlie, who died in the 2004 tsunami, in Thailand. It was a joyful place built from much grief, and a beautiful way to memorialize their sons. We spent Friday morning exploring Visby, a walled medieval town that hosts a medieval week each year and had just hosted Crime Week, a literary festival for crime writers from all over. Just after we left, there was an art festival coming to town, so we were there in the short break between festivals, though things were still fairly busy. Later in the time on the island we discovered some nicer places within Visby, but that first day, it seemed very commercial. Ben noted that it felt like a place that had made a deal with tourism and then regretted it, and I would agree. I did enjoy buying some local cheese and pesto from the cheese monger in Visby, and we had a fantastic lunch at Creperie and Logi, a French-style creperie what was yummy, where the kids tried (and liked!) some Norman cider. We had a nice dinner that night on the deck, where we could see the ocean and hear birds singing, and Friday was a good day.

The kids were eager to head back to the Pancake Tree on Saturday morning, but were real ornery, so much so that we imposed a time out that resulted in MUCH tantruming (ok, about 3 minutes, but you know that feels like an eternity) so I sent Ben and Ebi off to explore while I stayed home with the boys for an hour who promptly feel asleep as they were in timeout in different rooms. Just before they nodded off, a nosy (less generous Robyn) or caring (more generous Robyn) neighbor came over to "cheer the boys up" but also see "why (they) were upset" and, essentially, to see if we were beating them. Explaining our employment of consequences to an elderly Swedish woman was a real joy. We saw her the next day at the Pancake Tree, where she observed us and hung for a while, pleased that we had decided to stop abusing our children and allow them some small joy. Saturday was definitely the bottom of the family travel U--they were tired, we'd been with one another 24/7 for more than a week, and I'd woken up with a weird pimple that hurt a lot. I told Ben that we'd spent a lot of money to scream at our children in a foreign country. When Ben and Ebi got back, Ebi and I went for a sullen drive up to Kammelsham at the north of Gotland, and got take out savory waffles, and visited a great church. One of my favorite parts of Gotland was visiting a few of its 100 churches. Saturday was redeemed after everyone went to their emotional corners and napped before a dinner out at a tasty restaurant called Surfers in Visby, and a stroll to the cathedral where there was an organ concert, and a stroll through Visby at sunset, which was lovely, particularly the homes on the less-touristy side. 

On Sunday I woke with some swelling in my forehead and a bit of swelling under my right eye but thought it was just a really unpleasant pimple. It was rainy, rainy, rainy all day, so after 30 minutes at the Pancake Tree we spent the morning exploring churches on the island, which I really enjoyed and the kids and Ben tolerated for my sake. We visited about four churches on Sunday morning, and I was most impressed by Larrebro, where there had been a hospital for concentration camp survivors, and those who died while in care, mostly ages 21-40, about 50 in all, are buried in a multi-faith cemetery on this small Swedish island. I found that very moving, and admire the island's commitment to keeping up the churches (many were under repair) and to the revolving-pastors who hold worship services once or twice a month in the churches. There are many standing stones on the island, too, some of which are on church grounds. Sadly, I did not fall back through time in 1700s Scotland (yet)but given my recent need for medical care this turned out to be good luck. The other nice bit of Sunday was tea and ice cream at Sjelso Bageri, a bakery on the coast just north of Visby and overlooking an old fishing village, where Ben took some great pictures, I met a nice Swede to chat with, and the kids continued to have no chill.

Monday we returned by ferry where I donned a big pair of sunglasses because much of the right side of my face was pretty swollen, my right eye was swollen shut. Ben drove us to Uppsala, which is a great college town just north of Stockholm, and I enjoyed the park and tried to read while Ben took the kids for a walk and then we took them to a park--it was a nice last day in Sweden, though, if I'm honest, I was feeling really cruddy, not a little vain about my face, and had a good cry in the park for myself. It helped, but those of you who know me well know that I am not good sick. I returned our rental car, we had a picnic in our airport hotel, and tried to emotionally prepare ourselves for the early morning flight. The good news--that went smoothly, and I felt better emotionally almost as soon as we arrived at Harlaxton, and I feel better physically today.

