In Search Of A Tribe

Each time I got to look out from my window, the view of the mosque and the mountains marked a time of relaxation for me. During Ramadan, hearing people’s prayers was also a moment of prayer, a prayer of another kind, by just standing here in awe and surrendering to the melody of their prayers.

Walking trail near my home in Bonn, Germany

It’s been such a wild journey in these past two years. Many things changed, and many things stayed the same. I am still in Antalya. I am still a journalist. I don’t have any concrete plans to move abroad at the moment. My ultimate goal of having a more enjoyable life abroad, like having a nearby walking trail or forest close to my home, is on hold now. Instead, I am now living pretty far from nature and the sea, but I still have the beautiful mountain view from my window, coupled with a view of a mosque. I hear people pray from time to time, and that gives me an ease and a sense of surrender.

At first, when I started living here, I was very sad being so far away from the area where my beloved Boğaçayı river was. That part of the city meant a lot to me. There was a beautiful view of the sunset between the mountains and the colors reflected on the river. Almost every day, I had my sunset walks around the river. Moving here meant not being able to have those walks so often.

Abandoned house with its garden that still thrives to this day

On the other hand, while adapting to this part of the city, I could get a sense of the fabric of real Antalya or what's left of it. The area where I live now is the part of the city that was considered not so favorable or ‘modern’ before urbanization took over the area. There are still some old houses remaining, very badly maintained, though I still can see their tender souls. These houses have a unique way of existing with their red-colored tile roofs and grapevine leaves in their gardens.

I love the natural texture of this wall that gently divides the gardens of the two houses.

‘It would be a shame for you to quit journalism just because of this, you are such a passionate journalist,’ a friend of mine once said.

Today, I heard something similar for the second time from another journalist. Somehow, hearing this again felt good. The acknowledgment of my hardship and being witnessed in such a vulnerable state was like a holding.

Learning the art of being vulnerable

In our conversation, it came up that I was in need of support. The journalist that I was talking to today concluded from all the things I’ve told her that I might be in need of a community. That was interesting because I never thought a community or group of people was something that I needed. I usually tried to run away from them and ended up here, working as a freelance journalist with little to no contact with colleagues. This sounded quite the opposite of what I was looking for, but she was right; this was what I needed.

It’s funny thinking about people around me in the past, in the places that I’ve worked, they were the ones who usually told me that I do things wrong, and this is not how it is supposed to be done, and so on. I thought this was normal, I thought this was how colleagues interact with each other. Yet once again, I was wrong. It was just that I hadn’t experienced a healthy working environment before. Such misery! I believe that no one should feel that they have to find a way to fit in by leaving part of themselves behind. Our differences are actually what make a good result in our work, especially when it comes to journalism.

So my past experiences of interacting with colleagues only taught me to avoid people at all costs and build a career for myself where I don’t need to be around them. Or need anyone’s help, but surprise!... This is not how things work. We are human beings, and we need each other, whether or not we accept that. As I was not accepting that in the past, I was finding myself over and over again trying to meet all of my needs for a close connection only through my romantic partners.

As I learned, I needed different kinds of connections with different people in my life who had different roles. I also had to accept that to have any meaningful connections, I had to be vulnerable. Express my needs, or keep my boundaries. For that, of course, I needed some soul searching and understanding what is a yes or a no for me.

For me to be able to get to that point where I can have a fulfilling relationship with others, I needed to first and foremost be intimate with myself. Be listening to myself and acknowledging my needs and desires. After a lifetime spent abandoning myself, that was the hardest thing to do.

Our conversation started when she was telling me about the way how editing a story works. She said, ‘It’s just a negotiation between a journalist and the editor.’ That gave me relief, finally, someone was telling me that I didn’t do anything wrong. This is my story, and we don’t agree on some aspects with my editor just yet. Whereas, some journalists that I worked with imposed on me the idea that there is only one right way to do a particular task.

It was interesting to reflect on that. In the same way that people in Turkey comprehend the news stories. In Turkey, we don’t have the term ‘news story’, so I think people who consume news think that this is the ‘reality’, whereas the story is the reality of one person, it’s not a consensus. The news in Turkey is written as ‘this is the truth of an event’, and opinions they get from interviewing other people are there to support the ‘truth’.

