USA: Closing the circle around the world

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry ~

Coming in for landing in Cincinnati after 24 hours of travel (Istanbul-Rome-Atlanta-Cincinnati) I looked out over the grey fields and office complexes around the airport and across to see interstate 275/71/75, which snakes northward towards the Ohio river and the lights of Cincinnati.

It had been almost 11 months since I left Cincinnati and as I could see from the cold and barren, yet comforting landscape, nothing had seemed to change. This is both the maddening and the comforting thing about coming back to a place where you've spent so much time growing - you can always return - and it will always remind you of how much you have changed, and how little has changed after all.

And there was my mother, waiting just outside the passenger exit, looking out over the heads of wandering passengers being herded through the doors, with a big bouquet of roses, berry flowers and wheat, symbolizing the harvest, and a big smile and hug. Harvest, indeed.

The last two years have been intense. I had accomplished what I set out to do - save half of my income, rid myself of (most) of my belongings (although storage boxes in my family's basement say otherwise), plan my escape, escape, and travel west all the way around the world, stopping to teach, volunteer and learn about life.

I had met the most amazing people, seen sad and also inspiring and unforgettable things, learned more about personal abilities and boundaries than I ever thought possible, and here I was, back where I started. Tired and ready for bed.

So at this point I wondered to myself, "Have you changed the trajectory of your existence? Have you affected the lives of those you love and those you meet?"

And I wasn't sure.

It wasn't exactly self-doubt that gnawed at me, but perhaps a tendency to over-question. The job in Turkey goes through next summer. At the end there is the possibility to stay another year, but is Turkey where I need to be to grow and to have an affect on the world?

Was it possible, that after all of my travels and revelations and inspirations, I am more confused and lost than when I began? And, is this necessarily a bad thing?

As I pondered these thoughts I spent the next week pinwheeling round and round picking up supplies of things not found in Turkey to take back with me (think maple syrup, peanut butter, bourbon), seeing both sides of the family and spending time with friends, as well as struggling through the 8 hour time difference.

As the week continued, I steadied for the journey back to Turkey, struggling to suppress a nasty case of bronchitis that was rooting itself ever deeper in my respiratory system and working through the questions in my mind.

Through conversations with friends and family, I realized that ones actions, in and of themselves, and having the ability and courage to follow a dream or even a whim, can in and of itself change people's minds about what they themselves are capable of.

At second glance, the America I returned to was not the America I left 11 months previously. I was struck by the shopping malls that were relatively empty, the buses that were full and the worry and doubt on people's faces that was alternately joined by a new sense of adventure and also a renewed urge to join (re-join) the human race collective and make a change. The loss of financial security, jobs and consumer options has left the populace in a state of confusion, but also in a position of opportunity - to imagine an alternate future, with a new openness to getting shit done by whatever means possible. To count one's blessings with both hands.

And so, I ended the week with a nasty cough and 20 more hours travel before rest, but not as confused as I thought I was.

I am unsure of what the next year holds, where I will be and who will fill my days, but I am open and I am willing and I am trying to be a better person, day by day.

A few months ago, my mother sent me (again) a poem that has always inspired us. I started with Wendell Berry, and an acknowledgment of being somewhat lost. I close with Marge Piercy and a prayer to be found.

To be of use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Turkey - Istanbul: Inspiration for the senses and a reflection on the journey

In the morning just after sunrise,

drinking Italian coffee on the porch,

looking out over the houses in the valley,

gazing across the bosphorus at the beginning of Asia,

the sounds of my neighbors making breakfast and scolding one another,

the caw of seagulls that ride above the valley on swells of air that rise

from the houses and streets below,

I thank god it’s Saturday morning and it’s all mine.

Three months in to life in Istanbul I’ve found a new home.

