Sans titre

ungainly. mostly ungainly.

the camel stands up back legs first and you grab the saddle and think "this is a mistake" for about four seconds.

then you're moving. the dune is turning from grey to pink to gold beneath you. your ergaventure guide is singing softly ahead. the sky is doing something illegal with color.

and you think: ok. ok. this is it. this is the thing.

you drive up in a 4x4 with ergaventure's guide and you think you're going sightseeing.

and then the altitude does something to your lungs and the silence does something to your chest and the berber village below looks so perfectly small against all that rock and sky.

and you realize: this mountain has been here for sixty million years.

you've been here for thirty-something.

imagine: every wall a different shade of blue. cobalt. powder. periwinkle. midnight.

a cat sleeping on a blue step. a single orange tree growing out of a blue courtyard.

chefchaouen doesn't look real. it looks like a set designer dreamed it up and forgot to stop.

she didn't measure anything. not once.

flour, water, semolina — all by feel. her hands moved the way hands move when they've done something ten thousand times and stopped thinking about it.

the result tasted like something that doesn't have a name in english.