Solitude

“Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I've had the intention of writing this post for some time now, but with humanity little by little stepping into isolation in a way reminiscent of a dystopian movie, this post is oddly on topic.

Perhaps it's isolation that gave me the time and mental space to sit down and write this. I'm on my third day of isolation, at a time when I want to be out enjoying spring and meeting friends and embracing life in a city where I haven't quite settled yet. But truthfully, I spent most of the winter in isolation.

Last September I reached a milestone, something which I always expected to happen earlier in life (at least before the age of 29), but life went down a different road. At an age when I expected to be married and a mother, instead my milestone was a rite of passage that I always longed to do before I had a family of my own: I moved into an apartment, by myself.

I hear some people don't like the idea of living alone, but for me it was always something I wanted to do, to spend a while living completely independently, with space to myself for reading and writing and creating, a space with my own mark on it. And while my mum asks every weekend if I'm going to go out and socialise, the truth is that after a busy week working with people it's nice to embrace the solitude, and I like to spend time in my home and enjoy my own company. It's a place where I can truly relax, take my time and recharge. If I want to eat dinner for breakfast and cake for dinner then I can. If I want to go out after work, nothing is stopping me. If I want to walk around wearing a ridiculous face mask, dance to cheese and sing terribly, there is no one to pass judgement. And if I want to write a blog post at one o'clock on a Tuesday morning, I can also do that.

Another thing people ask is “have you got a boyfriend yet?” But when I tell them that no, I don't want that right now, a lot of people look at me weird. I spent the larger part of a decade in and out of relationships, and while I am lucky to have shared some wonderful experiences with partners, right now I don't want to share my time or my space with another person. It's nice to just be me and do my own thing. Occasionally the thought of dating crosses my mind, and then when I think about how much time and effort I'd have to put in, I'm just not interested. Sure, relationships are nice, but I'm not ready for that again, not yet. And as someone who was always “in a relationship” or had just got out of a relationship, or was “with someone”, it's refreshing to have freedom to go where I want and do what I want, or just stay in.

When I look around my apartment, I see me. I see what I've worked for, what I've created. I see my tastes and the things I like. And I enjoy spending time here and getting to know myself. So while I'm on day 3 of isolation and a bit worried about being cut off from people for the next week, or maybe two, or three, I am also looking on the bright side. Being alone can be lonely, but it is also the perfect opportunity to connect with yourself, to know yourself and to do things that you can't do with another person present. And at the age of 29 I'm glad I'm finally able to do this thing for myself, before I no longer have the chance to do things for myself.

Stay safe and embrace the solitude, friends, because spending time with yourself can be the best way to get to know You.

Thanks for reading.

Berlin, Germany, March 2020

Seeking Inspiration

I have just spent an hour trying to decide what to write for a blog post. I am still very new to blogging, and although I have lots of ideas (which is why I finally started this blog), I don't always feel like writing something from the list of topics I have prepared for myself. I'm feeling restless and in limbo at the moment, as my time in Germany is coming to an end and I'm feeling both happy and sad to be leaving. When you finally accept the fact that your time in a place is drawing to a close, sometimes you just want to get it over with.

But it has been two weeks since my last blog post, and if I mean to take this seriously, I need to keep it up, right?

So what do I write about when I don't know what to write about? The advice I come across most often for beating writer's block is to just write about anything. And the first "anything" that popped into my head was the things that inspire me.

Breakfast inspires me. There is something about mornings, the promise of a new day, sunrise, birds singing, the sound of rain or the radio playing cheerful tunes to get you in the mood for a good day. I love the versatility of breakfast, and the way it varies from home to home, country to country. I love starting my day with boiled eggs, fruit and musli, fresh bread, honey, cheese, even the occasional full English. And of course, lots and lots of tea (or a milky coffee, if no tea is available!) Breakfast with good friends, breakfast with a book, breakfast on the go, whether that be a flask of tea and some biscuits on the way to work or a takeaway coffee and a bun from a bakery in an exciting city, it's my favourite meal of the day.

Another inspiration: stationery. I'm a writer, and I have a nostalgic love of postcards and letter writing, so of course, I have an unhealthy obsession with stationery (unhealthy for my purse, at any rate!) Those notebooks waiting to be filled, the pretty writing paper longing to be sent to penpals new and old, pens of all colours and styles, notecards and postcards featuring famous paintings and vintage photography... It might seem like something trivial, but these simple pleasures are enough to brighten any day.

New discoveries, whether that be travel, or simply finding a sweet little shop or a café with just the right atmosphere, always provide fuel for my muse. I have been on many a holiday or city break that has awoken a gnawing desire to create. Many a poem has been written thanks to travel and I've found so many ideas for paintings. And, I'll admit, the chance to tell stories of my travels has been another reason for creating this blog (keep an eye out for my next post). When I'm not travelling, the postcards mentioned above provide some relief for my wanderlust, as well as scrapbooks, coins I've collected, and holiday snaps.

