Portals, Doorways, and the Moroccan FBI

Portals, Doorways, and the Moroccan FBI | August 17, 2025

Ouarzazate & Fes, Morocco, 2022

I looked through the keyhole, and a whole new world appeared before me. To be sure, it was the same as the one I was standing in, but looking through that small and intricate window lent a flavor of the unknown as I studied the plaza beyond. The sun was brighter, the architecture displayed more exotic, the hanging rugs more colorful, the clay brickwork cleaner-swept as seen from my vantage point a distance away. As I looked, I knew it was a place upon which I would never step foot, then or at any point in my life. 

When I travel, it's with the knowledge that I am visiting a place for the first and usually only time in this current incarnation. There is only so much time, energy, money, resources that can be allocated towards the luxury of travel, and choices have to be made. And, the more places I've been, the more I've realized that very few are objectively better than any others. The mystery of the unknown and the thrill of exploration fosters the desire to visit a new place and the enchantment of experiencing walking on new coordinates. 

As I looked out that keyhole window in Ouarzazate, I yearned to visit that framed plaza for no other reason than that it presented itself so intriguingly and so beautifully in that moment. I had not aspired to visit that spot until looking just now. I knew that, in an alternate reality, were I to be standing on those baked steps and gazing towards this keyhole window, I would have equal pull to discover what hides behind the slotted darkness, the little shadow high up on the sundrenched facade of the opulent carved clay castle. To the probable surprise to my alternate-reality self on those steps, there I was behind that window, experiencing all that I desired and gazing back at where I stood. The keyhole portal transcended reality and connected two planes of my existence in that moment; quietly introducing the concept that that without perspective, desire knows no limits and will consume one's current experience, leaving no room for appreciation of what is happening in that moment. 

The distance of time makes it easier to absorb these lessons. In the short period of When I Was In Morocco, this travel-induced lesson was still in its infancy and required more places, more time, more ageing to fledge. But, if not for that time of When I Was In Morocco, the lesson wouldn't have quickened in my mind.

The doorways of Morocco cultivated this thought without my realization. So many beautiful doorways, windows, and gateways, each uniquely colored, carved, engraved, embossed, and patterned. This is a county that is united by doors. They stand alone in their creativity, but find similarity in their ubiquity. The stark beauty of the colorful doorways of the poorest hovels hold their own against the opulent luxury of the embossed wooden doors of wealth. 

Open or closed, wealthy or poor, residential or commercial, urban or rural, those doorways beckoned to me and tantalized me with the question of what was on the other side. I looked at them and desired to walk through them. The intrigue and mystery of those other lives which have experienced the transformation of walking through those doorways was tempting, and I wanted to peek behind them for the satisfaction of knowing what was on the other side. Alas, this was not meant to be, there simply is not enough time to explore all the unopened doorways in this world. And, common propriety frowns upon those who let themselves in to strangers' houses uninvited. 

One day, my husband and I were standing on a sidewalk in Fes, looking across the street at the Bab Semmarine. We had strolled down the balcony-lined street of Indiana Jones fame and stopped to look at the ancient gate which originally demarcated the southern boundary of the city. The Bab was imposing, wide-yet-narrow in its funneling of people and traffic from the new(er) of the south into the old of the north beyond the wall. I looked at the carved facade and the people moving to and from beneath the archway. Beyond the shadows beneath the Bab, I could see additional balconies and doorways, all hinting at things of interest to look at and observe. We had not been planning on going down that road, but it looked interesting. 

As we stood and watched, a man jostling by paused and looked at us, perhaps drawn in by our staring at the gate. In heavily accented English, he commented, "Hey, look out, Moroccan FBI are watching." 

It was such a strange thing to hear that I automatically frowned. Concern rose in my chest as I began imagining officials in military uniforms, on the lookout for errant tourists such as myself, who dawdled suspiciously at key pinch points of pedestrian traffic flow such as the Bab Semmarine. Perhaps this stranger was giving us a warning to not stare so blatantly at these landmarks. 

The man guffawed when he saw us looking around, and then pointed upward. "Yeah, Moroccan FBI! They see everything, they are a great alarm!" With that sentiment shared, he moved on down the street. 

I looked upwards, higher than before, beyond the eye-catching draw of the carts and pedestrians, and saw several vigilant watchers stationed high upon the top of the Bab. They were obviously taking close note of those entering and leaving the portal that was the Bab Semmarine.

The white storks were quiet at the moment, their alarms perhaps sedated by the abundance of midday traffic, but I had no doubt that they would raise a quality raucous during quieter times. Several huge stick nests perched atop the castle-like pinnacle of the gateway. I admired the black and white plumage of the huge birds and the stately guard they offered to their surroundings. 

The quip about the storks was a welcome interlude in the exercise of gazing at the gateway and thinking about what lay beyond. In the end, we didn't pass through the Bab Semmarine, and I probably never will. It was enough to look at it, and by taking a moment to look and wonder at the passageway, the amusingly absurd knowledge of the Moroccan FBI was gifted to us. I doubt that I would have learned about the storks if we had immediately chosen to walk through the Bab without taking a minute to stop and look. 

I now think to myself, perhaps one does not need to enter a portal to benefit from the transformation of being in its presence. 

I think I can say now, with the awareness of self-reflection, that the doorways, gateways, and windows of Morocco all served as portals. I entered very few of them as a whole, although I admired all that I saw, and wished to know what mysteries lay beyond them. I will not look at those particular gateways, these portals, ever again in my life, but I will look at others. I have other roads to walk, other doorways to wonder at, and other thresholds to cross.