We are now in Syria.Although there were stories or interrogations and bright overhead lights, none of that happened. But we had our own initiation–we were taken “hostage” by an overly hospitable border family for 36 hours in what we’ve come to call the Will of the Collective.It all started when “the girls” put us on a dolmush (a minibus) headed for Reyhanle, a Syrian-Turkey border town, with instructions that the family of their friend, Guler, would help us get on a bus to Syria. In Reyhanle, we were intercepted by a guy who we could only assume was the right one. Hussein led us away from the bus stop to his home, where we were served breakfast of bread, olives, jam, cheese and tea in a carpet picnic with the rest of his family staring in awe. It was 9:00 AM. Two hours later we learned that we would be sleeping there and tomorrow we’d go to Syria.

Mmmmhmmmm.

But this kindness killing was nothing new. And these days we were choosing the shabby, often neglected door marked “Time” over the hundreds of fancy French double doors marked “Money”. So it was okay.

Sort of.

The rest of the day, we were treated like a mix of celebrity, toddler and Christmas toy–never left alone. We were explained how to wash our hands, taught to dip our bread in our cheese and told that we definitely wanted another cup of tea. Hussein repeated to us in VERY minimal English, roughly every seven minutes (I say roughly because it felt like every four seconds), these three messages: 1) that we were all one–that Hussein’s father was our father, his sisters were our sisters, his brother our brother 2) that we would go tomorrow to Syria and 3) that all of us would chat via Windows Instant Messenger so we could continue these fulfilling conversations beyond today.

There was a village tour, a bread-making demonstration and a lot of Arabic music before it became apparent that I was to hang out in the girl’s bedroom with Fatmah, 25 and Selva, 19, and somehow find conversation even though neither of them spoke any English. Michael’s place was on the couch next to brother Ali, Hussein and their father or in the computer room, using the translation software to have very caveman-like conversations. That night I stayed with the girls and I’m still not sure where Michael slept. The next morning when we hugged in a relieved embrace, the show of affection was a spectacle. Luckily, they all thought it was really funny instead of really disrespecting.We finally made it across the border that day. Although the three men’s presence (there was no bus, we were forced to hire a taxi) helped hurry the border patrol along with their tapping fingers and Arabic jabber, we had no idea what they were explaining about our visit, our visa, anything–and we didn’t like that one bit. How, we thought, could it be possible that getting by in a foreign country could be so much more stressful WITH help than WITHOUT?But mostly, we are puzzled by what seemed, regardless of culture, a complete lack of respect for our own schedule or preferences. We were never asked if we wanted to stay over. We were told. And a few days ago, the hotel clerk, Ahmed, a nice guy who we’d become friends with over the past few nights of wine and conversation, did not invite us to his home to meet his family for dinner, he told us we would be going.Let’s be clear. I am very appreciative of this hospitality. But I’m still curious about its roots.In both Turkey and Syria, the dinner table is one big appetizer platter. Almost all food is communal. One or two water glasses serve a group of seven. Bedrooms, due to energy costs and space, are divided only between sexes. The idea of privacy. . .of the individual. . .is missing. These people assume that because we have no friends or family, we will be grateful for the “comfort” of a group. No matter what.

It is simply the Will of the Collective.

I think I just figured it out. How to reconcile the conflict between ambition and Buddhism. For a long time, I’ve read about this spirituality. There is a sense that one should allow “flow” to happen. To give and receive. To be a vessel. To end the struggle. Not engage in duality, by fighting the universe, fighting the circumstance, but to follow and embrace it.

And I see the value in this. I do.

But I’m a go-getter. A goal-setter. And I believe this is what makes me successful, passionate and interesting. Purpose. Definition. Decision. I decided to start a business and so I did. I decided to run a marathon and so I did. Those goals and results are primary points of my happiness and fulfillment.

And so, because I am always confused about this, I asked Sinan, the owner of the olive farm, a Buddhist-ish and generally spiritual fellow.

To allow my ambition, desire and decision-making to live harmoniously with my flow, I needn’t diminish either. I simply plant the seed of what I want with intention and specificity. But then allow the path toward my grand vision remain flexible.

I see.

************************************************************************

Here at the olive farm/hippie commune/bed&breakfast where we are volunteering, there is the occassional conversation-killer guest. Someone who likes to rant in the opposite direction of the current. These people often keeps our food circle conversations from being pleasant cultural exchanges.

But last night, Sinan told us when talking about the Yakabag Farm (the G is silent), without reference to anyone in particular, that he has never asked anyone to leave. He knows that not everyone contributes in a positive way and that some people abuse the system. But he accepts each guest as part of the path.

