Nobody can tear me from this country

Nowadays, everybody is talking about ?leaving.?

The first plan I made for myself in life was leaving. Since my childhood, I always wanted to leave places; to live like I had no roots and never to form any roots. 

I did go away. I went to every place I could go; sometimes for six months, sometimes for a couple of years. For many years, I regarded every place as a stopover. If anybody had told me at those times that I would finally be stuck in Turkey, I would have committed suicide! 

Well, life is not to be learned from books. All those routes I drew for myself from novels with plane tickets and railroads brought me to Istanbul. Again, I never thought of settling. I didn?t know then that people do not take root in places but rather in people. Well, I took root in people here. 

Those roots now are joined to each other, in such a way that I cannot pull out and separate the ones that belong to be. Now, I am like those trees in tropical islands that have eight trunks. 

I learned here to leave life to its flow. This place has taught me that I cannot control everything. I did not make plans; I took roads randomly. I was not judgmental toward myself, and this has taught me to not be judgmental toward others. 

In this country, I learned to believe in people. All people who have a brain in their head are capable of learning more than they know and all who have a heart in their chest are capable of feeling much more than they assume. I learned this from people I met here ? mostly from volunteers who moved heaven and earth to defend the rights of others. 

If I had continued to live without interpenetrating anywhere and anyone, if I had not taken root in this place so full of pain, I would not have learned any of this....