Marrakesh: and a tale where I need your help

Dear friends,

I wanted to let you in on a secret.  Years ago, when I started this blog, I was running a prisoner rights program.  As someone with a career in international humanitarian work, I felt strongly about what I was doing.  But the issues I worked on were often sad and heavy.  I needed some beauty of the everyday kind -- big and small -- to balance me.  And so it was that My Marrakesh was born.

I didn't know then how much this blog would come to mean to me.  That the small tales I recounted here would be my connection to a great big world filled with people who would take the time to come visit me.  I tried to be someone worth visiting.  To share something here on this blog that was original and true to myself, with words and images that were my own. I told you about large setbacks and small victories.  I shared personal things from my past.  The people I encountered who touched me. The journeys I took far afield, where I met individuals who were so very different and yet, in some ways, the same.  I talked about my experiences as a mother, daughter, and wife. My struggles to be a better person, and to not falter in the face of unkindness. I shared my adventures in design and my efforts to turn a strange city into a home. I tried to cheer you on, to encourage you, and to share my recipes for things that were meaningful.

I've tried not to waste your time when you came to visit me on this blog.  I've tried to be worthy. I hope - in some small measure - that I've succeeded and given you moments of pleasure, thoughtfulness or escape.  That I've prompted you to go on your own journeys or made you wish that you could jump on a plane.

If I have, I want to ask you a favor.  This blog is a finalist in the 2012 Weblog Awards in the category Best Blog in Africa.  Would you, could you, consider voting for My Marrakesh?  It would mean so much to me.  You need only vote once.  Each ballot must include votes for three different blogs in three different categories.  (There are so many excellent ones out there, including Young House Love {with a book soon out from Artisan Books}, Appartment Therapy, The Huffington Post, Smitten Kitchen, the Sartorialist, and so many others!)

If you have just a minute or two, I would be so thankful for your vote in the Africa category.  Any mentions on Facebook, Twitter or blogs would also be gratefully received.  Voting is right here.  Thank you so much:-)

Love,

Maryam in Marrakesh

 

The world: and a forlorn tale of celestial brownie points

I was thinking about some of life’s great mysteries. Like God.

I was wondering about people’s certainties. How they were so sure, so very sure that their God was right, but his God was wrong. Or how they knew, just knew, that he was going to heaven but she, yes she.... was going to hell. All because his religion said such and such, and her religion said so and so, and they weren’t the same. {And as for those poor souls that didn’t believe at all, well, we all know where they are going, now don’t we?}  

 I was thinking how very sad it was. How very pointless. Because, really, who could ever know? And in the meantime, there was this great dividing line that stood between us.  That -- despite all of our modernity, all of our education -- we were evolving in the wrong direction.  Like planets spinning into different solar systems, lost in our own twirling.  And that we would never be able to see all the stars in the universe at the same time.  And love them all.

 

Manhattan: and a tale of food and marriage in a relationship's August

I was with her in a Manhattan restaurant, named August.

The kind of restaurant with beautiful girls...

and martinis made with the vodka of your choice and...a twist.

 She sipped her drink.  And then she told me.

He asked me, she said.  He asked me to marry him.

Oh, I replied. Oh!

You see they had already been together, lived together, for 12 years.

Her ring twinkled like a star -- like a star so very close in the sky.

The waitress brought us the menus.  My friend took her time before she ordered.

Mussels, perfectly broken open, the tender insides exposed.  Fresh greens, just wilted.  Toast, so comforting.

Of course.  Of course.

I wondered then what it would be like to marry someone you had already been with for 12 years.  Past the time of the racing heart, past the time of the first and second and 497th passionate kiss.

After the blush had worn off and there you were, with no make up.  And he knew you, really.  And you knew him, really.  And there was no point in pretending.  No point at all.

To marry then, yes, to marry then... not in the Spring of your relationship

but in the August.  

 PS Would love to hear about your August or non-August wedding.

PPS New beautiful stock of Moroccan Beni Ouarain carpets in my shop, Red Thread Souk.  

New York: and the tale of the MIH Marrakesh Skinny

Is it right, I ask you, is it right to buy a pair of jeans because they are called the Marrakesh Skinny?  Why of course, it's not right.

But oh, if they fit you in a way that pulls everything in and smooths everything out and are so comfortable that it's plain old suspicious, why then it's quite right.  Especially, when they're called the Marrakesh Skinny. 

And so I did.

PS I also bought this and this (velvety, love) and this.  And I bought 3 pieces from this designer and the perfect sunglasses from this designer. On the home front I bought this silk cushion {so much prettier in real life} and Pantone toothbrushes from here. :-)