Two weeks ago, my roommate and I, with the help of my friend Dave, piled all our earthly possessions into two taxis and “moved” from Taksim – the gritty, fast-paced commercial hub of Istanbul – to an area about five minutes away with quiet streets, trees, old ladies keeping watch out the window, fruits and veg sellers lounging by their stalls drinking tea, children yelling and screaming and delegating in a playground, old men walking their dogs up to the bakery to buy their daily bread and the call to worship – five times a day starting around 4:30 a.m. – from the loudspeaker atop the little neighborhood mosque.

After a good deal of scrubbing, sweeping, mopping and organizing, we placed all our things in their places, stocked the kitchen cupboards and stood out on the balcony to enjoy our new view on life.

From the balcony of the new apartment you can see all the way down the valley over an area called Beshiktash (phonetic spelling) to the bosphorus and to Asia on the other side of the water (we live on the European side of Istanbul).

Istanbul, a city of 16 million people (not counting the 1 million or so people smuggled through on their sad journey from places east to places west), is a daily inspiration and challenge, and probably the most populated city I’ve been in thus far. With more inhabitants than Tokyo at 12 million, London at 7 million, New York at 8 million and Bankok at 9 million, people are living one atop the other in their daily struggle to work, live and play. This is not to mention the sub-population of wandering cats and dogs that rummage through the scraps left for them by Turks on the sidewalks outside their buildings.

But here, our view on the chaos seems small and safe. We’ve named the fluffy little white dog that scratches around in the garden 4 stories below us “snowflake,” the dog who lives on the porch a few buildings over “sweetpea,” and the cat who sleeps on the car one street down “pumpkin.”

As it does, work continues along as well. I am lucky to say that I like all of my students (even the naughty ones – or perhaps especially the naughty ones as they remind me of myself at 16). Everything that I love about the personality of Turks – the chatting, the joyful urge to dance, the impulsive passion of opinions and personality – does make it somewhat difficult to control my 15 and 16 year-olds, but such is my current challenge, and although it’s tiring, it will also be rewarding (if it kills me).

Most recently, the excitement at school quickened on October 29^th with the celebration of Ataturk day. This holiday commemorates the founding of the secular republic by Mutafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. My students attended assemblies commemorating the event which rivaled any holiday concert or 4^th of July celebration at home.

Our first evening in the new apartment, we stood out on our balcony and watched a firework show explode over the bosphorus to celebrate the founding of Turkey’s Cumhurriyet (the secular Republic).

Just before the fireworks show started, the small mosque in the avenue below our apartment played the Adhan (call to worship) and perhaps it was my imagination, but the undulating wail of “Allllllllaaaaaaahhhhhhh, Allllllllaaaaaahhhhhh, Allllllllaaaaaahhhhh!”, seemed to be louder and more passionate than usual.

Although life is marked by such highlights and intrigues, everyday life continues to impress as well. On my way home from work in the evenings, I join the masses in a jumbled, congested mix of subways, buses, taxis and shuttle buses, which one must join in order to get anywhere. Things to watch out for in the jumble include pushy old women in shawls and headscarves who hip-bump their way to the front and pervy men stealing furtive glances at the yabanci (foreigner).

It is a lovely, mindless activity to join the throngs on my way home from work. Even standing on a bus for 30 minutes as we crawl along 3 miles is relaxing as no one asks anything of me and I am free to think my thoughts.

Once we reach our new neighborhood, we speed walk over the cobble-stoned streets, passing simit (sesame-seed bagel) and medea (stuffed mussel) sellers, children and men selling packets of tissues, super glue and socks, the fish market where fishermen bring the daily catch, calling out to would-be customers “buyurun!” (Come over here and buy something! You’re welcome here!).

We pass kebab (meat sandwich), pastry and pudding shops, fruit and veggie markets with displays of autumn fruits - pomegranates, quince, apples, melons, leeks, cabbages, tomatoes, pears, then tailors, shoe cobblers and small family stores selling toilet tissue, electrical outlets and cheaply made shoes.