The doctor in Croxton Kerrial thinks I was bit by a spider; he can't identify the spider from the bite, but I was in BAD shape physically when we arrived at Heathrow and Holly, Harlaxton's wonderful bi-continental coordinator, booked me into the surgery almost immediately (and drove me, offering empathy throughout.) I'll spare you the details, largely, unless you are Esme who has been getting a series of disgusting, un-bandaged photos, but I've been lanced twice and antibiotic-d and squeezed and bruised by some really nice doctors and nurses and I am feeling much better. Everyone feels very sorry for me. Last night I put an Avengers sticker on my bandage (it was weepy, gross) and I named the wound Paul Hollywood as the new season of Bakeoff is starting here.

More on our arrival and first few days at Harlaxton soon--it's been really good.

Harlaxton 2.0: Married, with children

Hej Hej Thank you for being interested in our time abroad! Permit me a little background. When I was 19, I studied abroad at Harlaxton College, long-referred to as the British campus of The University of Evansville. Baker University, my alma mater and my employer, has had a "partner" relationship with Harlaxton College for nearly 30 years. I remember, before it was cool to do so, working to be "present" in the Harlaxton experience, as I was oft-worried that it would be my one-shot abroad. To my great fortune, that semester abroad was the first of several travel adventures, and, somewhere in the intervening 18 years, I developed and nurtured my professional dream to be a professor, to be a professor at Baker, to work in international education, and to return to Harlaxton College as a visiting faculty member. I recently read a journal entry from 2007, just before I finished my doctoral work, to that end--"How cool would it be to teach at Baker, and to one day return to Harlaxton?" It's very cool. Our family of five will be in Europe from August-December, and will end 2016 in Australia with my in-laws before returning to the U.S. in mid-January.

Sometimes on this blog I'll wax-on about how incredibly fortunate we are--please know that this does not escape me. I've nearly teared up twice, today, about that very thing. Sometimes I'll focus on what it's like to travel with three children--prior to this experience, several people looked at me askance when I told them we were trying this, but, five days in, I'm so glad we did. Sometimes I'll talk about how travel makes me grateful for home. Sometimes I'll write about how my lens has changed since I was traveling at 19, or about daily life at Harlaxton, or about traveling abroad with three generations, as we plan to do in September when my folks visit. Sometimes I'll write about how this experience changes or otherwise illuminates something about our family's function--Ben isn't working while we're abroad, and our family routines are already much changed. Also, there will be a lot of pictures of food.

As I write, we are in Stockholm, experiencing Scandinavia for the first time. Ben and I sat down several months ago and discussed our personal goals for this experience, and one of mine was to travel somewhere new to me, and I was pretty clear that that somewhere should be Scandinavia. I do have Swedish heritage, despite what Andrea Howell will say in these comments, and I love water, coffee, not being hot, feeling cozy, and socialist democracies. So, Denmark and Sweden, what up?

We flew Kansas City to Detroit to Paris to Copenhagen, and the universe knew what it was doing when it gave us these kiddos--our only meltdowns, even with a delay, a missed connection and a 13-hour-layover in CDG, were about turning off or walking away from technology. This happens routinely at home as well. When we finally arrived in Copenhagen, at about 1:30 in the morning, we collectively passed out and then hit it with a great exuberance the next morning about 8:30, when we took a walk from Nyhavn, along the canal, through the royal palace, and on to Tivoli, the world's second-oldest theme park, where we spent much of the day, a good-call when traveling with exhausted children--we were able to get about 14 hours of energy from the kids, though Gabe, our youngest, did fall asleep in my lap at dinner. A great waitress (Psychology major--woot woot!) kindly gave us recommendations for where the locals eat, and we walked to paper island, an old paper-mill district filled with hip food trucks and lots of summer-loving Danes, for dinner and people-watching. I loved that, and I loved Tivoli--it was perfectly charming. Ben had virtually no sleep but the kids and I slept very well on Sunday evening, and we had a nice walk through Nyhavn before taking the bus to get our train to Sweden on Monday, midday. I'm sure it helps that our children are so damn cute, but every Danish person I encountered was warm and helpful--that has largely been true in Sweden as well, as people have approached us to see if we need help (we usually do.) What memories stand out from Copenhagen--watching my children play on street trampolines, watching our boys' joy in the bumper cars, winning Galoppen, the horse-racing game at Tivoli (this makes me more like my other true love, Richard Ayoade); eating some boss Hansen's ice cream at paper island, and the general warmth of all the Danes we encountered. Copenhagen exceeded my expectations, and we never even made it to the Little Mermaid.

