Akko.

My back is still fucked up, so I'm getting a slow start today. I've begun sleeping on the firmer living room couch and napping on the living room floor. Let's hope for progress before I have to haul my bags and sit on a plane for a million hours, then carry two months of shit and 7892 books up three flights of stairs.


Monday was a long day. Tant Diamante, Tant Röne and I had made plans to meet at 7 am (yes, I know) to take the train to Akko and see the Bahai gardens, which are only open until 1 pm. At 7 am, we found out that the railway was under construction this whole week. Shit.

We had a choice: take the bus and lengthen the trip, or wait until next Monday to take the train. It was a real dilemma. Tant Röne and I especially were all excited to take the train. Tant R. had prepared us a delicious breakfast to eat on the train. She had this whole picture in mind of us huddled around the little foldout tray table on the train, eating in choo choo bliss. I had pretty much the same vision. But Tant Diamante was adamant; she said when she leaves to go somewhere, she just likes to go there, no matter what. She wasn't going to go home and call it a day. I agreed, so I said that maybe we could take the bus somewhere closer, like Jerusalem (you gotta feel privileged when trip to Jerusalem sounds like the less desirable option because you've already been there and done that several times), and live our train ride dreams the following Monday. I think Tant Röne was with me, but Tant Diamante seemed to want to keep going with the plan. She had been really excited to see the Bahai Gardens. "Desire is best served hot," she pointed out. Nuff said. We headed towards the bus station.

Turns out there are no direct buses from Tel-Aviv to Akko. We took 4 buses and a public transportation van (Çesme's dolmus style) each way, which took us about 3 hours.

Oof.



It was worth it. The gardens and the temple were beautiful. What was even more beautiful was watching Tant Diamante, who was so visibly moved by everything she saw. I think she needed this beauty and the calmness surrounding the entire site, the garden & the founder's place of rest alike, to envelop her as they did.















In Akko, we went into the old market and found the famous "Hummus Said," where we had lunch after standing in a line (grumpy sardines style, sweating in the heat, packed into a doorway) for about 10 minutes.

Dear. God.

There is no way to describe the gustatory experience. Just plain tongueasmic. I feel sad that the US doesn't have real hummus.º Even the best hummus I have found in the US (hummus with za'atar by Sabra, an Israeli brand I found in a little international market in the Sunset) pales in comparison to Said's. I wanted to pack up the whole place and bring it with me back to the US.










The plate next to the pickles is hummus, creamy goodness; the other one is Mussabaha…um, chunky hummus.



The line out the door. Now we know why.


A bit of wandering about by the old walls of Akko, then, tired from the heat, my aunts decided to head home. Kind of a bummer since I was ready to go explore, photograph, touch, taste, and even read up on the history. Fuck, I was even ready to go to into the old citadel and check out Napoleon's cannon.


I don't mind. We have a story to tell, I got some good shots (see new album), and I had a wonderful time despite the long bus ride, the heat and the fucked up back. Tant Diamante's pearl of wisdom alone is worth it all.

Desire is best served hot.












º …which is why I rarely ever eat hummus (pronounced with a guttural "H": Hhhh-oo-m-oo-s, not Hum-miss) in the US or go out for Middle Eastern food—those dolmas, by the way? Canned. Yes, even those ones that you loved in that one place. Yup, I'm an annoying snob when it comes to Middle Eastern food. I know what I know.

I. Can't. Wait.

Oh. Yes.

So live.

I had Tant Diamante take me to visit Moshe's grave today. She taught me which buses to take, where to get off so I can find my way to the graveyard alone before I leave Israel. I need some time alone there.

I don't need to sit by his grave to talk to Moshe. At the same time, there is something powerful about being close to where his body lies buried, and the site is so quiet and beautiful. It feels like neutral ground, free from distractions.

Tant Diamante and I watered the plants on and around Moshe's grave as well as those around the surrounding graves, put flowers into the two marble vases on each side of Moshe's grave (I got him sunflowers; it seemed appropriate to bring "Moshe" some yellow to share something of myself with him), lit candles. By the time we were done with the maintenance work, Oncle Çelebi had gotten off work and arrived, prayer books in hand.

We pulled three plastic lawn chairs into the shade under the tree in front of the grave. Oncle Çelebi began reading his prayers under his breath, Tant Diamante sat in silence for a while until she began crying, got up to throw her tissues away, and upon returning to her seat wondered aloud at how much the tree we were sitting by had grown since they planted it six years ago. I, meanwhile, sat behind my uncle listening to his mumbled prayers which seemed to get louder in cadence at the end of distinct sections. I cried behind my sunglasses and wiped my tears away before my aunt, who had said she doesn't cry much at the grave anymore, could see them and cry even more.

