The things you own.

Being constantly on the move for the past 29 years has allowed me to reflect on this concept quite often. Every time I have to pack up my things and move them across the state, or country, or world, I get the opportunity to consider each object, and to weigh its role in my life against the effort that I expend on its upkeep. Right now Nikola and I are starting to get ready for our move back to Bulgaria. He came here with most of the stuff that he owned, and I had no small amount either. Since we have been here we have accumulated a lot in the way of dishes, small furnitures etc. Now we have to consider each thing and question whether it is worth it to move it back to Bulgaria with us, or to leave it here and replace it when we get to Bulgaria, or to leave it out of our lives forever. These are little things that should not be a big decision- clothes drying rack, shoe rack, brushes I don't use now that I am dreading my hair etc. However, I come from a background of scarcity that promotes hoarding things once I actually have them. So, even though I have not used that round brush in months, it is still there, because hey, it cost me 10lv and I *MIGHT* need it someday.

I remember the conversation that I had with Cyrano back in the day when we were taking her jeep on a road trip. We discussed ownership and responsibility. I am not sure if we were talking more about the car or about our relationship, but now I am concentrating just on the material side of the conversation, and not on the interpersonal allusions within it. Everything that we purchase is a tiny investment. Some things we don't even realize that we are investing in, while others have immediate value. However, the investment is not just one of finances. It is an investment of the space that they take up in your home, and an investment of the time that they take out of your life- in upkeep and actual use. Eventually, when you buy things you have to ask yourself whether they are actually adding to your life, or are distracting you from living a happy life by adding more responsibility without enough of a return. A bike was a great investment for me. I get such joy from it, despite the pain of having to store and move it. A bag of beauty supplies accumulated over the years really just serves to make me feel guilty everytime I look at it, and to consider my ideals of beauty. Do I really need nailpolish? But do I really not need it?

My camera decided to have a little freakout over the sand on the beach, and my first instinct was to start looking up new compact dslr's. I didn't even stop to really consider how often I use my camera and whether I actually believe in this false, documented life that is currently popular. Once upon a time I decided that I was against cameras, as they pull you out of the moment that you want to capture, but now I realize that cameras have become so ingrained in society that I cannot imagine not being able to upload my pictures to facebook and "let everyone know what's going on." Why?

Part of me is really aching for the minimal life again. Maybe I have been out of the field too long, I am not sure. But more and more often I find myself daydreaming of a life where I do not check my email more than once a week, and where I do not even have lights in most of my house, so that I can enjoy the rhythm of the world rather than conquering it. I dream of not owning a cell phone, and of gardening and doing yoga and talking with the same people every day instead of trying to hold ties that are stretched out over the atlantic and two continents. I somehow don't think that Nikola would appreciate that lifestyle though. Something tells me that he needs his computer/technology in order to be happy, which makes sense. Taking away his computer would be a lot like taking away my writing. The only difference is that I am able to extract my expression from technology whereas he does not get to choose his medium. 

Dread Update, Week 3

BIG NEWS!!! I grew a Nikola shaped dread, like, overnight!!!

No, but in reality there is still not a whole lot going on up there. You may think it is getting a whole lot messier and loopy, which it is, but that picture happens to be fresh from waking up. Usually throughout the day it calms down, and then after a shower it is back to normal people hair. On a happier note, after the shower it messes and curls up much faster than it did three weeks ago. 

A different city

Maybe it is just the summer time creeping in on alternating hot and cold sea breezes that carve out the space around the channel with freshness. Maybe it is just the finally shining sun that illuminates the dirty, gritty grim held between cobblestones and on every public surface. But I don't think that is the case. Life up in Ferahevler was too sanitary. People mainly kept to themselves and there was not a whole lot of diversity. I am not saying that people weren't nice enough, but really, it felt like everyone else wanted to do exactly what Nikola and I wanted to do: be left to their own devises and live their own lives. Down here it is very different. The layering of the people, the engagement, the eye contact. It is invigorating after an entire winter of missed conversations and interactions.

Today I was getting on the tram to come home when I glanced to the side and saw a young woman wearing shorts and large sunglasses, with her slender fingers wrapped around a large frappicinno. (I can't even spell the word it has been so long since I thought about it.) The entire moment seemed so foreign and out of place to me. Now, I know that Istanbul is a metropolitan place, and there are starbucks, and every copycat that can pretend to be starbucks, and I know that plenty of people here have the money to spend on those drinks. But it has been so long since I have had one- years- that the size of it struck me as grotesque, and I could not imagine drinking one. Strange that now things that are normal in a foreign land, from my homeland, have become foreign to me?  

Dread Update: week 3

So my dreads aren't doing anything particularly interesting this week. Little chunks of hair are starting to separate out at the roots, and that is kinda exciting, and I have some messy crazy loops forming, which is either exciting or annoying, but overall there is very little movement forward. Nothing is knotting or locking. I know, with my hair and this approach that I am going to have to wait a long time for locking, but I was hoping to at least get a little rats nest after three weeks of no brushing. Alas, I am not that lucky. I think that I will have to spend a lot of time in the sea this year. Since the Black sea has a lower salinity I suppose that I will just have to go twice as often. I am going to have find a nice, secluded little piece of beach that I can get to regularly, and definitely do another bike trip along the south region. I think that with all of that sweat and salt and sunshine my dreads will have a good birth, with many great memories knotted into them.

This summer is something in the ether at the moment. Nikola and I still don't know exactly when we will return to Bulgaria, but we are hoping that my visa will be ready and we will be able to return for July morning. My short visit last week was too little, and served only to reinforce a deep desire to be in Bulgaria. I say that the main reason that I want to return is because I speak the language, and that is true, but I also have a desire to be there because of the feel of summer. People were so happy out in the sunshine last week. They were so friendly. There was sitting and drinking beer and eating kebabche and I was fully, completely satisfied. I can't wait for that feeling to be there for the rest of my life. Now, just to get this job and house situation taken care of... 

Debating Locks

Once upon a time I had dreadlocks. The story of my locks went something like this: On a motorcycle trip across the Western states I stopped in the middle of the rockies to see a lover. He happened to be shaving a mohawk into his girlfriend's son's head, and I had just had a disappointing experience based on traditional concepts of beauty at a photo shoot, so I asked him to do mine as well. I spent that summer with a mohawk that changed colors, but hovered between blue and pink most of the time. At the end of the summer I went to Burning Man and ended up bringing a new friend home with me. One night, in our basement apartment on haight street, I asked her to dread my hair. We bought a jar of bedhead wax (Which I STILL have quite a bit of), a metal comb, and a package of small rubber bands. She spent hours backcombing my hair into poofy pink dreads, and at the end I looked like a very disappointed side-show-bob. I then spent the next week freaking out about how hideous my dreads were, and applying wax liberally. Eventually the dreads started to calm down, and to even lock up a bit. I went surfing and snorkeling in the pacific ocean and the salt did wonders for the locks. Then, one day at summer camp my campers got bored and decided that they were going to decorate my hair. They put all sorts of ribbons and string in the dreads, lengthening them down my back. I absolutely loved the look that they created and I started regularly adding bits of different colored yarn to my hair:
For several years I kept the mohawk with dreads going. Sometimes I added yarn. Sometimes I dyed the dreads strange colors. It was quite easy and satisfying to bleach out a dread and add blue, or green, and for the first time in my life I felt like I had control over how my hair looked, and I thought that it looked rather good.