Often these days, as it’s autumn, someone has their street cart out selling roasted chestnuts or corn.

On weekends and holidays, I continue exploring Istanbul with friends. Each time I go, I see something new. As we wander up and down the steep cobble-stoned streets and neighborhoods, all eventually leading down to the waters of the bosphorus, I am happy that I’ve chosen to spend part of my life in this crazy city.

As part of the next step in the adventure, I have found a new Turkish language class to join. Although I’ve been here over two months, my Turkish is embarrassingly bad, and so, I’ve decided to rectify this situation rather than whine about it.

My teacher is a hilarious Turk of about 35, tall and razor thin with a long, opinionated nose, slim, humorous face, a huge head of long frizzy black hair that he pushes out of his face with repeated “umphs”, tight black jeans and hand-rolled cigarettes. What a character. More on this one later, I’m sure.

And so, nearly 11 months into my journey around the world, I find myself at home, for now, in Istanbul. The journey has been the best $15,000 I’ve ever spent. It has been at once difficult, inspiring and life-changing. Indeed, if it was a different trajectory I was looking for, I have succeeded. And yet, of course, the more I learn about life, the more I realize how little I understand.

In two weeks, I will complete the route around the world. I’m going home for Thanksgiving! For one week I’ll get to spend time with the folks I have spent so much time thinking about during this journey – my family and friends. Without them, without the tether holding my heart together, I may have faltered many more times when things were hard. Without their encouragement and attestations of love, I might have forgotten who I was, and how I have come to be who I am.

And, now, I’m off to clean for a housewarming party this evening and research recipes for yogurt dip and pomegranate martinis.

I’ll sign off with one of my favorite quotes from Robyn Davidson, who crossed the Australian outback, from her book Tracks:

“I had been vaguely bored with my life and it's repetitions -the half-finished, half-hearted attempts at different jobs and various studies; had been sick of carrying around the self-indulgent negativity which was so much the malaise of my generation, my sex and my class.

So I made a decision which carried with it things that I could not articulate at the time. I had made the choice instinctively, and only later had given it meaning. The trip had never been billed in my mind as an adventure in the sense of something to be proved. And it struck me then that the most difficult thing had been the decision to act, the rest had been mere tenacity - and the fears were paper tigers.

One really could do anything one had decided to do whether it were changing a job, moving to a new place, divorcing a husband or whatever, one really could act to change and control one's life; and the procedure, the process, was it's own reward.”

Istanbul, Turkey: Straddling the Bosphorus

Istanbul

City of swagger and

feral cats crying and

city of steep streets and

matchstick houses leaning;

city of cigarettes

and hungry dogs howling,

city, city of stone; 

foundations crumbling.

The first things that made me realize that I was in Istanbul after my return from Rome were the taxi driver offering me a cigarette (or perhaps he was asking whether I’d mind if he smoked, I couldn't be sure) and the razor-thin moon, which mimicked the moon on the country flag, hanging low in the 2 a.m. sky. 

As we sped along the rocky coast of the Bosphorus – wide river of water separating the continents of Europe and Asia - I was happy to finally be in the city I’ve chosen as my home for the next year. 

On either side of the cab we passed shadowy mosques, their minarets standing to stiff attention in the pre-dawn darkness. In just over two hours, even before sunrise, a man would climb to the loudspeaker of each mosque and, broadcasting across the city, sing a wailing song to call the other men to prayer.

Finally, we arrived in the bustling heart of arts, commerce, nightlife, and shopping, Taksim Square. The square was getting quiet, but groups of late-night revelers still stumbled homeward across the square, past the roped-off Ataturk statue, from nights of bars, and backgammon, tea and hookah cafes. 

Waiting for me were my friends Matt and Glory, who, coincidentally, were also teaching in Cambodia around the time I was there. We would all be working together at a private high school in the suburbs of Istanbul, and we were keen to get some rest, as we had to be at work by 9 a.m. the following morning.

