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Because of my many travels I think I find myself most comfortable at a table for one. I began to look at writing as if it was a conversation happening but no one could hear. I became very comfortable or rather familiar with the posture of being alone with my thoughts as terrifying as they have always been.

The new year is eating away at the hours and there is so much I didn’t say and yet there seems to be heaps more of things I wish I had never said, written or sent. Remorse such a heavy load that I seem too ready to pick up and sling over my shoulder. Sometimes I think perhaps it’s similar to self harm, which creates an external representation of pain and a place for the pain to escape. That heavy load I seem so eager to carry is really the representation of the weight of sadness I live under. Sadness and it’s explanation has been one that eludes me, so it’s easier to point to the load as the reason for being downtrodden.

I had a conversation with my younger wisdom. Ok let’s deviate (on purpose). My brother used to say to me he wanted to spend 10 years each studying wine, whiskey and coffee. He felt, that length of time would make him well versed. I understood the concept and decided to expand it, “using my soul as raw materials”. I wanted to have friendships with those who were 10 yrs older and 10 yrs younger. Having felt the weight of my years and having the memory of myself at other ages I realized how much good would come from always being able to hold the tension and harness the power of 20 years of current perspectives and analysis.

Ok back to my younger wisdom- shit can you believe I actually forgot. Maybe the gold was the idea and not what she said. I’ll remember later and tell you.

Back to current status in the hope it will jog the memory.

This year has taught me so much about myself. I mean that in the non jaded way. Motherfuckers messed with me hard this year. Sorry, while I am never against profanity seeing that word written hits hard, and yet as I look back I realize it is still the best word to describe the people, mostly men I let BACK in this year only to lay in the bed they took a shit in. As angry as they all made me, as destitute as i felt at times, I am so grateful for all those actions and inactions, as they finally lead me to intolerance. I know that seems skewed. It’s not, I’m not confused about the word. I have built my intolerance level which apparently used to be non existent. Ok wait I can hear my family up in arms, I mean men 🙄. I’ve been intolerant with family for very long but that work is saved for a therapist and not my elephant memory that has been unwilling to forgive people and allow them to be in positions where they reap benefits they never sowed. I really deviate often don’t I? This is why I could never be a writer, also why I see these as conversations. Punctuation not needed !

Oh yay I remembered. Ok we were talking about New Years’ and how it’s ridiculous that we use it as this blank slate, how it is seemingly the best time to start new diets or habits. This is my younger wisdom btw. One of the benefits of youngers is I can see her understanding but I can overlay it like an architect over mine and see how they intersect but also where they differ.

How do I explain to her that creating an end and beginning point gives us control in a world where if we are honest we have no control. I mean it we don’t have any control. I try not to look and dissect it too long, it creates anxiety when I think he meant it to create relief and peace.

See I understand why she thinks of time as this continuous thing, in truth because it is. Time doesn’t have a stop or a start that isn’t marked by the beginning of all time and the end. We as humans created this figment of time as a way to track, forgive and mark ourselves. It is only in the simultaneous depth of youth and adulthood that we see time as ancillary. When clocks are for days and not hours, minutes and seconds. Those are the days they use, not count. I tried to find the flaw in her argument and I could not. Counting has always hurt me. Years without his little face, hours without words uttered, all the minutes of unnecessary air- did I need to count them ? Would they hurt less? When I looked at it I actually saw how much pain I would relieve myself of if I stopped counting. Stopped counting the bruises covered, countless repairs of my heart and all those damn false starts.

This new year isn’t actually new. It’s this constant continuation of the decisions of the day before and the hope I keep for tomorrow. I make no commitment to tomorrow, I am starting no diet or journey, I am in fact continuing the one that began all those years ago in a bath tub with my mother and father hovering above me.

Let me try to close the loop on this. The new year is 2 hours away and i think I finally understand how little this or time in general means. I am no longer fearful of the clock internal or otherwise ticking, creating fear for yet another item I can not control. Love has eluded me thus far and instead of counting the time without it, I want to live in the moment that I have been given that is full of luxuries and so many moments of blissful happiness and not the doom of counting.

I left this undone last night. The new year arriving and already becoming old. I feel sadness but also somehow peace. I have a new word for this year. I’ve had it for months and it has already given dividends. I hope to descend to the depths of my soul and ascend to the heights of the sky where the air is clear and all

Is forgiven. I will see you back here…who knows when. I’m done counting.

I was never close with my maternal grandmother …wait that’s not true. There was a time in my life when I slept by her side every two weeks. Where I labored beside her- polishing her silver, organizing her threads and watching as she flipped that switch and turned fabric to clothes.