Regarding the question of spirituality and dreads or fashion and dreads I really could not have cared less. Of course dreads only became an option because of the community that I was part of. Within the burning man community dreads were not just an acceptable style, they were often times desirable. I was more or less oblivious though, and so my dreads were more for me than for anyone else. I was also minimally aware of the spirituality connected with dreadlocks:

Now, I was not a rasta, and I am not even sure what a rasta is. I did not smoke marijuana, and I did not feel like my dreadlocks somehow connected me to the earth in some powerful, mystical way. I also did not feel like "god," wanted me to wear dreadlocks, and I did not care about spiritual leaders wearing locks any more than I cared about the fashion of it.

Eventually I left the bay area, where shaved heads were somewhat sexy, and moved to Arizona where I lacked a roommate to help me shave, and I started applying for more grown up jobs. I started to grow out the hair beneath my dreads to have less of a drastic appearance. When I got my acceptance into peace corps it was stated, rather murkily, that I should attempt to have a more conservative style. Since the tattoos were not going anywhere I decided to compromise by combing out my remaining dreads. Five years later they had still not locked completely, and they combed out. Not easily, but I was able to save most of my hair and did not loose any length.

I loved my dreads, but I did not think that I would do them again. They are a lot of work, and a lot of commitment. However, recently the desire to dread up has been returning and I thought that I should at least look into it. Now the idea of natural dreading (or locks by neglect) is a lot more appealing to me than it was back then. When I first wanted dreadlocks it was an immediate decision and I wanted immediate gratification. After reading some material on the internet today ( http://www.naturaldreads.com/ ) I am much more drawn to the spiritual discipline required to grow natural dreads. I am figuring that with my history and the current length of my hair it will take over three years for me to achieve actual dreads. It is a huge commitment, but undertaking it as a spiritual path rather than just a fashion journey, makes that time commitment much more appealing.

Here are some of the ideas that I gleaned, and hope to consider with the growth of my new dreads:

1. Growing natural locks is a practice of non-violence. I know, it might sound ridiculous that we can even be violent to our hair, but I think it makes sense. I am very violent to myself in the name of beauty: I dye my hair, cut my hair, force my breasts into uncomfortable bras, wear jeans that are a tad too tight, wear high heels, pierce myself and tattoo myself. All of these are ways that I express my will or my desire and attempt to assert control. Some of these habits are violences that I am aware of, like the tats and piercing, and some of them are so culturally ingrained that I do not even recognize them as forms of violence (Bleaching hair). By allowing my hair to grow the way it wants to, at the pace it wants to, and not cutting it or combing it, I am practicing an extreme reminder to remain aware of these violences in the name of beauty. It reminds me to be kind to myself, and to others, and to put love into the world instead of adding to the heap of power struggle and violence. 
2. Growing locks is a practice in patience and commitment. I tend to get enthusiastic about an idea, and then to loose interest suddenly. This can most often be seen in my hair, because as soon as I get the itch for a change it is usually my cut or color that changes, and then eventually other areas of my life. Yes, I can suddenly back out of the dreads, and I am leaving that option open, but I know that once they get going it will take a long time to get back to that point, and so I feel like it will raise my awareness in the area of patience and commitment. 
3. I am looking for a new spirituality that is more connected to the earth, and to my body. Some form of shamanism. Because hair holds a person's history, including the ingestion of substances and being around toxins, I feel like dreads are a great reminder of that earthly connection, and a motivation to remain more pure. 

So... will I do it? Not sure still. But, in case I do, here is me on dreads #2, the nonviolent way, day 1: 

Out on the French Countryside

One of the main issues that Nikola and I have encountered since the beginning of our relationship has been the question of where we will live. Originally this was more of a non-question as he completely surprised me by not giving a second thought to coming with me to Istanbul. It was an immediate confirmation of the deep passion and trust that we had for each other. Now, as we move away from the theoretical implications of "living together," we find ourselves in the midst of a logistical nightmare.

Being a student in Istanbul it was easy for me to get a visa here. Nikola had a bit more trouble, and his visa was certainly not cheep, but he succeeded. Now our clocks are ticking down. We have valid resident permits until October of next year, and by then we need to have figured out a somewhat more permanent solution. This, logically, involves me getting a visa for Bulgaria, or Nikola getting a visa for the US, both of which are drawn out processes, thanks to the US government. Ultimately there may be some months between when we move out of our place in Turkey and before we can settle anywhere else. Because of this I have been looking into some options for travel.

The problem with travel and working is that anything that fits me does not fit him, and although he can work anywhere, I cannot. It is definitely an issue of fish and bird when it comes to making our careers fit together synergistically. But I have been looking at workaway, wwoofing options anyways, as they offer me a chance to train in certain specific permaculture areas that I want to implement once we have our own place. Some of what I have found seems intriguing but most of it is rather upsetting.

I have always been a firm believer that a person should be free to set their own prices and make their own contracts. If something is too expensive for you, then don't buy it. It is that simple. Except that it isn't. The idea of volunteering on a farm or hotel for free room and board is a great idea, until I find that most of the places now days are not offering stimulating work that allows the worker to learn (such as design concepts, or skills- instead it is unskilled, manual labor) AND requires the person to work 7 hours a day, 6 days a week for room and board. That just seems a little extreme to me. Working for that much time in a position that gives you skills is one thing, but just pumping out physical, mindless labor for almost no return is absurd. And yet, the more people who offer that, the more people can exploit those who want to travel and volunteer. It seems like yet another great idea is fading into history through selfishness and exploitation.

After our vacation to France I thought about possibly doing a summer working at a camp or a hostel there. In theory it is a great idea. In reality, once again, it doesn't really fit my life with my partner.

So many dreams and sensations are surrendered during a marriage... but so many others become achievable. I am considering new paths and new ways of doing things that never crossed my mind before. I never thought that I would be married to a computer guy. I always assumed that any long-term relationship would be with someone working in my field. Now I am starting to see why that is necessary. Most fields have allowance for deviation. Mine, not so much.

A bird and a fish may fall in love, but where will they build their home?

--- Probably not on the French countryside. 

