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We landed after midnight. The heat of the April night was as disorienting as the vision of the mythic Casablancan runways. The first sight out of the palm-fronded airport was the minaret of the Hassan II Mosque - the tallest building in the country and the highest minaret in the world. King Hassan wanted the mosque to be built on the rocky Casablancan coast, citing the Quranic verse that God's throne is built on the water. In tonight's moonlight, it emerges from the Atlantic Ocean a marbled and glorious vision. The $800 million building is built with all local Moroccan materials, except for the glass chandeliers which are from Venice, another spiritual city also built on water. At night, a green laser shines a beam from the top of the minaret towards Mecca, to point the way to God. The precision of that light leaves little room for doubt of a spiritual home.
Seeing that green light from the airport made me remember reading about a different green light shining from the end of another dock. My favorite book growing up in Florida had been The Great Gatsby. The first copy I ever had was my Dad's. The only physical souvenirs we have of our father is his library; every book of his was stamped with his name and his Army number. I remember the first summer I read it, fueled by the Floridian heat to an even stronger loathing of peninsula's the sandy coast. I had never felt at home amid the shifting sands of sinkholes (Florida has more sinkholes than any other state in the country) or unstable water tables. I had never felt that stability which comes from a sure sense of home. I had always wanted to ask my Dad if he had felt the same sort of drifting feeling as Nick Carraway, if that is what made him hitchhike across America before volunteering to fight in Europe in WWII, or go work in Korea or move to Lebanon where I would later be born.
The next day, as I felt the Mosque's heated floor made of glass beneath my knees, providing a perfect view of the sea below, I knew that I was experiencing the Atlantic Ocean from the other side. The only prayer I could repeat to myself, over and over: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
1 comment:
... your writing leaves me breathless. your words jump from the page as if they are alive - energizing my senses, tears well up in my eyes and an energy rushes through my body as my breath has been restored - you have a talent with your words - i especially love your connection back to your father and how your only physical souvenirs are from his library. what amazing treasures those articles of remembrance must be - but this notion of unstable water tables in Florida and it having more sinkholes than any other state is an interesting connection that i would love to read more about :)
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