Homebody Writes Her Last Blogpost

This is my swan song. The last entry. The proverbial cherry on the cake which has been sufficiently baked and to overcook it would be a shame.

You  see, most bloggers start out enthusiastically and then months later fizzle out slowly and inexorably; so that a year later you realize that you haven’t read anything from them recently; and you click on their link and you see a notice to the effect of ‘last updated three years ago’. And that notice fills me with sadness, it’s like seeing a dead cat on the side of the road, or like tea that’s left too cold in the cup on an ignored side table and you’re forced to drain it down the sink. I love this blog far too much to do that to it. I hope you have drunk your fill; enjoyed what you have tasted; but this is a gentle notice that there will be no more refills. I think the start of a project is auspicious – why shouldn’t the end of it be also?

I write this post with great sadness. Not because I’ll miss blogging – which I probably will, but because my decision to end comes concurrently with the news of someone’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. One day this person was fine, the next day this person was operated upon and the doctors discovered that the cancer had spread its tentacles to surrounding organs. And I thought to myself, if that ever happened to me, what would my reaction be? I couldn’t rejoice in my safety and temporary immunity from bad news – thirty years on the planet have taught me it’s no consolation to know you’re okay when someone else is suffering. Even if that someone else isn’t terribly close to you. I just sat and thought about what I would feel if I would die a year from now and I realized that I would be filled with regret that I hadn’t written more stories.

I have a very strong suspicion that I’m a writer. I think there are many stories within me that I need to tap. But just as pressure builds before a volcano erupts, just as silence precedes the storm, these stories will unveil themselves to me only when I give them the creative space to become. Right now, my creative climate is very dependable – regular showers that wash the pavement, soon to be forgotten. My blog posts are precious but also trivial – they don’t allow me to feel the longing and anticipation that will allow for a more significant piece of writing. A friend, mentor and writer told me that I must feel the ‘silence within the soul’ before the stories come. These blog posts interrupt that silence and I don’t want that to happen anymore. So I must pave the way.

So what has blogging taught me? It’s taught me that you write when you are fundamentally discontented with what is; it’s a way of figuring out who you are and why are things the way they are and also a way of coming to terms with the contrast therein. It’s taught me that it can bring you a lot of joy. It’s taught me that there are a lot of wonderful writers around me, whose blogs I’ve read and enjoyed and will continue to do so. It’s introduced me to a wonderful online community, who I met at a dinner party in a beautiful house that reminded me of the Von Trapp household in The Sound of Music. It also taught me that the instant gratification of readership and comments is the ultimate confidence building machine – writing is a lonely process and to embark on it, you need to have a supportive group that reaffirms your inner suspicion that you are, in fact, a writer, even if you aren’t published yet. And when you have been in this group, you can start venturing out alone, on your own. You have the emotional strength to go on a journey that’s frustrating and quite arduous.

So I end by thanking my readers. Some of you I can thank personally, others I thank in this post. You have given me confidence, praise and a lot of happiness and I hope your dreams come true.

And therefore, ladies and gentlemen, homebody takes her last bow. It’s been a pleasure.

Where Homebodies Dare…

Another thing about homebodies – they like to travel. It sounds paradoxical, doesn’t it? Not really.

Living carefully, prudently, hedging in your desires means that once a year, or once in a while, you yearn to break loose from all boundaries and inhibitions and do something that is completely different. And with a biker-chick soul, I want to occasionally do something that is outrageous along with it.

Last year, I went to Turkey. I had made plans to be completely imprudent: I’d dance on table tops and kiss Turkish men and go dancing at night, all night. I would be repressed-but-now-out-of-control-Pakistani-woman-of-the-world-without-mum. I would be a force to be reckoned with. I’d drink alcohol and eat EVERYTHING. I would ‘live’ to the fullest, like I hadn’t ever before.

But reality was a little different. You see, homebodies lack spontaneity and their sudden yearnings for freedom aren’t necessarily coordinated with my own. This meant that none of my homebody friends were ready to come with me. So I booked an escorted tour on which the average age was 55. And my dreams of indiscriminate hedonism went down the drain.

There was no one to sleep with, although Frank, a sixty-something darling said to me, in front of his face-palming wife that he’d flirt with me if he’d just brought his Viagra with him. I was adopted by a lovely Indian couple and Yogi, as we called him, wouldn’t let me splurge on ridiculous trinkets because he said that as surrogate parent (he was baby-sitting me throughout the trip; quite successfully in fact) he found he couldn’t allow me to waste my hard-earned money. And then when I wanted to take a sip of alcohol, a seventy-something kindred spirit named told me about his son’s experience and said, ‘Now, do you really want a glass of wine?’ Another beautiful friend from Britain encouraged me to take a sip and told me she’d take care of me, but remembering the warnings, I desisted. Besides, a sip and then being taken care of is hardly hedonism, right?

And yet, and yet. Turkey is permanently lodged in my soul. Not just because it’s a beautiful country - a hot air balloon ride above the rugged ridges and exotic rock formations of Cappadocia, with the sun on one side and rain on the other, is quite possibly the highest point of my life, literally and metaphorically. But that’s not why Turkey was amazing for this homebody.

Turkey was my first stint at independence. Despite warnings that I’d be bored, or get lost, or get raped, I still traveled alone. It was planned, financed and executed by me. I went thinking I’d see interesting new things, which I did. But what made the trip for me was the people.

I met some of the most beautiful people who have ever existed – a man who designed gems and grew flowers and who loved his wife, another woman who wrote her soul and giggled and learned to cat-whistle in Taksim square; and another who designed the most amazing costume jewelry for craft fairs. I met a woman who was discovering her rock-star soul at sixty, after having left an abusive husband. I met two gay ladies who were passionately in love even after twenty years. I met a man who mourned his dead wife still; so much that he was trying to walk his grief out along the ruins of Istanbul.

I remember thinking one night, in an Italian restaurant at Taksim which served the most amazing Spaghetti Bolognese, that all these people had once been homebodies like me, they were probably still homebodies. But they still had a sense of adventure, a zest for life that showed in warm smiles and shining faces. And there you go, epiphany hits: being a homebody is a really cool thing; much cooler than dancing topless on table tops. The freedom of the soul is much more important than anything else, and these men and women taught me that. I felt blessed to be among this wise, funny, inspiring group of people: they were spiritual rock stars and biker chicks and infinitely cool people.

And now, like Vianne Rocher from Chocolat, the wind changes for me too. I feel the same tug to dare to travel to another land. Last night, I dreamt of Andalusia. I think it’s time for homebody to venture forth again.