In 2012, I wrote a column every Wednesday called What Am I Doing Here? It was an amazing year for me in terms of travel, building my business, and learning how to be a husband and father. I’ve put all 52 weeks into book form below.
What Am I Doing Here?
52 Weeks of Wandering and Wondering in 2012
by CD Damitio
Contents
Introduction 2
An Inevitable Vagabond 3
Aging Itinerant Writer 6
Travel Blog Fairy Tales 9
Those Lovable Turks 10
Important Life Decisions 12
Win $1 Million Dollars 14
Egotourism 16
Having Fun in Morocco and Living My Dreams 18
Dragging My Family Around 20
Learning Travel Lessons All Over Again 22
Fulfilling Prophecy 25
Blogging Bologna 27
Weighing Istanbul 29
Heading Toward Fairy Chimney’s and Cappadocia Wonders 31
Avoiding Syria Troubles by Heading to the Trees 32
Soaked in a Sunshine Destination and Happy About It 34
Blogville in Bologna, Italy 35
Drawing Distinctions About Extinctions 36
Moroccan Complaining 38
What happened to Sefrou? 40
Dreaming of Hawaii and Making Plans to Get Away 43
Flights of Fancy 44
Refocusing, Reflecting, Rejoicing 46
Telling People Not to Travel 49
Looking for the Maltese Falcon 50
Exploring Italy’s Essence – Food, Wine, Art, Architecture, and Religion 52
Celebrating International Independence 53
Exploring the Sultanate of Baboob 55
Confessing and Getting Ready to Fast 57
Ramadan in Morocco: Participating and Observing 60
Celebrating a Year of Fatherhood 61
Sailing and Sweating in Greece 64
Wondering How to Get Home 65
Smooth Living in the Aegean 66
Istanbul, Cairo, Greece, and Going Home 68
Building the Future of Travel – I Hope 70
Remembering 911 and Seeing the Effects on Travel 11 Years Later 72
Ranting About the Mohammad Movie 74
Staycation in Morocco 77
The Moroccan Atlantic 79
Morocco in Black and White 81
Considering Egyptian Souvenirs 83
A Sahara Desert Artistic Retreat 84
Halloween in Marseille 86
Rediscovering England 88
Flying the Hajji Skies – From Cairo to Morocco 90
Revisiting the World Travel Market in London 93
The Egyptian Pyramids on Horseback 95
The Egyptian Hustle 98
Christmas in Sefrou 99
Sledding with Moroccan Snow Bunnies 101
Looking at my travels in 2012 102
Introduction
Sefrou, Morocco
12 January 2013
As the new year unfolds, I find myself still living in small town Morocco and I’m not terribly happy about it. My plan for the past couple of years has been to get my wife and daughter out of Morocco, but so far, it hasn’t happened. The problem is that my wife is a Moroccan Arab and the paperwork involved to get her to the USA is monstrous on both sides.
Our first hurdle was getting the paperwork in Morocco and waiting until we’d been married for two years to file for her immigrant visa to the USA. After that, it’s been a matter of fulfilling the requirements on the US side. I think we’ve finally got it licked. I sent the last batch of paperwork off on my birthday, December 27, 2012. Coincidentally, that was also the date I wrote the last column in this collection. I’ve got my fingers crossed.
In terms of this collection, I want to explain what this is. I’ve been writing and traveling for most of my life. I haven’t always been the most orderly person about the way I do either. From 2008-2011, I was all over the globe but I wasn’t necessarily writing about where I was or in an orderly way. Despite the fact that I was running my own website(s), I wasn’t managing them like a magazine or newspaper, which, given my background in managing newspapers and writing columns for magazines – was rather odd.
At the end of 2011, I realized the truth of that situation and decided to turn Vagobond.com from just another travel blog into a travel and lifestyle magazine. There was a lot to that, but one factor I added in was weekly columns. The first one, was my own. I decided to call it “What am I doing here?” – Each week in 2012 (and to this day), I publish “What am I doing here?” on Vagobond.com. It’s been a joy for me and as I look at this collection, I’m amazed by how far and wide my experiences and travels took me in this past year.