There was this wonderful winter she sewed at least a half a dozen nightgowns for me. I would be visiting my fathers mother, mi ofelia in bogota. I still remember those gowns. I treasured them dearly on those very cold mornings when I could feel the frost everywhere around me. She would start the water and shush the servants while I remained in her bed. I always slept with her. Although I would say the always was never enough. I remember going into the shower in the morning, it was in a windowless room with a large Roman style tub.

It’s interesting the parallels I can draw of myself and my parents with their parents, more specifically their mothers, and what I learned from them.

Abuela Ana was a staunch woman. There was love there but at times it felt more like a stream and less a river. It was quickly moving. Bringing just barely enough nutrients to survive and then pressing forward. I remember those weekends with her. She taught me in many ways to survive. Part of it was learning that even in her home

I wasn’t safe. I try not to be sad about it anymore – I realize now there was so much she missed and lost. How could she ever have kept a look out. More still she never really understood the emotional part of caregiving.

The irony anyone who knows her would say is that to strangers she was the most loving, kind, generous and forgiving. Maybe she was like that with her other grandchildren, maybe they were better equipped. I remember how measured she was. She loved me in her way I believe, I choose to believe at least. I’m going to stray but this matters. One of my terrible (subjective) traits growing up was often I would ask or tell my mother of my love for her and my desperate desire for her love. It was never a lack of love but I somehow needed the words.

She had married and Bourn children with an artist of a different kind – one who felt emotions and acted upon them without thought or reasoning. What a prize that would seem…but emotions run the gamut and they at times turn like a bad wine, bitter and full of sediment. I needed love the way he did. Viscerally and physically expressed.

I was to young to convert the security of a home and meals to love. They seemed like necessities and not offerings of affection. I think now as I look back on that time with my grandmother I am able to see how my mother became the woman she is or used to be I should say. Her actions, her sacrifice was her form of communicating that love she felt for me (again siblings…again difference in opinion). It took a long time to understand that, but soon I would stop asking as often if she loved me, or shouting back to her my love in the hopes of reciprocation. It was only as an adult that I understood how she learned, it was only looking back on how my grandmother loved me that I could see my mother. Moreover it has made the journey of her expression of love to me so much greater.

Now my abuelita Ofelia- ohhh that sweet woman who is the smallest of us all and yet the heart that beats within those probably 80lbs is the biggest one I think God may have created. I hope when my mama reads that it doesn’t break her heart. I hope she understands that love is so multi faceted because we are and sometimes the reflection we need is not always the one in the closest proximity. My ofelia is one of the most treasured possessions I never really had the chance to own/hold. Does that make sense ?

It’s hard to understand and yet if I’m

Honest it’s easy. Love is so damn imperfect and marriage is apparently so hard that I wasn’t able to feel the warmth of my Ofelia for longer than weeks but less than months. Yet I hold no anger nor even the sadness that would keep me shackled to the past. I believe the love that runs so deeply in her veins is already in mine and further tutelage wasn’t needed.

I am her granddaughter in ways I never walked or could understand. Yet I apparently carry her heart in mine. She taught me to be delicate, patient and loving. She taught me big lunches meant little dinners and the failures of our children are merely lessons they will grow from and not battles that have defeated them. I say that as the daughter of the man who called her mother.

Im finally reaching this point in my life after some 20 something years of coherence where I see the things I have endured as lessons. Where while the pain remains, the understanding has become greater. I think that part of my abuela Ana is kicking in. The part that says this shit is so fucking hard that sometimes it feels like the air has gone and your lungs have collapsed, but I am strong. I am more than the sum of my failures, that my value is greater than the silver I shine or the threads I weave. Thank you abuela for teaching me that. I used to think you were cold but now I realize you were hibernating. You were conserving the energy you would need so that the next battle wouldn’t rip you to shreds and by god did you have battles.

I will never be able to love her the way others did. There are wounds that even now thru this I am working thru but I promise I’m trying. When I think of her I pray that she is in heaven. I used to pray it for my mothers sake but now I pray it for yours. I see how easy it could be to stray with so much strife.

Sometimes I don’t know how to end these. Mostly because I don’t think I’m done but the tears that constantly flow tire me and the words begin to get stopped by my gasps for breath. Will you let me rest and return to you ?

More honestly will you forgive me if I can’t or don’t.

Ciao Italia – this was the header I imagined for my first post. I like most of the world have wanted to come to Italy for so long. The land of pasta and wine – ancient romans and cypress lined hillsides. We had promised we would come together – my best friend and I that is. We knew we wanted to wait till we could go for long and have the funds to do the best and most fun and memorable things. It would be three years before we finally said it was time to go. 