Given the aforementioned lack of sleep, Ben was in need of some serious rest on our 5-hour train to Stockholm, but did stay awake long enough to play The Bridge with me while we crossed the Oresund bridge. If you haven't seen the American version, good for you--watch the Danish/Swedish version. Playing The Bridge pretty much just means talking about The Bridge--make up your own rules, it's cool.

We have tried our first Airbnb experience in Stockholm, and I have loved it. We're staying in a flat in the Sodermalm, just south of the old town (Gamla Stan) and very near a T-bana (Metro) station. Here's what works--we've done breakfast and dinner at "home" each day, and there's a playground just three blocks away, where we spent much of today. There's a washer and dryer, critical with children, and it turns out that it's really just the differences that fascinate children. Here's what they have to say, in response to the questions, "what did you like best about Copenhagen? Stockholm? and, What have you noticed is different?" As at home, Ebi is interested in the food, Sacou wants to Parkour everything, and Gabe wants to push ALL THE BUTTONS.

Ebi-Jumping on the road trampolines; playing at the park; people here talk differently; the houses are small.

Sacou--Jumping on the trampolines; I like the donuts (kardemmumabular, me too!); people talk differently (Sacou is totally copying, btw)

Gabe--Going on planes; going on underground trains; "I don't know anything else."

I intend to ask them this each night, but have made the mistake of asking them while they are watching the i-pad, the first day we've broken it out so far on the trip. Crickets.

I am working hard to manage expectations of self and others on this trip, and we were pretty wiped on Monday night, so I hit the grocery store (I love foreign grocery stores) and we had pizza just down from the flat. On Tuesday, a beautiful, sunny day, we took the T-bana to Gamla Stan and then walked to a tram, eventually lunching outside the Vasa museum and visiting the nearly 400-year-old warship, which was actually pretty darn cool. I am proud that we navigated the T-bana with three kids and they enjoyed the tram to Djurgarden and the ship building "games" at the Vasa museum. One other thought about the kids and what they notice--Ebi stops to read all the signs of panhandlers, largely written in English, and says, "we need to help [them] get back to their kids." It is challenging to explain homelessness to your children.

We'd hoped to take the Waxholmsbolaget boats to island-hop today, but it's been a cool and rainy day, so we went for Family Fika (coffee and a pastry, in this case a delicious kardemummabular) instead, which was fantastic, and spent about five hours at the park today. We all played for about an hour, then I had an hour to myself to walk through east Sodermalm today, looking at these wonderful old cottages near Sofia church, and spending some time alone at the church. We had fantastic falafels for lunch (the kids loved this hip spot) and then I played with the kids for a couple hours while Ben had some adult time. Ebi made a Swedish buddy, who was six, and whose English was better than mine, basically. Tonight we're having an indoor picnic, and then I am picking up a rental car tomorrow  (wish me luck) and, after more fika (I'm all about those buns) we will catch a p.m. ferry to Gotland. I hope we can do some island-hopping when we are back on Monday, as it seems like a real treat.

Recommendations so far? Hotel Bethel in Nyhavn, Copenhagen--let us all 5 share a room, greeted us at 1 a.m., incredibly considerate, good location, good breakfast. Kardemummabular.

Thanks for reading.

R

Tomorrow...

Hi all,
I've dusted off the ol' blog so as not to flood my Facebook feed (the kids tell me that FB is for old people now, anyway) and will be posting pics and updates of our travel here. Also, heads up, my phone number goes on sabbatical from calls and texts tomorrow, so I am not ignoring you if you write/call; it'll be back in action in January.
Love,
Robyn, Ben, Ebi, Sacou and Gabe

One Post Every Three Years--Not Bad!