I thought about the man Moshe was, a cousin in that old time sense of the word, a brother. I thought about all the qualities in him that I hope to come across again in someone, about how much I miss him, how I wished he could see the woman I have become at 32, stubbornness, opinionated Kapuya thickheadedness and all. I pictured how fun it would be to take the time to discover all those quirky similarities between us that are now mostly up to Tant Diamante and Tant Röne to reveal to me. I imagined laughing with him and giving him a hug. I tried to guess what we would talk about over drinks once again, now, no longer teenagers. I imagined myself telling him about my visit to New York in June. I wondered what insight and perspective he'd give me about the people I love. I wondered if there were signs and wonders around me right then that could give me something, anything. I quieted my mind and just sat there for a while.

And suddenly, it came to me.

Live.


The word resonated in my brain: l i v e.

You're alive. So live.




In that moment, I almost got a bird's eye view of all the thoughts and worries that have been on my mind, especially since April. I thought about relationships, friendships, numerous missives that have gotten me into my head to the point of playing mind games with my own self, to the point of giving myself shit about mistakes I have made with no sense of compassion, to the point of elevating other people's needs above my own, to the point of enduring punishing silence when I obviously love words so much.

So live.º

These words were so simple I couldn't cry anymore. I sat there with a smile of understanding and clarity on my face.

And yet it's hard to know immediately what to do with what I understand. What I know is I'm a woman of words; this is my first step of covering some distance, maybe even recovering something. I can only do my part.

Live.
Love.







I love you. Thank you.



tk





















º I would love to know if any reader of this blog has ever seen or read August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean.

Spoiler:



…the play ends with these words.

The glass menagerie man.

Over the many years I've visited the Tuesday/Friday crafts market on Nahalat Binyamin, the novelty of a street filled with peddlers lined up on each side, bustling with people has worn off. Now, I get pleasure from the lack of novelty, from recognizing vendors I saw four years ago, and before that, six years ago. My taste in different things guides me—I check out some jewelry on a stand, then look up at the vendor at last to ask how much something is, and suddenly I recognize the face. I immediately smile because there is something almost magical about having a conversation with someone who doesn't recognize me. I feel this odd sense of complicity, almost, like I have secret superpowers and can infiltrate a crowd unrecognized.

There is one exception: the glass menagerie man. Even though I visit him every time I'm in Israel, I don't think I've ever spoken to him. I like watching him and what I think are two beautiful hands from a distance (this is where my super zoom lens comes in handy) as he turns flat chips that look like plastic first into colorful globs, then into shapes that resemble tiny faces or wings or flappy ears.

He doesn't look like he's aged a bit over the years. I'm convinced that if anyone has secret superpowers, it's the glass menagerie man.


The making of a swan:










…and an attentive puppy.


The menagerie.


Having fun getting lost in the streets surrounding Nahalat Binyamin.

The mighty ice-cream cone.

This is a story about ice-cream.

For people who like a story only if it has some sort of moral, I'll tell you this: the great thing about ice-cream is that it can put a smile on the face of a fiercely independent woman who has lost the ability to walk due to a freak accident. Now go read someone else's blog.


. . .


Last night, when the sky got to be a darker blue and I began feeling an occasional breeze, I decided to turn down Tant Röne's invitation to go to the beach together and take a walk to the waterfront on my own, camera in hand, to watch the sunset & the surfers, get some ice-cream. I'd hung out with my aunt and had lunch with her earlier during the day, so I felt OK with my decision.

When I told my grandmother I was thinking of going for a walk by myself, she surprised the shit out of me by telling me if I'm going solo, maybe she could join me if I took her out on her wheelchair.


Now, in case you (?) missed the previous posts, once again, I'm talking about a fiercely independent woman who has reconciled herself to being homebound. She says she's gotten used to it—having a leg that's missing enough bone structure to support the mechanics of walking, moving slowly throughout her house with a walker, being dependent on others to do her shopping for her, and not leaving the house except for doctor's visits. During her last visit, my mom moved everything my grandmother might need in the kitchen to the lower cupboards, so she spends a lot of time cooking and cleaning and not sitting still as usual. At the same time, as far as I know, since February when she returned home to Israel from the hospital in Turkey, she's only left the house once for pleasure: my mother convinced her to go out for dinner on the last night my parents were visiting her, to celebrate both father's day with my dad and my aunt's birthday.

It's a production for her to leave the house. She lives up one flight of stairs. In order to go downstairs, she has to use her walker to get to the top of the stairs at the end of the hall. Once she gets there, I bring her a tiny stool to lower herself from the walker to a sitting position on top of the stairs. Then, she descends the stairs, one by one, on her behind. When she reaches the bottom, she drags herself on the floor from the bottom of the stairs to the door of the building. She says she will never allow anyone to carry her—not me, not any burly man, not any trained EMTs. I know she won't.