I had learned in France that I no longer wanted to really “plan” my trips with the same rigidity as before. There were mornings when it was rainy or a bit chilly and it seemed better inside by a fire with a book or my iPad then struggling on small roads with the windshield wipers going hoping I would be able to find the attraction I had set out for. I had been so rigid on my trips and I would come home exhausted although still exhilarated from the adventure the former however left me feeling the proverbial need to have a vacation from my vacation. I didn’t want that anymore – I was spending time and money and I wanted to see the world but also I wanted to stay in with a book looking out at cliffs or on rooftops looking out at all the cathedral domes before me. So let’s talk sauce…

We landed in Rome but we would be saving him for last – Firenze was calling and although I don’t really like cities she felt more like a small town that got a bit big for her britches. Here’s the thing about cities – they are full of brick and marble and concrete and all those things are hard and cold and used to create barriers. It’s hard for me to breathe in cities- it doesn’t awe me to see what man creates- we are arrogant and narcissistic and our ability to create beautiful things in my opinion is never as a tribute but rather a reflection of our own grandiosity. 

I do think that Europe and other countries have understood a bit better than “home” the idea of working within the landscape there are so many places here in Italy that I feel met that but they aren’t cities they are glorified towns and that my friends is where this darling girl feels her heart beat and her lungs expand. I am never more aware of myself and my small place in the world then when I am in the country.

Florence was in many ways still what I expected of her, she was small but bright. Somehow you could probably wander for hours, finding small osterias and walls with windows for wine. Her inhabitants a bit brusque for me, I’m telling you its all those walls. We mimic what we see everyday and while those alleys and small cut thru’s are sweet and preciously adorned the buildings rising up on each side giving you but a piece of sky and if you know me I want so much more than just a piece. I counted the moments till we picked up the car and headed to the Tuscan hillside to the place we would call home for a few days- Montalcino.

I could regurgitate the difficulties we encountered on the way but it will only remind me of the many things I still need to work on. trying to leave Florence definitely did that. Needless to say it was my tuti that stood in that gap and while I will always somehow feel guilty that I needed it I will forever be thankful that I had it, having had plenty of times when I didn’t. The drive was short – for me at least. I could drive on country roads for hours – I usually do haha.

We arrived to the winery that would also be our home and I immediately felt my shoulders drop. I was still in my head a bit about work which I need to work on but that is for therapy and not this one sided version I have created with this blog. Anyway I had reserved a tour and wine pairing dinner at a beautiful 10th century settlement that was later turned into a winery. I changed into a dress wanting to accept myself as I currently am and present myself with the image I have in my mind of beauty and grace. Although somewhere on that estate I would lose it.

We arrived at dusk, I wish a lens could capture the feeling and visual the sun gives as it sets on the hillside. There is almost this mist or fog that hovers above the greener illuminated by the darker orange and red tones the sun gives as she moves on to her next port of call. As we walked towards the vines a call would interrupt that peace that was attempting to sink in. I headed away from our guide and rested on the stone wall below the vines. My eyes stayed at the vessel full of dark purple grapes waiting their turn to be pressed. Ugh I was those grapes, I am those grapes. 

“It is always the way of events in this life,..no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant resting place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired” oh Charlotte how right you are. I turned to find a familiar face somewhere among the vines and as I walked a bit behind them trying to keep pace I unloaded the thing that was weighing me down- I drew the air deep into my lungs and worked to force myself out of the slumber of work and move on. 

I don’t know that I’ll go back to recounting my days of travel as if I was a “travel blogger”. That I am not. I don’t want to influence anyone to go anywhere or really do anything. This blog, these words they aren’t actually for you. It’s my version of strengthing my legs and like Sza says “good day in my mind, safe to take a step out, get some air now…” I can’t keep going cause the lyric turns sour but this is why I write- to get some air. Here high above the city when just the domes shadow me is good air – hell of a breeze if I’m honest.

Back to the hillside we go. The next day or two went by a bit unplanned and yet I was maybe my happiest. I could hear the silence ya know. I could hear the thoughts in my head clearly – as if the wide open spaces allowed them to organize in their own little corners and create pathways I could walk calmly. It’s the difference between Ross and Target. Everything jammed onto a rail where the only way to find anything is to roughly push things back and forth so you can see each item stuffed deeply in or assigned places, beautiful displays, wide open spaces to maneuver thru. That’s how I felt – I could have stayed there another week but it would not be this time around. After just a couple days we were back on the road heading down to the coast. Ironically I was the most nervous and least excited about this. I by no means like stairs or much of my body when those things are combined it’s really just a recipe for the magnification of my insecurities. But when I tell you God does not play I mean it. How is it that in what seemed to be a town of wealth – the visitors not the residents, where everyone is beautiful and thin and finely dressed I was the commodity. At least that’s how the boys at the beach club made it seem. 

