it was their play and their story and i know that, but the more time that passes since i saw it, the more it interacts and interweaves with my life and the more i grow to love it and i'm guessing i changed a lot of it as a result of poor interpretation and an active imagination. thats it. they were a couple who had escaped from the world and deeply wanted and maybe in most ways needed to be alone and together. they were seen as mental or unfit and misunderstood by others so they bought a house for free in the forest and there they expected to be alone and together. during the summer, the sun will seep in through the cracks of the shutters and shine onto the walls & they dreamt of making shadows of animals that would live with them. cats, dogs and dinosaurs, of course. in autumn, the wind will seep in & their shadows and their animals will dance and love and sway. in the winter, it will rain and drown all the shadows & the old wind will make new bubbles which will float to the top and when they burst, they will breathe the autumn wind again. and for them, it will be exactly the kind of nostalgic new beginning that their spring needed. at their best, their thoughts took them through the seasons, but at their worst, she told him "please get out of my brain, you don't have a right to go there. those thoughts aren't for you. i can't think with you in there. you've broken my thoughts and now i have to pick them up. so please be quiet." he told her "there's no use. once thoughts break, you cant put them back together. their defective. just return them and make new ones. & besides i cant be quiet. so i can figure out my thoughts, i need to talk and hear them out loud. i need to hang them on ropes in front of me and let them be shaped by the birds chirps, and the rain and your eyes. you can't just cut the ropes, ok?" she understood, but she folded her napkin and turned away from him. she realized they could never think and live and breathe like they do when they're alone and be together. they were away from the world, but not their thoughts and that was three. in the end, they stayed together, and apologized to their thoughts for not being alone. afterwards, all i wanted to do was draw and write and dance. there really was a creative energy that sparked there between all of us and i decided to save new wind in old jars and breathe more often. 

Sincerely,

your expatriette in tunis.

when i woke up this morning the goat whose baaaahh's are usually overwhelmed by construction and the cafe next door's music were loud and the only sound i heard. he seems sick and i think when i leave the house, i'll try and check on him. im also going to a gallery opening by my house on saturday and plan to love it. today i have a lot to do and more to think about which especially takes a lot of time. i just cant get out of bed. i think i have been bit by a tse tse fly and also hit by cupid's arrow except the combination of the two has created an interesting result. there is a story behind this, but the explanation is complicated for my pre 10 AM words. the result is me loving moments & cabs and having a disenchanted feeling about non-platonic romances. on days that i feel at all lonely are the days i need to stay away from people the most but on most days i feel this flapping wingless independence and seeing people is the loveliest because i also feel so nice about the person im taking home & that is myself. 

sincerely,

your expatriette in tunis.

she took every form of public and private transportation possible. she thought about the sign on the side of the brick store and came back later to take a picture. "do you take pictures of us everyday?" she didn't, but she should and would soon. especially since the guy at the camera store told her to stop by anytime- she could take pictures of new memories with old cameras and someone else's film and it would all compound into a base that supports the structure of her brain. she made some new nice stranger friends at the bus stop only because it was raining and they were pressed up against her shoulder as she kindly asked the forward stranger boy not to proceed with his plans of talking to her, no she doesn't want you to have her phone number and yes she understood. she felt pessimistic about the world but very optimistic about where she stood. the 3 hearts that together with hers formed a square over coffee was the playground that her brain bounced in. it was recess and class and lunchtime all in the same timeplace; she learns the most from who she plays with here and she likes that very much. today, she also felt very out of her body and that gave her more courage but less power and that was that. later, & this wasn't so much whimsical as much as it was a red herring, but the rainbow was the first one she'd ever seen and it faded the second she noticed it. 

sincerely,

your expatriette in tunis.

i miss the lamb at chak wak park, but nothing else about that place. but the peacock was regal and i did feel nurtured by him in a court 5 kind of way. he would have sparkled with the glassiest of our chandeliers and mama would have fun chasing him as if he were a robot vacuum, i know she would, i just don't miss him. he made me miss too much. & OK, really today everything is so free and flipping through the layers is more like ruffling the all the feathers and i would like it if the story would billow out from under the pages over my hair and around my ears in an illustrated kind of way. jenna is here now and she is sleeping on the floor next to me, but i've been up since the zainab rooster crowed for no breakfast, more cartoons and a lollipop. she plopped on to my bed and wanted me to be a duck and sometimes im not in the mood and thats ok, so i drew her a fish and showed her a duck and it was enough. it would have been enough if we just went to passover seder last night at SIT, it was a lovely tradition to live and fake the rituals of, the food was tended to and labored over and in many ways loved over again. I am glad we went to the cafe afterwards though so we could relive some of our tunisian tales and laugh and tickle and tea, of course. today, we will start with the sun and move on to the water with the steam; we'll jump into the wind and yet again end on top of the hill. this is tunisia. i do love seeing it through the eyes of a visitor, even when they are grumps like stuffed eels, but also when they are silly like jennas. Oh! & i would say my demeanor ought to change if i am ever going to get my eggs into a basket and take them to a new a city, but i kind of like the juggling and toppling and wavering right here. I know we might call that a careless kind purposeless, but i'd swear it wasn't. it is a situation where different people will take you to different places and in those places you find 5's, kuwaits, cherries and beige flowers and they are all things to some degree that wouldn't make as much sense without each other. it is an ambiguously complex kind of life and kind of "like like." not barsha barsha, not deema deema, just shwyea shwyea.

and i know today i woke up feeling empty under my ribcage and light all around, but i was thirsty and hungry and after i ate some olive oil and fig jam i felt much lesss compact and heartier in a could be a happy hefty kind of way.

sincerely,

your expatriette in tunis.