Expatriette in...

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.