Experiencing vs. Remembering

On the plane to Morocco, Jeff read a New York Times article about Fez, which called the city the spiritual heart of Morocco and described the city's labyrinth of tiny streets, its faceless buildings that house spectacular courtyards, the medieval university and the water clock of unknown mechanism reportedly built by a sorcerer a thousand years ago. "Now," Jeff said, "I'm excited."

The tanneries of Fez

Between us and this vision of Fez, however, stretched Moroccan customs, a crowded train with oversized luggage piled on the seats and in the aisles, a gauntlet of men outside the station insisting we needed a taxi when our hotel was right next door, a night at a sketchy Ibis hotel where I didn't want to walk barefoot on the carpet, a four-hour train ride and a drive through the modern part of Fez (consisting largely of concrete block apartment buildings), and - once we stepped out of our hotel to commence actual sightseeing - a very upsetting encounter with a young man who would not accept that we did not need a guide and who, after several minutes of polite conversation, flipped suddenly into combat mode: "What's your problem? You Americans, you think you can just come here and treat us like monkeys? Who do you think you are! You're not welcome here!" He blocked the road (in truth a path) that led to the center of the medina. "We don't want people like you in our medina. Go back to where you came from!" His shouts receded slowly behind our backs as we detoured around - and quickly became lost.

One of my secret fantasies - up there with being a food critic, writing children's books, and driving Trimet buses in Portland - is to be a travel writer. Morocco disabused me of that notion. It's not just that the actual act of traveling is exhausting and often disconcerting - more on that later - but that writing about it in a way that people would actually enjoy reading would feel dishonest.

Please don't get me wrong: I loved Morocco. I just didn't love what I had thought I would love, and the experience of discovering what I did love left me drained and often defeated. I could easily wax rhapsodic about losing myself...

Sample wildly ornate door of Fez

...in the maze of narrow cobblestone paths that pass as streets in the old medina of Fez. We stumbled across small workshops where men behind open doors were planing wood furniture or sewing traditional robes; around the next corner would be a crumbling grey stone wall barely concealing a secret garden full of orange trees and palms, or a wildly ornate door through which we could glimpse a white columned courtyard of an immense mosque. Near the produce market, we squeezed into a table behind a small grill stand to eat kefta (ground meat) stuffed inside a piece of Moroccan flat bread and topped with chili sauce. For dinner, we climbed to the roof terrace of a cafe and lounged on couches across from a green-tiled minaret as the sun set over the medina. We took our spiced coffee inside, along the wrought-iron balcony overlooking the cafe's courtyard, where several Berber musicians and a young woman with a piercingly clear voice were singing their way through the local golden oldies. When we left hours later, we had to disentangle our waiter from the dancing crowd that had packed the ground floor.

Impromptu dance party

Discombobulation

But that version - while entirely true - would leave out the discombobulation of not being able to tell one serpentine street of blank white-washed walls from another; of the stench of tanneries and mules; of the constant efforts by the men perched outside the hundreds of little tourist shops to demand your attention ("Pardon me! Where are you from? Speak English? Do you need help? What do you need? Stop and look - looking is free!") and the overeagerness of young men and boys to latch on as your "guide" as soon as you pause to get your bearings ("The tanneries are this way! No, that's the wrong way, don't go that way, you want to go this way!!"); of the European tour groups crowding through the narrow streets and leaving you claustrophobic and less capable than usual of fending off the demands of the shop keepers; of the overcast sky and chill weather on the roof terrace that blocked any sign of the sunset; of the self-created anxiety of walking through dark alleys after dinner, uncertain of how to get back to the hotel and worried that the rain would start too soon.

You get the picture. Jeff loves this TED video about the difference between the experiencing and the remembering self. I found myself thinking about that distinction a lot in Morocco - how my experiencing self was taking one for the team of the remembering self - and about Alain de Botton's thoughts on the dangers of over-anticipating our travels.

Sample ominous thunderclouds

I anticipated blue skies and languid heat - flavorful food with complex layers of spices -breakfasts on roof terraces and romantic dinners by candlelight. I got cold rain for the first half of the trip and a lot of tourist meals where the only difference between the "tangines" and the "couscous" was that the overstewed chicken in the latter instance was spooned over a pile of flavorless pasta; I can safely say we had no amazing dinners by candlelight, though we did eat breakfast on the roof terrace once, on our last morning in Marrakesh when it was just barely warm enough at 9 to be outside without jackets - until we were interrupted by bees.

But as time passes, I can't recall the stink of the tanneries, and the verbal abuse we received for not tipping undesired "guides" is fading rapidly from memory. I am left with warm thoughts of mountains and coastline, of Roman ruins and the camaraderie of food stands. Expectations are dangerous things because they can distract us from the most serendipitous moments. Now that we have set the expectations aside, I can focus on retelling the moments of perfect serendipity.