My stress bells are on even on a holiday.
Today is a holiday. Most people went to visit Yerevan. The rest went down to the riverside to have a picnic there. Only Tuba and I stayed at home. I say ‘home’ because this huge retreat place became a home to me. I have not put my feet outside the space since the day I arrived here.
My whole body aches. I suppose Aida ‘s warm-up exercises yesterday worked out the rusty parts of my body. I could hear the moans and groans surging out of those rusty sides.
We have four days ahead of us. We will perform on the fifth day. Inside me, “stress bells’’ are ringing. Continuous flow of miserable thoughts overwhelms my mind. ”What are we going to do? How are we going to perform? We have not found any performative inspiration during the workshops, how will it be possible to present something decent under these conditions? ”
Thankfully, there is also a deeper inner voice which tells me to stay calm. ‘’Everything will be fine. Trust the group. Trust our togetherness. We care for each other, we listen to each other, we understand each other.’’ It is great to have built such a strong connection between 22 women in 5 days. Although it makes me nervous from time to time to leave everything so flexible in our daily flow, I like the random sparkles that come out of this flexibility.
Chocolate addiction
The only thing I would complain about our ‘home’ is the meals. Unfortunately, we all are fed up with fried peppers and fried eggplants, raw tomatoes, raw cucumbers, and raw spring onions which are served each and every day. For this reason, I’m addicted to twix bars here. Whenever someone goes to the market in the village, they buy me twix bars along with the other harmful but pleasant snacks for others. Whoever my gift friend is, thanks to her my envelope on my door is always full of chocolate. I also want to spoil people with chocolates, but as I said, I did not make the time for myself to visit the village until now.
A frustrating end to a restful day
Today, finally, I was able to go to the market with Tuba and bought a lot of chocolate and coke to cheer up the hearts of my friends. On our way to the market, Tuba said: ‘’Senem, we created such an impressive environment; everyone supports, enrichs and upheavals each other.’’
Harassment of taxi drivers returning from Yerevan,
the woman in the market saying “I want to kill the Turks”, especially the more vindictive behavior towards Nurcan