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We are in Turkey this week.  A winter break to somewhere warmer.  So we thought.  We arrived to cool cloudy days and left behind record-breaking February sun.  The weather here is not to our liking.  Nor is it to those who call this their home.

When you live in the sun, you adapt to the sun.  Food prices always low.  Energy bills always low.  Homes built to free the heat not so good in keeping what little heat there is right now.  Energy bills not budgeted for keeping electric heaters unplugged.  Food prices not budgeted for as bad weather decimates the usual bounty taken for granted.  Low level seepage of discontent at a time when purses are emptying before the tourist season  begins again 45 days from now.

We might rule the earth and all therein.  But we get used to the teensy-weensy bit we inhabit very quickly.

Like where and what we regard as “home”.

Here we are not home, but we travelled out with those who are.  Those who left “home” behind a decade or so ago to now call here their home.  Who have two families now.  One of community here, and one of birth there.  Who visit there but return here.  Who have no wish to call “there” home any longer.  How different that than this young girl now an IS bride?  Who left her birth home and family for another family of community and ideology.  Who wishes to return to her birth home to raise a child.  Away from the life not budgeted for.   A life with little community as we bomb there to oblivion to keep here safe.

The older I grow the less sure I am of the answers.

I know creating a culture of fear is wrong.  Yet I see that same culture if fear used right now for political Brexit purposes.  I see that climate of fear used here in the abject acceptance of a routine (necessary) car search when parking in a shopping centre.  Fear has always been a tool used by those who reap its reward.

Maybe that is why the older I become the less answers I crave.

Love is enough.  Love enough that your lifestyle choices need not be mine.  Love enough that fear is less and less relevant.  Love enough that allowing you the teensy-weensy bit you inhabit is no hardship at all.

We travelled this week with a suitcase for all weather.  Jumpers and coats, jeans and sturdy shoes, shorts and t-shirts, flip-flops and beachwear.  The flip-flops remain unpacked so far but we have high hopes of at least one day this week.  As for your fear?  We have no need to pack that.  No need to travel with fear.  No need to accept your fear here or there.

We all live in community of choice and/or family.  We all live in communities separated by fear.  It is my choice – not yours – whether I choose fear.  My choice – not yours – which fear I choose to wear or not.

I am done with fear.

I choose love.

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