On Solitude: I thought It Was There For Good So I Never Tried
A year after arriving in this city, Sofia is covered with snow.
It was drizzling the day I’ve arrived. The sky was in greyish colour. I remember asking a mother and son to look after my luggage at the airport so I could go to the toilet after my 14-hour snoozing trip with Turkish Airline. After I returned, the son, who might be 10 or 11, told me shyly that he and his mother are visiting Marid. He asked me, “are you going to Marid too?” I smiled and said, “no, I’ve just arrived.”
“I’ve just arrived.” But for a second I thought about going to Marid with them. There’s something very satisfying about being in a place where nobody knows your name. It seems like you can always start over. Completely free from your past.
Have you ever had those moments that when the person you’re talking with is charmingly fascinating and has these absolutely gorgeous eyes or a great smile and for a second you just couldn’t hear what they’re saying but your mind went blank? It had occurred to me several times in my life and this is one of those moments you’re glad you’re alive.
Nobody really tells you how many documents you need to be an immigrant. People talk about how living abroad can “broaden your horizon” or “provide different perspectives” but no one talks about how many documents you need to prove you’re legal enough to stay in a place which is an odd idea. There’s someone who gets to say who’s legal and who’s not as if we have a choice if we want to be born to this world or not. “Born a Crime.” Trevor Noah once said. Trevor Noah speaks 6 languages. In one of his stand-up, he talked about how speaking other’s languages helps him to blend it because he wasn’t white nor black enough to belong and how it confused people with the concept of “we” and “them.” “If you can speak our language, you must be one of us.” He said. I thought about if it still worths trying to speak the language if somehow being a woman means I would always be the “other.”
Charles Bukowski wrote about how many women he had fucked and how drunk he has always been and people were stealing his books from bookstores and mimicking his writing style. I wrote about one dildo and men said it was too distracting to read. People are funny. (Do I look like I care?) I’m just an angry (female) writer who wants to cook. Or maybe I’m not as capable as I think I am who can be angry and write and cook and be an “other” all at the same time.
“Aren’t you afraid of travelling alone?”
I often get this question. Afraid of what? Death? Compare to death, I’m more afraid of being trapped in my own mind, my own perspective and my own place, thinking this is the whole world.
I could die anytime. Death is a coffee break from life.
I put a big chunk of butter in the frying pan, the kind of amount that goes against the modern diet because you should substitute butter with something healthier or vegan. The butter melted with a hizzing sound; Wong Kar-Wai's movie soundtrack was playing. It was a lovely Sunday. It’s early March in Sofia and I get to sunbathing at my own kitchen table. Back home, people would avoid living in houses where the sun shines directly into your house because it would be too hot. But it seems to be the best choice I’ve ever made in this foreign city. Of course, I wasn’t aware of that when I decided to rent this apartment; I wasn’t aware of anything back then. I have been cooking for myself vigorously for the past year. I put three pieces of bread soaked with the egg mixture in the pan, waiting for them to turn butter-coated brown. I arranged yoghurt, honey and banana puree on the table. My right shoulder hurt when I raised my arm to a certain angle. “Fucking gymnastic.” I thought.
Before arriving, I thought about how my life would be like if it’s a book written by a writer. I have learned from a very young age that in order to be happy, you have to make a lot of conscious choices for yourself, no matter what does that mean to you. Otherwise, life would seem like a wave of fated events where you can’t do anything about it because the fact is, you aren’t doing anything about it. So whenever I face a situation, I would ask myself, if this is a character in a book, how would I like to see this character making this choice? I have too many questions and too few answers. So I started writing to him about my life as if I’m writing about someone else.
“You are too young to worry and ask yourself too many questions.” He wrote.
When I first met him in an open-air cinema of Rocky Horror Picture Show in Sydney six years ago, I didn’t know he would be part of my life for such a long time. Because in travelling, you meet and leave countless people. Where you pick them up at a certain point in your life and then drop them off somewhere. The bloody red lips were moving on the screen. The temperature was lovely. Rocky Horror Picture Show remains one of my favourite movies to this day. We never really count how many emails we have written to each other. Perhaps a thousand. We never really want to see each other because we don’t have to. At one point, I didn’t hear from him for months that I thought he might be dead. At another point, he refused to respond because I’ve called him a hurtful name. Back then, I didn’t know what to do with a man who doesn’t want anything from you but simply thinks you’re a wonderful person. Most of the men want something from you. Well, that’s not true. We all want something out of people. I have been writing to him vigorously for the past year because I wasn’t sure how to be an immigrant. I wasn’t sure how to deal with labels: foreigner, Asian, woman, outsider. He has seen the dark; he has been an outsider; he has been an immigrant for half of his life. While everyone can love you when you’re young and beautiful and fun, not many can love you when you’re too old to wipe your shit or too broken to function. There isn’t a manual book telling you how to deal with life so we have to figure out ourselves. Everyone can love you when life is fun. Yet life can be uglily messy.
“I think that being proud is a pathway to long-lasting happiness. How can we be happy if we are not satisfied with who we are / what we do? Winning the lottery does not make you truly happy, if you know what I mean.
It is normal to feel weary. Living abroad can be overwhelming. I am weary too. Weary and worried and depressed, because I am scared of giving up. I completely lost myself. What is your belief, that life is easier when we get older? That is what I perceived and what someone had told me 20 years ago, but that someone was young so she spoke without knowledge. In fact, I think that a lost soul will suffer more or at least the same in a later stage of his/her life. Feeling hopeless is horrible, isn’t it? What is the remedy? Probably staying alive and aiming at small achievements, trying to find motivation somewhere. No motivation and it is game over. For good. Life is not a videogame. It is so easy to fall. And it is so easy to take everything for granted when things are pretty much okay. I wish sometimes I had appreciated when life was alright.
I like when you draw a line, think of your life and conclude you are proud. I feel so small. I never said nor thought that for longer than a few hours. Please keep being weary but proud. I feel you are on the right track to happiness.”
He wrote. On a Tuesday afternoon.
A year after arriving in this city, Sofia is covered with melted snow.
