Virtual Tangier: Diana Adams

VIRTUAL TANGIER: Visions of the City

2000: DIANA ADAMS (Journal excerpts from a return to Tangier)

We arrived from the sea --deliberately, to recreate the first time we saw the city, in 1961 (it has grown from pop: 150,000 then to 1,000,000 now, so it's a lot bigger, even from the sea!) Close as it is to everything, meaning Europe, it is fascinatingly difficult and surprisingly expensive to get to Tangier -- as though there's a protective shield around the place -- and it is such a profoundly penetrating experience for those with the ties there that we had...

You sort of have to be up for it, for things to go wrong, for inconvenience and weird out-of-left-field occurrences and synchronicities, for absorbing the names of people you knew who have died (many), for dirt and hassles and grown Spaniards shrieking like banshees and jumping up and down, and hopping over a fragrant bonfire because a red moon just rose over Tangier,

for the sounds all night long of the call to prayer, waking the dogs and roosters and owls... the east wind knocking everyone in the city out for a day or two here and there, for madness and mischief...and this is only the beginning.

Friday, 6-9-00 This afternoon I am in a strange mood, wide awake and
energized by the carrot and orange juice. Am thinking about everything: the blue and lavender shadow my hand casts on the paper (do we have these colors in North America?), the birds and wind through the palms, the ability to accustom oneself to extraordinary beauty, my particular ability to disregard garbage strewn about... how I love the smells of burning fires (even trash) mixed with honeysuckle, and cooking food from kitchens nearby and winds from the Straits.

6-12-00 My poor little mind keeps trying to construct a narrative out of the overwhelming life we are living each day but there is no beginning and no end but only a torrent of activities and impressions: things to be done and things to be seen and the wild wind blowing the clattering palm leaves, the call to prayer, the happy birds hiding this moment from the stiff rhythmic gusts of wind, the maids' high-pitched "discussions", doves cooing, all of us women lounging around all morning speaking and laughing in low tones in Sibyl and my little loft overlooking the garden, resting after a solid week of going all over during the days and partying most every night; seeing old friends' eyes, long sessions of gossip and "scandale", 4-hour lunches, tears, lunch on the Mountain, seafood, cous-cous, cool breezes, brilliant dark blue skies, white moon invading the loft at night, love and affection coming from nowhere and leading everywhere, past and future commingled in a tender present of soft endearments in french and arabic.

6-?-00 The Palais Menebhi is a place behind a great white wall -- and the quietness and serenity begins as one closes the door. Drumming Gnaoua musicians play at the parties and madness and passion are afoot. FULL MOON NIGHTS. The moon shoots a white path across the tile floor and leads me out each night. The muezzins call the prayer out together (five mosques nearby) and I listen or the wind calls me around 3:15 by banging the doors. The men calling for prayers first wake a few roosters and then dogs bay along. It's a haunting chorus with an occasional owl from our garden...I love the sound. These nights are the kind of thing that make me feel at home on earth and happily interrelated among species.

6-20-00 Crying when Sibyl left for America, being sick, generally breaking down my other identity is good. "Home" seems very far away, very remote and not much worth remembering or imagining. There is nothing for it but to piddle about and rest up. My little fever goes up a degree or so above normal which feels good, seems to loosen my brain cells up, and then down a degree below normal which feels achy and slow. My head is clear, my ears happy, my eyes look murky, am covered with bites, wonder if this is caused by bites, tap water or evilness or all. Things are either ecstatically sweet or stingingly sharp.

6-21-00 Wednesday afternoon I fell asleep after reading two Jane Bowles stories. I dreamed that I should fly again, as I have been flying in many recent dreams. I was wearing a long blue robe and flew very high over a Tangier courtyard paved in terracotta tile --immense -- end of dream.

The days have the quality of days in Morocco that I remember from long ago. They go on and on, but I am not bored… I always have menial tasks to do: laundry, folding, reading, arranging flowers, bathing, making a photograph, receiving a phone call, making it last, flirting, sleeping, sunning, climbing to the roof to watch the bigger picture, listening to conversation at meals, remembering, looking hard at a rose, kissing everyone on two cheeks, crying when I feel sad, drinking a bottle of water.