I hope you enjoy my life! I’ve enjoyed it, but I’ll be happy to finally escape Sefrou when that day finally comes.
My Best to You!
An Inevitable Vagabond
04 January 2012
Sefrou, Morocco
Here I am again and while this week has been a bit Vago heavy, rest assured that from now on I will be confining my editorials to Wednesdays.
I’ve decided to call my weekly column “What am I doing here?”, the inspiration for this simple title comes from the French poet Jean Nicholas Arthur Rimbaud who famously wrote home from Ethiopia “What am I doing here?”
Even if the words had never been said or written famously by Rimbaud or others, they are still perfectly apt for an editorial travel column and specifically for one written by me since, in truth, not a week goes by that I don’t ask myself “What am I doing here?” whether I am in Morocco, Turkey, Hawaii, Paris or anywhere else on this planet.
Rimbaud himself was a libertine who traveled extensively and lived only 37 years before being taken by cancer. In that time, he had a profound impact on literature and while he isn’t specifically known as a traveler, certainly travel had an impact on his work that cannot be measured.
I like to think that Rimbaud was like me in many ways. He was a vehement anti-authoritarian – so much so that he probably did the very things that killed him and harmed him simply because they were forbidden. Absinthe binges, hashish bouts, fights, running away from home, crime, and even joining the Army to get free travel benefits. Yes, Arthur, me too.
Like Rimbaud, I feel that it was inevitable that I become a vagabond. My childhood traumas, teenage rebellions, and natural proclivities for that which is forbidden led me to eventually flush my future down the crapper whenever it began to look like it would be settled. And, like Rimbaud – my wandering eventually led me to Africa where both of us have spent more than a bit of time asking “What am I doing here?”
If all of that sounds ridiculous, consider that I left the dot com world of stock options and new millionaires every day in the Seattle of 1999 to move into a $100 Volkswagen van and learn how to enjoy being homeless. That life changing experiment yielded Rough Living: Tips and Tales of a Vagabond.
As for Rimbaud, at 17 he wrote the following in a letter…”I’m now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I’m working at turning myself into a seer. You won’t understand any of this, and I’m almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It’s really not my fault.”
By the way, I didn’t encounter Rimbaud until 2007, oddly enough. If I had, I might have avoided a lot of suffering since it seems he answered many of the questions I was seeking answers to. Of course, the answer that never comes is that eternal question “What am I doing here?”
Whether a question of practicality, being lost, sudden realization, purpose, or philosophical exploration, I’ve found that it’s a question that needs to be asked. I’ve asked it as a way to evaluate my careers, a way to evaluate my relationships, a way to evaluate my geographic location and a way to check up on my work.
Most recently, I find myself asking “What am I doing here?” in regards to Morocco. Morocco. A culturally rich country filled with wonders, kind people, fresh delicious foods and more. What am I doing here?
The truth is, I can’t stand living here. Morocco drives me insane. From the fact that in order to get a dental appointment you have to wake up very early, go to the dentist, take a number and then come back later when your number ‘should’ be up (and that’s the modern version) to living in a cinder block concrete house with no insulation that is sweltering in summer and freezing in winter. More specifically, what am I doing here in a medium sized town in the Middle Atlas mountains where there are no restaurants, no movie theater, no cultural attractions, no outdoor attractions, no writing groups, no university, no this, that or the other? What am I doing here?
My books don’t fit in any neat box — because they’re about people who feel something huge is missing… and actually go look for it. Some even find it.
Dive into the full catalog and see which story hits you hardest. CD Damitio on Amazon.
CD Damitio writes at indignified.substack.com — essays on utopias, dystopias, and the spaces between. Free to read. No algorithm, no sponsored content. His books can be found on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/stores/CD-Damitio/author/B001JP7NWA
CD Damitio writes INDIGNIFIED — utopias and dystopias explored. Free to read.