The Passport- Making of an Expat, Part II

Despite my father being in the military I did not travel abroad as a child. His last lengthy stay away from home was on the USS Nimitz during my mother's pregnancy with me. Following that he opted for domestic positions where our family could accompany him. I vaguely knew that my father had spent time abroad, but until last year I did not realize the extensiveness of his military travels: Okinawa for a lengthy stay, calls in many areas of the Pacific, all over Western Europe, and the Mediterranean. Apparently my father is quite the traveled man, and yet no stories ever came up in my family, ever. I don't mean that I didn't listen, and I don't mean that we didn't talk. It was just that my father never mentioned his time on aircraft carriers or foreign bases, and for a kid who has never left the country questions such as, "Hey dad, did you ever live in Germany?" weren't a viable part of my vocabulary. So, according to me, my family's experience with international consisted of a quick boarder hop into Mexico or Canada, for a picnic or to see a sight not more than fifteen minutes from the boarder. This was back in the day when passports weren't required for boarder crossings, and my parent's driving licenses sufficed for re-entry, and so it never really felt like a big deal. I didn't leave the country until I was 24 years old, and even then my "leaving" was technical and accidental.

Through rumor and fairytale I somehow got it in my mind that it was an excellent idea to go work on the island territory of Guam for a winter, and in so many ways it was. I flew from L.A. through Hawaii, landed in Tuman Bay and spent three unbelievable months in a hot, wet paradise. However, Guam is a U.S. territory and since my flight never left the United States I went with just my driver's license. I had to go through customs for the first time, ever, when my plane landed and I suddenly became confused as to the status of the island, the boarders of my nation, and international law. As they opened each of my suitcases and examined my eclectic mix of baggage I had my first inklings of curiosity about citizenship and rights. It was nothing well-formed and I would not have been able to express it in words, but I was definitely feeling the boarders more than I had ever before.

While I was on Guam I grew to appreciate its claim to being, "The place where the sun rises on the U.S." I had always had a conception of the U.S. as being large, but with the diversity of people on Guam- Chumarro, Japanese, Korean and Philippine, and it's huge military and strategic history I gained a new perspective of just how far the United States reached into the world. Yes, Guam is a U.S. territory, but as far as culture and experience it is more of a door to the East than any other part of the U.S. I had been in. It felt like a foreign country in many ways.

As my time on Guam progressed new laws were being passed that required a passport to get back to the mainland. About a month before I was due to leave Guam I applied for my first passport ever. The application, as many official applications are, was particularly stressful for me. Questions that are easy for most U.S. citizens have always been difficult for me. Permanent residence? I had no concept of permanency. Even in retirement my parents moved from house to house to lack of house and back to another house. I definitely had not lived in one apartment longer than a few months since I left for University. Residences for the past ten years? I couldn't remember the addresses and phone numbers. Honestly, at times entire cities dropped out of my goldfish memory. Place of birth? That one should be simple, but I was told at the Social Security office when I was 26 that the place I had thought I was born, the city my parents lived in during my mother's pregnancy, was not actually my place of birth as the military hospital that she birthed in was actually located in the next town over. I hadn't thought of a passport application as an examination, but the questions were difficult and there were many of them that I eventually had to leave blank. For the two weeks that it took to process my passport I was in constant fear that it would be denied as I did not have enough coherent information to identify myself as a valid American. There were no problems, however, and a few weeks later they called me to pick up my passport.

When I went to the passport office I was ecstatic  It was a holiday for me. It was a huge event. The woman behind the counter was nice enough, but lacked my enthusiasm. She had me sign a form, gave me my passport, and reminded me to sign the first page before travelling. I opened my passport- that coveted American Eagle blue book- and read the first page, which happens to be the preamble to the U.S. constitution:

"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense  promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." 

You are required to sign directly beneath that quotation, simulating the original signing of the constitution and your loyalty to your country. Now, it is my opinion that most people who get their passports have two reactions to this requirement and placement: 1) The don't even notice it/consider it and sign without thought or delay because, hey, they can travel! or 2) They notice it and think that it is neat. They proudly sign their consent to the constitution. I, however, had a third reaction. I hesitated. I debated. I did not want to sign.

At that point in my life I was not against the way that the U.S. ran things. In fact, I thought that it was a pretty nifty country with many rights and securities that other places don't have. I loved my life and all of the opportunities that I had been afforded. I was not anti-American, and I am still not. I think that there are many beautiful aspects to American governance. However, what I did not like was that I was forced to declare myself as an American if I wanted to travel anywhere. It was at that moment that I realized that I had no option to exist as an individual. I could not get a passport from another country, and I could not get a passport from my own country without agreeing to the way the country was ran. It seemed very limiting to me, and for the first time I had a feeling of being trapped in my citizenship. I began dreaming of times before boarders, when a traveller travelled completely on his own, without papers from the king, and others allowed him into their space (or didn't) based on nothing more than his face and word. However, I wanted to travel, and so eventually I conceded and signed the document, not because I necessarily agreed with it, but because I needed it. Back then I did not recognize this as coercion of the state, or the hegemony of global nationalism. I just knew that it felt somehow wrong, and as I signed I was being forced into the lies of bureaucracy.

Since I had my passport I planned a trip around southeast Asia on my way back to the States. I planned three months in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
You may know it as the classic backpacker's loop. However, due to circumstances of theft (another story in its own right) I had to cancel the trip, ended my time on Guam early, and took the first flight home I could get. The flight happened to fly through Japan, with an overnight in an airport hotel. I was able to use my virgin passport, and thoroughly. Japanese security included, staples, stamps, landing permissions, and visas. It was a beautiful page in my passport. As I stepped out of the airport, looked at the Japanese night sky, I thought to myself, "A girl could get used to this," and at that point I decided the signature was definitely worth it. 

The Essay--- The Making of an Expat Part I

Discovering that you're an expat is a little how I imagine "discovering" you are gay might be. For the first portion of your life it doesn't really have any context to come up in. Sure, there might be passing remarks about gender-norms whispered with feigned concern to your mother at company picnics, but overall you are just a kid. You don't know anything about nationalism and your patriotism extends about as far as the repetition of the pledge of allegiance before school, half of which you mumble through because you never bothered to learn it. There are some kids ahead of their age bracket, "dating" or discussing "politics," but really your life revolves around climbing trees, playing with toys, and decided who and what a best friend actually is. Maybe you are an expat, but it doesn't really matter and no one knows yet, least of all you. Then, as you get a bit older nationalism becomes more central to your life. You start taking U.S. history in school, your homeroom teacher asks you to bring in clippings of current events, and you begin to actually hear the long talks about war and oil that the grown ups have been having forever. You don't understand it yet, but you are definitely aware that it is an issue salient to your life, and that some day it is going to want some sort of defining affirmation from you. Until the choice has to be made you peek in and out of the realm of politics. You try different things like fourth of July parades, dressed in red, white and blue, and you make some declarations of your patriotism, just to see if it feels true. Sometimes it does, but most of the time (and you would never tell anyone) it doesn't. Deep down, as soon as you knew what a patriot was you knew that you weren't one.

