Zahir

I’m reading ‘the Zahir’ of Paulo Coelho. It’s touching me deeply in my soul…I dream of a life of the main character as described in the book. The passion, the feelings he has to go through. ‘Zahir’ is Arabic, from the 18th century, meaning visible, present, when in contact-slowly it will be impossible to get it out of one’s head, so it will be hard to concentrate on other things, almost an obsession …

Suddenly, while I was reading the book, I realised what my Zahir once was. It was my past, my first love, when I was too young to know what love was. Yasin. He was my drive towards my choices for along time, unconsciously. I studied Turkish and Islamic architecture and history. I loved it but when the years went on and my studies were ending, I didn’t know what to do with it. Yasin was gone for a long time, had build up a life in England, I found out later. I did my thing, had boyfriends, had fun. I also had my bad experiences with Turkey, his friend was a mirror to my self hate. But all that time he was the Zahir, my unconscious obsession, something I still don’t understand, because I was the one who turned down invitations since I was 16.

Later on, in my late twenties, I found him through google and we e-mailed some time, he was telling me he was happy and his wife was expecting a child- a daughter called Isabel. He turned out to be totally British, and didn’t know much of Turkey, hadn’t been there for years. And while I knew all the time he was not the one for me somehow, something drew me to do all this. Incredible. I let go a couple years ago, since our last e-mail contact, he now lives in Cyprus. I will not try to contact him, I wish him more than all the best. And I know he will do his best to be a wonderful father; he’s such a good-hearted person. And maybe I knew all the time that I didn’t deserved him, or somehow could never make him happy, because he just wanted to be happy and loving. For me it’s a lesson in being myself and doing what really is belonging to me. Because now, after all this studies, I still don’t know what to do with my life. Realising that a lot of time and energy is wasted and also I learned and met good friends through all this, it’s still something strange to me. The pieces of the puzzle have to fall together one day I hope.

I deeply hate myself for the Zahir, on the other hand it gave me the courage once to do what I wanted (or thought I wanted) and to be pure, without judgement. In secret I hope that there will be some Zahir- in any form- in my life again…..