Meanwhile, while she's been cleaning the floors with her behind (she puts on loose yoga pants over her dress for this step of the process, which she takes off and puts in her bag once she's in the wheelchair), I've taken her wheelchair downstairs, put the tiny stool and the walker back into the apartment. I meet her downstairs, open the wheelchair, put the breaks on, and watch her pull herself into the chair. Then, we're off—grandma with her bag in hand, me, leaning in forward a bit so I can hear her while pushing her down the street, hoping the cars see us, and grateful I'm wearing a white skirt. The sidewalks are even more uneven than the streets and much narrower, even without asshole drivers parking on sidewalks.

By the waterfront, we stop to listen to live music for a while—apparently, the city pays musicians to play by the waterfront, winter and summer alike. Pretty impressive. The band is playing Gypsy Kings covers, and anything in Spanish is attractive to a Ladino speaker. We hang out for a bit, trying to see if my grandmother can understand the words. She tells me she enjoys watching the percussionist because he's moving to the beat the whole time while the guitar player, in contrast, just plays without seeming to enjoy what he's doing, at least visibly.

As we "stroll," my grandmother points out restaurants she used to frequent, places she had resolved to go to every week with her friends. Then, she points out a good ice-cream place. It takes me a second to realize this isn't a landmark of nostalgia; it's a possibility for the present.

—Want some?
—Yes.

And in true grandmother fashion, with the pretext that she needs change, she refuses to let me pay. I put on her breaks, leave her facing the water, and run across the street to get her a mocha ice-cream cone. By the time I get back to her, our ice-creams are dripping, and I'm strangely grateful that they are. We promptly lick the sides of our cones and wipe our hands on the huge piece of paper towel the ice-cream guy gave me when I asked for a couple of napkins. She looks happy even though the mocha ice-cream is a little less flavorful than she'd like. She even lets me take her pictures licking the cone—the power of persuasion: I tell her I'll send these to mom and it'll make her happy to see my grandmother went out. Of course, there is the required gadget-arm shot, which is difficult to pull off with a bulky camera and in dim street lighting.


I don't mind.



I also don't mind that I threw out my back today or that it hurts to do pretty much anything. I only hope I don't have to sneeze for a couple of days.





We are Matilda & Tilda, blurry & blissful in this moment.

F a m i l y

º






My last night in Turkey, my parents and I went out to my favorite restaurant to get lamb shish kebabs. Once dad got some food into his system, the crankiness subsided, and he actually seemed to be in an OK mood. I, on the other hand, still had weird cramps after two days of drinking herbal tea and eating light. Finally, mom figured it out: it's the pre-travel bug I've gotten twice before. The first time I had it, we went to the hospital at night, where I eventually signed a book saying I "refused treatment"—there are some things that need to be reserved for someone I'm sleeping with. I don't even know why it happens since this time, I wasn't feeling particularly nervous about logistics or the actual journey. Or so I think. Maybe I was sad to leave the Aegean Sea and wanted more alone time with my family after all my friends left Izmir. Maybe I was worried about having a ridiculous amount of reading I need to do for work while in Israel, or about having too much time to kill in Israel with relatives, with no specific plan of getting away. I don't know.

It didn't help that dinner ended with marriage talk, the topic that's been pervading the last three days of my life.


My next door neighbor has a good friend who's married to a Turkish Jew. He is the son of a famous photographer in Turkey. The only Turkish photographer, in fact, whose name I know. When I told this to my parents earlier this year, they brought up the time they tried to set me up with a Turkish Jew living in San Francisco.

The guy was a computer programmer or some shit, right in the height of the Silicon Valley boom. I was hanging out with a Turkish (and not Jewish) friend the day I was supposed to (begrudgingly) meet him in a café, and I decided to bring her along to ease the awkwardness. What? This is not a date, and I'm bringing a Turkish friend along. Fuck the matchmaking plots. I ain't playing, brother. So we sat down together. I don't know how long this whole thing was, if my friend eventually left or not. All I remember is that I had nothing to talk about with this man. I was bored. It was obvious this was a failure from the start, maybe because I approached it as such, but probably not just because of any prejudice I had. Apparently, later, the guy complained to his mom about how I brought a friend and that I wasn't serious. I complained to my mom about how he was too serious and had nothing to talk about, and yelled at both my parents and demanded they never ever EVER try this shit again because it would be embarrassing for them too if they did. (A year later, my grandmother tried to set something up all the way from Israel. The guy she was trying to set me up with called me drunk around midnight and said some stupid shit—exactly what I needed to get those in my family with ambitions to be matchmakers off my back. No one has ever tried a set-up since then, and my parents have even refused some acquaintance's proposal to "get our kids in San Francisco together" at the cost of creating social awkwardness at a dinner table with a group of friends because according to my dad, "we're scared of you now." Excellent.)

So it was years after this non-date with the computer programmer guy that I found out the guy who is the son of the famous photographer now married to my neighbor's very cool friend and the too-serious guy with nothing interesting to say were the same man. Maybe he's got issues about being identified as his famous father's son, but fuck, man, you should have mentioned who your dad was—then, we could have talked about something that I find exciting (photography, not your dad's photography) and eased the awkwardness for a few minutes, and maybe eve made our parents think we actually tried to have a conversation. (I still wouldn't have married you though.) More importantly, the time I spent sitting there at that cafe wouldn't have been a complete waste of my time.

