sisli
There is a certain uprootedness to my encounters. I once felt there were specific times of day when I performed best. There is no such thing: I can be whatever I want to be, no matter the time.
The way I tend to the home depends on the hour. In the morning, I open the windows facing West and South West. I set my mat to the corner window and focus on the light. I take the sparkle inside of me and watch the colors change. It is always green, the halo.
In the afternoon, I open the windows facing East and South East. There is usually a breeze, and it blows through the apartment from the bedroom to the living quarters, where I do yoga around dinnertime. I am encouraging myself to eat earlier to settle my stomach.
I am surrounded by green in this home. The trees knock at the glass and I'm confused about the arrival. E came over one day and had to ring the bell. I've been outside for several minutes; what were you doing? Drinking a coffee, thinking about the bushes bouncing off the glass. It was me. You never said what time you were going to arrive.
He never tells me when he will arrive. Rarely. Once he said the time and he arrived at the time and I was surprised by the entire affair! I think I prefer the not-knowing: the desire lingers a bit longer that way. Once I know what I need to know, I move on. E is smart; he knows this about me. I know it.
I am enjoying a cup of coffee, though it is hot and quite late in the day. I will not drink caffeine for four days during a kitchari cleanse for my guts. E is away and will return in four days, and I thought it would be a wonderful treat to sit with him and sip a coffee on the couch when he returns. The cleanse timing feels correct. I thought about it a few weeks ago and it didn't take. I don't press too hard on such details, I used to, and I burned up about it.
I woke early and went for a walk to find the yellow mung beans. I had never seen them in any market before—only orange and brown lentils. The mung beans and lentils can be interchanged. I looked it up. There are two grocers thirty minutes away that carry lentils and one very small organic shop twenty minutes from my home. I went to the closest store. It's very humid today and the UV index is at nine. My heart was racing as I walked up the hill.
The little organic shop has fewer fruits and vegetables than the bigger stores and only two shelved rows of dry goods. A small freezer with meats, cheeses, milk, and eggs. There are no vegan options.
There was one jar of Tahini left, so I took it. Two bags of oatmeal, I selected one, and two bags of yellow mung beans. I also took one of the bags of beans. I was delighted at my choice to go to the local store instead of the bigger grocers.
The mung beans are soaking and I am here, sipping my coffee and looking outside. There is sweat on my brow. I am wearing a little black bralette and a pair of running shorts. I just ended my period and four days of beans feels appropriate. I also purchased apples, carrots, zucchini, cumin, fennel, cilantro, ginger, and cinnamon.
Most philosophers begin their quest with an inquiry into the human experience.
Questions have included:
What makes a life worth living?
What is happiness?
How do we end human suffering?
How do we make meaning?
Who am I?
Who controls the universe?
If I were to choose a few questions I am sitting with, they would be: Does the thing have a heart? How do you crack the shell keeping people so contained? How do you leave light where it was once dark?
We've been instructed to wear mostly white for the Kundalini training I will attend in the fall. I purchased two pairs of loose pants (per the clothing recommendations) and chose lilac and goldenrod.
Summer is dwindling. Autumn is dawdling. I'm somewhere in the middle. I have an intense craving for pumpkin butter. I'm already anticipating all the foodstuffs I will buy when I am in North America with Clara.
I have a good rhythm here, in this home. I feel good in Turkey. It may be the location, and it may be where I am at in my personal affairs. I am excited about turning thirty-six; it has a good feeling associated with it, like the sound of paddles striking the water: promise and progression. This year has felt too long.
There are some ages that ring clear and clean as a bell. Thirty-three was a year of windchimes. Twenty-nine was flat. Thirty-five has felt like repotting a plant. There's dirt on my hands and the roots are fussy and it will take some time for the earth to settle. Give me a minute, the buds say. Some people never blossom. They never open. They don't perceive the warmth or the light. They're too hard and tight and closed off from the experience.
How do you break the bud open without touching it? How do you crack the egg without interfering? You cannot teach the baby chick to do it because it cannot see you. Just as the butterfly innately knows to tear the threads of the chrysalis. Clara says she is in the goo phase, between the caterpillar and the butterfly.
I may always be here, she said. Goo, this is what I am right now.
Thirty-five is a gooey year. I want it to be over.
I desire to be rooted somewhere and I don't know where I want to be. November 11th is my final day of preparations. Where will I be after this date? Who will I be with? I have so many options and nothing feels right.
My stomach has been upset for weeks, blocking me from feeling my guts, my intuition. Hence, the kitchari cleanse. I need to give my digestive system a rest. Darling coffee! I will miss it so! My favorite part of the day is listening to the kettle boil. The beans I purchase from a local cafe, Boter, are creamy and bold. The best I have had thus far is in Istanbul. And the cookies? Delicious. They don't hold up against the hazelnut cookies from Oh Carolina!
Sometimes, I wonder why I haven't produced a full novel. I don't feel the thrust to do it. I don't feel the spark. Other events cling to the shadows of my skin, begging me to move in a different direction. And I do. Yoga, poetry, reading, reiki, wordplay.
One day, the hour will be ripe and I will be willing to receive it. The words move as water, pulsing and rushing to the surface. I have so much room to write and to create! Yet the impetus to craft a finished product is not quite in me... yet.
Photo source.
