Scarf

The Zif Hayati belongs to my most everyday memories. I see it again, light, almost always white, resting somewhere in the house or tied with natural ease around the heads of my mother, my aunts, or my grandmothers while they cooked or did household chores.

As a child, however, I only wore it during summers in Morocco after going to the hammam with my cousins; it held in that warmth and that sense of cleanliness after a hot bath. But the Zif Hayati was also something more. I’ll never forget one particular scene: my father sitting with the scarf tied tightly around his head, holding slices of lemon against his temples. It was an ancient gesture, passed down as a home remedy for headaches.

And today, thinking back on it, I realize that within that simple, light white scarf, there was much more than I imagined: well-being, care, and tradition.