Marrakech + Ait Ben Haddou + Ourzazate +Sahara Desert + Fes | September 2023

On my last night in Morocco I went to bed with fingers stained in garlic and saffron. My belly full with tagine and pastilla I made with my own hands. Diced tomatoes and olives. Sauteed onions. Endless cumin.

Everything in Morocco is red. The hue seeps from the earth and claims it all as its own. Rust red clay constructing the old homes that disappear into the mountains. The blazing red walls of the Medina. Marrakech is the color of sunset. Everything slides through soft peaches and pinks or smolders in flames of brick red and blood orange. Fes is the color of light as it rises in the morning. Begging for your attention only just.

But the part of Morocco I will carry with me is the desert. The molten red of the Sahara. The slow, rocking movement of the camel’s gait beneath my seat. How small I felt sitting in the sand as the wind pushed and pulled the tiny granules across the surface like waves across the ocean. I leaned over and spelled the letters of my name in the earth. This is a small habit of mine - writing my name where I know it will never stay for long. Because I was there. And I never was. I waited long enough for each piece of me spelled out to be carried away into the distance, disappearing into the shadows that grew longer and longer with the parting sun.

Tears fell down my face as the sun slipped behind the dunes. Left stains of red canyons on my cheeks. And later that night, as I stood in the middle of the Sahara, new soiled ravines formed again as my gaze fixed to the sky. Millions of stars broke through that endless abyss. So many stars. Such darkness. The night never felt so black. But as I stood there swallowed whole in the dark, I knew that if I wiped my eyes and looked - really looked - I wouldn’t see the black at all. I knew that if I placed my hand back onto the earth, it would pull away stained. I knew that if you take away the cover of night, what you’re left holding between your fingers is the red.