I’ve always been told I’m a bit too friendly with men, I would not necessarily disagree but I don’t think its for the reasons others might claim. No I don’t need everyman to love or want me but if I’m not open and kind and friendly and welcoming then how many times will my shrugged shoulders turn them away, how then will I find the man I long for, the one I always seem to write about and to. The problem lies not in that openness but in the flirtatious nature I tend to exude- but ironically that is the defense mechanism. For me it’s the same as when you make a fat joke about yourself so no one else does or so you can seem to be able to laugh it off. It’s not real – you don’t really feel that its funny but its easier to make those around you feel safe then to vocalize how their carelessness makes you feel so fucking unsafe.

When I flirt with men, it’s not because I am always attracted to them or for fun but rather because I feel that when I am flirtatious they reciprocate with the energy they would give a woman they are attracted to, and that everybody, is positively, accommodating and fun. That’s what I want to feel or focus on.

So yes when the waiter or the bartender walks past me I smile, I wink, I provoke. I want the memory of me in their mind to be that I saw them. That while they were serving me they were not invisible to me. A feeling I am all to familiar with. Apparently thats one of the most attractive things- it seems men are just as insecure as we are. The problem lies in the transition – this is what I never get right. I can begin to see why transitions of power are the most delicate and vulnerable place to be. There is this millisecond when you no longer realize who is leading and who should be leaving. That night I found that moment and yes the only way to describe it is like the flip of a switch. The next morning everything seemed to hurt, especially inside. (I’m fine btw, nothing happened lol). But that is the case for me more often then not I hold myself responsible for the actions of others, I find I am stumbling thru the dark saying excuse me and I’m sorry each time I bump into someone. But the truth is no one else should be in the room but me. I need no longer apologize for my wants, my needs or even sometimes my words as imperfect as they can be, as long as they are true and said with care, respect and when needed love they can’t be wrong. That’s what my mama says anyway – taking care of yourself can never be selfish. At the core of it, that’s what I learned these last 15 days. I am never wrong when I am giving myself care, love and space. 

I’ve had a very difficult year. By the way I count from Sept- Sept. So much of life was birthed and burned in that time that it is the Monday the week starts with and not Sunday. Sometimes these digressions or explanations confuse my thoughts and I forget what I wanted to really say. Ok no I got it…I spent most of this year begging to be loved by very specific people. Like a man lost in the desert willing to drink sand. Turns out I need to love myself that is what I should be begging for. What I should revolve my life around right now, is loving myself, showing myself what that actually means and looks like so I can detect the counterfeit so much easier. Did you know that’s how currency experts are trained. They learn, feel and absorb everything about real currency so that the false one becomes instantly recognizable. My dumbass did the complete opposite. Like Runaway Bride- I was convinced that I would find the eggs I love based on the eggs they loved.

Selfish might need to be my word for the year. Not in the derogatory way we seem to have attached to it but in the way that I feel free to stop and fill my lungs without permission. Where my ownership is only to myself and not the needs, wants of others, even those I hold in the highest esteem. They’ll still love me I think, I believe, I hope. My prayer is that in doing this I will be better able to love them. My mama also taught me that. For so many years she ran around without air leaving the oxygen mask free for me, (I have siblings but I wouldn’t dare to presume they’re insights, they have varied from mine in almost all aspects I would be unwise to think this is different) the problem is my hands were to little to reach up and so air eluded me too. Now I can see her mask secured around her own face and her hands free and calm to help me with mine….even at this age she gives me life. Loving and being loved by her has been a privilege, learning this from her has been a blessing, hoping to enact it with my children will be a gift.

Alright we still have to talk Rome but honestly, he needs his own post. Yes it’s a he to me, he is abrupt and change full, he is full of pride and boastfulness.

I am tired from the step out of my head and into my heart that has taken place these last few hours. I leave you with this. It’s a phrase I heard and they are the words I find myself needing to repeat.

“I am open to reinterpreting that”. I am giving myself the space to be wrong, even about trying to be right. I don’t want to stay closed because of fear I want to be open, reinterpreting is just a scupper in a balcony waiting to drain the water.

Buongiorno for you and Buen Notte for me.

I have this habit of allowing music so deeply into my life that it has become the loudly silent narrator. I don’t necessarily regret it. I think the way I connect to music is beautiful, I think the way I can sometimes allow it to take over is dangerous and often times reckless.

Im leaving my chateau today and so much of me wants one more day, one more sunset. Because I can’t have one,I instead find myself out in the courtyard with just the vines for company. I press play and she begins her aria in my ear. I am desperately trying to snapshot this moment and this feeling of bliss and freedom.