Well, maybe that isn't how it was for you. Maybe things continued on the course that they are 'supposed' to, and you felt all of the right emotions of pride and belonging, and you can sing the national anthem and hot dogs taste like freedom to you. But that is how it was for me, a slight gnawing of something not being right, followed by years of testing different things, a bit of denial, and finally the realization that I am an expatriate. Well, since I have never been a huge fan of labeling and I don't particularly like the word I am more of a never-was-patriate. 

The day that I had emerged onto the political stage and actually noticed that something wasn't quite right happened in seventh grade. We were living in New York and I had just returned to my middle school of choice after a year of homeschooling in protest of the constant redistricting of military children. I hadn't won the battle, as the entire military base had shut down and my parents just happened to move down the street from the school that I wanted to attend. It wasn't the first time that my family had lived off of base housing, but it was the first time that it was considered permanent. For the first time in my life there were no fences keeping an eclectic mix of children together, giving me a consistant source of drama and playmates. There was just a two story, rather odd-shaped home with a slanted roof and a backyard that stretched on further than I ever cared to go. 

I had always been a somewhat aloof child, and the move away from base housing mixed with a return to a school where I didn't actually know anyone emphasized the aloofness. I was not unhappy. In fact, I was perhaps the happiest that I had been in my entire life. There is something great about being twelve, and coming into your own. But I did spend a large majority of that year up in my  odd-shaped room, reading smuggled copies of Stephan King novels, and writing in my first journal. 

My writing had always been encouraged by my teachers. In first grade I was sent to the principal's office once, not because I had gotten in trouble, but to read him the story that I had written in our writing class. My passion for writing continued, and it is true that at times in my life it was the only definition that I held onto amidst the amorphous turmoil of becoming. In seventh grade I had a lovely English teacher who continued to encourage my writing and suggested that I enter the district-wide essay contest that year. I decided that I would, and went home assigned the uncontroversial topic, "What America Means to Me." 

I didn't tell my parents about the contest. I wrote a few drafts of the essay, and took a near-final version to our family friend's apartment. Pam was like a big sister to me. She took me shopping, bought me my first journal and several books, and listened when I spoke. She set me up at her computer (which we did not have at our house yet) to type my essay, and helped me to edit it. After nearly twenty years I cannot remember what I actually wrote in the essay. I suppose that I could find it in the boxes of writing that my mother kept, but the content is not really that important. What is important is that I distinctly remember crafting that essay. The prompt was, "What America Means to Me," and I wrote an essay that could have been entitled, "What You Think America Should Mean to a Twelve Year Old Girl." I added just enough angst and discontent for it to sound like it could be real, and everything that I wrote was true, but I didn't actually believe any two consecutive sentences. I was quite proud of the finished product, typed and printed, edited by an adult, and my first piece of planned, constructed writing. 

I turned the essay in to my homeroom teacher and more or less forgot about it for the next month. The writing of the essay was unproblematic. My ethical issue came when they announced the finalists for the competition and I learned that I would be asked to read my essay before a panelist of judges. No part of me wanted to read that essay out loud. My parents and teachers thought that my refusal was due to my shyness, and a projected fear of public speaking (I had never spoken in public before, and couldn't know whether or not I feared it). They encouraged me to read the essay, and I couldn't even recognize the real reason I didn't want to read the essay, even if I had wanted to explain it to them. I ended up reading the essay, the entire time my face was flushed and I tried to mumble out the words, fearful that I would be discovered, that they would all know that the essay was a complete lie. America did not mean any of those nice things that I said it meant. America meant nothing to me.

It wasn't my first lie. It wasn't the first time that I went along with what society wanted me to say and do, but it was the most public and prepared lie that I had ever committed. I was ashamed. I was even more ashamed when they sent me home with a medal. My mother insisted that I hang the essay on my wall, along with the fairy tales and pieces of fiction that I had been most proud of from my English class. She was quite proud of the whole ordeal and I didn't have the heart to deny her, but every time that I saw that piece of paper staring down at me my stomach knotted. I had won. I knew exactly what America was supposed to mean, only I had never bothered to ask myself what it really meant to me. I felt that I had committed a huge betrayal, but I could not figure out who the betrayal was against. 

Eventually we moved, and the essay came down. It got tucked away where I no longer had to think about it, but the damage had already been done. A dissonance had been discovered within me. I had emerged onto the political stage and I had declared my loyalties, but I also had learned that deep down something didn't sit quite right when I called myself a patriot. It was just the beginning, and rather insignificant in the whole scheme of life, but it set me on a path of constant questioning, and an internal confusion towards nationalism and patriotic pride. 

Fight and Trust

Trust. Dedication. These are things that I thought that I understood over the years, and of course I understood bits and pieces, but now... Wowsa! Now I feel like I have the whole thing.

Nikola and I have been on a Friends binge. We are in season 3, where Ross and Rachel break up--- things get tough in their relationship and Rachel says that they need a break. Ross immediately goes out and sleeps with another girl, thinking that their relationship was over. Rachel finds out and while they are trying to figure out if they can make things work Ross points out how quickly Rachel gave up their relationship, the way that she didn't fight for it. (I wont go into how Ross failed to fight for the relationship either.) He needed to know that she was going to fight to be with him, and in the end she decided that, no, she wouldn't. Him sleeping with another girl had destroyed her understanding of him, because before she felt completely safe with him and thought of him as a man who would never, ever hurt her. After such a painful experience she could no longer view him the same and so the love had changed. Now, here I am suspending the fact that this is just a television show, and the fact that I am not really certain of the monogamy rules as the end-all of relationships to say: "I finally get it!" 

There have been times in the past that I was accused of not fighting for a relationship. Sometimes that accusation has been true. Sometimes it was, in my heart's view, unwarranted. However, whether I was fighting or not (I realize now), the fight was always on my shoulders. It was, ultimately, a question of my investment and how much I was willing to give up to be with someone. Was I willing to give up my location, my job, my school, my values? How much room was I willing to give? How much of them was I willing to take? This is not to say that there has been no give from my previous partners. The people that I have loved in the past have given quite a bit of love to me, and accepted many aspects of me. Some have been very supportive of this wandering game that I play and my thirst to find myself. Some have put up with large amounts of insanity. Some have not. Some left at the first sign of trouble, and some have stuck it out far enough to scar ourselves into a permanent remembrance. But it has never, never been the way that it has been with my husband.

 "How much are you willing to fight for us?"

With Nikola, for the first time, I feel like the question is not shooting directly towards me and only me. It is a valid question. But for the first time I feel that he trusts me enough to never ask, and I feel like I will never reach the end of his fight either. He knows that I want our life together, and I cannot question his commitment either. I have never really thought about it before, but I think about it often with him: I have a man that will never hurt me. Now, that is not to say that I will not suffer in our relationship, and that I will not experience hurt. But, that pain will never, ever be inflicted intentionally by him. I know that for sure. I know that he will support me in any way that he can and that he will always, always fight for our relationship. I can trust that. I never knew I NEEDED to trust that, but I do, and I can and it is wonderful.

