Merigoesaround

One can scream out of joy, out of pain, out of fear. In 24 hours I heard all those screams. Marrakesh is a magic place for many reasons. For me it represents not only where boyfriend husband works and lives but also a place where we will age, enjoying the house we just bought and are rebuilding to make it our little oriental jewel. Marrakesh was chaos the other night, for one very mundane reason: football. Barcelona was playing against Madrid and Messi scored in the very moment that the evening call for prayer started, a mix of religious joy from the thousands of Barcelona supporters in Marrakesh erupted and elevated my favorite team to Koranic levels. And then I went to bed. I took a plane and before landing in Paris the joy had dissipated. Terrorists had attacked Marrakesh's Cafe Argana, killing 17 people. We later learned that it was not Al-Qaida as we first thought but an Islamist radical from Safi who learned how to make bombs via internet. And the call for prayer was not joy ...

Lately I run. I hate it, I love it, I hate it, I love it. I hoooote it! I might have found a good way to travel, do sports, eat as much pasta as I want, and meet friends via semi-marathons. This weekend I was in Marseille. Ooooh Marseille. There I met my friend Diego , who is like Marseille and the pasta he and Madame Zacci cooked for me. Structurally interesting and tasteful, with a big creative heart, fresh like the mussels you buy in the V ieux Port and a mix of cultures. Where do I run next?

I have spent very Catalan weekends lately. These were not in Barcelona, but in Paris. Coincidentally, I spent a very French weekend in Barcelona, where a bunch of good friends invaded our small house there. These swaps of languages, places and old and new faces might be enriching from a learning perspective but confusing for my emotional inner self. I am worried my kids will not know where they come from. And don't give me the line of enrichment and globalization, I don't take it. At least not today. Anybody with symptoms of feeling from anywhere?

in facebook format. There was something about keeping my love status in facebook unknown that I really liked. But after over nine years with Boyfriend Husband I decided to declare my virtual love to him and changed my status from blank to 'in a relationship'. And it felt good. Very indeed. And then in a totally unrelated thread my sister wrote to me "Meri, who is going to be your facebook friend number 1000". "I am going to invest in keeping my 999", I said to her. But suddenly my dear ex boss (this is no joke) sent a request for friendship. I am still pondering if I will pass the 999 mark. He will wait for the 1999 mark if necessary, my boss has said. Hahaha. So, in less than a minute and without leaving my sofa, I declared my love to my world, I reflected about true friendship and suddenly passed from single to virtually engaged for life. And it felt good.

Tattooed in his fingers, letter by letter, dream after dream. Seen at Marais housewarming party. This is Paris!

...and the 5th of February arrives I wanted to list the good news that fill my life today. Happiness overload. I am not sure if I'll have time in 15 min. First, BH became a civil servant for yet another bureaucracy. One that he has already tasted, the European Union. I don't know anybody more European than BH, a man with refined transatlantic culture though. Sometimes he would say things like "we are Europe", "Europe is us". No brainwashing needed. I think this job might be good for him. Europe is fine but I still prefer Washington DC 100 times better than Brussels. I can't help it. There is something about the US that not even Belgium waffle can beat. Well, maybe French croissant can. So my future household breadwinner has found a job for life, something that in current economic times seems like a sensible choice. This is good because we won't have to worry for our kids' education ever again but it is bad if the boredom of bureaucracies eats him...

There are few times when you leave the office feeling that you are part of history. Today I felt that way. Just in front of our building, Egyptian demonstrators peacefully chanted for change in their country. Their warm voices, the extreme cold, the Eiffel tower presiding the scene...a romantic view of freedom that almost made me drop a tear. A liberating one. I took pictures with my improvised journalistic weapon, my cell, felt like a war reporter for a minute, found my lips mimicking theirs, chanting in Arabic with perfect gutturality. I wondered what kind of journalist would I be, probably not a neutral one, my emotional delivery from Avenue d'Iena would not make it to BBC. As I write these lines confrontation is taking place at Liberation Square in Cairo. But when dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right. - Victor Hugo (via my friend Alex).

It is with pain in my lower back, swollen left knee and random thigh discomfort that I happily announce having completed my first semi-marathon. Ever. 21km (13 miles) of joy. Well, maybe 19 of joy and 2 of impatience and monolithic legs. Only some months ago I would write to my good friend Dimi seeking running inspiration. Couldn't go beyond 5k. After that my heart would hurt, my breathing get messy and my toes painful. BH and Dimi convinced me that I could do it and since that's the way I function, challenge after challenge, persevering towards personal improvement I have managed to check off my 2011 resolutions' list a big one, and we are still in January. If I keep this progress I will need another list by August! (*) note that this if the first time in a long, very long time, that you can see splendorous BH. Thanks to him for running 2.29' by my side. The race of life is ahead of us.

What would I do without you ramen noddles? 3 minutes, boiled water, dinner is ready. What would I do without the Chinese place that closes after 10pm? Or the eventual samosa that I eat at the local Indian? How would I live without generous amounts of Danone yoghurt, liters of milk and kilos of cereal? And cheese, what to say about the importance of cheese in my gastronomic life. Bread, tears in my eyes, thinking about crunchy, fresh bread, the baguette magic effect of life. BH is convinced that I know how to cook but I haven't yet made it beyond the cheese and salmon omelet or the 'whatever-you-have-in-the-fridge' pasta. How many of you feel 100% identified with what I am saying!?

