Anmak

I’m trying something a little different.

Things such as this, usually start from a hand written page.

When I physically write something, 

it slows my thought process down,

so I am able to deal with one subject at a time.

However..

On this day grey, gloomy day..

I am taking a different approach.

Which more often than not.. 

Will yield a different result.

The season has changed.

In fact..

 

A lot of things have actually changed..

 

Awakening to the early morning Mediterranean sun crawling through my doorway is very much a thing of the past.

In its place..

 

The soft pitter-patter of salty Aegean raindrops now tap away at the guano that sporadically peppers my dirty, tiled, balcony floor.

 

For some reason, I’m still sleeping with the door open.

 

I’m not quite sure why.

 

Perhaps it's nostalgia..

 

I imagine that there may be a shared sense of disbelief, or perhaps even relief, that we are all on the cusp of another new year.

 

Is it ageing?

Accelerating the passing of each year?

 

I imagine so.

 

Regardless, at the end of each year, I have somewhat of a ritual.

 

I take some time, whether it is just before, on or after the New Year, to review the past 365 days, what I did, what it contained and who it was with. 

For better or worse.

 

It is an opportunity for me to look through all of my photos, videos and various items that I have accumulated and collected over the year, so I can see, now it has come to an end, how I feel about them and what they finally represent to me.

 

 

When life is actually happening, it's hard for me to always be fully present or conscious of its importance and how much it means.

I do try..

 

But I’m also doing. 

 

Rolling with the never ending combination of punches and playing the various cards that I am dealt along the way. 

 

Sometimes I win..

 

Sometimes I lose..

 

However it's an enjoyable process to go back and reassess it at a later date. To see how I feel. To note what has changed. Take it in for what it was how it pushed me further down the river to where I am now.

It's a very cathartic experience..

 

When I am reliant on memories alone, things can often become a little distorted. 

 

Left to my one's own devices, it's not uncommon to conjure your own version of events, a more palatable, acceptable narrative of your life.

However it can also go both ways..

When life has not gone as we had hoped, a default option is to sabotage genuinely precious moment, tainted it with the forever unhelpful addition of hindsight..

Memories can.. 

And rather often..

Become fictionalised.

Romanticised..

Even demonised..

I quite often can fiddle around with the settings, blasting the saturation, contrast and sharpness of a particular event until it is picturesque enough for me to deal with it.

Which..

In hindsight..

Is not actually reality.

Which removes the opportunity of learning, taking things in for what they were and valuing the people and experiences that have shaped your life up until now.

So with that being said..

This is why I am, yes quite a long time before new years eve looking back on this year and where I was,  what I did and whom I did it with..

 

This is my second chance to definitively appreciate all that has happened, the times I shared with people, what we did and thatI simply had the opportunity, no, the pleasure, of experiencing any of it in the first place.

Which is all I really want out of life.

 

So if you were there..

In any way shape or form.. 

 

I appreciate it.

 

Yeni

Accomplishment.

 

An occasionally rare, however welcome feeling.

 

This past year on the earth has involved a lot of staring into the abyss.

It has been taxing for me.

Uprooting from a comfortable (but ultimately unfulfilling) life to seek..something..has been fraught with many trials and tribulations.

Doubts, fears, insecurities and stress have accompanied along this path, like an ever-present transluscent spectre that finds infinite joy at periodically extending its foot in front of me.

It is to be expected though.

 

An unexpected destination, perhaps even a lack of a defined destination, whether that be metaphorical or geographical, will entail some navigational challenges.

You just have to crack on..

or I should say I just need to crack on..

and, I am.

I sit here.. 

Leaning forward, in a perpetually damaging spinal posture, I am surveying my surroundings..

It can be quite peaceful being in a country that you do not speak the language.

You are free to observe..

And what do I observe at this sparsely populated beachfront bar?

Quite a lot.

 

There is a large, black, aggressive dog tied to a bar stool..

Every potential customer at this establishment is greeted with a display of dominance from this dog, it barks, growls and snarls, to the backdrop of early nineties techno (techno techno techno).

 

This year has been interesting..

When I think back to the winter, I was training.

I wasn't sure what I was training for.

But it kept me occupied..

Getting up at silly o'clock every morning to set up a tripod..

Noting down the exact time and position of the sunrise as it crept over the surrounding mountains..

It was a lot of work.

 

However I finally arrived.. 

At accomplishment.

 

While in pursuit of my creative goal, I had some well needed progression,

Economically.

