On resurfacing

Or: on having a sensitivity-challenged sensory system while traveling abroad with two children and one unabashedly devoted husband and father to said-children, now back home to the tune of jet lag and the search for foods easy-to-obtain in the US but missing from most grocery-store shelves in Turkey: bagels, Philadelphia cream cheese, unsweetened peanut butter, breakfast bars, avocados, fruit snacks, organic yogurt, fiber-enriched Froot Loops, muenster cheese.

The most I can muster this week is the following three very important thoughts:

1. Creativity these days, when it happens, feels like grin-and-bear it, oh god, get it over with, like I'd rather be alone with my epilator for hours.
2. A cup of coffee while working does not count as a real cup of coffee unless it accompanies the reading of a book or some other enjoyable activity not requiring mental activity.
3. Installing updates is a pleasant way to procrastinate.

This is what I did do while on a beach for 10 days: I napped, wrote something twice, had really good mojitos, read about 30 pages of a book I carried across the ocean, used SPF like a good girl but still came back with a tan, and felt my bones, my body, everything relax for the first time in months months months.

Can a break from creativity, the mother-of-all pursuits that makes my life run, be necessary to refuel?

Path finder

The path from there to here involved some stops along the way, but I'm a Midwesterner through and through. This illustration is a visual trajectory of the direction I took. On any given day, the things that affect my perception change. It can be something as immediate as noisy construction, the call to prayer, or school children out my window, or as reflective as considering each step I took to get on the plane to come here. This is not exclusive to the expat. This is inclusive to everybody.

What language do you use to describe your trajectory?

Silk Road Stories

Friendships made in just a few short hours. Life stories shared, professional commonalities discovered, mothering suggestions offered, all while eating some of the best Turkish food I've had in Turkey. The women I met from the Bursa International Women's Association were French, Italian, German, Russian, American, and more. How were we able to relate to each other with different cultural viewpoints? Different occupations, different ages? I went to speak about creativity and left marveling at the ability for community to form abroad. Enlightened conversation. Multi-national viewpoints.

Bursa, known for being the last stop on the silk road, has a vibrant international women's community. I met a Turkish woman who runs her own coffee shop after first studying finance in Turkey, designing textiles in New York, and returning to start afresh with coffee and pastries she decorates herself. I met an American opening the first quilting shop in Turkey that will be selling fabric online (yea for me!). I met a German graphic designer who breezed through my drawing exercises. I met homemakers juggling multiple kids and learning new languages. I met a woman with her 2-month old baby who apologized for her English while elegantly articulating that the only thing she wants to do is be a mother right now.

Riding a bus to Bursa that left at 7:30 a.m., I sat next to a university student wearing hand-knit leg warmers and gloves who offered me her saltine crackers. 11 hours later, we coincidentally rode the same bus back to Izmit, laughing when we boarded the small service bus that took us home to nearby neighborhoods. She studied economics. Had taken her final exam that day. She was a photographer. We made a date for coffee.

I believe that the things most difficult to overcome, public speaking being way out of my comfort zone, are emboldened by passion. By the support of a community that honors unique, individual voices that examine larger cultural patterns. I am passionate about art and life being merged, even if it is messy. I am grateful for breaking out of routines. And the kismet relationships that can form just by hopping a bus.

Crafting personal geography

This week at expat+HAREM I ask: how does one's worldview literally shift as a result of location? Mapping the Imagination is about the lure of the world, what it means to unravel one's past while charting the future through unknowns, and how new perspectives shape the paths we are on.  

16th c. Ottoman map

My first post in the series, Hybrid Domesticies, can be found here. Please feel welcome to join in on the conversation!

Back Home

I've flown over the ocean and back, and am now awake at 3am reading design*sponge, clearing out my inbox and lamenting the fact that I have nothing involving pictures to blog about. My photos from our trip are all on a CD that I lent to my father-in-law because he took literally 100s of photos of my childhood home. Not people, but inch by inch of the house. Every corner. So I need to get them back from him and sort through them.

The children are sort of sleeping normally, but I'm still waking at odd hours and scouring the kitchen for naughty things. This image is of the cake topping for Topi's birthday (Oct 20) and I just found it now. It's not really in focus, but I love the little toppled snowman.

In some ways, slowing down right now is a good thing. I felt kind of manic before we went home to the US, trying to keep up with work, adjusting to a new baby, unpacking from the move, and packing luggage to travel. It's probably been over a month since I blogged, and in blog land that's an infinity, but it'll pick up again once I get paintings on the wall and take pictures.I'm back with a new camera, which has been oodles of fun to play with, and a wireless printer/scanner that actually works. And stacks of books. I have more fun ordering books and asking my father to be postman as they roll in the weeks before I go home. I think I came home with 10 magazines, too.

Now if only I could answer the question which home is home? Wisconsin? Turkey? Not answerable at 3am, I guess, though both makes the most sense.