Durham-Dirham-Durham

I always tell my students that if you don't know your ending go back to your beginning. Or in travelers terms given enough time and space most things will come full circle in this world.

Here's just one small instance. I met my husband, Larry, 23 years ago in Richmond, Virginia. My life was a mess, but he would not be thwarted. On our first date we drove to a theater to see Bull Durham. We always recall that night fondly. Me with my barefeet on the dash of his unairconditioned Honda or whatever it was.

Many years, many journeys later we find ourselves in Morocco where we are spending our dirhams (amused that the abbreviation for dirham for some reason is MAD which I always think means the Madrid airport which in airport jargon it does). We are spending them on food and hotels, on a rental car and trains, on a camel trek and scarves, and on a carpet we had no intention of buying, but paid for it anyway in many many dirhams, just to escape (and now I understand why people sign forced confessions. I would have signed anything to get out of there).

So we are spending our dirhams, recalling Bull Durham, and then realized that our flight home which was on a mileage ticket took us to NY via Marrakech, Madrid, London and then Raleigh-Durham where we missed our flight to JFK and had to spend four hours contemplating whatever if anything this meant in the grand scheme of things and though, exhausted and Larry in fact sick we agreed that it meant nothing there was still a certain symmtry to it all and anyway I like it when something in this world comes full circle even if it took us 24 hours to fly home.

Of course this isn't an end for us but just the start of a new beginning, but it was nice to have that layover in Raleigh-Durham to contemplate this and oh so much more...