I have an answer to give when I return but I’m still so unsure what it’s going to be. Time such a cruel ruler, she brings about change and then stalls by changing time zones and creating a vortex of emotion. Every thing heightened.

Last year I had the opportunity to go to Turkey, and it was an amazing experience. It was filled with firsts and awareness and dare I say forgiveness. It left an impression on my heart to say the least.

Soon after returning I saw a film about Turkey during the ottoman empire when it was Anatolia. It described a love story set against a war torn country. Nothing new there, but while watching I was once again confronted with the amount of things people do in the name of their “God”.

Complete destruction and disregard for life. Somehow I can’t bring myself to love, adore, and revere a God that would do that…and yet don’t I?

I can already feel my mother cringing in her chair (I think). Yet when I look at the examples of the Bible where this “destruction” took place it was always at the hands of God, perhaps he used messengers to convey and advise repentance but he did not put the match in their hand. Noah, Joseph, Lot. These were all men chosen in a time of deep depravity.

I can see us sinking back into that depravity and I wonder what now? He promised to never end the world by flood again, but isn’t there a loophole in that very statement.

There is something so disconcerting about being in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and which any attempt on the side of the residents to speak is met with criticism. At first I thought it was an American thing. But in truth I am finding that more and more it’s a cultural thing. The French are obsessed with preserving the past. There are things they continue to do that have either been industrialized or at the very least faster ways of doing it are available but it will cause them to forget their past. Their history their heritage

The same film brought another lovely example. As Americans we are taught to believe we are the greatest in the world but that thought that seems far from true.

The rest of the world remains in constant watch. Yes perhaps it’s true that we have innovated more than any country in the technological sense but the truth is we are quite far behind in the human sense.

In the film the Armenians are fighting the Turks. Muslim v orthodox Christian, caught on the middle is an American hospital. There is a mini monologue in the film when a man of the Turkish military says to the hospital director.

“When your lands were still swamp and grass we had lit up the world for thousands of years, and when you fall like Rome and Greece. And you will fall, we will still be here”

I think this is the core of the French and their unwillingness to change. They know the world and ways they live are sustainable. They will grow slowly so they can guarantee the progress and growth. As much as I hate not being able to communicate or the fact that there are certain amenities that i must do without, somehow I remain in a state of reverence for their diligence and stubborn ways and in some ways so is every American that has been willing to brave the discomfort and visit this spectacular country.

Im still nervous and uncomfortable every time I have to go to a restaurant and ask for a table or a menu, a drink or a damn breath of fresh air so instead I plan to learn as much French as I can so the next time I set myself upon the terroir of the countryside I can enjoy every moment and change my fear to fun.

In the meantime I suppose a French boy would do just fine.

We left Istanbul this morning. I was sad to leave not because the city itself had left me speechless but because the experience had. I have never believed in the statement “Travel expands your horizons” more than I have on this trip. I came to a predominantly Muslim country. Filled with Mosques and women covered from head to toe. Coming from a place like America heck even my country of Colombia this was a foreign experience and concept. My last post I discussed the staring that I have experienced. As I mentioned I attempted to attribute positive intent but I the cynical perhaps American part of me remained unsure. As we emerged ourself in the city for the final time, I found myself engaging more with the idea that the staring these men were doing was actually communication. The women here are covered with only their eyes exposed. Because of the time we are living in where masks and distance is the norm, we are just beginning to experience what it is to communicate our feelings with just our eyes. They have been doing this for quite a bit of time.

Segue- not so smooth but it doesn’t matter, the air is growing cold and this has to come out. I believe in God…and Jesus, this is a vital addition. I am roaming a land that believes that latter to just be a man, a man that I hold as God made into man. I come from a place that claims to hold those beliefs as tenants of its existence (we wont get into the technical part that America was founded by Deists), yet again I find that a people who are considered to not know the truth and a brutal, hierarchal structure show more reverence in any given day than most of us can muster on a Sunday morning. They will know you by your fruits it says and yet I have found more crisp red apples here than I have found even in my own church. No I’m not converting, but how can I call myself a child of God if I can’t even love or even honor those who haven’t yet had the truth of God revealed to them. Has it been so long for so many of us since we stood in the dark that we can’t be willing to allow the stumbles of those who keep falling down steps and tripping. Have we…neigh have I become so arrogant that I believe that God can’t use others to teach me or rather lift the mirror and reveal that the love that I claim to have for my Savior is not even evident. Do you know what it is to stop what your doing five times a day, cleanse yourself and kneel on holy ground and pray, be it in trouble, gratitude, fear…etc. I stopped to think of the connection between all these Muslims that are all kneeling and praying at these same time each day every day, it seems in a way the truest since of flooding the throne with prayers. Connecting them as we are called to be the body of Christ, separate and yet connected. But how do we reflect it….the simple answer is we don’t. Please don’t confuse me again no one here is converting, I know the truth of the God I serve and the Jesus I love and the Holy Spirit that guides me but the point I am working towards is that loving God and accepting his gift doesn’t mean that gratitude, honor and reverence is no longer required, if we are honest….it should come even more freely.

