This is the longest night of the whole year. Winter Solstice, the weight of the quick coming night, the stone houses with smoking chimneys and those dogs always barking. Cold came fast when the sun went down, just behind the pine scrub hill, the village's border. When you stand up top the whole Mediterranean is laid out sparkling and massive. I have seen it on several occasions. We had been sitting outside, drinking nescafes with milk (from the neighbor's cow), watching the new door be put in; I was knitting an endless hat. Suddenly I could see my friend's face without squinting, without that gleam in my eyes. Our bodies grew cold and we moved inside to sweep and unroll carpets, shaking off the chill with industry.
So, I have not written on this blog much. It turns out that I dislike the pressure of what I think should be 'perfect produce'. Then I don't produce even imperfectly. Rebelling against my own cause. But a friend of mine said "you should write more" and I am taking her seriously.
There is no lack of things to say. Just how to say them.
I have been in Turkey 3 weeks now.
It is completely different to be somewhere committed. To be somewhere with no short-term exit plan. Faithful in my desire to remain, willingly. I don't know if I've quite felt this way before. It's not like being an exchange student. It's not like home. It's not exactly travelling.
Where exactly am I going to stay? What am I going to do?
Starting to long for the comforts of residence. Personal space to create.
I am tired of making everything fit inside my backpack. I have dreams about it--always too much stuff, weird things (religious icons, paintings, too many nice socks, snorkel gear, and an inflatable kayak on different occasions), which I struggle to fit inside again.
I want....I want that shimmering, dancing Life which is mine all the time but takes different forms and colors depending on where it lands.
To give you some back round, I've done the math. I am twenty years old. I have not lived in one house, one solid place for longer than 5 months in approximately 3 years. This has been by my choosing. From 11 years old to when I moved out at 17, I lived in 11 different houses. I packed and unpacked my shit as many times. My mother, my sister, and I were always moving. The numbers seem a bit startling when I count them out on my fingers, trying to keep track of each one. I don't think of myself in terms of houses anymore, though my memory is defined by them. Fortunately they were mostly all in the same town.
Movement is integral to balance, and frequent shifts have been the norm for so long that considering a full year in one locale honestly disquiets me...(this is actually a factor in why I haven't gone to college or university). And yet, I do not wish to spend all my life on the road.
The past two weeks have blessed me with my first own room after 2 months of travelling. When I arrived I hung up my clothes in the closet and felt like crying because Selma had left me a pair of pink flannel pyjamas just like the ones I wore at ten years old, and I didn't have to go anywhere. Her son, who's my age, is away at school in Hungary. The room is his study. There are two guitars, a couple stacked book shelves, a desk with random little things on it. On the wall are teen rock band posters with yellowed tape, and one of Che Guevera (whose Turkish headline I translated as "believer in impossibility"). And there's an aged red wall hanging of Russian communist symbols.The mustard fold out couch is far too big so I just sleep on half of it with colorful wool blankets. I never had a place to leave my stuff like that. There was never room or time for the layers of my youth to accumulate. No posters to remind me of what I liked, or who I dreamt of. Every move heralded reflection and recycling.
The past few years my worldly possessions have spent nearly as much time layered in boxes as they have decorating the places I inhabit. I miss some things now: my cowboy boots, my embroidered dresses, my goose down comforter, and books of poetry. When will I see them again? This question crosses the sea...the Mediterranean, the length of Europe, the Atlantic, across the north American continent. Unless it's faster the opposite direction: all of Asia and the Pacific? It is a long journey, that much we know. Too far to dwell on frequently.
The longest night, no howling wind. No snow. The sun will shine tomorrow and I won't see it rise (though the call to prayer might wake me again). 1:11AM. An acquaintance of mine posted a poem today--before light comes dark. One line stuck out for me: before understanding comes ignorance.
I feel it every day, not knowing how to say my heart in this language, and learning the questions. Still laughing in humility, new in my ignorance, in my freshness & difference in this place which is far from home.
The process: before understanding comes ignorance. To the learning, I turn.
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