Yes, still, I thought, if it was my house, why would I put up with someone I truly didn’t like—someone who clearly exuded a negative energy? Wouldn’t I let reality take over? But here we go headlong into the practice I just learned. Part of my specific goal in coming here was to engage in cultural exchange at this farm–and meals would be a great time for this. But this challenge is part of my path toward that goal. I must accept that breakfast, lunch and dinner will not be what I expected. And that if social enlightening between two people or a group are meant to be, another, more suitable scenario will surface.Am I trying to make lemonade out of lemons? Yes, desperately. And we’re all out of sugar. Again.

But I’m receiving, I’m receiving. . .I am flexible on the path.

I look thrilled don’t I?Maybe I’m not into rocks. Maybe my history-obsessed friend Nicole drug me toward too many ruins when we backpacked in Greece. Maybe I’m just ignorant. But once you’ve seen a bunch of columns, you’ve already seen a few too many.This was a latrine. That was a slave quarters. Over here was where the Romans had sex.I actually DO like history. I adore antiques. I hear there are seven wonders worth seeing. The Acropolis was cool. So was St. Peters. I have romped through many a castle and monument with fascination. And I can honestly tell you that if I found a genie in a bottle I would go back in time.But a field of rubble and ruins, with sometimes English-translated facts that I will soon forget just doesn’t do it for me.When they unearth new treasures, new tombs, new teeth, I always think about what my husband once said after reading an article about recently discovered dinosaur bones:Put them with the rest.

According to Bill Bryson, whose book, A Short History Of Nearly Everything, I totally recommend, the English word “uncertainty” doesn’t translate perfectly into German. Did you know that? It’s just too vague for them. You could say weltschmerz, but this translates as uncertainty about the world. Or maybe, zukunftsangst, but this means uncertainty about the future.Languages are often a reflection of the culture where they reside and are said to evolve to fit the needs of those using it. Germany is often fairly assessed as a land full of detail-oriented and organized folk, not big on religion, for example, or. . . .gambling. They’re not big on trusting in the universe and prefer a concise means of self-expression. Therefore, in German culture, it’s easy to see why a vague term such as “uncertainty” just might ilicit the response: Uncertainty of what? Be more specific!So even amidst uncertainty, they want to be certain.Sounds a little like me. I don’t have any German roots I know about, but I found this especially poignant. You see, I’ve realized that my worrying, my craving for certainty, my neurotic level of planning, is actually an addiction. And I don’t like it at all. You might call me hardwired this way. But I’ll go one step further by saying that my insatiable need to know things will “turn out” (a more and more dubious phrase) actually represents a staggering lack of faith in the universe.And, I can’t explain it right now, but this is not who I want to be.So, I have taken action. Or rather, I have chosen not to. And the universe has rewarded me. I had read, for example, a few days ago, that Bursa, Turkey, was famous for its shadow puppet theater—oil-soaked, camel-hide figurines which are painted, then lightcast against a white cloth. Apparently, a hunchback called Karagoz amused himself with such crafts while working on Bursa’s famed Ulu Cami, a twenty-domed, calligraphy-walled mosque from the 12th century. The Sultan, infuriated by the goofing off, had his shadow-puppeteering friends put to death. Perhaps not an uplifting story, but this revived art form seemed like a quirky and innovative look into a legendary Turkish subculture.In the past, I would have copied down the address and mapped a route, holding tight to expectations and remaining determined to accomplish my goal, missing the forest of mosque minarets and Turkish barber shops for the shadow puppet trees. But I chilled. Our first day we took a wander round the city in no particular direction. Eventually stopping to rest for a street-side glass of tea, I was taking in the terrace when I saw a banner. About the shadow puppet theater. Right there, that night, in the very café where we sat.But wait, then it happened again. We were In search of a ferry from Istanbul to Muldanya. After chasing our plans down a maze of rickety lanes, onto a tram, across the Galata Bridge, and past three ticket counters (all the wrong TYPE of ticket counter), up the hill, into the train station, down the hill, and back up the hill again, we finally made the ferry at Yenikapi Port, JUST in time. Yesterday, via email, our first Turkish couchsurfing host, Meric, said to call him when we arrived.But the phone didn’t work. Or maybe it was the number. Or the confusing rules about area codes and zeros and mobile phones using longer numbers. Or just that whole “we’re in a different country” thing. Sometimes I hate it when real life appears.I did not panic, which is really so huge for me and so pleasant for Michael. We knew that we needed to somehow check the validity of our phone SIM card or login to the website and double check our host’s number. So we lugged on our packs and began walking into this coastal town on the MarMara sea. A mere half a block later, plastered with glowing lights and several harmless loiterers, was a Turkcell store and an Internet café. Side by side. Nothing but kebab shops and convenient stores squished along the rest of the lane. Exactly what we needed.And I thought: OMG. This really works.