Let’s move the romantic portion of this post, mostly because as mentioned I’m starting to freeze my booty cakes and I want to write this before it buries itself deep within me, informing me as so much of the negative has. I met an man during these travels, this isn’t uncommon for me. Ive been told that my eyes are powerful and I can be very communicative with them and I guess thats accurate since day two I received my first marriage proposal.

My mom taught me this real cool thing about starting the year with a word. Its meant to be found after prayerful consideration. this year my word was self-care. I assumed that meant get more massages, don’t take myself too serious and feel free to say no. However kind of late in the year a phrase became apparent to me and it began to inform the way I work with people, the way I travel and most importantly the way I love. “This will either be a great love, or a great lesson”. This has proved to be truth for me in Istanbul. I was shown such love and tenderness and when I compared it against the coarse sexual nature of the American man that is my reference I realize just how much I am actually missing. Alas I this is not my home and soon a plane will take me back to the walls I’ve built and he won’t be there with me. I don’t even know if I need him there but I needed the lesson he was willing to provide me. At dinner tonight I was talking to my friend and we were discussing the correspondence and she made a comment “but you believe in love at first sight right”. It took me aback for a moment…I did believe that…I do believe that, but I also know my tendency to love more than my other half. For now I am enjoying this teenage love, filled with proclamations, flowers, kisses on eye lids and walks along the sea wall. I don’t want this moment to end and while I am still on this side of the world it lives and feeds me.

I want to continue to prostrate myself before you all, bearing my soul and all its fears and insecurities and yet somehow I want to save them. I want to share them with someone who holds my hands as we cross the street and holds my gaze, reading in my eyes the things that perhaps I can’t say or worse I don’t even know are within. This doesnt mean the end of my blog or even the end of the transparency I have started with those closest but rather the understanding that a partner is the one…because I do believe in that will be the one worthy of hearing them as he tucks my hair behind my ear and caresses my face when he hears the sadness that has rocked my core.

Do you remember burning CD’s. Downloading songs and creating these awesome mixes. Do you remember creating entire new CD’s just to add one or two songs that you just couldn’t stop listening to. I do that for my trips, luckily its as easy as adding songs to a playlist and downloading for offline listening. I have so many but the ones for each of my travels connect with memories and no matter how the song comes on I can remember them and even hear in my head the next song on the playlist. As I sit on the rooftop looking out at the city below with my “Let’s talk Turkey” I realize that the songs on there, the love ones at least are reflective of the hours he and I shared together…all I can seem to say ‘would you take the wings from birds so that they cant fly, would you take the oceans roar and leave just a sigh. All this your heart wont let you do, this what I beg of you, don’t take your love from me’. I’m not saying I’m in love (insert Hercules song) but rather for a bit longer I want to bathe in someone else loving me more than I can currently reciprocate.

I think for tonight thats enough. There are more stories to tell and just a few more short nights in which to tell them. Be patient with me as I balance my happiness with the need to relive these stories via this medium. In the mean time I leave you with a few photos from our time in Istanbul before I take you to Cappadocia.

The year has been a whirlwind. I knew this wouldn’t be a year I would be able to travel. My wanderlust quietly knocking at the door begging me for a boarding pass, but I remained locked within the confines of the new home I was making, content to make the most of the walls that I now owned. But as with most of my life other plans were brewing.

On a night of pure insanity I called my travel buddy and insisted that we needed the freedom of the sky and much to my surprise she complied. The next week we booked our tickets and prayed our destination would open in time for adventure. I waited patiently refreshing the home page and then the day came….a change of direction was required.

We arrived to the airport, my wandering heart sad at the barrenness of the terminals. The plane taking me high to the sky where the air is clean and my heart can soar, and soar it did. The plane ride itself left so much to be desired, space, air and the thrill of departure. But my hope and persistence in my destination and simply the fact that I was escaping would carry me. Everyone at home locked away and me sky high.

So where do I find myself, I mean this is a travel/ soul bearing blog. Turkey…Istanbul for now to be more precise. Not a place I would have chosen for the next adventure and now as I sit at the bar of my lovely hotel I am happy and satisfied with my choice.

