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Anna Smith Clark

@annasmithclark

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Sometimes a mermaid, sometimes a tumbleweed
Designing wild gardens & unexpected beauty
📍East Bay | Owner: @atomicoctopusdesigngarden
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Last night of our travels together ❤️

Finished our summer travels properly with a meat pie, mash and mushy peas in a Kensington pub, followed by the coolest little theatre where we watched The Odyssey.

So proud of my boy. So love him. And I just so enjoy every second with him. He’s funny, curious, always up for an adventure, best travel companion!!

How lucky am I get this time together. ❤️ by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

As I rode into the stunning oasis of the Palmeraie, which is a story unto itself, we passed a few places where the camels were simply hanging out beneath the palms, mamas with their babies tucked in among them.

I have to post this one just because.

And especially for my university professor, Mr. Gibbons.

Camels will forever remind me of Mr. @MichaelGibbons and his wonderful stories of adventures in faraway places, including the unforgettable story of being bitten on the shoulder by one.

Some professors teach you what is in the books. Others leave you curious about the enormous world outside of them.

Nearly forty years later, I see a camel in Morocco and think of Mr. Gibbons.

I rather love that. by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

Goodbye to Essaouira, with its delicious fish, blue and white paths, beautiful old doors, endless cats, and Atlantic winds that seem to blow through everything.

Off to the Palmeraie, just outside Marrakech, for one last Moroccan night among the palms.

Then north to Hamburg and family for the weekend.

The tail end of these travels now. Morocco behind me, Germany ahead, and that feeling when a long journey begins folding itself up around you. by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

SEAGULLS — Part IV

And then I began thinking about desperation.

What does desperation make of us?

I thought of someone I knew when I was young, a boy who lost his father and was told by an uncle that he was now responsible for his family. He began hustling almost immediately and carried that combination of responsibility, anger and desperation far into adulthood.

I thought of my father, who went from a comfortable life to losing nearly everything, and how he scrambled, even toward the end, to protect and provide for his family.

There is something that happens when survival enters the room. Some people fold. Some flee. Some learn to grab whatever opportunity appears before someone else gets it.

During my time in Morocco, several people have told me they would never emigrate.

You make of your life what you can here.

This is their land. Their families. Their country. Why leave?

And yet beside me sat a Spaniard looking at these boys and seeing the beginning of a story he believed he already knew: the boys who would someday cross the water.

I looked again at the tea boy.

Ten years old, perhaps. Thin, sun-lightened hair, dressed in black, planted on his bicycle in the middle of the road, shouting at grown men and refusing to surrender an inch.

What becomes of that?

Maybe the Spaniard was right that some essential part of him will remain.

But a core is not a destiny.

That refusal to back down could become anger. It could become trouble. It could also become courage, ambition, loyalty, survival. Perhaps the question is what happens around him before life decides which of those qualities it needs from him.

A few hours earlier, I had watched the seagulls over the fishing port.

They weren’t wondering who the fish belonged to.

They weren’t ashamed of wanting.

They were simply awake, watching for what the morning might offer.

And when it appeared, they went for it. by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

SEAGULLS — Part III

There was shouting. Bicycles were thrown onto the pavement. Three or four men from the restaurant were confronting the boys, who were giving every bit of the argument back. One of the older men grabbed a boy by the hair and began hitting at him, dragging him around the corner.

For a moment, I thought I was about to watch a child receive a terrible beating.

The boy who had taken my tea was now astride his bicycle in the middle of the street, shouting fiercely toward the men. He would not back down.

I looked away.

When I looked again, the boy who had been dragged around the corner was back on his bicycle, crying. Another man was beside him now, gently stroking his hair and the back of his neck, consoling him.

The tea boy was still shouting.

The Spanish man sitting beside me watched all of this and then said something that stayed with me.

“These are the kind of people coming to Spain.”

He called them scoundrels, then seemed almost to correct himself. Boys who had had rough lives. Who knew how hard. But whatever they eventually became, he believed something of this would remain at their core.

I looked at the boy on his bicycle.

And all I could think was: seagulls.

Not because they were bad.

Because they saw an opportunity and took it.

Bread. Tea. Sugar. Whatever was there.

And then I began thinking about desperation.

What does desperation make of us?

