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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

This quarantine has made me think of being apart. It was inevitable I suppose for an introspective heart like mine to eventually wander here. Truthfully I am surprised it took this long. In moments like these I seek out familiar things. Movies and music that will reverberate the echoes of my heart. I have written before of my Cairo Time.

I decided to lay my head and drift to the land of sand and pyramids and Umm Kulthum. Before I could find my way to Tareq I found an interview with the writer of the film. She talked about the pace of American love and romance, that need we seem to have for instant gratification. How important it was for her that the film reflect the languid pace of sometimes falling in love.

The irony to me is in 90 mins I fell in love with Tareq and Juliette and they with each other. The very things that should have pushed them away from each other, endeared them. It was not love at first sight. Instead it was built over experience and shared intimate moments. When I see Juliette I wonder how long she had waited for those moments of intimacy. Had she settled in her life to live without them or had they once been and simply faded. What of Tareq, him whose heart seems to closely reflect mine. Hidden and surviving till someone brings them the breath from their lungs. Choosing solitude to settling.

I have quarantined my heart, but not my body. I move about in the crowds. I sit down for dinner, drinks and conversation but my heart remains in a faraday cage.

I told someone tonight that I had locked it away from the world and from those who might break it in their desire to hold it. Even I can’t be trusted with her, having been so careless in the past. But as the house begins to settle with the contents of me within I can’t help but take the elevator down into the deep levels below and see if now I might be able to pull her out and let the electricity revive her.

In the dark I sit and wait to hear the flatline change. But it doesn’t. Instead the hymns of Cairo play and I return to the surface.

What’s happening in my heart is so complicated. As with so many things in my life, I had an image of what this little trip would be and instead I was forced to re imagine it en route. For so long I have dreamed of fields and mountains which stood in stark opposition to the landscape of my life. I had hoped to share the awakening with someone important but instead I was left on my own.

How do you reconcile a heart with cracks with a filling of the soul that seems…I don’t even know the word to suit…endless perhaps. Part of my heart is broken and the other is being filled.

My first time in Ireland I felt this ease this finally home feeling that was replicated somewhat this weekend. I kept thinking of all the things we were supposed to do together and instead it’s me looking out of the floor to ceiling windows alone.

I’ve lived so much of this life in this perpetual state of solitude. Many times of my own making but more often than not because the higher power I have entrusted at least most of the time my life too has deigned it to be.

Being here in this city. I’ve appreciated the dichotomy of being filled yet with a hole in the bucket dear Liza.

Expectations are for fools I am finding to be true. Shall I live no longer expecting. Or expecting only from myself. Yet all I seem to be able to ask is…what’s wrong with me. Am I so undesirable that not even my money can bring people by my side.

I can no longer spend time thinking of this instead I realign myself to the story that was born in this city. Born from the need to create conflict that I can at least resolve.

To my last night in a city filled with promise, love, lust and more stories.

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future.” Kierkegaard

I sit beneath the moon whose light feels brighter than the sun. Confronted with something I have likened to love but is in reality true care and friendship. I have confused the two and the pain comes each time I realize my error. You cannot be the hero of my story. He would move the mountains to be by my side. I have allowed myself to continually take counterfeit love in the hope that my heart would not tell the difference. I was once told the only way to tell a counterfeit is to spend time studying the real item.

I am cheating myself by leaving the only part of my heart that I control in a gilded cage and you with the only key. Love does not desire bars but rather the crags and moors where it can reveal itself in the hidden places and protect itself in the open fields.

I have tried hardening my heart and closing my eyes but the love that springs forth like a well from within needs a bowl to fill. But my eyes are scarred and see only what they desire and not the truth. What is one to do when all they desire is sight and all they have is blindness.

I must rely on my other senses those that are not as easily betrayed.

Just like that I’m back on my Emerald Isle. It seems fitting on my fifth trip to return to the heart of my first. The place, the one that told me I could. Ireland is not just a place, for me it is a beating heart beat, a shoulder when tears fall, a mountain back when threatened and an escape on its blue waters when needed.

Bringing her was the only way back. I had fallen in love not just with travel but with the quaint homes, vast feels and loving people that hid in the green and yellow of the hills. I think she feels it too. It’s an ease and a comfort that has no name our American tongue knows. There was a part of me that wasn’t sure how I would feel when I returned. I would I still be a foreigner or would I be coming home. As the plane hovered above the green fields, the tarmac lurking somewhere beneath us I felt the familiar pull into myself.

There is this thing that happens when your phone crosses borders, in airplane mode it stays in the time and place where it last connected. That whole plane ride you are still back there, it is in it’s own way a limbo. You are nowhere and yet every mile passed is a piece of land or ocean that you cross. However when the plane lands and you eagerly remove your airplane restriction soon you find the familiar name in the top corner has changed and with it the hours you once counted on. This is how I felt as the plane landed in Dublin. My soul connected to the network and the memory of who I was here last time, the heart that bursted forth, soon she was beating once again within my chest.

Ok enough of my pensive hieroglyphs….Last time I was here in Ireland I traveled the first day from Dublin down to County Cork, more specifically to where I truly left a piece of me…Gallan Mor. I drove the west coast of Ireland heading north. When it was decided that my darling mother would join me on this adventure I knew I wanted part of this to be new to us both. Yesterday when we landed in Dublin and picked up our car we headed in the absolute opposite direction. North to Belfast ending in Portrush and a little road called “Berne Ave”. Pronounced the way my mother pronounces her name “Berni”. It had been sitting here waiting for us. Crunching on the gravel road and taking our seat in the lot behind the house. Exhausted and quite hungry we trudged up the drive and rang the doorbell. It was a tense couple of days before our arrival to our first B&B, miscommunications had attempted to taint my relationship with my host but when that door open and her voice spoke with that accent I love so much, everything faded and I was safe and cared for. The cynicism I had thought of her with had stayed behind. After a little chat in the foyer we were shown our bedroom and rest was no longer a distant possibility it was barely 5 feet from my grasp. Soon my tummy reminded me of its patience and how it would soon end.

