5 weeks, one beach part 2/4: Goodbye drone, goodbye deluge, and will I ever see Artha again? (December 2022)

When I first arrived at the magnificent beach on the Marmaris peninsula, surrounded by nature, I immediately knew it would be my home for a long time. Usually, when I fall in love with a place like this, I stay for one or two weeks, but at this beach, I ended up staying for five weeks. And during the last two weeks, as sometimes happens in life, everything came together and I had a lot to let go of.

After I left Bulgaria, Artha and I remained in close contact. This was different from being together in the same place, but I was fine with it. Even though our connection had changed, I still loved her in many profound ways. I thought about her, us, the time we had spent together, and how we had been together. Part of me craved the continuation of our romantic love, the feeling of being whole again, the deep love, warmth, and connection in all its glory. Another part of me tried to downplay the importance of this “glory of romantic love”. Over the weeks after I had left Bulgaria, I realized how much my romantic ego had influenced me when Artha and I were together in the same place. It felt like I had used her for my own happiness. I didn’t feel regret or guilt, but from a distance, I could see it clearly. And I felt that I wanted to maintain this level of awareness about that.

When Artha and I had seen each other for the last time in Bulgaria, we both had felt and said that we would love to see each other again after her training. But even though I still believe we had meant it at that time, I had the feeling that although we loved each other, we might not meet after her training. Shortly after I arrived at the nice beach in Turkey, Artha finished her yoga teacher training. She told me that she would be going to an ashram in Germany for an undefined period of time as soon as possible. She would stay for a month, or maybe longer than three months. Part of me felt like it had always known that we wouldn’t see each other after her training. I guessed this was a self-protection mechanism, something like keeping expectations low to avoid disappointment if they weren’t met. I would have loved to see and feel her again, but I didn’t feel angry, mad, or sad. I felt okay with how it was. Like back in Varna, I deeply felt what motivated her to go to the ashram, with all my heart and love. I felt reminded of myself when I had left Germany despite the deep love and connection to Cori. And I felt like something was pulling me to stay on the journey I was on and the life I was living. I did not know if I would have returned to Bulgaria if Artha had said she wanted to stay there. A part of me thought about what the next change in the romantic relationship between Artha and I would be, but for the moment, I managed to let go of meeting Artha soon.

Shortly after I arrived at that beautiful beach, my perspective on making music changed. Until a few months ago, I only sporadically produced songs that I would enjoy listening to after some time had passed since their creation. But that changed, and I increasingly loved a lot of the music I made, regardless of how much time had passed since I created it. It felt like I had found the kind of music I wanted to make. And making that music felt mostly easy and smooth. A couple of weeks ago, I had started delving deep into music production courses. I had learned a lot from free YouTube videos and articles before, but now I was working through long courses for hours a day. Furthermore, I thought it would be helpful to become clear about what my music was. I defined my main genre, style and characteristics. In short, the feeling that I had found the type of music I wanted to make, let me feel confident and good about having a structured approach to my music making. I wanted to try making it competitive and thought that this would maybe allow me to earn money from it at some point. But one day right after I finished a song that I felt was my favorite of all time, my whole perspective on making music switched. I felt like now that I had done this song, that I loved so much, I would not be able to make another song that I would love as much as this song. And at the same time, I felt like my creative freedom was gone. Like I was trapped in a cage. I no longer enjoyed making music, and when I tried, I felt that there was nothing inside me that could possibly become music, and it felt impossible to get really into it. It was no longer fun for me. I felt like I couldn’t let go of my anxiety about failing and not living up to my own expectations for my next song. This realization led me to quickly decide to take a break from making music until I could regain a positive and enjoyable feeling about it.

When I had been in Istanbul I had decided to sell my FPV drone. I had stopped using it for months and no longer felt connected to it. Neither the flying, capturing, nor the editing appealed to me anymore. I knew I wouldn’t get a good deal for it, but I didn’t want to carry around something I wasn’t using. All the stuff that I was not using added up to something that felt heavy. While I was at the beach, a nice guy contacted me about buying my drone. We had a nice conversation via text messages and I had a good feeling about the deal. Since he lived far away from my home beach, I proposed that he would pay half the money in advance and the other half after the drone would have arrived. Two Turkish guys I talked to about the deal thought I couldn’t do it that way and said I shouldn’t trust Turkish guys when it comes to money because they would always take advantage if they could. I understood what they were saying but it still felt unfair to me. They didn’t even have a single contact with the buyer. I still had a good feeling about him and even though we had difficulties with transferring the money, he paid everything as we had agreed. So, I let go of my drone.

At the same time, I was also selling my Deluge (a hardware groovebox, sequencer, and synthesizer) that I had once loved to use. However, at some point back in Bulgaria, I had noticed that I had stopped using it. Like with the drone, it didn’t feel good to keep the Deluge when I wasn’t using it anymore. Back in Bulgaria, I had given it to my friend Michele who took it with him to Germany. A nice guy bought it online and picked it up from Michele’s place. And with that, I let go of my Deluge.

To be continued…