Hi Friends and Family,

I’ve elected to start putting this on my blog so that, firstly, people can choose to read these updates ON THEIR OWN TIME instead of in one’s inbox and, secondly, because I like the juxtaposition of our free-wheeling life of travel with our now three weeks of experience as parents.

This week started well—first walk downtown for brunch in their strollers, our introduction to the Kids Menu, some time at a new park, and swimming as a family. Since I’ll still be seeing clients on Saturdays, Sundays, always precious, are even more so, and it was a good one. I was anxious about Monday as we had our first case plan meeting (and I was meeting their parents) but it was overall a very positive experience. Many of you have asked about this and I am most grateful, and I’ll share to the extent that I feel that I can preserve their privacy and dignity, too. Mom and Dad were very gracious to me—Dad even thanked me for taking care of his children. They are really up against it—tremendous poverty, stress, mental illness, homelessness, unemployment, domestic violence...the stuff of life too difficult and too taxing, and I pray for them now that I know them. We know no more about how long the boys will be with us, if we’ll end up their forever family or if we’ll simply be what we hope is a healthy and happy stopover while Mom and Dad figure it out. I’m asking, in my prayers that the right thing happen.

I’ve been helped TREMENDOUSLY by a helper, J, who is staying with our friend Elizabeth. She’s 16 and comes two days a week to help me take the kids on additional adventures that are too unwieldy for zone defense. I’ve been grateful for her 16 year-old energy as she can endlessly chase and climb and swing and because she allows me to stem the tide of dirty diapers, dirty bottles and sippy cups, dirty clothes, the diverse menu on our kitchen floor....I was especially grateful Wednesday as the boys had their first pediatrician visit and ended up needing six shots each—awful—parents know you have to hold their little hands down and I did my best not to cry, too—but they were fairly quickly soothed by stickers and are in seemingly good health and on track developmentally.

We’ve discovered a new indoor playpark which has been terrific this week with super-high temperatures—the boys know no strangers, but play well with others and listen as well as can be expected for their age.

One observation this week has been an increase in behaviors—nothing that seems inappropriate, at all, but Ben and I posit that they’re relaxing as time goes on...so there’s more attitude and tears at bedtime, more wrestling, more timeouts, longer meals (but remember I did that ABA therapy for a year with a little boy with Autism? That has come in very handy with “What are we working for, cheese or grapes?” as a reward for the additional bite of eggs or pasta or whatever the undesired item is that day. ) Thing 2 likes to climb his brothers crib which is a big no-no, so we’ve had to stem that a bit (though it seems to have gotten better over the last three days, fingers crossed) and Thing 1 is waking once a night now wanting a bottle. I was worried we were underfeeding this child, who is a Hoss, but Ben suggested that it might be starting here in week three as there was likely some period of time in which the cries were not answered so he learned not to bother. I have to admit that, since it’s only once, I love the night-feeding; Thing 1 is so cute and snuggly and just a baby at that point and I love it.

Highlights this week; my first Mama, Ben’s first Dada, my first “Lub you” in response to I love you, lots of giggling. Lowlights include some post-nap whininess, sibling rivalry and toy-grabbing, and, Lord, the urine. So much urine. Ben had a treat last night of the first BM during bathtime. He drew a winner.

Lindsey, pink boots were left in the jogging stroller and we’ve set them by the door to return. Thing 2 things he looks FABULOUS in them, so it will be a subtle reconnaissance  mission.

Being a stay-at-home parent, for even three weeks, has challenged me, and I’ve been so grateful to friends who offer to babysit, friends who call and text, your listening ears. Tuesday was particularly tough with the behaviors and it felt like I was living with two tiny, irrational, charismatic Warlords bent on my destruction. Last night we watched (we are watching The West Wing for the third time once the warlords go to bed or at least stop whatever resistance they are launching that night) the episode where Toby ‘s twins are born and he speaks about his anxiety about loving them enough—and this spoke to me. I’m good at structure and routine and discipline but need work with patience and silliness and managing my own anxieties around this whole process.  I also love my adult life—our friendships, our plans, my work, and I want to do it all well. Anyway, here’s what he said:

If, for nine months, you're hearing how this is gonna change

your life, and: "You've never loved anything like this," and, "My God, the

love" and, "Nothing's gonna be important anymore." It just never really felt

to me like I was someone who had the capacity for those feelings. Plus, you

know, I like what's important to me. I want it to stay important. I, uh,

I wanna be able to do it well.