We hitchhiked today. It was the first time for both of us. Never took more than six minutes to get a ride and four friendly people carried us across the southwestern half of the country. A Turkish bus (complete with wet wipes, tea, juice, cookies and water) is not bad, but hitchhiking is better. It’s cheap, a challenge, and just so much more interesting. Most of all, it’s a move that expresses our comfort in the seat we call the universe. Not every situation, time of day, country and road are right for it, but today was. It’s how we found ourselves learning Turkish numbers while drinking tea in a hospital, a pit stop for two young well-dressed medical workers who picked us up, because you know, in Turkey, a hitchhiker-host just doesn’t think twice about running an errand and figuring you’d like to come too. How the first guy with his shiny SUV and three-year old begged us to come back to his house for breakfast and meet his wife. How we were eventually between the leather of a mafioso’s BMW, smoke seeming to come from his ears as much as his mouth, racing along the mountains to a Michael Bolton meets Oriental kind of tune. But he bought lamb-roasted lunch from his wad of 50s. Delivered us well. Made sure we were comfortable. Like Tony Soprano, he was mad at his boss and his cell phone and his past and his money—not us.Besides, he was so obviously a blinking neon light: Michael. Andrea. You’re on the right track. Money isn’t exactly the key.Indeed, hitchhiking is liberating.But this was only the first half of the day. Then we arrived at Yakabag Farm. Which is basically a commune. For those who like to think of your life as a movie, please picture mine a cabernet-merlot blend of The Tuscan Sun, Stealing Beauty and the Beach, but with more hippies. No, really. I think I saw Ken Kesey in the hall yesterday.People come and go. You can stay as long as you want. There are few introductions and less instructions. You learn as you go. If you have a question, just ask. The atmosphere, along with whatever tribal rhythms happen to be on, seem to say cheerfully: There’s so much to do but all of eternity to do it in.You can clean the kitchen. Or not clean the kitchen.The grape vines which do a shadow dance on my wall will keep growing either way. The pomegranates with their nest of sweet, fossilized rubies stacked inside, (the fruit which flavored my grenadine’d girlie drinks through college,) will keep falling to the ground, ripe and real. This morning I practiced yoga on the roof. I learned to make bread. I met the horse I am encouraged to ride. I saw the complex, olive-smashing machine, which has just now begun working—the one Sinan hired an Italian to make seven years ago. I signed up to make breakfast on Saturday. I was assigned to weed the orchard. I sat on a wooden blue chair and ate olives and tea and oranges for breakfast with nine housemates.Oranges I had picked that morning I helped Michael make lunch, chopping tomatoes upon a cutting board made from a two-inch thick tree slice. I learned what goes in the garbage, the chicken feed bucket and the compost bucket. This is not a work camp. It’s not a provincial farm with some Turkish mother. It’s just. . .different. Tomorrow we might pick olives. But then again we might not.And the scenery. We are in a fabulous fairytale valley of villages, orchards, headscarf-wrapped tractor drivers, stone farmhouses and a lot of chickens and sheep. A mosque’s wandering minaret with its tiny megaphones whose prayers awake us at 6:30 each AM, pricks the sunset. Mountains are every which way but up.While the attic of this 19^th century farm house is a shadowy, bamboo-sheet divided barn of sleeping bags, blankets and candles, much like the hut where we stayed in Thailand, the only appropriate word for our room is spooky. A fireplace painted with ocean swirls and Hindu temples was painted by someone who, I can tell, might have been, say, a teacher, but just got up one day and decided to paint the fireplace. Two window seats, shielded by satin curtains on one side and Ottoman timber shutters on the other, are a perfect hiding place between worlds. The shelf above the naked black seamstress’s mannequin bust is lined with handwritten-labeled potions and oils. A light bulb cradled by a wide-brimmed hat, sliced to let in the light, creates what can only be described as an extremely eerie glow. A crinoline mosquito petticoat bustle hangs above our heads. No less than seven swaying dream-catchers are not letting anything, good or bad, out of that room. A red and decadent elephant tapestry, which I just realized I find happiness and safety in, lifts its trunk from one wall. No wonder. Because a Ouija board, patient and perfectly crafted by good ‘ol Parker Brothers, is propped within the fireplace’s forgotten ashes.And now, we lounge, a shelf of luscious unread books at my side. I just changed the CD —someWoodstock sounds—and to my surprise, just as we end our umpteenth conversation about our hitchhiking experience, Hitchin’ A Ride comes on. What’s stranger is that my Mom had this 45 when I was little. I can picture the label. It was red. Yet I had always passed it up for Crocodile Rock. I’ve never once heard it before right now. Even on those late night commercials.I guess it’s been waiting for me to understand.That 