I am the happiest woman in the world in this marriage.

Real Life Friends

Since moving to Istanbul the whole friendship thing has been a little rough. I have had patches of this, off and on, for my entire life. When you are a kid making friends is easy because you have school and are assigned projects together, or you play on the same sports teams. Unless you are the military kid who is whisked in and out of classes every six months to move to a new school, town, or state. Then it is harder. Then you have college, and making friends is easy because you are all away from home for the first time and NEED friends, plus you all live in the same dorm. Then you are suddenly out in the real world and that safety net of friendship is taken away. Unless you work at a summer camp. Then it is like permanent college, with friends floating through... the same for a conservation corps. In Peace Corps you are assigned friends. Locals, fellow pcvs etc. Then suddenly you are 29 and wondering how to make new friends. You could go back to hashing, but you know the drinking isn't good for you. Everyone at the university is younger, surrounded by their own friends, and not married. Your husband is supposed to be your best friend, not your only friend. <sigh> Friendship is a tricky thing. How do you make time and invest energy into these new people? You can barely get your runs in, let alone your school work and other obligations. Is friendship an obligation?

I miss:

The parties that I hated. (And I hated them all) I miss the messiness of them, and I missed the shared guilt of them. I miss the card games and bottles of wine. I miss the support that my friends gave me in going to IBTs or Colors.

Going on play-dates. Museums, shows, concerts, frisbee in the park and a bit of steal the bacon.

Deep intellectual conversations. Books, movies, theories and such.

Trying to build a community. Orphan's christmas, sunday night supper.

People that really knew me.

Talking with one of my best friends I have to wonder... is this something that we all lose as we get older? Or is it something that my nomadic lifestyle has forced me to abandon? 

Ghosts of Boyfriends Past

“Have you ever stared in the mirror for so long that your face stopped making sense? It just become a bunch of shapes. Just shapes. Not good or bad.”

—	Noelle, The Truth About Cats and Dogs

It really only happens in the heat of engagement, and even then it is not a common occurrence. Just before the dissolution of self, when my mind is hanging on to the last threads of coherency, sometimes-rarely, he changes. I tend to think it is marvelous, and wonder about it, before forgetting to even think about it until the next time it happens.

No, I have already gotten it wrong.

He doesn't change at all. He is still the same sweet, loving, playful boy that I have seen before, except I start to notice new parts of him. I guess I am the one that changes. It isn't unheard of- the mosaic of intimacy. You bring yourself so close to another person that they lose their form. They become a collection of shapes with ends and beginnings and overlaps, but cease to be, just for a moment, the person (As a whole, complete, manicured being) that they project to the world. In general I love that moment. I think that it is the most honest that two people can be with each other. It is a moment of humming and becoming, of once was and existence in the now. It is quite beautiful. But sometimes what you see is not what you expect and the moment jolts you more powerfully than the liquid grace that it normally wraps you in.

Sometimes, he jolts me.

It isn't that he becomes something completely foreign that I can not relate to or understand. Quite the contrary. The shapes that I see when I let go of everything and draw myself up into him, far enough to make him my entire existence, are eerily familiar. They are beyond familiar. They are actually recognizable. I have seen that jaw line before, not in some vague way, but in a way that I can name the place and time and person that I saw it connected to. The nose, too. The set of the eyes, both the left and the right, and the angle at which his hair sticks out from his head. They are all KNOWN to me.

Now I get that it is rather creepy and perhaps disrespectful in some ways to contemplate past adventures in a new bed. I am rather good at putting aside the recognition, drawing back, and seeing my husband for who he is, but afterwards I got to thinking. Maybe it isn't creepy. Maybe it is fate. Maybe I have been trying to find the man that fits with me, and I have kept finding repeating shapes. I have found the correct set of the mouth and the correct tone of voice but never the whole person that just fit me. Until now. Now I have finally found a package that collects all of those shapes that I have been magnetically drawn to over the years. I have found my destiny, and every person that I have met and loved before him has helped me to be able to recognize the smallest, most beautiful details about him. Sometimes I watch him sleep, so very peaceful, and I see my life flash before me... from the very first crush until now. But it is more than that, because when I draw out and look at him as a whole, and he opens his sleepy eyes and smiles at me, I see my future. I see all of the amazing things that we have the capability to do. I see a whole lotta shapes. 

Married Life

They say that things change when you get married, but they don't really say how. Too often the depiction of marriage centers on the cold feet of the wedding day. I will admit, that standing in a foot of snow my toes were a little icy, but I cannot relate to that gulping fear of commitment that represents my generation. In the days immediately following the wedding I remember thinking that the wedding didn't really change much. It was great to be with our friends and families, and it was great to see their support, but from the perch of an egoist I didn't really NEED the validation of the state, the church, or even my community, to give my relationship the permission to continue for eternity. In my heart Nikola and I have been "married" since we told each other that we would stay together through everything, forever. Laying in bed, wrapped up in the heat of fading fall there was an honesty that I thought could not be topped. The wedding was a treat and a formality. It was a time to share our decision with the world, but I didn't expect it to effect me like it did. (does).

First of all, I was overwhelmed by the love and support given to us by our friends and family. At times it was a bit stressful to be the center of attention, and to meet so many new people while trying to give attention to loved ones from different realms of my life, but it was completely worth it. Even though we didn't need the PERMISSION for our love, it is comforting to know that the support is there. From the generosity of our friends and family in making the wedding happen and the gifts we received to start our new life together, to the absolutely wonderful wishes that were given to us on the day of the wedding, I could not be happier. It gives me such warmth and confidence in my choice to stay in Bulgaria and start a family here. Knowing that if we have children they will grow up among such warm and caring people is absolutely priceless.

Secondly, things did change between Nikola and I. It is difficult to express the exact nature of the change, and it was completely unexpected. In fact, it didn't happen the minute that we exchanged vows, or said "I do." (Well, "Da") It came later, slowly, like a fire on a cold night, just sparks and hints at first and now quite enough to stay warm by. There has been a change in the way I release into his embrace. A change in his kisses. A change in my heart. I have never allowed myself to love this deeply, this completely, and this passionately. I was terrified of this depth, without ever admitting the fear. Now there is no fear, just an absolutely wonderful relaxation in the security of our relationship. It is indescribable.

So, the first thing most people ask me these days is, "How's married life?"

Well, it is no different from our previous life together, except it is, completely, and I love it.

