Today is our last day in Antalya and tomorrow marks our journey, first to Istanbul, and then to Abu Dhabi. Then we perform.
I think that everyone takes for granted that they are the weakest in a group. That, when we are put together with others that seem to be just like us, we instinctively assume we are different. We assume we are the only ones that carry our burdens and no one else could possibly understand our struggles.
Slowly it’s come out. Over the past five weeks, one by one, we’ve cried. We’ve questioned ourselves and our purposes for being here. We’ve feared going home, to 13 different places across the globe; to 13 different places that should feel warm and inviting but often just feel empty.
I wonder sometimes if the Schliersee fellows feel the same way as we do here in Turkey. I think they probably do, but perhaps not to the same extent. Artists are their own breed, after all. Emotion surges through us: sometimes silently, oozing out in a photo, and sometimes fiercely, emitted in a stomp or a shout or kick into the air.
The tears we’ve cried have been universal. We all feel so connected here. We feel at home and at peace. Despite allegations of rose-colored glasses and honeymoon periods and “this isn’t the way your life would be,” we all seem afraid for this project to end.
As Abla-factotum, I’ve been through these kinds of intense bonding experiences before, where many of the other fellows haven’t. I know in my head that it doesn’t help to count the minutes as they pass – that only deadens the experience of the moment. I know that at the end of this I’ll cry and my heart will break, leaving a small piece of itself in Turkey, never to be regained again. But I also know that breaking means healing, and healing means getting stronger. I know that, like all the other families I’ve made for short periods of time, this family and this experience will stay with me. I’ll relive little bits of Turkey from wherever I am. And I’ll smile to remember this.
Living out of passion is far superior to living out of fear. Nearly every time I’ve left home, passport in hand, I’ve been running from something. But this fellowship has been different right from the start. I didn’t apply because I had to get away from something; I applied because I had to move towards something. And I move towards it with fervor. But where does fervor turn into delirium? How fast can I chase this dream before running in the direction of Anadolu Ateşi means running in the opposite direction as Boston?
When we arrived, I was here to learn something and bring it back home. Done. But I don’t feel done. I feel there’s far more to be learned than can possibly be learned in three months. And so my path changes, and now my fervor lies with staying in Turkey to dance. And I cry sometimes at night because, even as Abla-factotum, I’m counting the minutes and trying to calculate a way to live my passion and not my fear. Sometimes I know the others are crying too.
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