If however, you are single and wondering what happened to your life and your dreams and desires and why on earth you are still on this adventure alone... wade in on in.
A peaceful respite of green in the middle of a fast and busy city. It was a sunny day, warm and comfortable. The park was beautiful. Fall is slow coming here this year and while the leaves have turned and many lie fallow on the ground, there is not a chill in the air like I am used to this time of the season. Yildiz sprawls out up and across a steep hill with small canyons and valleys and some side paths that lead to some scarier neglected areas where I saw squatters, and heard strange sounds. It is quite a hike through this park. Since it was Bayram (holdiay)... the place was packed with families, roaming teenagers, picnickers, wedding parties and ........ ugghhh - lovers aplenty. Not that I don't like lovers. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ckv6-yhnIY&feature=related
No.... I like lovers. I would like to be counted in their numbers believe me, and I have been in the past. But as time revolves... the merry-go-round of relationships seems to have refused to allow me boarding at this stage in the game. It is therefore, difficult to wander about in a beautiful setting such as Yildiz and gaze at couples steeling away for a kiss or two or three... or a family strolling arm in arm... so happy together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRCe5L1imxg&feature=related
The novelty of living in this fantastic country and this unsurpassed city has worn just a bit. Oh I am still in love with Istanbul, and now having seen more of Turkey... the country is even more so an object of my affection.... but I cannot go to dinner with a country. I cannot make breakfast or sip coffee or listen to music with the country. The country will not walk with me down to the fish docks or watch Republic Day fireworks by my side. I cannot cook an aromatic and seductive meal for the county. I cannot call the country up on a Friday night and ask it to come over and listen to the rain with me throughout the night. So what's a single person living the expat life in a foreign country to do when loneliness knocks at the door of the heart and there is no lover with whom to share the delightful experiences of day to day living?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdw7kxD8eUc
It is quite tempting here to say... oh well, call a friend and that will fill the void. It does sometimes you know. We make fast friends as expats, because we need one another for precisely this reason. People we never would have socialized with in our old lives... we suddenly become fast pals. Tomorrow for example... I have plans to have a lovely dinner with 2 friends from South Africa. We will have curry and rice, and drink a much better version of Baily's creme called Amarula. Later after we have dined and chatted the three of us will go out dancing. These people have made my life richer there is no doubt. And they have staved the demons of loneliness. But time always sends people out the door, and in the end.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqqAnjY2Rmo&feature=relmfu
There is always the option of making a fast and quick casual connection. That opportunity has presented itself a few times here. I have acquaintances who choose to go this route. That is their business, and I do not fault them for their choice. Actually I understand it implicitly. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDFersmE8QUI have one friend who keeps saying to me... "Oh Connie, you need a Turkish lover, you should just take a Turkish lover." One sodden night when we went out drinking after a staff party, she sort of looped this conversation into my ear repeatedly. Kind of like a subconscious suggestion. I think she was trying to hypnotize me into a situation I know I cannot handle... emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. I did meet a young, intelligent, gentle and handsome entrepreneur who happens to be Turkish. I was on holiday away from Istanbul, and he was interested in me. It was tempting but I just am no longer capable of those types of relationships. Oddly enough... it was driving around with him late one night, when I happened to look over at his arm resting while he was driving. It was something about that arm, the cool night air, the rhythm of the car... I realized I didn't want just one time with an arm... but many many times... looking over at someone whom I loved, driving me around or walking me through a park, or eating a meal I had made. THAT was what I was looking for. Charlotte I am NOT. Darn it.
I belong to an organization called InterNations. You can see their badge on my blog page. InterNations sponsors a huge variety of events here in Istanbul (and in most major world cities) for the express purpose of helping people make connections. You can join everything from clubbing/nightclub groups to sailing groups. I have been to one of their events and met some new people. I had a lovely conversation with a very interesting man. I wanted him to ask for my number but he didn't. I left early. Not that I didn't want to stay... but at this point in my life... I just cannot afford quick and easy and temporary. Maybe I'll see him again down the road.
"Why can't you just let go and have fun with someone for a night ????" many friends ask. Or maybe "Why not???". So as I write that... I pause to really deeply think about the answer to that question. Without elaborating on my relationship history too much... (that will be for my first novel and I will have to take some literary license even then to protect both the innocent and the guilty) I will relate a conversation I once had with my youngest son after my marriage ended ( I was married to the same man twice - I still love him deeply, but there has been so much flooding under the bridge, that neither of us can go back)
Me: "Well I have been out on a couple of dates, but neither of them bore any promise".
Son: "Mom, don't you think given your history with relationships that you maybe should just give it up at your age?"
Me: " Silence"
Son: "I mean unless you are terribly lonely, why bother?"
They were the couple who adopted me, loved me, raised me, and flaunted their balanced and passionate love affair until my dad passed away suddenly at the untimely age of 69. My mother did not re-marry.
Ok.... I know what you are thinking.... you are, in your own mind and heart, coming up with all kinds of reasons not to believe in true love, and your arguments about even what I experienced through my exposure to these two people who I knew as "Dad & Mom". I understand. I have heard, and even made, some of the same arguments with myself. But I know that within my heart... there is a desire to connect deeply with another human soul who (in the words of the African's...) sees me and I see him. Now that I am more than halfway through this blog... a week has passed. This is a difficult and complicated thing to write about. It's difficult to hope, in a world where everything has become relativistic, that I might meet someone, ONE someone who will share my passions, hopes, failures, fears, dreams, loves, bed, and life. And I am not silly enough to think that it WILL happen. It might, it might not. In the meantime... I think I will continue to hope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR5_rTCi-Bo
Love you.
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