A Tale of Two Worlds

Today I went to the American embassy in Sofia to get my paperwork processed in order to be legally able to marry in Bulgaria. When we drove up across the building and I saw the state seal, and the American flag flying, I got strangely excited. Peace Corps has been invited to several embassy events, but me trailing the usual antisocial baggage that I do, I did not attend. I did not expect to get such a little thrill from seeing the carefully enclosed ground that is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of my "homeland." It rippled through me, strait down to my belly. We parked, walked along the icy street and arrived at the door only 2 minutes late. I was antsy. My strong need to be on time, which kicks in when I am 1) doing official, legal, state business or 2) hanging out with Americans, kicked into overdrive as I was about to do official business among Americans. But, by the time we checked in, and had to wait for another five minutes outside of the security room, I had settled.
We went in. We were asked to remove our jackets and all things metal, and to leave any electronics at the front desk. After passing through a metal detector we were ushered by a security guard towards the citizen services building. At the front desk we were again asked our names and looked up on the computer. We were then sent to the cashier to pay the fee. I think I got some sort of discount for being in Peace Corps because the marriage form was supposed to be 75 dollars. I was going to pay in lev until I saw the exchange rate and the kind gentleman helping us suggested that we pay with an American credit card, which I had luckily brought with me. We then went to another desk where a man appeared to know what we needed and who we were and was very helpful answering questions about emigration and marriage. There was another five minutes of waiting while he prepared our document and then I met with a very nice, enthusiastic vice-consular to sign my document and get it stamped. In less than an hour I was back at the front desk, picking up my electronics and smiling from all of the warm congratulations.
After the American embassy we had to stop by the Bulgarian ministry of the exterior to get the document legalized for Bulgaria. Now, I realize that I should not compare the two, and that offices within the United States are not as nearly warm and efficient as what I experienced here. However, the difference between the two places was just too hilarious to not mention. We arrived at the ministry and we were greeted by a guard outside. When we explained what we were there for he began to explain our options for collection of our documents and told us that we would have to go to a post office to pay for the service and then return. However, he noticed a group of older women inside and instead ushered us inside. There he asked if any of the women (who I assume must have been notaries) had extra stamps that they could sell us. One did, and so we bought 20 lev worth of stamps to attach to our documents. We filled out a form and took it to the cashier but were told we would need more stamps to do a rush service on our document. We returned to the older women who provided us with more stamps and showed us how to properly attach them, and then looked over our forms to make sure we had checked the correct boxes. We then gave the form back, were given a receipt and told to return tomorrow.
Both places were exceptionally warm today. I think that doing paperwork for marriage is somehow more heartwarming than any other type of paperwork. However, the warmth at the two different places was somehow very different, and it is hard for me to touch why. It was something to do with formality but not necessarily about professionalism. Perhaps it was something to do with the modernism found in the American embassy contrasted with paying through stamps at the Bulgarian ministry.
Well, two countries down and now only one more country to get our status as legally married recognizable. Life is interesting these days. 

My Salvation

I used to be emo. Not simply emotional, but dramatic about it to the point that I could have cut off more than half the word and said it in a single exhaled monotone. I could have, if the word had been popular back in my day, but it wasn't, and so I didn't. I wasn't "goth." Well, not on any given day. There were twinges of black mesh, glitter, and leather collars that peppered my wardrobe, but it was not anything nearing a statement. I attended Paris, the RHPS. My friends were goth, for sure. I, as usual, kind of just was. I wasn't "was" in the apathetic way that most adults thought teenagers were. I "was" in a completely tender, overwhelmed, excited, bursting, awe-filled way that just forgot to conform to societal roles and labels. A little emo girl stuck in jeans and a t-shirt without any eye-liner. How tragic.

Looking back on my emo tendencies the event that rises as most potent took place when I was 20, living in Tucson. I was at a guy's house. I don't remember his name. Although he filled an interesting role in my pivoting life he, himself, wasn't particular important to me. I remember that he lived up north, off the freeway, in an apartment with a roommate. I don't remember how I met this guy, I don't remember how many times we hung out, or what we actually did. What I do remember, very clearly, was that his living room was dark. All the light was shut out even at mid day, and for some breakup, (his or mine, or maybe his roommate's) Evanescence, "My Imortal" was always playing in the background. Now, I still think that "My Imortal," is a great song. Beautiful voice, good composition etc. But back then I thought that it was more than great. I thought that it was IMPORTANT. I sat there, in that dark room that smelled of single boys, the three of us nursing broken hearts together, and I agreed that this song was the epiphany of the year. Even as I agreed I found it tediously overplayed by the boys, and I got up out of that room, into the bright sunlight and left. What I did later that day is a quite different story.

I have come a long way since thinking that Evanescence was IMPORTANT. I really thought that Istanbul was meant to be my salvation. I thought that I was destined to be dragged back into the divine comedy that is emo-land. I thought that I would tear and bleed, and rip at life.

Instead I made a choice. It was the best choice of my life. The drama is done, packed away for the days of nostalgic writing and moments of artistic inspiration. Instead I have bliss. Bliss and joy in many forms.

Forms of Bliss:
Running Bliss
Loving Bliss
Learning Bliss
Meditation Bliss
Religious contemplation Bliss
Swimming Bliss
Cooking Bliss
Eating Bliss
Sexual Bliss
Comfortable Bliss

Ahhhh... life is good. 

The Darkness

Every year my soul takes a vacation past the darkness. December the days grow shorter and the soul flees. I don't know where it goes, but go it does, somewhere far from me, and it leaves me as some sort of soulless zombie-child for a few weeks, when the days are shortest. I get cranky. I get sad. I have learned that the exhaustion will fade. The new year comes, a most melancholy holiday, and soon after that the days will start to grow longer. Spring will come and then, in a burst of suddenness, there will be summer. The days will be too long and I will feel too alive, and all will be as it should be, as we are told that we are supposed to feel as humans- happy, thankful, joyful. It is hard to be a human in the winter. A summer human, that is. But it is like the world wants to deny that winter is happening. With our heaters, and our false lighting, we claim to have captured summer year round. Be happy, they demand. I refuse, and my soul goes on vacation. For a few weeks, sometimes a couple of months, the depression of the winter settles in. It is not unbearable. I can handle it, quite well, after 30 years of practice. But the people around me seem to have a hard time of it. Come on, get happy, they whine at me. I refuse.
This year has been a little different. Having a lover stretched in bed beside me has kept my spirits up, or rather, down, nailed to me, here with me. It isn't that wee have been running around, hand in hand with a summer hunger, defying the winter. But he accepted my levels, and sunk into a lovely hibernation with me. It has been wonderful. Then, last night, he left. He is only gone for two weeks, and then we meet up again, in Bulgaria. (Oh, how I am petrified to return to Bulgaria!) But as soon as he left the darkness swept in around me. I took the metro to the bus, and waiting in the misty night I felt just how dark and cold it was. Only 7 in the evening and by the time I got home I wanted nothing more than to go to bed. Of course, I didn't. I stayed up and worked a bit on my final projects for the semester. I thought about him taking a bus up over the mountains, down by the sea, to a place that he calls home. No, he doesn't. He calls here, with me, home. I missed him, and my soul tugged itself away. Time for vacation, it said, and numbness settled in. Everything was settled, still.
People have this huge fear of needing others. Love yourself, they say. Be complete on your own, they demand. I am complete on my own. I am a whole person. But, honestly, I like my life better with him. I like waking up with him. I like eating with him. I like solving problems with him. I like walking home with him. I like grocery shopping with him. I like running with him. He is this constant friend, companion, love to me, always supportive and understanding and filled with secrets to discover. I love him. Need? It is a relative word, I think. I am perfectly capable of functioning without him. I can go to coffee shops and write this weekend. I can hang out with my friend next week. I can concentrate on school and clean my house. No, I do not need him, but I love having him in my life, every part, every second, every day.
I still wonder about how sudden our commitment to each other was. Really, within a month of meeting we were all-in, ready to spend the rest of our lives together. I try to remember why I used to think that commitment was such a difficult thing, why love was so hard to admit that sometimes I just ignored it altogether. I can't. With him love is so very easy. It pours out between us. Whispered admissions of love and desire and joy. Why would we ever hide these from another? Why would we ever reject these from another? Society has built a queer prison in which it keeps love and commitment as something sacred. I unlocked the cages and threw away the keys. No more, and enough is enough. I am ready to love, and so very happy that I have found a person brave enough to love, uninhibited, with me.