70’s DayWe hitchhiked today.It was the first time for both of us. Never took more than six minutes to get a ride and four friendly people carried us across the southwestern half of the country. A Turkish bus (complete with wet wipes, tea, juice, cookies and water) is not bad, but hitchhiking is better. It’s cheap, a challenge, and just so much more interesting. Most of all, it’s a move that expresses our comfort in the seat we call the universe. Not every situation, time of day, country and road are right for it, but today was. It’s how we found ourselves learning Turkish numbers while drinking tea in a hospital, a pit stop for two young well-dressed medical workers who picked us up, because you know, in Turkey, a hitchhiker-host just doesn’t think twice about running an errand and figuring you’d like to come too. How the first guy with his shiny SUV and three-year old begged us to come back to his house for breakfast and meet his wife. How we were eventually between the leather of a mafioso’s BMW, smoke seeming to come from his ears as much as his mouth, racing along the mountains to a Michael Bolton meets Oriental kind of tune. But he bought lamb-roasted lunch from his wad of 50s. Delivered us well. Made sure we were comfortable. Like Tony Soprano, he was mad at his boss and his cell phone and his past and his money—not us.Besides, he was so obviously a blinking neon light: Michael. Andrea. You’re on the right track. Money isn’t exactly the key.Indeed, hitchhiking is liberating.But this was only the first half of the day. Then we arrived at Yakabag Farm. Which is basically a commune. For those who like to think of your life as a movie, please picture mine a cabernet-merlot blend of The Tuscan Sun, Stealing Beauty and the Beach, but with more hippies. No, really. I think I saw Ken Kesey in the hall yesterday.People come and go. You can stay as long as you want. There are few introductions and less instructions. You learn as you go. If you have a question, just ask. The atmosphere, along with whatever tribal rhythms happen to be on, seem to say cheerfully: There’s so much to do but all of eternity to do it in.You can clean the kitchen. Or not clean the kitchen.The grape vines which do a shadow dance on my wall will keep growing either way. The pomegranates with their nest of sweet, fossilized rubies stacked inside, (the fruit which flavored my grenadine’d girlie drinks through college,) will keep falling to the ground, ripe and real. This morning I practiced yoga on the roof. I learned to make bread. I met the horse I am encouraged to ride. I saw the complex, olive-smashing machine, which has just now begun working—the one Sinan hired an Italian to make seven years ago. I signed up to make breakfast on Saturday. I was assigned to weed the orchard. I sat on a wooden blue chair and ate olives and tea and oranges for breakfast with nine housemates.Oranges I had picked that morning I helped Michael make lunch, chopping tomatoes upon a cutting board made from a two-inch thick tree slice. I learned what goes in the garbage, the chicken feed bucket and the compost bucket. This is not a work camp. It’s not a provincial farm with some Turkish mother. It’s just. . .different. Tomorrow we might pick olives. But then again we might not.And the scenery. We are in a fabulous fairytale valley of villages, orchards, headscarf-wrapped tractor drivers, stone farmhouses and a lot of chickens and sheep. A mosque’s wandering minaret with its tiny megaphones whose prayers awake us at 6:30 each AM, pricks the sunset. Mountains are every which way but up.While the attic of this 19^th century farm house is a shadowy, bamboo-sheet divided barn of sleeping bags, blankets and candles, much like the hut where we stayed in Thailand, the only appropriate word for our room is spooky. A fireplace painted with ocean swirls and Hindu temples was painted by someone who, I can tell, might have been, say, a teacher, but just got up one day and decided to paint the fireplace. Two window seats, shielded by satin curtains on one side and Ottoman timber shutters on the other, are a perfect hiding place between worlds. The shelf above the naked black seamstress’s mannequin bust is lined with handwritten-labeled potions and oils. A light bulb cradled by a wide-brimmed hat, sliced to let in the light, creates what can only be described as an extremely eerie glow. A crinoline mosquito petticoat bustle hangs above our heads. No less than seven swaying dream-catchers are not letting anything, good or bad, out of that room. A red and decadent elephant tapestry, which I just realized I find happiness and safety in, lifts its trunk from one wall. No wonder. Because a Ouija board, patient and perfectly crafted by good ‘ol Parker Brothers, is propped within the fireplace’s forgotten ashes.And now, we lounge, a shelf of luscious unread books at my side. I just changed the CD —someWoodstock sounds—and to my surprise, just as we end our umpteenth conversation about our hitchhiking experience, Hitchin’ A Ride comes on. What’s stranger is that my Mom had this 45 when I was little. I can picture the label. It was red. Yet I had always passed it up for Crocodile Rock. I’ve never once heard it before right now. Even on those late night commercials.I guess it’s been waiting for me to understand.