At the dinner table, my father looked sad. He finally admitted how he had his hopes up, how sad he was the set-up didn't work. "He's a man from a good family," he said, as if that explained everything, and that fact alone was reason to drop everything else and marry a man. I acknowledged that what he said was exactly the way things worked in his generation and his Jewish community at the time, maybe, and pointed out they don't work like that anymore. A good family name isn't reason to commit to someone you don't even like, let alone love. He sighed a sad sigh of disagreement. We paid the bill and got up.


On the cab from the airport to my grandmother's house in Israel, the cab driver turned around and looked at me like he was physically incapable of continuing to drive (to my relief, there wasn't much traffic on the road) when I told him I wasn't married, revealed that I was in my 30s, not 20s, and that I'm not sure that I would ever want to get married or have kids. "WHY????" he asked, baffled and with a sense of urgency like unless he convinced me during the remainder of the cab ride, he would fail to save my soul and lose whatever privileges he had from a special covenant. I tried to explain in a language he could understand. I told him I like my independence, my freedom, traveling, doing my own thing, and I don't want to replace all that with doing some guy's laundry and washing his dishes and making a baby the center of my universe. I compromised with a "maybe someday I'll want a family; thanks for the ride."


And my first day visiting my aunts, once again with marriage talk. I already had my diatribe ready. I told them both that I am single because I am still looking for someone who knows I'm amazing (not the complete story, of course: there are other, more private considerations I wasn't going to share just yet with my aunts). Tant Diamante said that ultimately, it was all about finding someone who would respect you, that everything else would work out if a man truly respected a woman. I loved her for saying that. By way of persuasion, Tant Röne reminded me it's nice having a companion in life. I reminded her how old she was when she finally found the man who would love and respect her for who she is to be a good companion in life. She smiled—she was in her sixties.

When they mentioned having kids and raising a family, I told them what I told the cab driver—that I loved my independence and my freedom to travel. My aunt said that her son, my cousin Moshe, who died in a motorcycle accident when he was my age, was just that kind of guy. She went on telling me about how he would strap his baby girl to his back and go climb a mountain.

I knew. He was my favorite cousin among five, a brother, my kindred free spirit & world traveler. He and I had so little time together, but each time we hung out, I felt at home with him. I miss him so much more than anyone knows.

"Yes," I said; "…when I find a guy like Moshe, I'll marry him."

And then we sat there in consenting silence for a moment and sipped our Turkish coffee until Moshe's daughter came in with her dad's beautiful, smiling eyes.




Tant Röne, Dad's older sister.





Tant Diamante, Dad's sister-in-law, Moshe's mother.





Snir, Moshe's daughter, now 8 years old.

Cancelled until further notice.

I seem to have misplaced a memory card in the process of packing and unpacking.
Ephesus photos, some of my favorites ever: g.o.n.e.

The posting of my "old shit" album is cancelled until further notice.




Super.








I see vivid losses in the recent past—material shit I can't replace :: opportunities to make quality time for my parents :: dreams of a fresh start :: my faith in words :: the comfort I used to find in the silence of a loved one :: my perspective :: bits and pieces of myself, even.

A plea to the universe: I am tired of losing. Shouldn't there be a better balance? I want to win.


A horoscope blurb I read somewhere today suggested I write out a gratitude list. Maybe I will, horoscope; maaaaybe I will.

Sea-lion woman

There is so much to write about.

I keep making lists for myself, knowing all the while that my writing will never be able to catch up to my living. (In case there is any doubt, that's a good thing, even for a wordy broad like me.)

I've spent one full day in Israel so far, and already I'm overwhelmed with how behind I am in documenting my experiences here. Blog coming soonly.

I'm realizing it'll be much easier to limit the words and post photos when I can. So here are a few I just received from my last day in Çesme.

Photo and "foreword" credit: Garland.

My friend the sea lioness in her element - friend of the dolphins, shell collector, long distance swimmer, bathed in the salty embrace of the Aegean Sea...




Last breath before diving.





Orange and Blue.







G


N


I


G


R


E


M

E

Another beautiful day ahead.

Since I've been bringing back old blogs...

Having hung out in Ephesus, I realize this post still applies.



Ah, too many photographs, not enough space on my hard drive. I'm behind in documenting my life here, and I don't think I'll ever catch up, esp. with the Ephesus trip's details.


All friends are in town as scheduled, minus one, who seems to have a warped sense of time and distance in Turkey. She's booked a package deal and her hotel is in a town that's about 2 hours by car (which means about 3 hours by bus with all the transfers, etc).