I thought of someone I knew when I was young, a boy who lost his father and was told by an uncle that he was now responsible for his family. He began hustling almost immediately and carried that combination of responsibility, anger and desperation far into adulthood.

I thought of my father, who went from a comfortable life to losing nearly everything, and how he scrambled, even toward the end, to protect and provide for his family.

There is something that happens when survival enters the room. Some people fold. Some flee. Some learn to grab whatever opportunity appears before someone else gets it.

During my time in Morocco, several people have told me they would never emigrate.

Part IV Follows by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

SEAGULLS — Part II

I walked through the working fishing port and then south along the long curve of beach. The Atlantic trade winds that make Essaouira famous with windsurfers made for a surprisingly cold walk. After the extreme heat of Baja and Marrakech, I had forgotten what it felt like to be chilled.

By nine, I went looking for breakfast.

I found a tiny café absolutely packed with people and squeezed in against the wall between a local woman and a man from Spain.

I ordered what has become a familiar Moroccan breakfast: bissara, a thick, warming purée of fava beans fragrant with cumin and olive oil, scrambled eggs with mushrooms and herbs, warm khobz bread, and mint tea.

The tea arrives as a small ritual of its own: a little pot, fresh mint and enormous rectangular sugar cubes. That morning it felt especially good simply to wrap my hands around the warm glass.

After eating, I lingered over my tea, nose eventually returning to my phone as I tried to work out where I might walk next.

Suddenly a boy appeared at my table.

Maybe ten years old. Dressed entirely in black, with tousled brown hair bleached lighter by the sun. Before I quite understood what was happening, he had picked up one of my empty glasses.

He said something in Arabic and gestured impatiently toward the teapot. In his other hand were several half-eaten pieces of khobz.

“Oh. You want some tea?”

Why not?

I poured him a glass.

He tasted it and immediately made a face as though I had served him something terrible.

Not sweet enough.

He spotted the half-used sugar cube beside my glass, grabbed it and began furiously dipping it into his tea. Dip, dip, dip, scowling the entire time.

The woman beside me began scolding him in Arabic, apparently offended by his manners.

He answered her without the slightest sign of apology, took his tea and bread, and walked back toward a group of boys waiting beyond the tables.

I couldn’t help smiling.

A few moments later, I saw him around the corner sharing what he had collected with his friends.

I went back to my map.

Then everything changed.

Seagulls — Part III follows. by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

SEAGULLS — Part I

I have begun to notice that a city reveals itself first through sound.

In Essaouira, I have the odd luxury of an almost comically extravagant living situation. I booked at the last minute as a solo traveler and somehow ended up with an entire five-story courtyard house that looks styled for a Côté Sud photo shoot. Four bedrooms, five bathrooms, five terraces, three living areas, a dining room, and a huge kitchen outfitted to throw a party for a small village.

Just me.

There is no riad manager to pass in the morning, no housekeeper to smile at, no familiar person for those small exchanges that begin to make a place feel inhabited. Getting home requires navigating a little labyrinth from the main passage of the Medina.

At first I worried I would never remember the turns, so I began making visual bridges for myself: the small blue door on the corner, the hanging clothes, the pink sack filled with something heavy, the longer street, then the two short covered passages where there are no lights.

Inside, the house can feel cavernous and strangely secluded.

Traditional courtyard houses turn inward, for shade and modesty. Behind walls two or three feet thick, the Medina becomes something I hear more than see. During the day, the noise of the crowded streets echoes through the stone. As evening comes, it slowly recedes. Eventually the voices and footsteps disappear and another sound takes over: the rolling Atlantic.

By morning, the first sound of the waking city is the seagulls.

Loud, insistent, argumentative seagulls.

Lying there, I imagine the fishing port beginning its day. The little blue boats coming in with their assorted catch. Men on shore sorting what remains from yesterday. Vendors arranging their stalls with extraordinary precision, sardines crisscrossed over one another until their silver bodies become stars. Larger fish laid out and made ready for the first customers.

All of it watched carefully by the very vocal gulls and the much quieter lounging cats.

So one morning I followed the sounds.

Part ll Next Post by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

Anna

When I travel, I have little interest in the modern or touristy. Of course there are things to see. Here in Marrakech, yes, the snake charmers, the palaces, the places I would be foolish to miss.

But what I really love is sitting and talking with local people.

