Despite my continuing to post on Egypt, I have actually been back in Morocco since Wednesday evening. But I am off to catch a plane again at the crack of dawn. Yes, another work thing. Frankly, perhaps a change will do me good. My last several days have been so terrible that at one point I broke down and sobbed, my head in my arms, sitting at the tile table in my Moroccan garden.
You see it's like this...
On my way back from Cairo, I arrived in Casablanca to find that my onward flight to Marrakech had been canceled. The airline had not informed me since it was assumed that I had never left in the first place – I had not used the first half of my ticket and had missed my outbound flight because I was in a car accident on the way to the airport. When I finally arrived in Marrakech, my luggage had not arrived with me. (Really, what are the odds of my losing my luggage twice in one 9 day-trip?) I came home to find that I had no phone line (and no internet) because a truck had driven into a telephone pole at the end of my street. On Friday, still internet-less, I dutifully went to a cybercafé to send more than 100 queued up emails (if you have not heard from me, this is why). My laptop refused to turn on – my hard drive had died. I lost all my files: my book draft with all my new edits, my speech that I was scheduled to give, all my addresses, several blog entries, and all my material for work. I was so devastated that I could only look mutely at the computer technician, uncomprehending.
No, I had no back up system. I have no back up system. Could this be true about my life in general?
I sent my best friend an email from my Blackberry and it went something like this: I believe that the universe is trying to send me a message. Perhaps I am being made to pay for all the times when I was selfish, the times when I should have shown more compassion, the times when I lied, the times when I was impatient with my children, the times when I snapped at my husband. In short, all the times when I should have been a better person and I wasn't. Yes, perhaps it's payback time.
So now I am off to catch a plane. At this point, I am fully anticipating a swarm of locusts somewhere in the vicinity of the Eiffel Tower – that is to say, somewhere surrounding my hotel…
Image by @LeeM. More deepest, darkest blog entries at Sunday Scribblings.
PS Sadly, so sadly, this is not an April Fool's Day joke.