Most of the time when I travel I have been fortunate enough to be in countries where either English remains dominant or the countries ppl have adapted themselves to English to attend to our narcissist selves. For the first time not only am I experiencing the language barrier but also the religious one. I know I’m a beautiful woman (didn’t I just say narcissist..don’t roll your eyes at me), but the amount of staring in this country is real and it can either make you uncomfortable or increase your ego. I think you can tell mine is the latter.

It’s now at this age that I have truly gained a confidence in myself as a woman. Of course as a woman it also ebbs and flows at times contingent on my state of mind. However as per usual I digress, its time to get to my first day in Istanbul.

The day started with the curtains opening but before they could let the view in I was greeted instead by two men careeening of the building while cleaning my windows. Much needed mind you…luckily and I mean that..I was fully clothed. (Insert grinning face here lol. Tired from the long flight, time change and the loss of adrenaline required additional rest so breakfast in bed was just what the doctor ordered. Have you ever had breakfast in bed just because, allowing someone to serve you for no other reason other than because you could? If you haven’t, I highly recommend it. Typically our days our full, moving around and seeing as much as possible, knowing full well all that we can get is a glimpse a reflection of the life and light within a city.

In a predominantly Muslim country it was only right that mosques be the main venture. After a very long and somewhat hot taxi ride we found ourselves at our first “Church”. I say church but the truth is I could not see the walls that held it up and the walls within were already crumbling. This is an important thing to note….we’ll be back to this topic so keep it in mind…there will be a test. We climbed the semi steep hill back from the church and began to wander, I’d like to think I knew where I was going but the truth is I didn’t and soon before our eyes a mosque appeared. We approached trepidatiously dodging stray dogs that I wanted to pet and flying pigeons that she was desperate to avoid.

We climbed the marble stairs and slowly wandered, fearful of our presence and whether it would be welcomed or cautioned. My companion approached a security guard and began to ask for directions or guidance. He quickly demonstrated our language barrier would continue, but being resourceful his phone emerged and google translate was presented to us. We were shown to the entryway and guided to remove our shoes and place a smock to cover our bodies and heads. He stood back and looked away as we complied, his respect countering the stares that had proceeded him. We entered the “Holy Place” and while awe was not what was solicited, reverence was. The bright red carpet marked only by tape demonstrating the social distance that is now plaguing us. Above a candelabra of sorts dominated the ceiling countered only by the artwork on the inside of the domes that house it. My camera securely in my bag I discreetly removed my phone and took what little I could honoring the space and its inhabitants. Sometimes, neigh most of the time even when things don’t count or matter to you they do to another and the respect that you show matters more than the belief in the custom itself. As we took our leave and removed our garments I was so pleased with the kindness that man showed us. Yes it’s his job, but that doesnt change the gratitude for his patience at our lack of language or understanding in his country.

We proceeded to the street to hopefully obtain our next taxi driver, cross our fingers he was honest and move to our next location. He quickly revealed himself and we were off to our next mosque. My Lids loves churches. I’ve never asked her why, perhaps its the architecture, or the fact that its a physical representation of God that we have, a place thats holy and pure but also welcoming of those who need it most the doors always open and the walls ready to listen and pass along your message. Do Mosques translate, does the reverence for a different belief system still hold the same weight. I don’t know the answer for her, but for me, its the reverence period.

This year but mostly these last few months have shown me how important the way we act, move and treat others speak so directly to our belief system. Yes the men stare at me when I walk, I’m choosing to believe that perhaps for some it reminds them of the weakness of their minds. Their women covered greatly so as not to elicit lustful stares. Coming from where I’m from….that’s a foreign concept. We dress purposely to elicit a response in the hopes that it will elicit desire and later love and commitment. Instead they seek to know from the inside out……as it currently seems to me (I’m trying to believe in positive intent).

We wandered the grounds, passing the tombs of the Sultans before. Several of their sarcophaguses together housed in their own eternal dome. A hundred feet away the princess ordered her own resting place to built, the power in that statement removed the sting that even in their world eternity is spent apart. I can’t tell if they feel that women are less than here or perhaps they are so special that all the places we wish to be in is not worthy of us, even a Sultana deserves her own dome.

After a barrage of photos…on the outside we walked a bit and took another taxi…dishonest unfortunately to a little cafe in the sky to replenish ourselves. After a day or honor and walking. I could talk about what happened up there where the roof retracted and the breeze from the Bosphorus washed over me but some things are left in the memories of those who were present and the ones who I FaceTimed after lol.

The day is now done, the sun has set and the moon as taken her place in the sky to stir the waves and call the breeze to play gently thru the open windows. As I finish the rest of my drink I get to look out to the sea and wonder what tomorrow will hold. Isn’t that the most exciting feeling. Turns out when I travel I somehow loose my fear for so many things. I’ll sit with that tonight and see if tomorrow will bring answers, yet funnily enough I’m ok with not knowing.

