Are you open to possibilities? Do you resemble your passport photo? Do you care and how important is it/ has it been that you have a place to stay when you left your country of origin or even had a visa? Let’s see mon chou how bad do we want to get into Sudan then back into Cairo? And can we hustle the border officers? Indeed! And yes I let the Bedouin women shave me from head to toe while I sipped tea and stayed out all night breaking all the stuffy rules in Giza, falling asleep against the back of the Sphinx, sweet caramel smoke wafting in the air all night, after those obscene light shows that I refuse to watch month after month. That orange/red dust they call "sand" in the States coating our bodies, our everwhere, becoming our hair if not covered, matching our henna trails. I chose the horses many times over the spitting camels there. But in Santorini I did a split. Took a tram up into the Island at times.. and then the horse down. The secret carved marble on the shores of Crete. Yes they are still there. We keep them hidden beneath huge stones as big as the Gods’s themelves and my sister weeps on them in seasons that she lives there. The sea crashes onto her Beauties relentlessly, as she knew would happen, and now sinks into her tub of red and purple seaweed beneath the great oaks and hears the marble sighing from thousands of miles away. I can’t track all of the places anymore and when I called Iris the other night to tell her about Farka/ dying she asked me about that last recording. "Diabate" I tell her.. which Diabate? she asks. Your husband. I am laughing. I am not keeping it in choricalogical order anymore and I know this. The visas, countries, time zones, boarders, spices. “Have you called Jawanza yet? He asked for your number again and I would not give it to him.” He is my brother from my pied a terre, or one of them. And no I will not call him. We walked hand in hand through Makelekele and Bacongo back when we were so much younger it seems. She tells me he is announcing the coming of his birthday soon. It is still four months away. But I already know this about him. He is telling the People how beautiful and lovely he still is at his age.I am sure he is. Still cooking the perfect saka saka, and smells of linen suits and vervain in summer, leather and shoe polish in winter. Just a few years older than I. It is the life of very late phone calls, dark beer and smoked meat. You eat and are grateful for what is given and give what you can and do not cling. You may loose you visa or you mind. That’s ok as long as you have your spirit.