My first week in Istanbul they were kind enough to put me up in their extra bedroom as I worked all day and wandered through neighborhood after neighborhood in Istanbul each night trying to find an apartment. In the end, I moved in with one of my fellow teachers from the U.K. and her Turkish roommate very close to Taksim square where I had landed the first night.

Work progressed as well, with the first few weeks spent planning lessons and attending teacher training (unfortunately much of it in Turkish with no translator), and the last few days consisting of doing everything we hadn’t actually done the few weeks previous.

Finally, the second week of September we steadied ourselves for the arrival of the students. I was warned that these weren’t just any kids. In a country where the average per capita income is under $10,000, our students are paying about $16,000 to attend. Indeed, it is not just a school, but also a foundation, which owns and runs a shopping mall.

Suffice to say that nothing has prepared me quite so well for teaching there as working in corporate America. I feel as though everything I've learned, I learned in previous cubicles: image is everything (when in doubt, use the hair straightener), it’s more important that people like you than whether you do great work (people will forget what you said and did, but never forget how you made them feel), and keep your head down and smile. Also, don't slip up because apparently they sue the school if they get bad grades here.

As we led up to the first day of school, I was inundated by warnings from second-year teachers who knew the ropes: “just be strict and mean for a while,” they recommended. “They’ll eat you alive if you don’t suppress them first.” Well Toto, I thought, we’re not in Cambodia anymore.

Now, four weeks later and coming up for air, I can safely say that it has been worse than some past situations and better than others. For example, I’d prefer to train the freight-brokers I used to train (even if they made too many comments about football or strippers, at least I could understand their comments and put the smack down) but it’s waaaaay better than teaching in the situation I had in Japan (here, there are other foreign teachers, we have a curriculum and materials, the classes are half the size at 20 and all the Turkish teacher of English can actually speak English – I had to speak Japanese with some of the Japanese teachers of English). Also, each day one of my favorite students does something that makes it all worth it just as the dull roar of students chatting through class makes me question my own sanity. The other day, when I yelled at one of the kids to get him to shut up. He answered, "as you wish." Ah, the straightforward yet oft-hidden way into my heart - Princess Bride quotes - found out by a 15-year-old. 

So, I’m relaxing into working again and trying to do deep breathing when I start getting stressed. I’m practicing sufficiently compartmentalizing my personality so I can be stern, strict and demanding when needed and kind, caring and supportive when it’s safe to do so without fearing complete anarchy in the classroom. Good practice for something else in my future, I'm sure.

The best part about my new life here is the beautiful and melancholy crumbling city of Istanbul, which never ceases to inspire, and the friends I’ve made, both foreign and Turkish. On weeks when I have the energy, there is always something to do. Cultural events, gatherings at bars and tea and hookah street cafes abound. I’ve joined the poshest gym I’ve ever been to (complete with sauna, steam room and nap -!?- room), and I love to amuse myself on the cross-trainer as I watch the young men preening in front of the long mirrors and swaggering across the bouncy plastic floors. This is great stress relief after yelling and punishing pubescents all day.

On the weekends, I make it a point to explore the city, which rises magnificently on either side of the waterway connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

Turks are an interesting people. Passionate, proud, quick-tempered and helpful, I learn more day by day as I slooooooowwwwly learn little bits of Turkish and begin to better understand my role here as a foreigner (yabanci).

Overall, the best part about being here, is just BEING here. Despite a stressful, albeit fun, week-long visa run back to Thailand (yes, I had to go pick up my TURKISH visa in THAILAND – long story) I have been able to settle in and be in one place for longer than a week. I have a big room with wood floors and a balcony that overlooks a courtyard with a feral cat colony and squatting circles of old women knitting. I've been told it's hell in the Spring when they go into heat (the cats, not the old women), but it's endearingly quaint in the middle of the hustle and bustle for now. Sweet consistency. 

I grow my hair long here and wait for life to take me in her arms.