I've been having a great time. Checking out antique bazaars in Izmir and Alaçati has been a beautiful (and dangerous!) experience. I just might end up keeping the stuff I got as presents for someone who I thought was hard to buy presents for until I saw the antique stands. It's challenging to be the kind of gift giver who gives of herself, who gives things to people that she thinks are beautiful…

I will spend today, again, watching the seagulls flying just above my head, splashing around in turquoise waters, and holding on to my bikini at the end of each dive from the side of a boat, swimming away from people, topless, and diving in for sea urchin shells and mother of pearl. $15 gets us: a boat that leaves at 10:30 am, which will take us to 4 inlets that we can't get to by car, feed us lunch (salad, pasta, and a pretty decent fish), and take our sun-kissed and exhausted bodies back to the harbor at 5:30 pm.


Like I said, too many images, not enough time or hard drive space.

Bringing "H o p e" back.

Inspired by my friends Hip C and Garland's reminders that at any given point, there are other folks out there who could benefit from reading this poem, I think it's timely to bring back this old blog I posted. Enjoy Mr. Hughes' brilliance.





H o p e

Sometimes when i'm lonely,
Don't know why,
Keep thinkin' i won't be lonely,
By and by.

:: Langston Hughes ::






funny how certain things come across your path, return to you after a long absence. . .

Her uncle’s assimilated Turkish name, Miles spelled backwards.

And suddenly she realized that she had been writing for five years without knowing whether or not her missives became dead letters in the end. She had only seen one letter through to its final destination; others, she had mailed on faith. In that same moment of realization, a mosquito bit her forearm. Distracted from the epiphany she knew she was destined to have, she thought of Oedipus, who ran closer towards his destiny the more he fought it. She often had literary flashes in response to serendipitous incidents. Had she spent any time pondering this correlation, the series of contemplations would have yielded the answer to the question that had formed its own dendrites in her brain and lodged itself in permanently since that time in the fair when her parents lost her and a stranger took her to the police station: do I prefer to be alone or with other people? She scratched her arm. It was a quarter to three in the morning and she was feeling too wide-awake to submit to wistful reflection. No matter what the time, she sensed it was too late to think about more clever comebacks for past injustices. She licked the back of a stamp and immediately grimaced; she made sure the face of the nation's savior on the other side was now facing her, upright, before she smoothed the poorly shaded portrait over the envelope. The call for prayer began echoing from the mosques within hearing distance. She lifted the needle from her Miles Davis record. Selim. Miles spelled backwards.

A day in the life of Pelagic and friends

The still jet-lagged friend wakes up at 11 am.
—I'm starving; let's go get breakfast.
The still jet-lagged friend takes another forty minutes getting ready to go out.
—Are you ready yet? Let's go!



We finally walk over to Ilica to eat katmer and drink tea at Kumrucu Hüseyin ("Hüseyin the Kumru seller" -- kumru is a sandwich that's a Çes(h)me specialty; it's all in the sesame bread). Soooo delicious.






Here's katmer: it's fried dough stuffed with eggs and cheese and parsley.




On the way back, we stop by the supermarket to pick up some snacks and so my friends can see what Turkish junk food looks like. Some stuff is very different. Some stuff is just like what there is in the US, except entirely oblivious to such things as racism. Here are some cookies that are kinda like Oreos, except they're...






(pronounced "neh-gro", not "knee-gro")
In the US, the cookies came before the racial epithet. Here, my peoples have unwittingly just cut to the chase. I don't think anyone else ever thinks about the foreign languages he/she might speak, think of what a black person is called in that language, make the connection to the cookies made by Eti, and notice anything potentially wrong. I think if they called the cookies "Zenci" ("black person" in Turkish), they would still not see anything wrong with that but think it cute. People are just not race-conscious here. It's all about nationalism. You can go to jail for "insulting Turkishness" so watch out.


Back at home, we chill out for a bit, have a discussion about the weather/how windy it is to decide which beach would be best, then get ready to go to the beach of choice for the day.

Here's my soul captured in a photograph at the beach:






The primary snack on the beach is corn on the cob. A second one used to be candied apples, but apparently, people are just not buying them anymore. So says Nusret. We ran into him on the beach. He was one of the guys who painted the house we live in now when it was first constructed. That was over 25 years ago. The man has not changed a bit. I recognized his face immediately. Weird.








After the beach, we usually have linner since it's about 6:00 pm or so by the time we get back, and shower takes a while with 3+ people. Yesterday, we came back from the beach at around 8 pm; the sun was still warm. We went from beach to shower to dinner. Now, that's a good day.


After dinner and either drinks or a post-prandial Turkish coffee, the usual would be to just chill out, but the unusual happened the other night. My dad came in saying he thought he saw a mouse outside in the front yard. No one moved until I said "Where? I wanna see!" He warned me and said it's very big. (He was getting a mouse and a rat confused.) Even more fascinated now, I went outside. There was a big blob of a creature against the flowers in the front. Despite dad's warnings, I walked towards it and....

