Recalculate the location
Hi there!
This blog is mostly about the relation between the cover picture and the title. Recently, my feelings are moving around these two.
I had an amazing two-week trip to Japan, but on the way back home, I felt really confused and lost about where I belong. My husband's question triggered emotions that I had been ignoring for a while. He asked, “Do you miss home? Are you happy to be back in the Netherlands?”
After a long trip, we usually miss home and look forward to returning to the Netherlands. But this time felt different. I think it's because our honeymoon phase with the Netherlands is over. I missed my house and my cat, but not necessarily the country I live in now. The confusion and sense of feeling lost were neither about post-trip blues nor about the Netherlands itself. I enjoy living here. The experiences I've had and the people I've met have been, for the most part, joyful, kind, and welcoming.
What I was feeling was homesickness and a sense of being lost. I know we moved here for a reason. We've built a community and had meaningful friendships. Yet sometimes I still feel that lingering ‘‘what if’’ or “but” in my heart. The mind is a strange thing... and Türkiye, you are strange too. In my dreams, you are beautiful. But your reality is tough for me now. I love you, yet this phase of my life keeps reminding me of an old saying: the sound of the drum is sweeter from afar.
This feeling has been with me for a while now, but it is not that heavy. It has been waiting for my attention and acceptance, to walk through life with me from time to time. This awareness and acceptance have helped me listen to my needs and move more slowly. I’m writing about it from a place of hope, not depression.
I’m not planning to move back to Türkiye in the near future, so we will deal with this feeling in another way. In order to feel grounded again, I feel that I need to revisit my roots and my foundation in a mindful way. I want to spend a whole day with the highest possible awareness in my daily routines connected to my Turkish identity. What I need is to feel connected to my own culture, to have a sense of belonging to it while maintaining harmony with other cultures.
The beautiful tree with strong roots in the cover picture is from Sicily. It was the only picture that came to my mind when I thought about writing about this topic. It is a beautiful representation of a strong, grounded, and balanced way of being in life. I will visit it, especially the roots this time, and take you with me into some simple daily moments from my own culture. I took pictures of moments from my daily routines connected to my culture, brought awareness to that connection, and recalculated (actually still recalculating) my location in order to live in harmony with Dutch culture, or with any culture.
Let’s start with the first one;
Shoes off!
Applies to anyone entering my home.
1) Take off your shoes,
2) Use the indoor slippers given to you,
3) Feed the peace between us :)
To achieve the third point, ‘1‘ is must-have, ‘2‘ is nice-to-have.
Another routine I paid attention is preparing my coffee and tea in the Turkish way. During breakfast, Turkish tea is essential. I don’t drink tea frequently, but this time I prepared and enjoyed it slowly. Turkish coffee is essential for me. If you don’t use an automatic coffee machine, it requires time and attention to achieve the perfect amount of foam and a delicious taste. So, of course, I made it! I enjoyed it as if I were having it with my beloved family and close friends. In addition to these coffee and tea rituals, we mostly cooked at home. I prepared one of the best dishes (according to me, myself and I) in our cuisine. No rush at all and giving the time that it deserves. You see only one pot in the picture below, but it was only the beginning, a calm before the storm in our kitchen :)
That is one of my favorites in our cuisine. It is called as ‘Karnıyarık‘.
I am definitely not the right person to give any recipe as I follow either a recipe on the internet or follow my own instincts while cooking. I haven’t had any bad results so far, and my husband says this without any pressure or threat, I promise :)
It took quite some time to prepare this dish and it hit the right spot in my stomach and my hearth.
Carrying an evil eye with me to keep the evil eyes away, hahah love it!
I’m not really someone with a lot of superstitions, but I make an exception for the evil eye and I love it. Another one is handing scissors directly to someone. In my culture, there’s a superstition that handing scissors directly to someone can harm the relationship or cause an argument. Thus, no scissors can go directly from me to any person (who I like). I also don’t remember how frequently I handed a scissors over to someone in my daily life, but anyway :) That was the additional information yay!
Last but not least, I have Tarkan, Barış Manço, Cem Karaca and my cat, Lokum to add sweet notes to my life. Tarkan’s songs are my childhood and I think he is one of the rarest people that can happily unite all people in Türkiye. I cannot say I listen Barış Manço and Cam Karaca frequently, but they left their mark on Turkish music, many of their songs are always well known in my country. And Lokum, my cat, my playful baby. How much joy I have when you play with me!
And final notes.. Paying attention to the simple things that I normally do in autopilot, keeping awareness on my daily routines I have in my home and taking things as slow as possible are the best solutions for me to feel grounded, to have sense of belonging and to recalculate my location. I am curious about your simple daily life solutions or rituals to overcome such confusion, feeling lost and homesick. I appreciate it if you could share it in the comment section. Thanks for reading!
Sonraki yazıda görüşmek üzere!
Until the next post!
Deniz