 

It was a great relief, after a year’s worth of seemingly never ending false starts, close calls and unclear avenues of opportunity..

The feedback I have received has been really positive. 

Thank you if you have taken the time to watch it..

Being where I am, it has taken and while, is still taking a while I should say, to readjust to my surroundings. 

This isn't meant culturally (at least not in this instance) it is meant in terms of what I do.

I now realise that it doesn't make sense to continue the same habits, especially if seeking different results. 

There is a time and place for everything and when it isn't the time or place, a lot of thought needs to go into where my attention lies and where it should be directed.

It's not an easy question as it isn't something you can really ask advice for. No one knows what you should be doing, how you should spend your time or which activities speak to you.

There are no magic words that can fix a situation,

So knowing this..

Where does one get the answers to questions of this nature?

 

Vatan

 

From Ottoman Turkish وطن‎ (vatan, “home; homeland; stable, coop”)

from Arabic وَطَن‎ (waṭan).

şöyle böyle

Well that was certainly a good start.

 

Fighting the bitter Aegean winter temperatures with a brisk jog around the local lagoon. The water is a shimmering shade of turquoise, the track is dust, and it’s scattered with a jagged array of sharp antagonistic pebbles..

 

I fell off two months ago.

 

As in, from my routine.

 

I was visiting this place twice a day, sun up and sun down, pull-ups push-ups and dips in the morning, seven kilo-meter run in the evening. 

 

Motivation.

 

It comes, and it goes..

 

I recall being given the advice that you should build yourself up during the winter, so you’re fresh for the summer. That might actually be DJ Khalid line. Doesn’t matter, sometimes I forget who told me what, it all kind of collides together into a low budget episode of Oz..

 

Regardless, I find the advice amusing right now, as it is cold.

 

No not England cold, but it’s still cold..

 

Mustering up the willpower to duck out the door and run the gauntlet of very bored and very excitable stray dogs that live outside my house, when my breath is visible, is taking some getting used to. 

 

But it’s happening.

I'm back on it.

 

I gave myself a motto years ago, which was, roughly, “as long as you exercise, create and write, things will work out”. I actually carved it into the ceiling of my cell. It had more back then, such as the crudely scrawled “eat a dick” by a smelly gold teethed prat down the tier, however the three I have mentioned still stand.

 

Upon arriving here I have put them into play.

Has it worked?

 

 

Birak

I’m tired. 

 

The age-old feeling of being inadequate, incapable, that my sand is escaping down the doomsday hourglass without being put to any meaningful or worthwhile use..

Therefore translating my present life and its composites, as teflon-wrapped, ironclad, proof of said inferiority, because I have yet to blossom into a brand new, glamorous career, teeming with financial security, quarterly growth and parental pride..

 

Whatever it is that I AM spending my time doing..

As it is not visible to the outside world nor baring any immediate currency shaped fruit..

 

It is conclusive proof, 

that, 

I am,

 

A shithouse.

--

Time for a cigarette..

 

You know..

I sway between writing personal things like this, a summarised venting of built up internal dialogue that more often than not gestates a day or so in draft format before being blasted through the recycle bin, and writing something that has a moral purpose or metaphor infused with a life experience, a bit of biography embedded with a jewel, to give something to whomever has taken the time out of their day, to read..

 

However..

 

The venting is also helpful.

That's how this blog started, or, at least what it became, a procedure that extracted whatever topic or issue was causing me discomfort, stress or anxiety. A ritual of dissection, slowly down the tumble-dryer of spinning information and imaginative outcomes, an opportunity to pluck one topic at a time to be inspected, analysed and ultimately abandoned. 

I think a lot.

Sometimes I feel my brain is hard wired, to invest thought into vast, elaborate, intricate tapestries of imagined outcomes, the why's and why not’ of others choosing. I like to know how something has come to be, how behaviour is governed, patterns, root causes, ripple effects, however it is also a behavioral trait of mine that keeps me up at night and loses me an incalculable amount of sleep.. 

 

Writing is a way to deal with this. 

 

Once I write down whatever is bothering me, it tends to stay there. 

 

I don’t need to remind myself of anything, I don’t need to rerun the hypothetical possibilities of all these outcomes that have yet to be..

I don't even need to read what I have written..

 

It’s there.

Here.

 

I can leave it.

 

   

Not today.

It’s quite a gloomy day today.

 

Waking up to the morning sun streaming through my window seems to be long gone, in its place are charcoal clouds, slowly tumbling down the mountains that surround my tiled, quite cold, temporary place of residence..

