NOMAD

I am moving again. From Dikilitas to Sisli, closer to the heart of Istanbul. This has been the most nightmareish moving experience I have had, but I am not going to bore you with the details of this story. I am happy that I will be living alone again. Being the master of my own house empowers me. I am sure you would understand what I mean if I told you that I left my house at the age of 11, lived with my relatives for the next three years for attending to a better school in a nearby city, and when my relatives had to move, I started living with other families as a pensioner. Then from my college years on I always shared apartments with other people, with the exception of two years, once in Paris and once in Istanbul when I lived alone.

I can't remember the number of houses I have changed during the past ten years. What is more, it is almost impossible for me to count the number of roommates I have had. This is the lot of someone who had to go to school away from home as early as 11 years old, the inevitable consequence of this experience is me who has turned into a nomad. This may not sound fair to those whose parents had to move from one place to another but I still consider them lucky because at least they had their families with them. As for me, I moved in and out of places and houses and lives of other people because of my own, mostly academic, residual requirements.

I both enjoy and hate this lifestyle. On one hand , I enjoy it because it has provided me the capacity to stand on my own feet earlier than most people, it has provided me the opportunity to see that life can be lived in many ways, in different ways by different people and it has provided me a perspective to figure out the importance of a real hub, a place where you can turn to when your abstract or real travels wear you out. A real home. (I am afraid I still dont have this place where all my stuff can be gathered under one single roof - the fact that even my photographs are in three different houses, here in Istanbul, in Edremit on the Aegean coast at my parents' and in my cousin's basement in Boston should give you a idea of what this means.) On the other hand, I hate it because it deprives you of the continuity of many friendships and routines in life because when you live as a nomad, you face a constant circulation of people, jobs, roommates, furniture, commuting styles etc etc. For a couple of times, this change might be fun but if you do it once a year or more frequently, it is weary. I hate the transition periods where I have to adjust myself to the new routine. I also hate the fact that I could have done many other things with all the money I had to invest for moving.

I am hoping that I will be able to settle to a place one day. At least I seem to have made up my mind to settle in Istanbul for the moment. But I started to feel more and more envious of people who own a house. Yet I still fear that the changing places habit of many years has deeply penetrated my soul and that I will get bored if I settle to a place. It looks as though this is going to be the dilemma of my thirties.