Turkey: Overstuffed and Insatiable in Istanbul

Dear reader: it has been over a month since my last blog and I have been stalling. After coming back from Thanksgiving and a whirlwind week back in the states, I landed back in Istanbul with a nasty case of bronchitis and the holiday season ahead of me.

The perpetually cold and drizzly Mediterranean winter weather does as little to cheer the spirit as the concrete grey Midwestern winter. That said, we have had some lovely days for wandering as of late and the holiday season was graciously punctuated by the arrival of my friend Eli, a fellow Cincinnati expatriate who lives in Spain, for Christmas and New Years, and my friends Carlo and Lalo (from Mexico and Cincinnati) who came for a weekend in the beginning of January.

Christmas morning saw Eli and I breakfasting along the Bosphorus waters with a group of fellow expats searching for a square meal on our requisite one day off and New Years found us venturing a bit farther north up the Bosphorus towards the entrance to the Black Sea to stay with another Cincinnati expat, Mattie, who lives up that way.

The highlights of my time with my guests included midnight tango dancing in a back alley hideaway, fresh seafood on the coast of the Black Sea, visiting a hamam (traditional Turkish bath) and finally putting on my tourist cap to check out the Hagia Sophia.

The hamam Eli and I visited was an older hamam in one of the more conservative neighborhoods called Uskudar. We went with my friend Meara and two of our Turkish female friends, neither of whom had ever been to a hamam before, I need to mention, making it a new experience for all of us.

The process consisted of stripping down to our underwear/bathing suit bottoms, wandering around in a wrap, bathing in a huge open marble room with 20 other laughing, large and jolly older Turkish women and being laid down on a huge marble slab along with 2 other women to be pummeled, sanded, scrubbed and then sent to the sauna to sweat out any residuals. Two hours after entering the 15^th century hamam building, we stumbled out into the cool, moist Uskudar air refreshed and ready for tea and dinner plans later in the evening.

Amidst the excitement of the holidays, I have to admit that the return of yet another year’s Christmas and then New Years reminded me of how much has happened in the last year, and during this trip around the world.

New Years day I went back to my first blog from January 1^st, 2009, written from the L.A. airport as I was just setting off from Kentucky into the unknown of the world in New Zealand and beyond.

***********************

January 1^st, 2009:

In the end, the reason for this trip at its core is self shock therapy. By shocking myself into becoming engaged in my own life, I hope to change the trajectory of my existence for the better. A choose-your-own-adventure on a grander scale.

Will I make it? Am I a scrapper? Do I deserve the things I’ve been handed in my life? Do any of us? How scared am I, really? How far am I willing to go, in spite of my fear?

And, most importantly, how will my life impact those around me?

Well, I thought to myself, reading over my musing from one year previous, life has changed. I am still not quite ready nor able to express everything that has happened in the last year – the things I have witnessed – the beautiful, the strange and the ugly – have yet to sort themselves out in my mind, but the after-shocks are there, and flashbacks are common.

While walking along in the early morning rain to catch my bus, I am suddenly confronted with the clouds parting to show me the magnificent face of Mount Cook in Southern New Zealand, or the crowd of older gentlemen shuffling along in front of me parts to reveal the brown leathery behinds of two Nepalese rhinoceros running away into the bushes as the elephant I am riding chases them.

Time is a strange mistress. I exist here in this moment, and yet I exist also in my memories and the moments that have already passed. In this way, when I think of my friends or my family, I am also with them.

In the end, these memories sometimes seem more real than the current situation and I have to jostle myself out of my daydreams when I realize that a student is asking me a question, or the bell is ringing to stop lesson planning and teach the next class.

When I was home for Thanksgiving, one of our family friends, Marvin, sat down with me and told me how much my blog has meant to him over the last year. Although we are still prying stories out of him about his younger and (much) wilder days hobnobbing on the Vegas circuit, Marvin doesn’t travel much anymore and was excited to hear what I have learned in my travels. He told me that he felt as though he was able to travel with me during this year.

I was happy to hear that he had connected with my journey and that he had gained knowledge and happiness from my musings… and yet I wasn’t sure how to answer his question about what I have learned from my travels. In truth, seeing so much in the world leaves one both over-stuffed and insatiable at the same time.

Perhaps this will only get worse with age, I thought to myself as I stumbled over my words to answer his question…

Sufficed to say that I feel blessed. And, although I do not yet know what comes next, the self shock therapy worked! I believe, even more than ever before, that life is, indeed, a choose-your-own-adventure. And that the most important thing is not to make choices based solely on fear.

How I will be able to impact those around me has yet to be seen. But I made it around. I am a scrapper and I am afraid, but I am also braver than I ever thought I was.

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.”