And if the arts can't inspire me, what can? There is nothing that makes me want to create more than seeing, reading or hearing art. Afternoons spent in art galleries or browsing DeviantArt; reading wonderful books or poetry or even just seeing bookcases full of books at home or in a bookshop; lyrics and haunting tunes that speak of emotions and stories and other times. For all its downsides, the internet sure has brought me closer to the arts, and over the years it has helped me to discover what sort of person I am. Perhaps humans can't fly or turn princes into frogs, but we can create, and that is how we make our own kind of magic.

There are so many other sparks of inspiration, things that I come across in every day life: the way the light falls through a window, certain clothes or hairstyles, trees blowing in a breeze, water, the orange-gold glisten of raindrops on a window pane at night, patterns on fabric or wallpaper, trains, certain smells, baking, holding hands with a loved one, the seaside, a lamp- or candle-lit evening snuggled up doing something relaxing or creative, clouds, crystals, beads, colour combinations, animals, positive blogs and instagram accounts, chats with best friends, favourite stories...

Considering an hour and a half ago I had no idea what to write, I sure am feeling inspired.

Introductions and Identity Crises

Dear Reader,

First of all, let me say thank you so much for dropping by. I can't say this is my first blog, but it will hopefully be the first to last beyond two posts, so it means a lot to me that you are taking the time to read this. I hope you will feel it is time well spent!

Second, I believe introductions are in order. This is my first post after all, so I may as well start with saying a bit about myself and, as mentioned in the title, my identity crisis. Why do I have an identity crisis? Well, as much as I love meeting new people, one of those simple first questions people ask never has a simple answer for me: "Where do you come from?"

Long story short, I was born in England to English parents, but I grew up in Spain. Because of this, I can't really say I have a nationality. In Spain I was an English person, or "chana" or "guiri", as they preferred to call foreigners, and these terms, though far from PC, never bothered me. I spent my formative years in Spain and did 90% of my obligatory schooling in a Spanish school in South Eastern Spain (expat central, I'm sorry to say!) and I can say, even now, that that place is home. It doesn't matter that I wasn't born there. My birth town in Cheshire became stranger and stranger to me the longer I was away, and if it wasn't for the fact that family still dwell there, I  probably wouldn't have a reason to go back at all. But Spain, though home, couldn't keep me there. My itchy feet wanted to take me around the world, and where better to start than in the country I had left as a child, a country that was my birthright, but that I barely even knew?

So I enrolled at university in the UK, down in Portsmouth on the South coast, a place completely new to me. I can't explain why I went there of all places, but from the get-go it had an unexplainable attraction. And within a few weeks, I bloomed. In Spain I was always the shy girl, the foreigner, the one too afraid to speak up despite the ability to speak Spanish like a local. In the UK, for one reason or several little ones, I suddenly felt free and confident, happy to give my input, especially in those subjects I was interested in. But even so, there was a good dose of culture shock that I had never expected to come across.

The first surprise was the greeting. In Spain, everyone greets each other with a kiss on each cheek, a gesture which crops up in quite a few European countries. In the UK, the British teenagers didn't even offer a handshake. As I stood there in the hallway of my student flat, awkwardly meeting my flatmates for the first time, I already started to notice the differences. Meal times were different. As were their teen years in general. Partying, for those particular teenagers, involved getting as drunk as possible without winding up in hospital, rather than simply having a good time, a chat with friends or a dance to some decent music. And through all this, I realised I had a very different mindset to a lot of my British counterparts. So different, in fact, that I couldn't possibly be British.

So what am I? Where do I come from? For a long time, I felt a little lost. I grew up with Flamenco dancing, Moors and Christians parades, the dreaded Baccalaureate to earn my place at university, the ability to go clubbing until six in the morning from the age of fourteen, and all year round sunshine. Yet at the same time, I say please, thank you and sorry more than necessary, I queue and hold  doors open and I drink PG Tips like a fish drinks water. All I can say, truthfully, is that I'm Spanglish.

Thankfully, I'm not alone. There are plenty of people who think I'm crazy when I cheer for Spain over England during the World Cup and insist on calling Spain my home despite my birth. But there are a lot of people out there who are in the same boat, or even more unusual boats, especially these days. And all my life, most of my closest friends have been in the same situation as me. They were migrants at some point or another, or born with mixed backgrounds, That "birds of a feather" saying has never been truer.

So what am I? I'm a wanderer. I'm Spanglish. I'm European. I'm a human being.

Identity crisis? Pah.