—Awwww. It's a porcupine!!!

—?????

...was the family's response. My mom and dad kept insisting it couldn't be. Dad kept repeating mouse and rat interchangeably. Mom pointed out "this is not a zoo" and wondered what a porcupine be doing here. Then, a light bulb went on in two genius minds: if we scare it, it will put up its porcupine shield, and I know what will scare it—the flash of a camera.

By the time we got our cameras, it had trudged into the bushes.

Sigh.

We went back to the living room. Dad kept getting up and looking through the screen door at the dark front yard, still wondering what the creature was. I tried not to get annoyed that 10 minutes later, my parents were still having the same conversation as if I had never uttered the word porcupine. If they don't know something, they can't possibly believe that I might have the answer. Welcome to being the youngest in the family. 15 minutes later, I was still explaining the difference between a mouse, a rat, and a porcupine (their sizes and their tails) to my dad.

Then, it came out again. I grabbed a camera. Late again. Here's the best shot I could take:








After the porcupine disappeared one last time, everyone else eventually went to sleep. As usual these days, I stayed up until about 3 am or so—this time, watching Celebrity Poker out of all things.

I'm enjoying the alone time at night, esp. once I turn the tv off (and once I've killed the offending mosquitoes).

The facts of tonight's matter.

• Sometimes, I find myself in a bad mood for no apparent reason. I give it some alone time, and it passes eventually.

• I don't like that sometimes, taking care of myself comes at the expense of being a good friend and a good daughter.

yesyes

Friend no. 2 is also here.

The three of us went out to have a Turkish breakfast yesterday: fried, crunchy dough stuffed with eggs, cheese, and parsley. Turkish tea in the little hourglass-shaped traditional glasses. So fucking good.

Happily full, we walked around a bit by the water, scoped out some of the seaside bars that have tables on the sidewalk three feet from the water we might want to check out later this week. We'll have to come back in the evening to figure out which of this strip of cafe/bars is not throbbing with too loud bass after 11 pm.


By the time we got home from our walk, my family was ready to head to the beach, and so was I. Quick change. Beach—the same one I went to on my first day here, where I swim across from one side of the inlet to the other topless everytime. When I came back from my swim, mom expected to see some sea urchin shells or mother of pearl. "I saw you dive in a couple of times in the distance," she explained. It was a good assumption—over the years, we've collected two big bowls of these things from my dives that decorate the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room and the table in the front yard. But no, not this time. "I was just diving in to put my top back on," I said. She grinned. She knows how I am in the water.

My sister just came back from the front yard and told me the shells in the front just fell off the table and mostly broke. It's fucking windy out this morning. Ah well. Over a decade worth of loot from beneath the sea—there's plenty more left.


Preceded by dad's broken-English tour of the backyard plants peppered with shouts across the yard for agrilinguistic help ("Tildaaaa! How do you say pomegranate tree in English?" "TILDA! What's apricot in English??"), linner was amazing. Whole fish (mmmm, fish cheeeeeeks), artichokes, semizotu salad (which made me realize I cannot tolerate low fat yogurt; to me, it's a waste of milk the same way decaf coffee is a waste of water, not to mention labor). While others had wine, dad and I had raki (Turkish version of ouzo). Half an hour later, dad had a buzz on, was cracking himself up joking around and being goofy. At some point, when I said there was something in his teeth, he started making fun of his fake teeth. He cracked up and told me he could just take them off and started pretending to pick the imaginary teeth in his hand with a toothpick. This was all in Turkish. Sis and mom were laughing, but dad and I were on a different wavelength together (well, maybe not—dad was definitely on the I am no longer sober wavelength whereas I was more on the I love dad when he puts on his goofy self because I have friends over, and he's hilarious when he's got a buzz wavelength). Dad was laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes, which, of course, made me laugh harder. Meanwhile, the non-Turkish speakers at the table hadn't waited for the laughter to subside and the interpretation to begin; they were laughing at their own version of what was happening at the table.

Turkish coffee and watermelon came to the aid of our post-prandial blahs. Then, someone began craving ice-cream. The three of us hopped on a dolmu(s)h, the public transportation minivan that takes people waiting on the side of a street on its route to wherever they need to go for a dollar and some change, and went to downtown Çes(h)me.º We checked out the touristy tchotchke stores, got delicious ice-cream cones for $1, and ate our gelato as we walked by the sea, by the boats that go on daily tours around the coast (we'll be doing that sometime next week). The moon was out and gorgeous over the dark sea. (Remember my favorite word, yakamoz? If not, I'll gladly explain.) Two guys were out with their telescopes and charging 75 cents for promenaders to look at the moon. Brilliant.

A little recap of the day over drinks at a quieter bar in Çes(h)me central, and we get lucky with our timing: the dolmus(h) we catch on the way back is the last van of the night, and I realize it's already past 1 am.