The War Against Wet

I have a love-hate relationship with our apartment. I love its location, up north in a nice, quiet suburb where we feel altogether safe. I love that it is ours, even if only in lease. But it is definitely a poorly constructed apartment. It is cheaply made, probably for the sole purpose of renting out at a profit that will be gained in less than the year that we will be here. The pipes leak, the roof leaks, the floor is saturated... I keep thinking that if we could only have a dry week that this place would dry out and there would be some hope for salvaging it. But apparently dry weeks don't happen in Istanbul. The locals are used to it. I don't know how they survive year after year in this constant wetness. It is a battle that I am not prepared for. The level of cleaning and amount of bleach required just to keep the mold at bay is... well, let's just say that I never even purchased bleach in Arizona. Oh, how I miss the dry, warm safeness of the desert.

The Naked Head

The other day the boy asked me to shave his head. When was the last time that I picked up a set of clippers? It was to my own head. Before that there were a few vital strokes before my eldest brother marched off into the military, and permanently beyond my understanding. I was terrified. Not now, but back then. I had never experienced someone leaving home. He was the first in our family to go. Looking back I cannot even remember a time when he seemed to be there. I distinctly remember my other brother. Our resources crossed often and there was constant bickering between us. I just can't remember my older brother living with us, even when his room was just across the upstairs landing from mine. That is my brother, a ghost, the eternally absent figure. I have no proof that he hasn't changed, and yet isn't that proof enough? Still, even though he wasn't actually there, I was terrified to see him go. I remember the sound of the clippers when we plugged them in, and how important I felt as I took the first stroke from his hair. The lessons I learned that night were deep and passed on to every generation. I learned about submission and pride. There is a proper way to submit. Submission needs to be accompanied by an act of defiance. There is always a line. Always burn something so that they can't take it. Always submit first to yourself. Surrender. Take the spoils, and let your captor have the leftovers. It was a stupid lesson. Surrender and pride. It always is.

But the other day there was no surrender and no pride. There was a certain level of trust and the giggles that accompany it. I was still nervous, but the thrill that I got from removing his head was much more fulfilling than the terrible thrill that I had on that night so many years ago. The buzzing of the clippers was intoxicating. I liked the feel of them in my hand, despite their weak current. I remembered the way it felt, for so many years, to trim up the sides of my head. I loved having my mohawk. In san francisco there was no political or social statement surrounding it. It was not about being different or fitting in. People barely noticed the geen wired pigtails. No, it was about loving my body and listening to how it wanted to be represented, and I missed it. By the time I had finished shaving the boy's head I had made a decision. My hair had to go.

After we finished his hair there was a moment of pinning, referencing pictures on the internet and a reorganization of the pins. Then there was a deep breath and staring into the mirror as the man that I love took away a small patch of my hair. Comparatively it wasn't much, just the tiniest hint at freedom. Freedom. Really, that is what it feels like. The freedom of wind on my scalp. The freedom on his fingers petting the tiniest patches of fur. The freedom to look how I want. Yes- what was once pride and surrender has transformed magically into a treatise on freedom. And, how free have I found myself over the years? Through the slavery of state and society I have burned a slight hole, burrowed myself in, and can safely say- I have tasted freedom. 

The time has come... (part I- Academia)

The time has come, my soul has said, 
To write of many things, 
Of weights and scales and social acts, 
Of jealousy and rings. 
Of construction of realities 
And the madman's right to sing. 

There comes a time when life no longer makes sense. All of the things that you have been working towards crumble when hit by a single word. These are the times of crisis- the quarter-life, the mid-life, and if you are me, the every couple of years-life crisis. I have grown accustomed to these crises, more or less, so that when hit with the final, soul-shattering, mind-blowing bullet I give little more reaction than a hot face, a hint at the possibility of tears and a few deep breaths. These are growing experiences.

For the past few months I have had it in my mind that I will apply to graduate school. In many ways it seems like the next logical step. After all, I love academia and I am rather successful in it. Despite the fact that I am no longer anything close to the traditional student I am still faced with the choice: grad school or work after graduation? I realized that both ideas terrify me, but grad school does so a little bit less than actually starting my career. (Yes, I have been "working" in my field for the past ten years, but the experiences that I have had as a volunteer and crew leader have been the experiences of working within someone else's construct. To actually start out on my own and stick to my values in the career sense is still foreign territory to me.) I chose an okay graduate school that my grades and test scores (although the tests have yet to be taken) will surely gain me entrance, and I just thought that the next two years would be research and writing. Case closed, life is simple. I get to stay in Turkey, be in love, and thoroughly research my career field before getting my feet wet. However, something as simple as turning in a research proposal last week has made me question whether or not that will actually be helpful to me, and whether I am just doing it because I am scared of the real world.