Thanks for listening. 

Morocco, for now

July and August are not the time to go to Spain and Morocco. I knew this. I knew this the way you think you know how student loan and credit card debt are going to feel until you are actually paying it off. I knew that 130 degrees would feel hot. But I didn’t know how that really felt until I was there, in it, squeezed into the back seat of a 1980s Mercedes with our guide and driver, Ben and Carrie on either side of me, on our tour of Fes. And no air conditioning. Never any air conditioning. Carrying a giant, hard-bargained lamp, a back pack, a carpet (even harder bargaining) and using my mantra “You will probably never see this again, appreciate it, appreciate it, appreciate it” and just dreaming, instead, that you are “home” at Riyad Bahai’a, eating some lentils, drinking some mint tea, and trying to get the shower tap to run as cold as possible. You will be humbled—three times you will cry—once because you have a fever and because you weren’t prepared to have so many people stare at you, and because this is a trip, and trips aren’t supposed to be so hard, and, dammit, you are a seasoned road warrior, why are you crying, and, dammit, people REALLY stare at you when you are crying and turning red the way you do when you cry, or laugh, or are hot, and, dammit, you are disappointing Ben and Carrie, who are tougher because they went to India and because you stayed home and the hardest part of that experience was trying to get your car out of a snowbank by yourself. Oh God, a snowbank. You would lay in it at this moment, you really would.

Even that, though, teaches you something wonderful about the world, because you find a pharmacy in Chaouen, and you try to tell the woman that you have a bladder infection, tossing in the French you remember from high school, because you know virtually no Arabic. Je voudrais fruit “cranberry” and then you finally borrow a piece of paper and draw a stick figure, peeing, saying “ow ow ow” and she gets it and gives you an over-the-counter antibiotic and it works. And you both laugh. Shukran. Shukran bissef.

The second time you cry is because you are so conflicted—so tired of being hustled, and hassled, and wishing for the fictional Morocco of your mind, where the people haven’t had to live their lives in a developing country, but also mad at yourself because you are “principled” about the equivalent of two or three U.S. dollars. They tell you that you “bargain like a Berber” and you don’t know if this is meant to be a compliment, an insult, or entirely racist, so you don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed. You don’t even know if it is honest, because when you use your five Arabic words they tell you that “Your Arabic is very good” and when you choose a carpet they tell you that “You have very good taste, Madam” and you think, if I picked out a carpet made of goat pubes, they would tell me that anyway, and you think, this man works so much harder than me, and is thirty years older than me, why should he call me Madam?

But the next day on the train you meet a lovely Moroccan (her) and French (him) couple who live in Stockholm and become fast friends when you husband jokes that the broken train announcement sounds like Star Wars and you say “these are not the droids you are looking for” and the French man laughs (and, like his wife, speaks fluent English.) And you sit with a beautiful Moroccan family with the lamp in your lap and rub the lamp, saying, la lampe magique and pretending a genie has come out to grant you three wishes, un, deux, trois and the children laugh.

The third time you cry is because Marrakech is shit and you’d finally wrung something wonderful out of this inferno and it is a cooking class and then you find out that it ends about an hour after your train is due to leave for Casablanca and you cry for an hour about how Marrakech is shit and your husband listens, again, patiently, until you decide to do it anyway and just skip the eating part.

And you realize you must really love cooking, because who skips the eating part? You take the class and buy all the food in the souks and see your Moroccan friend from the day before who stops his scooter to say “hello” and he may love you, just a little bit, and the Flemish girls who are your classmates are a little jealous because he is cute and because how does an American girl make friends with only two days in Marrakech? When you cook, there are four turtles walking around the kitchen and you have to watch that you don’t step on them as you walk back and forth from the sink and the stove.