Ah, it's a hard life here...













º s(h) = my substitute for an S that should have a cedilla under it; the letter makes the 'sh' sound.

Aaahhhhh. Yes.

Friend no. 1 arrived tonight.

We did the YAY! dance (you know, the one where you stretch your arms up to the sky and grin wide) and got over the novelty pretty soon after that. It's like we've been here together before, probably because we used to live together (which we did for six years). Strange that I suddenly feel more at home here once someone who's never been here arrives. Makes me realize how much I needed someone other than family here to hang out and be goofy with.

I'm sooooooo excited for tomorrow!



Awesomeness will ensue.

Just being/being seen.

That's right. I almost forgot that it always takes a while (at least a week) for me to get used to being on vacation somewhere familiarº, used to not having to be "productive," to not feeling guilty/anxious/ restless/bored when all I need to "do" is just be.


So I'm working on relaxing into relaxing without getting restless.


...


Ah, I'm sooooo psyched for the "first batch" of my visitors to arrive tomorrow night!!!

I can't even begin to explain how much a friend's seeing my original home means to me.
Seeing my home is seeing me. And being seen always feels good.


Yesyes.











º the unfamiliar places come with their own schedule of explorations and adventures.

Time for me to start this vacation, bitches.

A while back, I wrote a post about transitions.

I've been thinking about transitions once again—ever since I left NY and arrived in Turkey. This one seems especially hard, and I've been trying to figure out how come. After all, I ought to be used to these cross-cultural shifts and code switching by now. So what's going on this time?

A bunch of things.

• The unfamiliar in re-integration. When I arrived in Izmir, so did my sister's partner and a friend of his who is going through divorce. Even if I don't know the former all that well, I do know his sense of humor, and he is family. But the distressed buddy, I've only hung out with once, and I don't think we ever exchanged any words the whole night (at a Passover dinner in Istanbul with two families I don't know—f.u.n.). So coming to Izmir and having a near stranger in my home did not help me feel at home, well, at home.

• Logistics. I fucking hate logistics. I have 7 friends from the US coming to visit me in Turkey this summer. They all have different dates of arrival and departure. In my ideal world, they would have all stayed at my grandmother's house since she will no longer be able to leave her home in Israel to vacation in Turkey in the summers (see post from a year ago about the bus accident that crippled her forever). Alas, my uncle has rented out my grandmother's place, and I have had to figure out how to host all these people in our tiny home.

Complications to figuring out logistics: 4 of my visitors have not given me specific dates; 2 of these have yet to buy their tickets, and the other 2 don't seem that concerned that unless I make hotel reservation for them, they will have to pay a whole lot more money than they think on a room. Many emails later, I have finally made arrangements for the people who have their dates down and given the undecided four the info for the hotel I chose for the others, and told them to take care of themselves. Stick a fork in me, I am d. o. n. e playing travel agent.

One of the more annoying things has been how everyone in my family suddenly began stressing about my friends' plans, their lodgings, when we should take them to see what, who will room with whom… If there is anything I hate more than dealing with logistics is having to deal with other people's logistics. If there is anything I hate more than that, it's my family chatting at a loud and high pitch amongst themselves about my friends' logistics.

Can't we just plan the first night and plan the rest of it all by ear? That's what I would do. Oh, right. These are not my travel plans. So why am I making them again??? Oh. Turks are hospitable and shit; that's why. Right. (I'm feeling terrible already that one of my guests will be sleeping on the living room couch. Fucking cultural values.)

Bottom line: I've been so tense about future plans that I've been unable to just chill and be present in the present.

• Missed connections. I have no friends here; the very few people I am still in touch with from high school do not live in Izmir. I miss having friends to be silly with; I miss my partners in crime. I miss yapping over drinks with someone who gets me. Shit, I miss friends who don't always get me.

Despite all the stress I mentioned above, I've had awesome experiences too. I love the time in The Aegean as always. I am reminded again and again how much I love the food here. Even though I would have much rather hugged a dolphin in the wild in a sea, getting to hold onto one and riding her in a pool with a lameass life jacket on was, I have to admit despite the sadness I feel for the dolphins that live in a pool, a pretty amazing feeling. Every time I come back here, there are some things that I just can't describe to someone else. I don't know how to describe the food or the way the sea appears when you dive in and flip around to look at the surface from below to someone who hasn't been here.

