What a day to be alive! Even if just barely.
It’s Sunday again and for this one I’m actually with you for real. The past two weeks my posts have been presets from before I headed out for the Saharan leg, but today my finger tips are tapping this keyboard in real time. Using the last few muscles of my being that still have the energy to move.
After what seems like an eternity I’ve made it to the Saharan oasis town Boujdour in Western Sahara and today is all about sweeping town of everything that’s even theoretically edible, calling home to refuel the soul with the voices of loved ones, showering a European beach worth of sand out of my ear(erhm)holes – all of course while simultaneously refusing to get out of the guesthouse bed I’ve found myself here.
Plus – sending a small greeting to you lovely lot :-)
I’m nowhere near the end of it and my Saharan finish line is yet another +600 km away. I am drained and have nothing left to give. The equation is not even close to adding up but all that seems terribly unimportant at the moment. Today is bliss and that’s all that matters.
Had I had what it took I would have written about experiencing Mauritania. Its pure and endless deserts of course. But much more about modern day misery beyond words. About brutal racism. Misogyny. Open slavery in 2017. About futureless children playing – or just passively standing – in burning mountains of trash. About the smell of urin and rotting meat in 45 degrees. About all of it.
I would write about a hell on fire and a world’s silent agreement of its nonexistence. And about the most incredible human beings welcoming me to it like something between their long lost daughter and much awaited half god. About being a disgustingly privileged western woman with a VIP seat to watch a world in flames. Close enough to see it all in finest detail. Always with enough distance to not ever get her toes burnt. And I would write about a shattered soul leaving at the end of the show, as always with her version of real life waiting to be picked up just where she left off.
Ignorance is bliss. Right? It sure is for us always ending up on the right side of it.
The question is though, what the hell one’s supposed to do when the illusion cracks. Crawl back in?
Of course not.
Over and over again we all claim it wouldn’t even be possible. State how life will never be the same again. Still I’m here – once more – looking forward with my back steadily turned on everything and everyone permanently left exactly there – behind me. Shamelessly letting watermelon and FaceTime calls to a different universe fill my whole conception of reality.
As always like nothing – and no one – ever happend.
‘I’m nowhere near the end of it and my Saharan finish line is yet another +600 km away. I am drained and have nothing left to give. The equation is not even close to adding up but all that seems terribly unimportant at the moment. Today is bliss and that’s all that matters.
Today is bliss and that’s all that matters?
My own words, literally 30 minutes ago. I think you can tell this post didn’t exactly go where I intended it to.
The worst thing though is that they’re probably true. Today is bliss – because today is ignorance. To the headwind wall of desert that still lies ahead. But more so to the Mauritanian decay left behind. And to all the other ones I’ve seen, felt, lived – and most importantly – turned my back on before that. To the guilt of knowing that I’ll do the same a million times again.
Today is ignorance. Today is bliss.
Today is the reason why the hells of this world will never stop burning.
And now… I’m going for ice cream.
Fuck.
Until next time,
Fredrika