Imagine this. Imagine you couldn’t read or write. You could never read a newspaper, or a novel, or a recipe. You could never keep a diary, or make a grocery list or write a love letter. Imagine you couldn’t even write your name. You had to sign an x instead. Oh.
Yes, yes, imagine that. How different. How very different life would be.
When you weren't looking, I slipped away to Mali on assignment.
When I get back to Marrakech, I think I might just paint all my walls at Peacock Pavilions.
PS Hang out with me on Twitter, if you're interested in my Malian chatter: http://twitter.com/MyMarrakesh
I spend a lot of time wondering if I'll remember a certain touch, or a certain taste, or a certain smell. Wondering if I can hold onto what it felt like when I ripped open the envelope and read that I had gotten in. Or how my heart leapt when the doctor said that it was a boy. Or the way the pen trembled when I signed on that dotted line. Or that sound, oh, that sound of her laughing for the very first time.
I wish that there was a way that I could capture certain moments and ingrain them in my memory, so they could never become just a faint echo, just a dry rustle, just a wan imprint of what they were. That there was a way that I could collect them all, each a shiny star, and save them in a silken pouch. And that every night, I could spill them out right before me, touch each one and remember what it felt like, really, that time he brushed the hair out of my eyes and asked me, would I, please.... be his.
