The Lupita Journals: 🔥 A Good Friday Reflection

A retelling of my lost travel journals woven in with my current daily life in Türkiye

Welcome

Hello! I’m Emily Lupita. I’m a Latina travel writer & artist from rural Iowa living in Ankara, the capital of Türkiye.

The Lupita Journals project is a retelling of my lost travel journals (20+ years worth) woven in with my current daily life in Türkiye. 🔥 Podcast coming soon.

This is a feature on - Emily Lupita Explores - a creativity journal where I share ​explorations from my writing desk & art projects, plus illustrated stories of travel adventures with my two Autistic sons.

Instagram: @EmilyLupitaExplores

---

---

A Good Friday Reflection

This year on Good Friday, I'm sitting on the balcony of my small art studio in Ankara, the capital of Türkiye. As I look out toward the mountains surrounding me, the rough land heading up to Karabük, slowly making its way north to the Black Sea, I spot a mother and her son in the playground of my local park below. She is dressed head to toe in a long black robe with a gorgeous blue and pink shawl covering her hair. Maybe she is the little boy’s grandmother. It’s hard to tell her age as she stands with her hands on her hips, facing away from me.

If I told you the story of my journey so far - of how I started out as a child myself playing in the fields of rural Iowa, to now sit here on this balcony with this view - I don’t know if you would believe me. I kept detailed journals all of my adult life, of every city I visited and every country I called home, even for the slightest bit of time. The shortest time was in Guatemala, for about 30 minutes after the small boat I was on went slightly astray down a river tributary, and my cell phone dinged a text message that read, “Bienvenidos a Guatemala” to the particular disdain of the security guard holding an AK-47 sitting next to me. The longest so far has been Türkiye - going on 4 years now - where I arrived with my Turkish (now ex-) husband and our two Autistic little boys in the middle of the global pandemic. Between them, there are about fifteen countries and more than twenty-five years. It’s been quite the ride so far.

I wrote diligently on all those pages all those years, hoping that one day I would sit down and share my life journey. I had detailed notes. Colors, textures, quotes from road signs, names, dates. But a couple of years ago, my handwritten journals were destroyed (along with the scanned online backups) in a rather heartbreaking set of circumstances.

A close friend has convinced me to consider the possibility that it might have been a necessary thing to have happened to me. That one never truly knows the larger plan - and she has encouraged me to try to focus on gratitude for my continuing journey, instead of on that deep feeling of sorrow in my chest for all the lost words. The lost stories I had wanted to tell.

I don’t know.

I know that it knocked the wind out of me. I stopped journaling completely - for the first time since middle school. Full stop. Then I tried painting memories - still no words. Then I tried writing brief memories, each one or two paragraphs long. I feel like I’ve floundered with my writing since my journals were destroyed, not knowing where to turn. After faithfully recording my life for so many years, only to have it all suddenly taken away, I considered that it might not be my path to share my story, and the best thing to do was to let go of this idea altogether. I lived it and that’s enough.

Another dear friend reminded me that as long as I’m alive, there will be more stories to tell, and her words are a place of solace.

Perhaps my friends, wise women all, are right.

The call to prayer bursts out of the minaret of the local mosque, just across the street and eye level with my balcony. In Türkiye, the ezan calls the faithful to the mosque for prayer six times every day. I take off my headphones and pause the Buena Vista Social Club playing on my phone. I usually try to pause during the ezan and take a moment to reflect on what I’ve learned since arriving in the Yenimahalle neighborhood on the outer circle of Ankara. It's a place filled with splashes of pastels, beautiful green parks, and fresh fruit markets dotted with pinks and yellows. I think of my connection to Türkiye via my heart and my sons for more than twenty years now, how there’s still so much I’m trying to learn and understand.

Today, during the ezan, I’m thinking of all I’ve learned on my journey since leaving my childhood home in rural Monroe County, Iowa. All the lessons from the countries in between this moment - now leaning on the side of my balcony looking out at the playground, listening to the call to prayer - and the time I ran through my elementary school playground in Lovilia, Iowa, to my Grandma Rosella’s house a few blocks away, her front walkway lined with pink peonies.

As they say here in Türkiye, “Kuşlar uçuyor.” The birds are flying. Time is flying. Today, it's Good Friday in Ankara, and as I stand and listen to the echo of the call, I know in my heart that the stories are still within me. And I want to share them with you - whatever is left. I’m trying to think back and tell you without my treasured notes.

How can I know I’ve got it all right?

I suppose I'll be wrestling with my memory, tugging and pulling at the truth as I type. It’s not what I intended. It’s not what I planned for - I planned to have my mountain of notes beside me as I sat down to write.

Where to start?

One of the stories that has stayed with me - really continues to live inside me - happened on Good Friday about twenty years ago. I’ll start there.

I was studying abroad in Mexico with Central College during my undergraduate years. One of my classmates, my friend Olivia, was interning with a theatre group. That theatre group was in charge of the passion play in a small village outside of Merida, where we were living in the Yucatan. Olivia invited me and others to attend.