For some time now, I’ve been meaning to put together a proper blog post about my visit to Fez in March of this year, and my amazingly gracious and kind host, Sandy McCutcheon of The View From Fez.
Unfortunately, as some of you know, my father was ill at the time, and subsequently passed away in early June. I haven’t felt like doing much of anything other than just trying to get by every day. Sandy is in the unique position of understanding my grief better than most, but for an opposite reason – his 37 year old daughter, whom he had never met, finally tracked him down in late 2004. As he puts it so eloquently,
“AT FEZ AIRPORT, ON THE EVENING OF JANUARY 14, 2005, I held my daughter in my arms for the first time in my life. It was eight days after her 37th birthday. All day I had been so on edge and apprehensive I was nauseous. At times I thought I would be too ill to meet her. Yet the moment I set eyes on her the fear of rejection slipped away, replaced with an overwhelming sense of completion. The meeting raised huge questions about the nature/nurture debate. Up until that point, I had always accorded the two factors equal status as determinants of personality. On meeting Yvonne, this was totally overturned. The young woman I met was so emotionally and psychologically like me that the dominant role of genetics seemed indisputable. More importantly, we hit it off from the first moment and spent the next few days exploring every detail of each other’s life. Having the fascinating medina of Fez as a backdrop provided us with a safety valve and whenever we needed a break from the intensity of our newfound relationship, we explored the city arm in arm. Not only were we absolutely compatible, we were more than father and daughter – we were friends. It was pure bliss.”
As a 37 year old who had just lost her father and her best friend, I felt like I’d been cut adrift. That’s why, though it’s a poor excuse, I hadn’t written about my visit or Sandy. Or any other post on this blog except for a brief one about a Moroccan embroidery book I discovered in the OSU library.
But now, I think it’s time to get back on the horse. This post will probably be in several parts (I had quite a visit!), but in the meantime, here are three photos.
Sandy, after making us some delicious coffee
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Sandy's djellaba – check out that door!
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The main bedroom, which he lent to me to sleep in(!) – when the morning sun strikes them, the windows glow like jewels
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