I walk through my morning routine and find myself on the bus, putting my book back into my bag, standing up and waiting for the door to open.  I step out onto the sidewalk, hear the gravel beneath my shoes, and smell you.  There is something in the air – for just a split second – that smells like you and Morocco.  They say that olfactory memories are the clearest and trigger the deepest sensations in us than any other memory instigator.  I think they are right.  In that instant, that indefinable instant I am back, walking the corniche with the cold wind blowing on my shoulder.  I am eating a delicious tagine with bread in my hand.  I am holding the hand of a monkey.  I am sitting on a camel.  I am kissing the sweet soft cheeks of your mom.  I smile my way down the sidewalk for seven blocks even though the bus stops in front of my office.  I like the walk, the fresh air, the sights and sounds.  I like the space before I sit in isolation in my office for eight and a half hours.  I need this respite before I settle in to the rest of my blind routine.

Later, I walk down another sidewalk, this time it is early evening and I head west toward the water.  I follow another street north until I come to Second and Wall Street.  Not that Wall Street.  This Wall Street is on the edge of a neighborhood where you wander by the dive bars and restaurants looking over your shoulder and make sure no one is creeping up behind you.  I duck in to a dark restaurant to meet her.  She is tall and beautiful and brilliant.  She is modest and shy.  She broadens my horizons just by small talk alone.  We are in Marrakesh for a dinner of tagines and wine so she can tell me about her trip to Jerusalem.  It is decorated like a Berber Tent with imitation Berber rugs covering the walls.  The tables are made of wood, like the small boxes we bought in Essouira with the small pieces of different color wood that are pieced together in intricate designs.  What is that called again?  The waiter is dressed in costume that is supposed to resemble traditional dress but looks more like a Berber Disney Land costume.  The bread is fluffy, not like the kind you buy fresh every day.  The tagines are three pieces of delicious, tender slow cooked meat.  The chicken is covered in a sickly sweet honey sauce, there are only a few almonds on top with one prune.  No vegetables.  The lamb is delicious, with one thin slice of eggplant and no garlic or other vegetables to speak of.  The belly dancer is American and rolls her sexy hips with a fake smile that isn’t fooling anyone.  In her, I dream of you too.