Tomorrow After Tomorrow

Often, when I ask when something will be done, or begun, or arrive I am frequently told ‘tomorrow after tomorrow’. Now I have grown up with the exhortation that tomorrow never comes. So then ‘tomorrow after tomorrow’ becomes a truly nonexistent date. And often it is nonexistent. But then sometimes, the event or project or product really does arrive. Not exactly ‘tomorrow after tomorrow’ but it does arrive.

Accepting ‘tomorrow after tomorrow’ has been just one of the lessons I have learned whilst living in Morocco these past three years. My ‘to do’ list is useless. Time and time again I have learned that my timetable is never the same as anyone else’s timetable. So, a list of things I want to accomplish or acquire and the desire to tick off everything on the list just becomes an exercise in frustration. I’ve found the easiest thing to do is give up the list.

Now having an intention is different. I have great long lists of intentions that I dare not put down on paper lest I become wrapped up in actually realizing them and – God forbid – have a mental ‘due date’ associated with each intention. And lo and behold the manifestation of these intentions actually happens sometimes. It seems kind of magical.

Take, for instance, my intention to limit my time in Morocco each year. One more gruelingly hot summer, accompanied by a month of Ramadan, has brought me to the end of my rope. I can’t bear the idea of another summer in Morocco and want to find a way to return to California for several months next year.

Here’s what has happened since voicing that intention:

The Director of my school said I could work 4 semesters, rather than 6, and still keep my job.

In 24 hours, two parties have approached me about renting my entire house --- one for a year and a half and the other for up to two years.

Another party has expressed interest in partnering with me to finish the restoration of the house and help operate it as a guest house.

Now the trick is, as I see it, to avoid pushing for any one solution but keep my mind and heart open as to what will happen next. This is tricky for a task-driven person such as me. I try to weigh all options and have contingencies all planned out. Of course this approach has never really been effective --- especially in Morocco where ‘tomorrow after tomorrow’ rules the happenings (and non-happenings) of the day. But what is rather fun to observe is how intentions give way to opportunities which may or may not come to fruition. And the real fun comes in observing my reaction to the rise of opportunities (“oh wonderful”, I gleefully tell myself. “This must be the Universe’s way of telling me this is the right action”) and my response to the slamming shut of doors that once seemed wide open (“how could I have been so wrong? … What should I have done to make this thing happen?”). In other words, I masochistically observe myself drive myself crazy until I finally surrender to the wisdom of “Insha’allah”.