I want to understand what I can. Customs, history, and food, what brings a smile, families and relationships, nature and love.

Often, while talking with someone, I ask their name. Knowing it somehow changes the exchange. We may have begun as traveler and shopkeeper, guest and host, or simply strangers who crossed paths, but a name makes it personal.

And usually the question comes back.

“What is your name?”

“Anna.”

It is a name that seems to have traveled almost everywhere before me. Across Europe and Latin America, and into parts of Asia, I find Anna, Ana, Anne, Ania, Anja and other variations.

Often a face lights up.

“My sister is Anna.”
“My grandmother!”
“My auntie!”

Or someone makes it sweeter. Anni, Anita, Anya. A small affection that can make a foreign place feel a little less foreign, and a stranger a friend.

Then there is the pronunciation.

“Aanna? Or Ahnna?”

For me it has always been fluid. I grew up between a German family and an American one, so both belong to me.

But Anni was special. It was never the norm. It was given with affection when I was young, and it is still sweet to hear.

Here in Morocco, though, my name has taken on a new complication.

“What is your name?”

“Anna.”

“Ana?”

“Yes, Anna.”

“Ana?”

And suddenly we are in a little Who’s on First? moment because in Moroccan Arabic, ana means “I” or “me.”

They have asked my name.

I have apparently answered, “Me.”

There is a moment of confusion, then recognition.

“Ahhh, Anna!”

And we laugh.

It has happened enough now that I almost wait for it.

I have always loved that this name of mine has wandered the world, changing its spelling and sound, belonging to sisters, aunties and grandmothers, occasionally turning a stranger into a friend.

And here in Morocco, before it is my name at all, it is simply:

Me. by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

A Body Unattended My First Hammam, Marrakech
Walking toward the edge of the Medina, the tourist shops begin to disappear.

The cafés are filled with local people, their tables and chairs so low to the ground that anywhere else you might think they were made for children. A donkey cart was being loaded with enormous sacks of flour. Then came a section of scooter mechanics, which gave way to welders working on everything from ornate iron fences to simple plant stands.

Farther along were blacksmiths standing down in pits so that their waists were level with the street and their bodies level with their fires. They hammered away at glowing metal, making tools and hooks, examples of their work laid out on the pavement for sale.

I began to think I had gone the wrong way.

I turned around twice, checking my directions. I was clearly the odd person in the crowd now.

Finally I saw it: a wooden gate standing open onto the courtyard of the hammam.

I had deliberately chosen a traditional hammam, rather than one of the beautiful spa versions closer to where I was staying. Hammams were historically communal bathhouses, places people came to wash when homes did not necessarily have their own plumbing. I wanted something closer to that.

In the courtyard I chose the full treatment and paid. I was taken through a hallway into a tall white plaster room. One wall was lined with baskets holding people’s belongings. Behind a counter, two soft, patterned women lounged in the humid heat, fanning themselves.
Happy to share rest of the story, just DM Otherwise is is fully on Facebook by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

First Evening In Marrakech by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

Central London
July 31st Full Moon over the
London Bridge by @annasmithclark

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2 months ago

Thoughts from the road…

As you drive the 1000 mile length of the Baja peninsula, the landscape changes over and over again. One moment you’re among date palms and unexpected oases. A few miles later you’ve dropped into another world.

The Valle de Cataviña feels almost imagined.
(Central Desert of Baja California (Desert Central)

Massive granite boulders appear as though they were placed by hand. Towering cardón cacti stand like sentinels. The cirios, with their fuzzy crowns, look as if Dr. Seuss had wandered into an old western and started sketching.

Everything feels intentional.

Every rock. Every cactus. Every empty space.

I’ve spent some years in interior design and, more recently, landscape design. We study proportion, rhythm, texture, repetition, and balance. We move stones. We choose where every tree should stand. We work hard to make a place feel effortless.

Then you walk into a place like this.

Nature has already solved the problem.

Not because it follows design rules, but because it wrote them.

Given enough time, nature always takes the landscape back. And when it does, it creates something we rarely can. A composition that feels inevitable, as though nothing could exist anywhere else.

Standing here, I couldn’t help wondering if the most beautiful landscapes aren’t really designed at all.

They’re simply allowed to become themselves. by @annasmithclark

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3 months ago