October 26th, 2006, 6:51 am

The Plan

Some of you may have known that I had a plane ticket last Monday from London to Atlanta.

The more observant of you will have noticed that I did not board said plane.

I’m on a rooftop balcony, sipping café separe, and jus d’orange along with some bread and pastries (about 2 euros) in Marrakesh, Morocco.

It’s breezy, so the tiny green and pink parrots in cages squawk in protest as their perches sway. Arabic music is playing in the streets below - and yes, that’s the best description I have for it. A few minutes ago, the mosques issued their call to prayer. It’s astonishing if you haven’t heard it before - a primal sound, issuing from one tall minaret, then echoed throughout the country one shitty P.A. system after another. An entire world of people who think differently than you do - it’s a bit disconcerting.

Marrakesh is more flat and well touristed than the other cities I’ve visited in Morocco - Tangier, Chefchaoeun (sp?), and Fés, thus far. And so from my rooftop perch I have a clear view of the city - of all the other rooftop terraces; painted the dusty rose that is the official color of Marrakesh. They rise about to the same height; they feature satellite dishes, potted plants, benches and white people, here to soak up the sun before returning home to drizzly London or cloudy France.

I am in Morocco - nowhere near London where my plane took off, or Atlanta, where it landed. My friends, whom I began this journey with back in August, will both be home by the time you read this.

And yet I am here.

I’m hard pressed to give a concise explanation, or proffer up a concrete plan. Believe me, my parents are inquiring.

This is the best I can give.

I am 25, and I have nothing. I have nothing - I have nothing to lose.

I’ve a writer’s heart, tis true - a writer’s heart long encased in a corporate cage of my own connivance. I’ve been stretching out the old hamstrings - writing on hollabackpack.com. It felt good - so unbelievably good - to sit down and just create.

But something started happening to me in Lagos, Portugal. I came for one night, but by the end of two weeks, I had started picking up a shift or two at the Rising Cock Hostel and its sister, the Nah Nah Bar.

Parts of me came alive that I forgot existed - the parts that liked meeting new people, making ‘em comfortable, and sass-talking ‘em from behind the bar.

Could it be - could I - be remembering how to be happy?

The ocean in Lagos was aquamarine blue. The sand sloped away, a steep bank of yellow mini rocks into clear water, which deepened quickly into aqua and then rich, ocean blue. Each tiny facet of beach was surrounded by large rock formations, forgotten giant’s toys, smoothed into strange sculptures over time.

Two days of rain had kept us locked in, gloomy. But this day was sunny, and so as soon as my shift ended at the Cock, I walked the five minutes to the sea. With salt stung eyes, I swam out, and flipped on my back, floating. The sun was pure and forgiving - gentle heat for October. I was bouyed.

I wasn’t sick any more. I was alive - really, honestly alive - knowing with each ragged mucus-tinged breath that I was so thankful to be where I was.

I was really free - floating, like the heroine at the end of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening.

But unlike Edith, I turned, and swam back to shore. I swam back to shore, and began thinking in a different way than ever before. A reporter turned fiction writer - how are these creatures made?

The reporter in me thinks: “notes.”

And so notes I’ve begun - character sketches, ideas for scenes, bits of dialogue lifted from memory, transplanted into new bodies.

I have no idea what will come of it. It may turn out that I’m a shitty novelist - (though frankly, judging by the dreck that are best selling novels nowadays, I could shit Moroccan soup on a reel of paper and make bank, as long as my heroine was a quirky 30-something struggling with her weight and romantic maladies. Fuck you, Bridget Jones. Fuck you.).

So I’m heading back to Lagos, once my tour of Morocco is done. I’ll fly, like a wounded chick, back to the nest of the Cock. I’ll tuck myself away, someplace with a plug for my computer, and a place to make café. And there, I’ll spend the winter.

Mama is there at the Cock. She makes us Portuguese soup once a week and tea when we’re sick. I know she’ll take care of me, if I need it. And there’s work at the Cock - not a lot, but enough to make a small living at.

I’ll work, and I’ll write, and I’ll try my hand at freelance.

And perhaps, most importantly - I’ll learn how to live again. I’ll remember what it’s like to be happy, living life on a small scale: sun, beach, food and sleep.

Related reading

Please, give this excellent essay on Why Chick Lit is Hurting America a close read.