“Drive down to the T Junction and make a right and just drive straight down to the beach. You’ll see Harry’s on the right….go ahead and park right on the beach” she said as she called down to see if Connor could squeeze a place for us. As we drove onto the beach and the oncoming water I couldn’t help but think of the song “Pave paradise and put up a parking lot”. Anyone who has been on here for any length of time and read my Ireland and Scotland adventures knows that one of my favorite parts of these countries is their respect for their land. They somehow innately know they are the guests, they are the caretakers of the land, not its master. Their reverence etched into every bush fence and wildflowers growing unchecked thru the asphalt. Those flowers represent so much of IReland to me, this resolve to not be weighed down by the advancements of the world around them but instead to find the cracks in its system and burst thru, if for no other reason than to maintain the heritage of steadfastness. Has anyone else noticed these long tangents I can go on…somehow never getting to the original purpose. Let’s find our way back. We parked on the beach just below Harry’s and with boots on our feet we climbed the cold wet sand up till it met the wooden stairs that led to our supper. A cold lager was all I really needed to fill my tummy as the warm sun still high in the sky shined on me…really just me. We finished our dinner and headed back to the beach to the car, promising a return to the restaurant in the days we have here.

Soon we pulled into the gravel drive of our temporary home and finally found the rest that had eluded us for 20 hours. The bed cold and soft and filled with the smell of cleanliness cuddled us as the quiet of the down descended upon us and soon sweet sleep was all that we had.

I write these words right after breakfast on Thursday the 29th. I’ve needed this vacation, here, this way for awhile and I don’t want to rush. I want to sit here at the picture window looking out at the cars parked along the sidewalk, the old man with their umbrellas and the ladies with their pups of the human and canine variety strolling past. Tomorrow is for exploring out, today is for taking care of what is within.

I started the evening as I have many times before, sitting in the dark and waiting. Waiting for the ton of bricks to come down upon me and shock me into this next year of life. Instead the words that I wrote became less a proclamation and more of the concealment of a matter. What follows is my inability to keep even this private of an understanding to myself. I could not live the word transparency more.

I’ve never understood the phrase. “Another turn around the sun”. This idea that the sun is the focal point of my ever change fullness . The moon seems a more accurate companion for me. My the lessons this turn has taught me.

As is typical of the darkest moment of the night coming before the dawn so also has been the darkest moments before this turn has reached its end. Learning to accept the loss of life of those I have cared for and even still the loss of who I once was and who I once might have loved. The door creeps open as I step into the woman whose skin is fresh and new. I have learned the strength within myself, the deep love and support of others and most importantly self control. I am learning still now in the stillness of the night air how dangerous desires are when they are given into with reckless abandon.

Abandon. A word which has wielded so many meanings for me. I read somewhere the word in its original form carried in it a sense of ” put something under someone else’s control”. It seems the instinctive action I had was correct but the someone else part has been wrong all along. I have given control to those who have desired to exercise it for their own desires. Until now…now when I have found you who refuses to take the reins and instead points me to a perfect being whose control is without malice and perfectly timed. Perhaps this is why I feel so safe with you, perhaps this is why my heart cries out it must be love.

But to love as we are now would only prove us to be earthen vessels with cracks too big to contain what lies within. So I must re-examine the authority to who I will “abandon” my desires too. Upon reflection I realize there is no one other than God who could direct me so gently down paths I wish not to walk upon. So as I begin this new turn around the moon, around my savior I say ” I abandon my scheme of happiness.” it is not a desertion in the sense of hope being lost but rather a realiZation that I am incapable to achieving it or even finding it by myself.

I can see the fruits of this year already beginning and unlike previous birthdays I find myself eager and up for the challenge. I don’t know what this looks like and I can’t imagine how many times I will fail but I know the only way to get closer is one decision at a time.

It is no longer the eve of my 30 something birthday. It is here the moon glows and urges me to sleep and find the sun and allow it guide me for this turn.

How is it your not here?

Why is it I must ask this question again?

It’s been awhile since I felt this loss. I was just starting to normalize. I just saw you. I felt your hug and smelled you.

I’ve tried to not think of you this week. There have been moments of the day when your name floats in my head and I push it away like a bad dream. Your still somewhere drinking a screwdriver. I miss you my Wacko. I miss hugging you. I miss the stories we would share over rainbow shots.

I met your daughter today…she is you. So much of who she is wrapped up in you. I pray for her heart. I pray for the moments when she is alone in her bed and thinks of her papi.

What do we do now ?

Thank you. Thank you for all that you taught me, about myself, about father’s, about men.

I think now of what you won’t be here for. Her wedding. My own. I think of the interrogation you might have put him thru, making sure he was good enough.

No it’s not fair you can’t be gone. Please come back. Please hug me one more time.

It doesn’t seem fair that so much is gone, when really there is so little left.

The tears won’t stop flowing and I can’t explain who you were to me. Not even to myself. Somehow I love you and I don’t even know when or what color of the rainbow is happened on. I hope your in peace, I hope you are waiting where one day I can see you again.

Thank you for all that you gave me it was more than I could have expected sitting on a rotting bar stool.