It's a phrase that gets repeated a lot in this house, très jolie. In my French classes I learned the word jolie meant pretty. I practiced saying phrases like: La fille est très jolie. La fleur est très jolie. La robe est très jolie. But here in Morocco the girls use it liberally and it has come to mean something else entirely.
It means you look pretty.
It means that is very good.
It means I like you.
It means I appreciate you for embracing my culture.
It means I can't communicate what I want to say, but I know you'll understand this.
If my trip had a catch phrase it would be très jolie.
But just like my textbook definition doesn't cover all the uses in this house in Morocco, it doesn't encompass all that I have experienced in Morocco or Europe.
Surely my trip has been pretty, but it's also been shocking, and eye-opening, and heart-breaking, and amazing, and a thousand other overused words to describe travel. But above all it's been beautiful.
It's not that life in Morocco, or Spain, or England, or Greece, or Germany is more beautiful than life in the United States, it's just that with the newness of every single day the beauty is right there in front of you, and you can't avoid it.
In California I don't notice the beauty of my dog curling up next to me to sleep, because he does that every night. I don't notice the beauty in the way my neighbor greets me with a raised fist and a quiet Yay team! the way he has since I was a child, because that's what he does every time we see each other. I don't notice the beauty in the pot pie my mom spent all afternoon preparing, because she makes it on a regular basis and it's just a normal Allen family dinner recipe. I don't notice the beauty of going to church with my grandmother, because that's what I do on wednesday mornings.
I don't notice because that's the way it always is.
But here in Morocco, or wherever I find myself, I notice. I notice because every single moment is full of something new and every single moment I think to myself I may never see this again. In a few weeks I may never see these girls again. In less than a month I may never experience this again.
Every place I have visited I have loved in some way. Not every part of every place, but a little piece of everywhere. And when you open yourself up to experiencing beauty and to loving somewhere new, you eventually have to say goodbye. And as the list of places where I've been grows, so does the list of places where a piece of me has been left behind.
A little piece is on the streets of Berlin, right where the wall used to stand.
A little piece is in the harbor of Chania, in a little restaurant that serves the best grilled mushrooms.
A little piece is in London, in the British Library, tucked away between the manuscripts and letters.
A little piece is in Valencia, hidden away in the bustling Central Market.
And a big piece is here in Dar Asni.
Contrary to popular belief, leaving all these pieces behind doesn't mean somehow there is less of me to give. Loving the girls here doesn't take away from loving my family and friends back home. And loving where I've traveled doesn't mean I love California any less.
For a few weeks about a month into my trip I started question why I committed to traveling for such a long time. "I have a wonderful life back home," I cried, "why would I leave it all behind?"
Now I know. I know that sometimes you have to go far away not just to appreciate the beauty of what you have, but the beauty of everything, wherever you are. In my everyday routine I get lost in the monotony of doing laundry, running errands, and driving to school. But when the daily routine of life involves doing laundry with a washboard, navigating a bustling souk and bartering for your errands, and driving to school in a rickety van with people hanging out the back and no seat belts, you notice. You can't help it.
In some moments you notice how foreign everything feels and perhaps you desperately wish for some familiarity. In others you notice some, perhaps small, similarities between life here and back home. And in a few very special moments, you notice both.
It is painful and uncomfortable to hold both in your hand at the same time. To try to reconcile the foreignness of a foreign country with the things that remind you of home. In the worst moments it can lead you to search for a flight home, as the familiar things only grate against the alien ones, but I've found that here in Morocco I can embrace both. I can hold the love and longing I have for my home and family with the love and longing I have to connect with the girls here at Dar Asni.
The thing about travel, and life in general I suppose, is that as soon as you think you have it figure out, as soon as you think you've got a handle on it, something changes and everything gets thrown out of whack.
Sometimes it's something small, like not being able to find pasta sauce at the grocery store after a long day. And other times it's a big thing.
On Sunday my grandmother passed away. My much beloved, stunningly lovely, 94 year old grandmother passed away on Sunday night.
Grieving is a lonely process, but grieving in a country where no one speaks your language, where everything is harshly different seems even lonelier.
Just when I think my heart can't handle any more stretching, any more pain, or beauty, or love, it is expanded a little bit farther.
After talking with my mom and receiving the news, the girls crowd around me and kiss my forehead and stroke my hair.
My cousin and I share memories over a pixely skype connection, her in her home in Napa and me in a village in rural Africa. I cry tears of grief or happiness or something thinking about the beautiful life that my grandma led.
"We're not even distantly related" I marvel, "I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be her granddaughter."
"Yeah, Grandma was the shit," she replies.
After I thought I was through the worst this trip could throw at me, again I find myself searching for flights home. Searching to find guidance. Searching for the "right" thing to do. My heart longs to be at home with my family and it longs to be right here in Morocco with these mountain girls.
After all these months of longing to be in two, or three places at once, after weeks of loving people spread across the world and living with the knowledge that there are people I care about that are hours and hours away, the feeling of this divide is starting to become familiar.
But I'm also realizing it's not an either-or situation. It's not either beautiful in the United States or in Morocco. I don't have to choose either to love life abroad or love life back home. I can be present wherever I find myself and still stay involved in the lives of the people I love, even if they're halfway across the world.
Because above all, that a girl who has never lived outside of Santa Rosa, California for 22 years can find connections and things to love about a country as different as Morocco isn't just beautiful, it's so stunning that sometimes I don't think my heart can handle it. Sometimes I feel like it will literally split in two from the beauty of it.
And when I think about my grandmother, and how last time I went to church with her she slipped her hand into mine, gave me a shinning smile and whispered, "I'm so thrilled you're here darling!" I feel those tears well up in the corners of my eyes. Those tears that aren't quite grief and aren't quite joy. They're both.
Because life is très jolie, even in the heart-breaking, difficult moments, no matter where in the world we find ourselves. Sometimes it just takes a lot for us to notice it.
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