As the wind rises once again, I am pushed beyond the ledge as I start to free-fall into a new world. Suddenly, I feel my heart tighten, my body violently coming to a halt, as I feel a rope holding me back, gripping me around my chest. I've followed the wind so many times before, I've trusted it blindly and jumped after it every time it called for me. Never before have I felt like this. Never before did I feel my legs so glued to the ground as though roots had already grown out of my feet and begun anchoring themselves. It always felt so natural. I was simply taking another step in this vast world that awaited me. Another step towards all that I was meant to uncover, meant to become. Now it felt like maybe I didn't need to take that step yet and that perhaps this was the place for me to linger a while longer. Let my roots find their place. I speak of course of grand old Istanbul - a city like no other. I speak of course of the one place that I almost called home. The first place that allowed me to feel this way. I have spent five years here and I always knew somewhere in the deepest corner of my heart, although I never really wanted to admit it, that this was only going to be a temporary halting ground, a 'karavan sarayi', until I move on to my next destination. Today, as I meander through these streets I entertain the thoughts, the dreams, of a life continued here. I wonder what life would look like if I did decide to stay here.
Growing up as a kid I never had much of a say in where I'd go and where I'd stay. My parents would take us here and take us there —moving around too often to ever get used to any place. But I realize I never actually asked myself where we'd be going next. It always came as a bit of a surprise. Right when I would start to forget about relocation, my parents would inform us that we're going to be moving again soon.
I don't remember the day my parents told me we're moving to Vienna. I guess it came gradually because it was also the reason we moved to Damascus prior to that. However, I do remember this one day in the school bus very clearly. "So where are you moving to? what's it called?" my closest friend at the time had asked as we waited for the bus to take off.
- I really don't remember. I heard it's a small country near Germany.
- So they speak German there?
- Yeah. I guess...
I grinned. We both had no idea what German sounded like. All we knew is that the place was probably full of blonde people - a hair color I had not often seen be common in the streets growing up... The next morning on the school bus my friend jumps out from the seat behind me yelling that he figured out what the country was called - "Austria!" he exclaimed. I had no knowledge of the entire country's existence until then, and I was to live there by the end of the school year.
I've always liked maps. We had a large one in our classroom in New York which I would often stare at. I sat right next to where it hung on the classroom wall. There's this one country that had a very funny name — funny to an 8 year old at the time. Why would anyone want to call their country after the name of the Thanksgiving bird? I'd ask myself. Exactly ten years later, I moved to Turkey and I had even done everything in my power to get there. All I wanted was to get out of Austria by then and move somewhere completely new, very different, the opposite of Vienna in every way. Turkey was calling for me and I quickly fell in love with its historical capital, Istanbul, to the point where it has become my favorite city I've lived in.
The rope gripping me holding me back snaps. The thoughts vanish as I fall once again into the arms of the wind. This time, it's taken me to the prairies of Ireland. I had come here only once before, in 2016, on a short two-week stay with my school. Never in a million years would I have ever expected to find myself here again. But here I was sitting behind a desk surrounded by internationals and Irish students alike. My professor addresses different aid and development theories in a strong irish accent. My family had decided to move here and it only felt sensible to come spend a year or two with them.
I have no notion where the wind may take me next. I may even try to anchor down and resist it, I may try to flap my wings and stay afloat, I may try to take control of my path and glide to a specific destination; all just and completely valid - but I believe I must allow myself to be taken by it. To only lift my arms and hope to be laid down gently and slowly where I am meant to be. Currently for me, that seems to be the vast greenery of this small Island at the edge of Europe.
