Learning to Let Go on a Camel

My camel, Bob Marley, loped along serenely, as I gripped the iron handles protruding from the… saddle? Is it a saddle that sits on top of a camel? Whatever, you know what I mean… as if I were, ahem… steering.

That’s right. Yours truly was trying to steer a camel.

Bob Marley could not feel this earnest effort, nor would he have cared if he could. His job was to walk behind the “camel driver” (an interesting moniker describing the person who walks in front of the camel), and he performed his duties perfectly.

It finally dawned on me, about a half hour into the ride to our camp in the Sahara, that no input from me was required. Bob Marley was going to do whatever he was going to do no matter who was on his back. My “input”, as it were, was completely and ridiculously and obviously futile, plus it was making my hands and my back hurt.

Camels, for those who have never ridden one (a group that included me until two days ago), are enormous. You get on and off of them because they agree, at the driver’s request, to kneel down and let you on… it looks something like this:

We might as well have been flies on their backs.

But once you’re on, it feels like you need to… I don’t know, like stabilize yourself or steer or something…but if you try to stiffen against the loping, jostling movement, to “hang on”, it actually makes everything worse. You feel less stable.

If, however, you just go with it – allow the massive loping animal beneath you to jostle you and allow your body to sway with it – well, then it feels just fine.

Isn’t that a metaphor for… everything. Life.

The last year should have been a master class for me in letting go. Nothing, and I mean nothing, went the way I had meticulously planned it. Turns out work teams and families and stock markets can’t be steered any more effectively than camels, but it took a camel to finally get that through my thick head.

And what a relief! None of it was ever my job, and resisting and hanging on was just making my back hurt.

Here are some more photos from our truly fabulous trip… Morocco is a gorgeous country, filled with some of the kindest people I’ve met in my travels, and I’ve met a lot of kind people. We visited a tannery in Fes, bought carpets from Berbers in the Sahara, drove through the Atlas mountains, rode camels, spent a night in a tent (a VERY nice tent) in the Sahara, and ate enough chicken tagines to last me the rest of my life. The food, the scenery, the art, the people… all absolutely terrific. Chokran (thank you), Morocco ❤️.

I’m going to endeavor to do a bit more loping along with life from now on. Swaying with it, rather than hanging on for dear life, sounds like a lot more fun.

Join me?

Cheers!

Traveling Girl