The class that I had to submit a research proposal for was my communication and media course. We have been discussing how different types of communication are constructed and how the construction perpetuates the status quo. I wanted to do my research on billboards as an advertising agent that is created for specific places and times. I had what I thought were some pretty solid arguments, but when I submitted my proposal my professor informed me that my basic proposition was flawed: that in Istanbul people do not at all regulate billboard advertising. It is an honest enough, if embarrassing, mistake. But here is the thing: I don't believe it is a mistake. Sure, there may not be formal groups protesting billboards, and there may not be city ordinances regulating the billboards, but I do believe that there is a link to billboard advertisement and the locale that they are placed beyond visibility, even in Istanbul. Perhaps the research is too large to undertake for one semester and I am not even interested by it, but there is still a strong possibility that I am right, or maybe I am wrong but the relationship between culture and billboard advertising in Istanbul is still worth exploring and understanding. However, my proposal was rejected, quite simply and easily. I find it ironic that the day my professor rejected my proposal was also the day that we were reading Foucault's thoughts on discourse. He spoke of the limiting factors of commentary and the educational institution- how everything must say the same thing that has never been said before, and at the same time must say the new thing that has already been said. He speaks of the madmen, and how their ramblings are discarded. He speaks of all of the areas of discourse that we do not allow in our lives. This article had a very strong effect on me. It depressed me, and in the midst of that depression this final straw of rejection (which, lets be honest, is never easy to bear) wormed its way into me and made me realize that I am not actually "good" at academia. For years every thesis that I have made has been rejected. My instructors all tell me, in not so many words, "That is not the way the world is." Usually I rework my writing to reflect a reality that has already been proven by research and that they understand. Sometimes I don't, and I get points for the style and logic of my paper even though they disagree with the main premis of the article.

What I realized last night is that I can function in academia. I can play the game. But coming back to school after 10 years in the real world I realize that it is just a game. It is just repeating the same things that have been known for too long. It is just accepting the reiteration of ideas that are rarely new, and any alternative viewpoint is not accepted. My viewpoint is never accepted. I am tired of being told that the world is nothing like what I see and feel. I am tired of being told that my experiences are not valid. I am tired of being told that I am the madman and my voice is fun but useless. I am, most of all, tired of having to hide myself and my opinions in order to be considered valid. Is this what academia is, and do I belong here?

I am not making any quick decisions. Possibly I will get over this in a month and keep working on those grad school applications. I will spend two years researching my field, ignoring the things that I think actually matter in order to get published, and I will find it worthwhile. But maybe, just maybe, there are other things that are more important in life than research. Maybe it is time to really start working towards the things that I value. Maybe, I am realizing 10 years later that it is not that I got into the wrong major, but that there is no major for me. I will always be grateful that I am lucky enough to experience college. I have had the time to remain infantile and to thoroughly question the world. I have been exposed to many theories and schools of thought that have definitely shaped my worldview. However, maybe enough is enough. Maybe it is time to protest the acceptance and strike out without a higher degree. 

In defense of marriage...

I have long been the type of girl who thought that she was never going to get married. No, not one of those desperate, forever-alone girls stuck on self-pity and thirsting for a man, but more of one of the girls who just never quite got the point of marriage. I have seen too much divorce to really take marriage seriously, and I do not think that it is right for the state to monitor what is or is not a family based on religion. On my 13th birthday I vehemently disavowed marriage, promising my father that he could look forward to having an unwed daughter forever. Over the years I have been a bridesmaid and a groomsman, in weddings to celebrate unions that have now been dissolved, and both times I felt a little cheated by the whole ordeal. (I know, it is selfish. I am sure that what the bride and groom felt was much more significant than what I felt, but if I believe in marriage, and if I believe in a wedding, then it is a moment when you ask the support of your family and friends for your union, and make a promise not only to your significant other, but also to them. The promise to your sweetheart that you will be forever theirs can easily be made in bed, and sealed with a kiss. The rings and ceremony is for the social seal of the marriage.) So, all in all it was easier to forego the idea of marriage and just live each moment how I saw best, in a very selfish, self-defined, egotistical way. I was quite happy that way.

So, why the change in theory?

Well, first of all over the past couple of years there has been a change in my heart. Not only have I finally settled the restlessness that drove me as a young adult, but I have also gained more respect for the social world. Five years ago I was determined to go through this world alone. I was an island. Now I have a much deeper understanding of community and friendship. I still don't have much respect for religion or the state, but I can see the need for the support of friends and family when you choose to be together with one person for the rest of your life. I think that some of this is due to the natural aging process, but most of it is due to my peace corps experience... seeing the way other families live; both American and Bulgarian.

Secondly, I have honestly never felt about any one else the way that I feel about Nikola. I thought that I knew love, and I did. I knew all sorts of love. But with him I also know this huge, unbeatable trust, and the depth of it is unbelievable. I am pretty much drunk on trust these days. Trust and acceptance. It is wonderful. For that reason, I would never let him go, and also, I happily want the entire world to know that we are together, side by side.

So, one morning we woke up and were talking about when we would get married. There was no proposal. We both just knew that we would get married. Conversations about immigration and residence permits and our landlord only renting to married couples had already helped to plant the idea within us. Two years from now, next summer, and then, suddenly, why wait? We decided that we will get married this winter. I know that it is quick for a lot of people. We have been dating for three months. When we get married it will have been six. It isn't much time. But I think that we are both the type of people that once a decision is made there is no going back and forth, trying to decide if it is right or not. It just is.

I don't think either of us really have a clue about how to get married. There are so many traditions that we first have to learn (as our experience is quite limited) and then cut through to get what we really want our wedding and marriage to be about. I think this is going to be a very fun three months, followed by a very fun party, followed by a very fun lifetime with the most incredible, inspirational person that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. 

Fall in Istanbul

I have never been very impressed by fall. In fact, I have been known to be downright hateful towards any season that was not summer. However, leaving the safe haven of my eternal summer deep in the southwest I have come to experience, timidly at first and then with a bit of curious anticipation, other seasons.

For me fall has always been a time of ending. It reeks of decay and death. The leaves turn brown, the sap in trees runs slowly, and it tells the coming of winter. Winter, which could be appreciated for what it is if we didn't try to control it... if winter consisted of blankets and hibernation  books and knitting and hot chocolate and mindless movies, then it wouldn't be so bad. But winter consists of bad drivers, waiting in the cold for public transportation, heaters on too fully in public buildings, and sickly lighting schemes. It is not something to look forward to in the way most modern humans experience it, or try not to. Winter is an awful dissonance between realities (the desired and the experienced) and a time of humans waging war against the eminent will of nature, and fall is just the ramping up to that disgusting display. Or so I thought.

Here, in Istanbul, fall has a completely different feel than what I have experienced before. It is mid-October now and the weather changes daily- some days a bit windy, some days warm and mild, occasionally chilled and rainy. Every day is a surprise. I enjoy the juxtaposition of short sleeves and scarves, or long sleeves and bare necks. I love the gentle breeze that, somedays, comes up off the bosphorous, kissing along the neck of my university campus. It is a breeze without temperature, neither cooling nor warming, it just lifts the small hairs on your arms or neck and then places them down again, ever so gently, without any effort or crude moments of shock. Everything seems peaceful. People are settling into their routines, they have unwound from summer vacation, and they are drinking coffee and talking in low voices with small, satisfied smiles.

I never knew that a month could be like this. Or else I forgot. What I do know is that right now, in this time and this year, I am exactly where I need to be. The place of Bogazici opens up to me and folds over me, and I feel safe, and tickled with tiny promises of experience. Fall or not, October in Istanbul is perfect.