Memories Come To Me

Sometimes memories come to me

Memories that I can’t hold on to

That I can’t quite figure out if I ever made them

They come to me unexpectedly

From an autumn breeze

Or glimpses of nature,

From certain smells or eye colors

Or fragments of melodies

Sometimes in moments of silence

Or in crowded valleys

All from another world or another life.
They are not events that I can grasp, but feelings

Feelings of peace and serenity

Passion and enthusiasm

Like I’m not limited in the life that I am leading

Or the body that I’m carrying…

I grab them hard when they arrive

And hope that in the peace of their presence

I will rest my head and close my eyes

Like this far away world exists somewhere in time

Maybe I’ll get to, maybe I already did  

But I know I’ll always be blessed with knowing that I own them.

WISHES

Half stories
And half sentences
Hopes shattered
And wishes turned into ashes

Half pages and unfinished businesses
In lost causes I was trapped
And crashed under the weight of wishes
But they're no longer breaking my heart

Cause when I looked upon the dusty road
That leads me home
To wherever and whomever that may be
I made peace
With the soul within me

Storms

My head is a haunted place

Filled with moans of filthy ghosts

And sorrow of past memories

It’s a dangerous place for a little girl to wander

The storm of the constant worries thunder

It’s not a place for the weak

Nor is it a place with peace

By the roar of the waves of shadow

She longs to get washed further and further away

- The Sandpiper)

*Pictures by Mario Sanchez Nevado

Survival Of The Fittest

      "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." - Nietzsche

You kept on fighting.
You fought when you came out of your mother's womb.
You fought when you were sent to kindergarden; when they asked you to leave your parents' side for the very first time.
You fought at primary school; when you learnt all that new things and it terrified you to realise the World wasn't just about you and your own little world.
You fought when you became a teenager and all your friends experienced things that you weren't ready yet.
You fought when people turned out different than what you thought they were.
You fought when you crossed oceans for people who didn't even jump a puddle for you.
You fought when you shattered to pieces but had to collect every last one of them until you were 'you' again...

You've fought till this day. You've known that it would never end; that's life. But you've never stopped fighting with yourself too, along the way. You've hid you from yourself. You've wanted to run away from you. You've thought you were weak; that you couldn't handle all that properly. You've hated how ignorant or naive or stupid you had been. You 've questioned over and over about what could have changed if you acted differently?

Like bukowski said,

Yes I have.
There came a time I felt like I was from another world; like I was a different kind. It was like watching life from an aquarium, captivated. Not being able to control my feelings; not being able to control anything around me.
I watched all that emotional brutality, all that fighting; souls getting tired, thisrty for a little bit of love but keep on fighting to survive. I couldn't decide if being different made me a freak or special; not being able to hide my so called 'vulnerable' side; my emotions. Was I full of hatred? I showed it. Was I full of rage? I showed it. Was I full of love? Yes, I showed it too.
It's hardly ever made me happy.

But here I am, thinking, is that really what it takes to survive? Why do I constantly feel like I should stop caring or seem like I don't mind at all? Because I MIND.
Is that what's supposed to make me 'strong'?
Isn't it just so weak to try to shut down your own emotions? Isn't it weak to shush the silent screams inside of you?

There's one thing I know, I will get more mature in time; but I'm not going to shut down my own soul; my own feelings. I'm tired of fighting; I'm tired of struggling. I don't know if that makes me weak or not; but I know that I'm brave.
I'm not ashamed because I care. I'm not ashamed because I'm kind and honest. I'm not ashamed because I value. I don't want to feel like I'm forced to hide it anymore.
People love, people hate, people fear, people FEEL. And that's okay to FEEL. That's okay to show them too.

I've got a couple of advices to the 'current' me.

I know you've heard these words so many times. But you stopped believing in them. But this is coming from you; someone who knows you more than anyone.

Just be the daisy in a rose field. Be the different one. I know it makes you unhappy most of the times; but nothing that's special would grow too easily. Break free from this chain of rules that society forces into us. Do not try to look like all the other roses out there thinking they are one of a kind. You are one of a kind if you aren't afraid of being who you are. It's okay to be different, it's okay to be 'you'. Don't run away from yourself. Be true to who you are.

-Elifnaz Kabalci

A Cure to The Soul: Bon Iver, Biking and Heckenbeck Fields

Heckenbeck, Niedersachsen, Germany (my own photo)

I can't believe it's been two huge years since I spent one of the best summer in my life in Heckenbeck. 

Nope, it wasn't a summer romance; neither a trip full of partying nights over nights; or anything like visiting Disneyland. 

It was a month of my life during which I actually was able to stop the time ; during which I didn't ever think of either the past or the future, but just the moment. 

Now when I look back; I can see better how precious it was; how hard it is usually to achieve.

You're probably asking yourself "where the heck is Heckenbeck?" or maybe you have already googled it. 

It is a small small village surrounded by fields over fields in the Niedersachsen district of Germany. 

