Creating A Personal Compass: what essentials do you already have to live an expansive life?
These are highlights from a live-recorded roundtable discussion between 10 cultural innovators who are abandoning the map in order to live more fully.
Dialogue2010 is an audio project designed and curated by artist and writer Rose Deniz and hosted at my site for global citizens, ExpatHarem.com.
Moderator ROSE DENIZ: What have you held on to in order to live an expansive life?
CURIOSITY & AWARENESS: “I have held on to being an anthropologist foremost. I try not to lose that fresh eye, the curiosity. Also I do not want to forget what my background is. What I bring to the table. What I see differently than the people around me. I think it’s very important to hold on to that part of myself which is European and not American.” — Judith van Praag
REMEMBERING THE STRENGTH I’VE ALREADY SHOWN: “Strength and courage. In order to take the leap and move here took a lot of strength and when I’m not feeling very strong that can help me. I did it once so maybe I’ll be able to do it again. Also my creativity has increased because I needed an outlet and that’s another thing I am trying to nurture.” — Catherine Yiğit
MY JOURNALS: “I’ve been writing ever since I can remember and have all the journals to prove it. It’s been how I deal. Not just writing about what is happening to me but all of my scary stories and all my poems and all that stuff I’ve been doing. They’re just a fundamental part of me. I’ve had to let go of so much I’m really lucky that I have all these journals.” — Sezin Koehler
BEING ABLE TO CREATE A LITTLE PIECE OF CHINA ON MY WEBSITE: “My writing is what I’ve had to hold on to. Especially living out here in Idaho. A lot of people who come to my website have no idea I’m in Idaho. I actually have been able to create kind of a little piece of China in the minds of people. It really keeps that connection alive for me.” — Jocelyn Eikenburg
REMAINING FLUENT DESPITE LANGUAGE BARRIERS: “Once I realized learning languages was not going to be key for me, I had to learn another way to remain fluent. The whole idea of Expat Harem, to find people that I could communicate with regardless of where they were. The idea that physically where I am is not a limit on where and how I live in the world.” — Anastasia Ashman
ABILITY TO INTEGRATE OTHER CULTURES INTO MY LIFE: “My curiosity not just for the hybrid life that I lead in the two cultures that I love …but also being able to go into other cultures and be curious about those and integrating them in some way into my life, whether it is China or Cambodia or India.” — Elmira Bayraslı
FREEDOM TO LIVE ON MY OWN TERMS, CREATIVITY: “My creativity takes many forms. In Turkey it blossomed into writing. Before it was sketching and painting and knitting and creating textiles and all sorts of things. That nurtures my muse. Retaining my freedom to live on my own terms. I’ve lived in these multicultural places and now in a more closed traditional culture I’ve flourished in my identity. Maybe it’s just a culmination of decades of being creative and suddenly it’s unleashed in the most unlikely of places.” — Catherine Salter Bayar
VALUES, MY NAME: “I can be so adaptable that I lose myself. Living this hybrid lifestyle really gave me a sense of who I am because I had to look at that critically. My values are something that I held on to. Those things really define me. In the core, they aren’t really American or Turkish but they are Tara. So I think the thing that symbolizes that for me is my name. It’s the core of me.” — Tara Lutman Ağacayak
MY CITIZENSHIP AND HOLIDAYS: “I’ve held onto my identity being American. I live in Italy. I’m fluent in the language and love the culture but I’m not Italian and never will be. I haven’t taken on Italian citizenship in addition to my American citizenship. So it’s sort of my way of saying, “No, I am not Italian. I’m American.” It’s important to me to celebrate the American holidays so my Italian in-laws celebrate Thanksgiving with me. They find it novel. “What’s this, turkey? What are we eating?” — Karen Armstrong Quartarone
MY CORE AS AN ARTIST: “I had to retain my sense of myself, my core. It stems from being an artist and a writer. When I moved to Turkey I really struggled to translate anything I was experiencing into a creative outlet. One of the things that helped was to work in a completely different medium. I switched from painting. I started writing more but I also started working with textiles and that’s what led me to develop three lines of handbags.” — Rose Deniz