The same goes for our understanding of community in Turkey, particularly in the environments where I was raised. I believe a community is not only a group of people who do the same job or come together for seemingly common goals, but a group of people who genuinely carry the same values and are there to support each other instead of shaming and judging.

Since I started my journalism career by writing news stories, I got to understand the meaning of a story. Storytelling became a big part of my work, and I grew to like it more and more.

And please don’t get me wrong, I met with incredible journalists, both Turkish and European along the way but I also want to point out the ones that I met that were more like the stones in the flowing river of my life that prevented even just a tiny bit of this river from flowing freely.

Talking the talk and walking the walk!

Today, my conversation with that journalist about the community I lacked in my work life brought up many things. I recalled when I was at The European Collaborative Journalism Programme (ECJP) with journalists from all around Europe in a remote place called Siggen near Hamburg, Germany. It came to our conversations time and time again during the program that "finding one’s tribe" could be the answer for many journalists to do their jobs in a more fulfilling way.

The Baltic Sea, the texture of nature, and the historical house that we stayed in, Siggen, reminded me of Denmark. Our fireplace gatherings in the evenings in this old country house were ritualistic. One time, we even journaled all together while being circled around the fireplace. This sense of togetherness left me feeling grateful.

Another thing I loved about this place was the perfectly arranged lights reflecting the image of the trees on a small pond in the garden. One day, as I was watching the pond and the trees, I had a small talk with an older guy here. I was watching the pond and assessing whether or not I was doing well in the program. The guy approached me, pointing out the dead heron in the pond. Seeing the dead bird made me even sadder, and I could only say “Ohh!” with a sad face. He said, "Well, that’s life.''

That was very true, life contains many deaths and births, and nature has a great way of reminding us of that. Just like the Magnolia tree, I finally got to see blossoming, reminding me that the time for me to see the blossoms was now, as I didn’t have the chance to see it on my last trip to Denmark.

Blossoming Magnolia tree and the old house in the background we stayed in Siggen, Germany

In the program, a journalist suggested placing an envelope in a designated spot so people could write notes to each other. When I opened my envelope just right after the program, where I was by myself in a hotel room in Hamburg, I felt the exact opposite of the feelings of loneliness as our time together in the program had ended. This time, I could see the end was just the beginning. At that moment, I was alone, but in a way, these people that I met during the program were with me. All the exchanges we did together in Siggen could stay with me thanks to these notes. I finally felt truly seen and witnessed for who I am, and these notes were a testament to that.

In the past and sometimes still now, it is very hard for me to let myself be perceived by others. I felt the urge to correct everything I say and try to create this perfect persona that I can only let people see me with that mask. But I was determined this time, throughout the program, whenever I felt overwhelmed by very intense and in-depth conversations. I tried to stay in the present moment instead of going into my head and trying to estimate if I was saying and doing the 'right' things.

Even though I truly felt that I didn’t try hard enough to present the version of me that was agreeable, so that I wouldn't be rejected. My idea of presenting myself in a certain way was finally loosening its grip on me. So this time during the program, if I had nothing to add to the discussions, I stayed silent; if I had something to say, I voiced my ideas. Doing this in a way was being true to myself, but it also felt like swimming against the current. Since this wasn’t how I learned to be, it required very conscious actions and tremendous energy for me to do so. In the end, being able to hear and follow my body's yes’s and no’s was so rewarding.

These people saw me in a way that I couldn’t ‘make them see me by overthinking my actions and trying to control their perception of me’. Perhaps, they saw me for who I was. The version of me that I could finally be calm enough to accept.

Besides, without these notes, how would I know that my laughter was sparkling or that I was bringing a lot of sunshine to the group.

Maybe, for the first time, I got to experience what it would feel like to be around people who are supportive of me. Who are perhaps part of my tribe!

To be fully seen in our authentic selves and who we are is a big task. So, I want to share with you YouTube channels and books that might help you achieve that, as they did for me.

If this blog article inspired you, you can buy me a coffee.