6-?-00 The long days and long nights last forever, but one can't help the occasional terrible thought about leaving. And those thoughts are really about the sadness, the marshalling of ones forces, of coping with the larger world of bureaucracies (airlines, customs, boats, countries and uniforms --the anonymous people) and the particular stupidities and difficulties these forms engender, both physically and aesthetically.
Perhaps it's a simulacrum of the river Styx: a deathful voyage of horror and obliteration you must make before reaching the other side: your other life. Your destination.
The fact that in order to vacate your life or take a vacation, you must risk your health or well-being, and even your actual life, seems ludicrous, technologically speaking. But what if airports had parks and aviaries where you could sit and breathe real air and listen to birds go about their cheerful business? Streams you could sit beside with waterfalls and mists to soothe your dehydrated skin? Skylights everywhere and inspiring architecture? Plants generating fresh oxygen. I don't actually know what the people want any more do you? Las Vegas? Disney?

6-28-00 A quote from a Tangerine: "From her nose, she looked down upon the people.." This last week is passing like a slow dream. we do nothing but go to the market (souk), eat, nap, wander down to Porte's and around town, make up little stories to tell for each other's delectation, drink tea or pastis (pernod), and wash our hair! We look down at the garden from the window and watch the weather from the straits. Yesterday I took L. and Hakima to the Fez market and right away we found three little monkeys, babies, huddled up behind a cage. We bought a banana and fed them. They were too tiny and weak to grasp a banana piece in one hand. We had to help them. They buried their little faces in the fruit. I fear they're going to die. They were so incredibly charming and appealing in their ugliness. It was difficult to leave. Later we were cheated in the market -- how Tangerine.

6-30-00 I wonder how the winds affect one homeopathically: giving us minute particles of silica from the Sahara, sea salts from the north, minerals and spores from strange fruit from all over the world converging in the shifting winds at the Straits -- le detroit--it makes the people able to digest many cultures. Tangier is currently full of Nigerians trying to make their way to Europe for work. The doves are cooing relentlessly. Wings loudly flap as the garden birds fly here and there and we are high enough to be in their path. The dogs are silent. Quote from The Rings of Saturn: "the source of Flaubert's scruples was to be found in the relentless spread of stupidity which he had observed everywhere, and which he believed had already invaded his own head. It was as if one was sinking into sand. Sand conquered all.. In a grain of sand in Emma Bovary's winter gown, Flaubert saw the whole of the Sahara. For him, every speck of dust weighed as heavy as the Atlas Mountains."

Friday (10AM) The day is already sublime and terrible. L. couldn't sleep because of a perceived haunting last night...a rustling hissing creature jumped mockingly on the ledge opposite our loft. I myself felt the hairs on my arms lift when walking down the halls when I got in around 2 a.m.--a feeling of immanence. I saw nothing but how right it might be to see something ghostly. Hakima couldn't sleep because of djinns and mosquitoes, and Mummy couldn't sleep because of the overpowering scent of a wild animal in her bedroom. She was in a dour mood. So is everyone. (Later) Mustapha came over and we discussed the hauntings in the evening. He said in Morocco, every house has good djinns and bad djinns, and that it was a night when the bad djinns were out and about. We talked about it at some length so the djinns could hear themselves properly discussed and they left us alone the next night.

7-1-00 I'm not sure why, but we seem to be in one sort of very clear space--the one of 'coincidence', 9 times out of 10, if we mention someone's name, they call within one minute (even from the U.S.). It seems that every time we intuit a connection, it occurs. Last night we sat around our pastis and potato salad and talked about Aisha Kandisha, ghosts hauntings, good djinns and bad djinns and many other things. After talking about these aspects and acknowledging the age and strangeness of this palace, everyone was able to sleep again. Can an entire city be a family? I think so...a large family: a million Tangerois: buzzing, talking, eating, clearing their throats, dying; ANTS ON A PLATE.

July 2, 2000 Tangier exists where? First in hearts and memory and
conversation and imagination. Tangier exists at a distance: you see it from the ferry, from Dawliz, from Buckingham's on the old mountain, from Malabata, from a window in the casbah: inexpressibly lovely, pale and blue. Tangier exists behind its walls in the private gardens and damp houses. Tangier exists in Milwaukee, Toronto, Paris, Beirut -- in Farida's film at Sundance. Tangier exists in hopelessness, resignation and nostalgia. The new king is here as I write, a few blocks away at the Palais Marshan. Tangier exists like an ancient carpet: subtle hidden places, holes and frayed parts, faded, almost useless but not quite (factories are being built, new neighborhoods everywhere) -- Tangier exists in winds that cross each other and in ocean and sea currents that smash and then blend somehow. Tangier exists in tolerance and appreciation and in stupidity and obstinacy. Tangier directs you east toward Greece, Jordan and Lebanon but also towards California. It directs you to Spain and France, but reminds you that Africa still suffers. It is at the very edge of Africa. It is beyond Europe certainly. It is almost invisible to America altogether. Very hard to see. Very hard. Very.

See also: Studio Diana, Fairfax, Virginia

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