I experience a lot while I am here that changes me somehow, things I want to bring back with me from one home to the other one, things I want to hold onto, things I need everyone who knows me to know. Being gone for two months is a weird thing. I am starkly aware of the distance between this home and the one in San Francisco. I am painfully aware of my friends' absence in my life right now. When I go back, it always turns out –understandably– that my friends, who have been in their daily grind as usual, have been less aware of my absence for two months. To them, two months have flown like water (ah, I am already using Turkish idioms in translation), like any other two months—much like two months during the school year come and go without my feeling a need to think a whole lot about them. I get back and it's like I've never left. I, meanwhile, feel an ineffable distance between us, which only I can close by forgoing all the things I could try to share about what being in Turkey was like. I ask about their two months, about what's new, and I usually get the answer that I never get used to: that it's been the same old, same old. It's hard for me to imagine how two months can go by without some new thought, a new spark of inspiration, a new photo, a new haiku moment, a new beauty among the muckheap up mundaneness can cross someone's path. So I give the typical high school student answer when it's my turn to say something. You know, the "How was school?" and "Fine" routine. . . And we move on. And some things get left behind and put aside that only I know about, like some furnishings and ornaments that don't quite fit in my other home or go with the rest of the stuff already there.

• My damn pride. The only person I have called in the US since I have left NY is a woman I've never met. Enough said.

. . .

Nah. Who am I kidding? I've always been too verbose for the "Enough said" line.

So…

Sure, her awesomeness deserves the phone card investment. At the same time, I know at least one more person who admittedly has "stories coming out of my ears." But no. No sign of weakness shall be made visible for people I love whom I know I might actually see soon. Damn my damn Kapuya stubbornness and our "show no vulnerability" pride.


Of course, I write about it all here. How do I even begin to make sense of the paradox before it appears before me as hypocrisy? Very well. Maybe I'm OK with putting down what makes me feel vulnerable in writing because I am also stubborn about protecting the illusion that whatever I post here is ultimately for me.

...

I like them apples just fine, thank you.

And now that the logistics are done, the new plan: to get out of the house early and start this vacation, bitches.

R e : i n t e g r a t i n g

I've been thinking about how to throw myself into where I am now, how to just dive in. Eventually, NYC came to mind. I have such a visceral reaction to being there and an odd ability to feel comfortable in it, even with the realization that I will never feel like I know the city well enough. I thought about the week I spent there in April, and the week I just had there just a couple of weeks ago.

S o o o o o

In addition to the beach time, I think tomorrow needs to involve a photo safari.

The procedure:
1. Pretend this is new territory.
2. Walk and walk and walk.
3. Pause to appreciate the haiku moments; take photos if you feel so moved.
4. Walk some more.
5. If DSL cooperates, upload & post photos. (I still have more from NYC.)

" H o m e "

A longass trip later, I arrived in Istanbul. After 7 hours layover in London, I had no patience left in me to wait another minute extra for anything. Fortunately, my bag made it to Istanbul OK (unlike the JFK/British Airways fiasco). My sister had set up a car to pick me up, so I was ready for smooth sailing to her apartment, check email, go to bed, try to get some sleep, and be up in the morning for the final segment of the odyssey: a short flight from Istanbul to Izmir (about the same distance as SFO-LAX).

But no.

Flights before mine were delayed, and, in turn, so were the shuttles that were picking up/dropping off passengers. I sat outside the arrivals gate for half an hour, cranky as hell, waiting for my damn ride. It was past midnight in Turkey by the time I reached my sister's place; I had left NY over 21 hours ago.

On the 26th, I arrived in Izmir, and took one more trip that night to the beach town, Çesme, where the heat is a little more bearable. This is my last stop for a bit until the gang from SF & LA comes to visit. It's nice to put my bag down for a bit and put my shit in drawers rather than live out of a bag. At the same time, the sawdust smell of my bags makes me feel all wistful. A wonder.




The first few days "back home" have been hard. The first day, I did nothing. I had no motivation to begin lesson planning; shit, I didn't even have motivation to go to the beach, and that should tell you something.

The second day, I made myself go swimming, knowing I don't feel quite at home until my nostrils and my chapped lips burn with salt. It helped to swim from one shore of the inlet to the opposite one. Quality alone time—just me, topless, and the sea. I also began withdrawing to read in solitude…appropriately, One Hundred Years of Solitude. I thought I was in the clear, but the following day, more of the same: I was ready to go to the beach; then, I passed out on the couch in my bikini and never made it out of the house.

V. reminded me I am in no woman's land; I relaxed into the discomfort a bit after I remembered that this is not the first time I am having a hard time adjusting to being away from one home to arriving and integrating myself into another one. I think last summer was a little like this, too, but I was only here for a short time, and I don't think I gave myself the time to feel awkward in my liminality. (And this time around, it hasn't helped that thanks to the wonders of Verizon in particular and our DSL problems here in general, I have not been able to connect with my life back in the US while beginning to nest here.)


I am writing this now so I remember this transition period next time. I used to give myself a hard time thinking that these transitions that take longer and longer for me to make might be signs I am getting too old for the nomadic life. Well, that was stupid. I've said this before and I'll say it again: I'm in my PRIME! So I have a different perspective now. I think San Francisco/the US has become more and more of a home. I can still make transitions into new places in a short time, yet going between one home and another is an entirely different process.



(Try me: give me tickets to two different countries I have never been to. Brazil and Argentina would be just fine, thanks.)