Have you ever noticed that gratitude is something that needs to be “practiced”.

Fear, disappointment and longing come like the HDMI cord with a TV but the rest needs to be setup, password and all.

I have had such big moments this “birth year”. So much I have overcome and accomplished and yet what I focus on are the things that are still pending. The oasis in the desert.

Yes I need to be grateful and proud of the accomplishments that decorate my resume. As the woman who bled said “ I believe; help me in my unbelief”

Do you know what depression looks like. It’s having so much and only being able to see what you don’t have. All the tangible things I can obtain; a house, dogs a career but the constant needs are the intangibles. Love, security etc.

I often blame myself. It would be inaccurate and unfair to not admit that most if not all of my self worth comes from what I can offer a man. Not my heart, my cooking skills or even my love but rather my fingers against their back. My body for their desires. But I swear I don’t know my way out. I swear that I try but the feeling and fear of loneliness and solitude is a pull much larger than any self preservation i thought I had. I’ve even bartered away part of my mind in the hopes that it would be the cement that would allow tall building to stand upon. Yet all I am is a vacant lot with a for sale sign dug in its dirt.

I find myself apologizing for these feelings as if they are switches I can flick and buttons I can press. I can not say why my mind perceives things this way. Perhaps this is why thoughtful gifts and their reactions mean so much to me, because they actually take so much of me to give.

It’s hard to worry about the feelings of other and assure them that my sadness is not ingratitude.

Sometimes I believe that if the bible is true and this desire for children is from God than surely the man whose seed will give them to me is sure to follow. Yet soon after I find that perhaps that is my apple, something I covet and desire not because it is nourishing but because it seems forbidden in a sense.

I called my sister the other day and warned her I was on the brink of a spiral downwards. It was the first time in so long that I cracked the peephole. From the depths of her heart she gave to me. Her time, her resources and her love…how it kills me that it’s not enough. It’s like taking water out of the ocean using a dropper. Her heart is appreciated but I have set her against a task she can’t possibly complete. Perhaps she knows, maybe she doesn’t but the image flashes of the care of her heart sitting on the edge of the water with her dropper taking what she can out even if it’s 1/1,000,000,000th of the depths.

I sit in my bed lady sleeping with her head on my lap and Jax snoring away and I realize how much I desperately wish a fairy Godmother would come and turn then into children. Most likely it is my impending birthday that has reminded me of the road still left to travel. Quizás It’s why my dear sister has put forth this effort to memorialize not only the day of my birth but the things I have accomplished since I emerged from the womb.

My God how I honor her. How I hate that I didn’t honor her sooner. How I hate to admit that the years lost between us were because I could not see past the jealousy I had for what was Hers. I never wanted to take it from her that much I swear but it made me wonder what in me was so inadequate that no one could help me bear fruits of love.

Sometimes I don’t know if I believe in God. Oddly enough not because of he horrible things I have endured but rather because of the rewards it seems he has kept from my grasp.

I miss you. Not your presence but this connection I always believed we had. It’s not even your fault, I don’t even know if it’s mine. We are sometimes just different and our depths have changed. I want to go where the water is too dark to see and you go to the darkness with a flashlight. I didn’t even start this for you. I started it for me but no matter what sometimes I feel your the only one who reads with his heart even if it might be gone in the morning.

My heart tugs at my eyelids reminded me of the sleep we have lacked this week and how if soon our eyes won’t shut the terrors will come and then I’ll be left with scratches on my back and torn confetti in my heart. Their snoring has enticed me to seek my own even if it’s a hopeless journey filled with stories of lavender and Provenće.

I don’t know why I keep trying. It’s not as if my behavior has changed. My results will to continue to be the same. Men who see me and only see their next climax. Why shouldn’t they I present no speed bumps and I’m so fearful of rejection that I won’t put any up.

They want to tell us to be free with ourselves and they promise they don’t think less of us. Yet the first time their hands touch our skin and their tongue pushes its way into our mouth the end has already begun. I create dependency on the satisfaction I can offer and not the love I have.

For a second I thought you were different. But you revealed the level of respect and care you have for me. So low I can’t find it buried in the sand. For a second I let myself dream of a baby in my belly and your strong hands caressing me enticing our creation within to awaken and press against your calloused hands. For a second I believed that love could manifest so quickly. For a second hope had returned.

It’s time to focus. Time to return to that self care I had proclaimed for myself. I hope, even if for a second at a time that my heart but more so my body will remain turned from you even when you return with promises and sweet sayings. Isn’t it finally time I begin to add back the value I allowed to drain thru the hole in my bucket.