AUTHOR: Francesca Gray
TITLE: A Mid-life Adventure: Part 1
DATE: 8:21 AM
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BODY:
Did I really take a holiday for the first time in all these years? Is it true that I flew to Tunisia by myself for two weeks? Already it is beginning to feel like something I dreamed. But no, I have photographs (I am even in a few of them), and postcards, souvenirs, a book with thoughts jotted down at random. A faint tan and even some peeling skin on the back of my neck. In my purse there are email addresses, phone numbers of new friends and my cigarettes are Tunisian with Arabic writing on the packet. It happened. I really did it and I loved every moment.
There is so much I want to tell, to remember, to fix safely in words less it fades with time. Home feels different. The house too dark and cluttered, there is not enough light even out doors and I am cold all the time. Already my world is shrinking. Already I am contained within walls, within myself. I want to hold on to the way I felt during those two weeks. The sense of freedom, of adventure, but I do not know how to.
Is it that there was some 'magic' in Tunisia? Or is it that I was simply responding to a new environment, new people, new activities? The answer lies some where in between I think. Tunisia is very different from England. So much poverty and so much wealth side by side. A land of contrasts. Mountain and dessert, barrenness and fertility, ancient and modern. The five times call to prayer loud above the sound of tourist consumerism. Noisy, impatient traffic and unfailing courtesy. A powerful sense of community, of friendliness, of time.
A beautiful country. A lovely people. Memories to last a life time.
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