Recently

I have a new song obsession. These things come over me suddenly, and when they do, I pity anyone who has to share a house with me (in this case, the Man). Hearing the same rhythms over-and-over-again-for-hours-upon-hours. But it makes me more productive. Or maybe it's that I obsess when I'm already feeling productive. I don't know which and, frankly, the whole thing is weird enough that I don't really know if I want to delve any deeper.

(Because you asked, here's my current favorite. Click on "Golly Sandra" to hear what my house sounds like at the moment.)

A lot of people recently have said to me, "I don't know where the autumn went, how is it already a new year, how is it already mid-March?" and I've been saying back, "I don't know, but I feel the same way." As humans, we're incapable of processing time in the way we think we're supposed to. But then I looked at my calendar and I realized that I probably feel this way because I had something happening EVERY FREAKING DAY IN NOVEMBER. Sometimes poetry doesn't explain things as well as I like to think.

Lately, I've been on a constant sock-and-stocking hunt. I've actually altered outfits because I can't find the right garments for my feet. I don't know where they go, exactly, but I do think I know what they're telling me: it's about time for Spring. Bare legs, bare feet.

Speaking of which--I've been seeing blossoms. Not fully-fledged, springtime-is-here blossoms, but the sweetest little buds. There are some by our front door. It's nice.

Minarets and Things

new musings on a several-month-old trip:

Every day the muezzin sing from minarets for men to come and pray; every day the song goes bouncing off walls that are a thousand years old and older. The minarets go on carrying song, even after we leave, after we go back to Oxford, where the bells of Magdalen College hum a different kind of tune. Melodic clockwork: the old water clock across from the Medersa Bou Inania ceased working years ago; but from every corner of Fés you can mark time by the flow of men to mosque.