The reason I was there was volunteering at an international art workcamp in which we were supposed to prepare an entertaining show to the local inhabitants. 

We were provided by a guest house with a theater stage inside. It was a very old house where you could go through rooms into rooms (which is uncommon among the modern apartments). We had it all to ourselves. We had three rooms upstairs which we split up among guys-girls and the team-leaders. 

So, if you are a person who's into luxury, or aren't willing to give up on your privacy for the time; this wouldn't be very appealing to you. 

But I am not one of those and I am incredibly glad that I wasn't in a luxurious five-star hotel that's identical with all those others out there and that I lived in an actual traditional house where I could feel that athmosphere; where I could smell the scent of that oldness and hear the rain patting on the wooden window-frame every single morning when I woke up. 

Downstairs, we had a dining room, kitchen and a back garden. They were all beautiful to spent time at. When it rained, we stayed inside with the hot drinks; when it was warm, we ate outside at that heavenly garden. I remember one time, on a rainy morning, when we were inside; we saw from the window that some hourse-riding people were passing by the house heading down to the fields. Some of them had their kids with them and some didn't but you could see how exciting they were... It is such a lovely image to remember. It makes me sad thinking about lonely big city kids trapped into their computers.

Heckenbeck is small, yes; but it is not isolated. It is surrounded by bigger towns and cities. We drove by bikes until Kreinsen or Bad Gandersheim (which is a student town full of cafes and hangout options) about 20 minutes to get to the supermarket. But it's never made me feel disturbed, nor have I felt any lazy to bike there everytime to shop or to find a proper coffeeshop. Because the roads that I passed by were so pretty that I could ride through them again again even though I had no destination in the end. 

There was a thousand shade of green everywhere; tones and tones of tree-tunnels and secret paths. During all those bike rides; I actually felt like I could breathe for the fist time in a while. I actually felt that my lungs were filled with oxygen and that I was alive. That I was awake.

It was so healing, refreshing and peaceful that it almost healed my soul. Especially if you have the right music. I'm more of an indie / folk person and I think that it's the perfect genre for travelling as well. Everytime I listen to Skinny Love by Bon Iver, the fields of Heckenbeck comes to my mind as it was one of the songs I appreciated the most at the time. 

If we consider the fact that I had had a year full of stress and emotional breakdown; it was the best thing that could happen to me in that summer; a time to listen to myself, follow the wind, lose myself to the music, breathe and most of all; live it up. 

That brings me to the conclusion that one should never underastimate the need of nature in human-beings. Whether some are nature-lovers and others not; the fact that we need it inevitably can't be denied. We are a part of nature; thats how we were made. 

All those concrete buildings have done nothing but draining us; both psyhcologically and physically. I, personally have always charged the batteries of myself with nature; I would get drained to death if I was away from it for good. One of the things that can express it so well is this poem by George Byron that a friend of mine let me know about a short time ago;

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 

There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 

There is society, where none intrudes, 

By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 

I love not man the less, but nature more."

Of course, it is not solely the place that makes the experiences so magical. It is also the people and the coincidences and you yourself that make somewhere memorable. I know for example, that without some certain decisions and acts of mine; the trip wouldn't have turned out as it has. 

But, Isn't that what travelling is about? It makes you feel lots of different things and gives you endless different thoughts all at the same time. It is, ironically, this beautiful chaos that actually makes us able to listen to our own inner voice. 

Random house in Heckenbeck (my own photo)

Me and my workcamper friends biking thrıugh the fields of Heckenbeck

An Introduction

Kahlenberg, Vienna, Austria

“All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents, looking for something.”
― Elizabeth Bishop

Hello everybody. Welcome to my blog.
What I'm going to write about is technically travelling. But it will not just be about describing or informing you about the places I've been to. My blog will be about the feelings it gives me, the hopes it surrounds me with; what I've observed, what I've felt during those periods of time. You will be feeling, observing, smelling and seeing the world through me, through my perspective.
I won't be writing you about big famous cities and places where everybody has an idea about. I will be writing you about the unknown corners of the world, where it is not commonly traveled to. The moments like, for example, when on a train passing by endless forests in the northern Germany going up to the Ostsee and the Danish borders; when you hold on to the open window, feeling the wind that's patting your head gently, smelling the fresh grass, all you think is 'what am I doing in this heavenly place, and how have I got here in the first place?'.

Like what Herman Melville said "It's not down in any map; true places never are".

The world is out there. We are in a life, in a system, more sophisticated than we can ever imagine. Yet, we are blinded by temporary pleasures, chasing shallow accomplishements and drowned by trivial problems. Personally, I have never fallen for the idea that we are here to get lost in the trivials of society. I know there's more to it than that. Life is not meant to be spent solely with that. And for now, all I know is that I have this one life, and that I want to see as much as possible, feel as much as possible and meet as many souls as I can. Because I know that it's the only real way that I can figure out myself and the life I'm living in.

You know we have only one chance, right? Don't throw it away.