When I met my future ex-husband it was summertime in England, and he lived with his mother. She hated me on sight. I was the writer obsessed with adventure, he the painter obsessed with retracing the paths of the masters. Perfect for each other, we thought, we married and moved to Montmartre to a friend’s empty studio. We stayed until winter when the corrugated plastic roof over the kitchen collapsed from snow.

Next we landed in Marrakech where I read Bowles and he hoped to mimic Delacroix. We moved into a marvel being built by a friend who lived in Rome. The place was empty because it was still under construction. The house was encircled by adobe walls, and beyond that the desert tantalizingly looking like freedom. I set off toward the horizon, wandering through lemon groves, and felt suspicious eyes trailing me, filling me with unease. I begged the husband to accompany me, but he preferred to paint.

Nights were ablaze with dogs howling. Mornings heralded by donkeys braying. Days were a clatter of Arabic shouting. I watched the workers finish a wall with egg whites swatting it with cloths drawing out a silvery luster. I sensed they didn’t like me watching them.

The husband set up his easel around the grounds and painted under a huge straw hat. He wasn’t much into conversation. Eventually I retreated to an attic and wrote stories, and read and declined to scrutinize my unexpectedly restrictive situation.

Christmas arrived and for dinner the husband wore a dress. I gave him a pair of live chameleons.

After Morocco we moved to a friend’s spare dwelling in Colombia. A Conquistador mansion in the old section of Cartagena, with two monkeys and four parrots. I loved Colombia, but gradually I accepted I preferred the excitement of traveling to the suffocation of my mute companion. I delivered him back to England and his grateful mother, who still hated me, “All yours!” I said, and I never saw either of them again. I’ve been traveling light ever since.

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