Some weeks ago I went to Barcelona for a weekend. Home. Being a short flight from Paris I do it every two months or so. Going back is always a similar bitter sweet moment. No matter how often I go, no matter for how long. You belong to there but in a way you don't belong to anywhere. Your closest friends are always welcoming, the ones that really know you, that forgive you for not writing to them, for not spending time with their kids or simply having coffee and chatting about life, love and sex (yes, this is what girls talk about when together in a group and 80% of them have had the same partner for more than 5 years). Their generosity amazes me every time. Their repertoire of sexual tips too. Being back one irremediably wonders about the conterfactuals of life: how would have life been hadn't the 'luggage girl lifestyle' started? how would have been marrying that first boyfriend that trashed your heart? how would have been spending more time closer to your parents? f...

Yesterday night I saw a short (free) movie . Go to 'ver pelicula'. Subtitled in English. and today the movie became reality. Because there are things you never forget. HT to Juliana. Problems should be that, children's games.

This year ends with words that almost rhyme. Isolation, confusion, and emotion. All of the good kind. On beautiful isolation . The dream of every woman: to travel to an exotic remote spot with 9 hot French kitesurfers. Me, the women. Them, the boys. Dakhla in the Western Sahara, the spot. This place is peacefully located in the middle of nowhere. A land that hides natural resources deep down the desert-like surface. A land ruled by Spaniards some time ago and decolonized the Spanish way, sloppily. Boyfriend Husband (BH) has strongly discouraged me from asking any local about the conflict in the Western Sahara. The journalistic me dreams of writing a small article on it and publishing it in El Pais. BH says is dangerous and Moroccans do not like to talk about it. The truth is that from our kitesurfy bungalow all I see is a marvelous sunset, gentle Moroccans (Saharaui or not) and wonderful international families making the most of this last day of 2010. If you wonder about the 9 French,...

I want a metro without pickpockets, and you? One more pickpocket incident in Line 9 of the Parisian metro and I will start a public campaign. I already designed the logo, I just need to make stickers and fill windows, chairs and doors in the metro with them. I had never ever felt so insecure taking public transport than in Paris. Yesterday, while seated in the metro I was surprised with the drivers' message out loud "Ladies and Gentlemen there is a pickpocket in the last wagon, watch out your bags".

I tried to refuse her love. I tried not to take any of her proposals for fun, for eating out, enjoying the sun, the coffees in charming bistros. I really tried to dislike her. And I did not succeed. I love Paris. La ville. Beauty is in Paris.

Read title with David Bowie's famous song... chaaa cchhh chhha cchaannges in mind. I feel changes. I have this supernatural power, according to me, to foresee the future. This belief has been strengthened after I foresaw two pickpocket attacks in the metro. I knew something would happen, I changed seats and moved away from the suspects, when the metro stopped few seconds latter they violently stole the iphone of a girl while she was talking in one case and run away with a bag in another one. I can read bad people as much as I can recognize good human fiber. My fiber tells me that changes will come soon into my life. I have already started missing Paris while still having an address, a telephone account and a job here. Very importantly, I have 10 sessions of vinyasa yoga that I finally accept will go unused since that type of yoga, despite forcing myself to like it, does not do good to my lower back. I miss my grey mini sofa, an enormous Burkina Faso mask standing in my living that...

Reporting live from Manila. I love the feeling of crossing the world in a plane. Even when the sleeping pill overdosed-Scottish middle age gigantic man sitting in front starts delirating and suddenly raises his skirt and decides to urinate in the middle of the plane. I thought we were landing in Mongolia. The face of the Dutch stewardess trying to reanimate the guy first, and making him feel ashamed second went from Munch's The Scream to Hitler in a matter of seconds. Human craziness apart, I love the feeling of flying through borders. Overflying Poland brought me back to 2001 and those days boyfriend husband and I were young and that first time we kissed in the garden of the Warsaw school where we spent a year of fun. The flight through Russian small villages (or at least they looked small from up there) flew me back to communism. In Kazakhstan I felt I was visiting a new country, even if all I could see was the vast blackness of unknown land. China, Mongolia, India...I don't ...

Inspiration comes when it comes. I know I am disappointing some of you and the snowball of blogless days becomes bigger and bigger, heavier and heavier on my shoulders. I'll be back very soon, I am in the process of planning what's next in life and putting thoughts in order. As boyfriend husband would say, there is no correct path, just yours. And I agree. He is always right.

This American proverb hanging from a kitchen fluorescent light bulb in a friend's house might be the best driver to live happily ever after. Don't blame yourself, don't blame others, things happen for a reason. All things. You didn't get that job. It had to happen. You found prince charming. It had to happen. You haven't yet. It will happen when it has to. This weekend we spent time with a new guru, a person I rediscovered, the eclectic kind of guru. We hit the Swiss slopes close to where he lives, we hit them so hard that boyfriend husband damaged his elbow badly. We ate immense amounts of cheese, rolled in the snow after sauna, inhaled as much fresh air as possible, and rediscovered the streets and the cafes of Geneva, a tiny elegant welcoming town that according to Borges is a place favoring happy lives . I tell Borges that the best place to visit is home. This weekend I saw small and big pictures of life.