Travelogue Türkiye

"How was your holiday in May?" I hear you ask. "You never wrote us a holiday blog, like you did last year." Well, reader, I had fun, but it was the same as any holiday taken in one's own company, which is the same as any time spent alone; you create demons to converse with and, ultimately, lose arguments to. I found a McDonald's, a Burger King, and several Starbucks [sic?], as I have done on every holiday I've ever been on. Perhaps I bear pessimism on my shoulders because of the infuriatingly long time I spent in Turkish customs and the dire consequences of my careless actions. Exiting the country takes about forty-five minutes, but I was held up for nearly two hours, explaining to the customs officers what the jar of slimy, green goop was in my luggage. I had made my own natural, anti-cancer, sun-protection cream, finding several recipes on the internet. Naturalcuresnotmedicine (a webpage that needs help with its nomenclature) recommended a concoction made with elderflower, organic kale, aloe vera, mānuka honey, nettles picked at the summer solstice, chia seeds, wheat germ, guyabano fruit, garlic, and spelt (which is spelt the same way 'spelt' is spelt). "If it isn't good enough to put in your body," I explained to the customs officers, when questioned why I didn't just buy some sunblock, "then it certainly isn't good enough to put on your body." I then spent ten sweaty minutes explaining the zero conditional, so they could understand what I had just said. One of the officers, who had studied English, said he had only heard of the first, second, and third conditional, prompting me to attest my TEFL credentials and (foolishly) elucidate how he had conflated there being no evidence that something exists and there being evidence that something doesn't exist.

Anyway, I now have several melanomas. It occurred to me on the flight back home that, despite my alternative suncream and my sunburn coming from natural sunlight, I used aloe vera that wasn't organic (inorganic aloe vera?) in my recipe and may have put myself at risk. I visited the doctor when I returned home, and then visited a dermatologist, and a melanoma specialist. None of them could diagnose me with cancer, despite my repeated insistence that I had it. These quacks are trapped in the western medical mindset that rejects the holistic view of human life. I know my body better than anyone else, as I am the one who lives here. To tell me that I don't know when I'm ill is to reject my corporeal autonomy and my dignity, and it casts me as little more than a vessel for disease. They ignore my spirit, the integrity of my heart, and the human need for inspiration. They only see the necessity of salvation from the diagnosed illness, not from the plagued life. The western medical gaze treats the body as a theatre of illness — something to be fixed — rather than a living, breathing entity. It ignores the illness as experienced, failing to comprehend the phenomenological nature of our reality. I knew I was sick; if I didn't I wouldn't have felt it.

Fortunately, I found a natural remedy on the internet, made of cloves, chia seeds, seaweed, organic omega 3 oil, tea tree oil, coconut milk, Rooibus tea leaves, fresh water cress, spring water, lentils, platonia, and rambutan. My melanomas are now retreating and I am in remission. There are variations of this recipe; if you ever wish to try your own homemade cures, remember expensive, difficult to obtain foods are best. Spare no expense on ingredients, and spare no breath on telling people about them. The body is little more than a bag of water that has taken the form of your soul, and that soul needs nourishment. People need to know that you are an interesting person, and few things feed this need better that becoming familiar with obscure foodstuffs. Feeling special is the summum bonum and the greatest realisation of what it is to be human. Self-promotion, regardless of the accuracy of the depiction, is therefore the greatest of human activities. I have felt ill this weekend, but I know that when I finally post my Turkey holiday pictures online, my health and strength will return fully. I'll glow inside, thinking about how impressed you must be with my wondrous life, where I visit the place where East meets West (not unlike my medical acumen), ate unfamiliar foods, and immersed myself in extraordinary architecture and history. Oh, God, yes. I can feel them now. All those 'likes'… They tingle all over my body like little kisses and caresses, allowing me to fantasise how impressive and marvellous I must seem. God, I can't wait. Touch me, kiss me! My soul, she needs to be fed. "Feed her! Feeeed her!"

A portrait of how profound and pensive I am. It was a selfie, incidentally.