 

I am not going for a run.

 

No.

Today, I am grappling with the age old human dilemma of purpose.

My purpose.

I can, at least to make myself feel better/more connected, make somewhat of an educated guess and say that a notable proportion of people will, at some point in their life, feel this ominous question arise..

As I am laying foundations right now for my foreseeable future, it is proving quite the challenge.

Seven years ago, however, it didn't seem quite so important.

My mind was elsewhere..

You see..

After my compulsory forty-four month enclosure had come to its long-awaited expiration, it was, as is now, a time to regroup and rebuild. However, as I had been excluded from society (coupled with the forced insertion and detainment in another not so welcome one)I yearned to simply return to what I had lost.

The coping mechanism I had employed for the first few years inside, was mentally shutting myself off from everything exterior to my dwelling. From my point of view, what I saw in front of me was all there was. I didn't want to hear about what was happening beyond the concrete walls of the 9th floor of the Manhattan Correctional Center, as it didn't apply to me, I had no stake in it, so did not want to be tortured by stories of a world full of colours, sights, sounds and opportunities that I could not play a part in.

Yet once sentencing had finally commenced (after thirty bloody months I might add) and a light had in fact been lit at what could only be described as, until now,  a telescopic funhouse tunnel that seemed to stretch and skew depending on which clown-faced lawyer was sat opposite me on the fifth floor attorney conference section of the jail, I had a date..

Which changed everything.

I could now dream..

I could fantasise..

(not like that you dirty bastard)

I could actually start to paint a picture of what may lie for me, what my kind of future I was returning to and what I wanted from my upcoming return..

Unless you are in for some kind of heinous crime worthy of jailhouse retribution, it is unlikely you will spend whatever period of time you have been kindly sentenced to, alone, without company. Great hardship can be forged into unbreakable bonds between human beings, bringing us closer and allowing one another to share burden and alleviate each others suffering..

Once the dial on my personal prison time had hit zero and I was whisked back to the shores of the United Kingdom, physically, I had left and it was time to start again..

Besides the constant Sepia filtered scenes of my New York,  repetitiously showing up in my dreams like an unobtainable internal montage more than likely distorted and exaggerated greatest hits, I was focused on what I wanted to do.

It was time to move on..

 

This is what I wanted to do.

To move on..

And normality was my answer.

I yearned for the normality of the life that I assumed was waiting for me.. 

The life that I had spent thousands of hours mentally piecing together, like a patchwork quilt, made of memories, photos and highly likely upon reflection, fabricated (but well wished) assumptions of how I would feel upon my return.

After all..

I would be back.

Surely that would be enough.

Even if it wasn't, if I managed to get through the previous four years, how hard could it be. Plus everyone knows that in society, you can always find people who have shared life experiences similar to your own, enabling you to find a sense of normality and belonging..

--

As i sit here..

On this dark, damp, soggy morning, peering out the window onto a khaki green coastal hillside..

Speckled with white stones, nestled in-between a vast miss-matched assortment of weathered trees and potentially paintable half-built, abandoned houses, serenaded by the traditional Turkish guitar or "bağlama"..

I am looking for answers.

başlangıç

It has been a good week..

So.

After a week (or so) off the wagon, I ran for the last six days. It was only supposed to be five, but the weather spoke to me. Putting my trainers in the wash was my idea of forcing myself to take Saturday off, but the urge came (along with the ol' No Excuses mantra haunting my almost constant internal monologue) so I strapped on a pair of "gEnUiNe FaKe" Nike's that I acquired early on in my English Exodus, however, I'm now paying for it, in the form of huge blisters along the side of each foot..

What else..

Finally managed to sift through thousands of photos taken over the past five years or so, quite a few tasty gems in there if I do say so myself. Laptop isn't sharing the enthusiasm, flooding the screen with an almost constant cry of low disk space. Not much I can do about that m8.

Sketching..

With a limited fund, comes prioritisation. The days of getting paint on dizzy are long gone, so after about six months of almost exclusively sketching in cheap as chips highlighters, I have now decided to crack out the paint pens. Definitely cheaper than dropping X amount of foreign currency on "sprey boya", especially when I'm (or at least i'd like to think i'm) trying out new ideas, that have a high chance of flopping on a wall..

I think I'm also over the hump on today's 24 hour fast. 

Yeah, I've started that again too..

Is this routine starting to sound familiar?

It should.