Castles made of sand & towels obsession

Posted on 15 April 2009

French breakfasts in bellies we headed beach-ward. It’s a long, curved beach. The evenings fill it with soccer game upon soccer game, male, all ages. Daytime means tourists and sellers of every kind.

Cookies, camel rides, heroin, space cookies, opium, happy pills. Three boys ahead, three girls behind, soft ripples against dark sand. Jimmie Hendrix’s sand castle beach, eventually. Five fat-lipped, skew-toothed, ploddy camels and one strong aluminum-coated horse. I rode and the others caravanned, Essouira shrinking behind us. The sun baked.

We found one place in Essouira that served alcohol. Bad service, toilets don’t really flush, potato fries look terribly dangerous but it’s clean and it’s on the beach. And thus, UV exposure levels well reached for the morning, we settled there for an hour of beer and chips and company. Team time was running out and the air was slightly melancholic.

I have issues with towels. I like them big. This doesn’t make packing easy, but more than that, I become attached. A journey filled with shopping and full suitcases, I find it very hard to leave towels behind. No one will ever appreciate your towel if you leave it with them. Left towels become floor mats or house cleaning towels. So no matter the weight or space issue on a journey home, I always have to squeeze my post-shower-comforter in. I have left one towel behind. August 2006, Siena, a sad moment.

And so, back to Moroccan memories, I have been traveling with two towels since leaving Italy. One is a big, soft, hotel-stolen towel. The other is a bright, happy, pink and orange, Massa Carrara beach shop towel. Here was the issue, Jack’s disgusting, torn, caught-under-a-leaking-roof-all-night, smelly rag of a towel had been disposed of so he had been sharing my beach towel. During the beer and chips I decided that the man should not be made to travel the next six months with no means of absorbance. So he now owns Miss Massa Carrara and swears to care for her like his own child. This may be the start of a therapeutic healing to my towel obsessions.






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