Between the Two of Us

My dear, First, I have a choice to make: am I writing this for you or for us? And is this “us” the world, or is it…us? Am I writing this just so that I can feel close to you? Am I writing because I believe, presumptuously, that you want my words — at least, on occasion? Or is it a way for me to exorcize the demons; or, perhaps, to manifest them? Writing, I guess, is always a desperate claim of importance and self-importance, an appropriation, a distortion of reality, an insertion of meaning into the narrow slot between event and history that offers us a chance to create a story. I need this story; I need it more than you. For what a waste it would be to experience all this and not turn it into one. This story begins in Tangier, in “your city;” actually, it began sooner, but here it begins again. When I arrive, it is an almost full moon. The first few hours feel like a meditation (not a silent one, however). I am usually not into meditations, but this one is potent. I find a spot on one of the many rooftops of the kasbah, dining alone at a tourist restaurant, pretending to enjoy a bland blend of pasta and Tajine but really drinking in the can’t-take-my-eyes-off-you view of the medina overlooking the marina. I enjoy the vista without phone reception for 90 minutes — the duration of a football game — and watch the sun go down agonizingly slowly, as if it took time itself, and any notion of man-made chronology, with it. I listen to the evening prayers, which, as you later explain, follow a rigorous schedule, but not one that a Western metric system may ever grasp. I discern the uneven, vertiginous, and yet calmly reassuring houses of the medina, their texture within texture within texture. Pigeons and storks, mysterious silhouettes passing over vivid colors, a haze of truth, subtle energy shifts, handcrafted seismic eruptions. Men shouting in the alleys, kids playing football, store owners sitting idle. <a href="https://timleberecht.medium.com/between-the-two-of-us-854ebd52a8a">Learn More</a>