Scent of Parsley in Bodrum versus Smell of Money & Fame in Istanbul

I was not in the mood for writing an entry, not at all. However, my friend Maria from Lisbon sent me an email with words of encouragement after reading my blog entries. Then, another lovely email from a student from Northern Cyprus who celebrated the Women's Day in her unique manner arrived. She made music & danced in the ancient olive grove right by the campus. She must be a secret shaman, gypsy and my spiritual daughter. She just does not know it yet. I miss ancient olive trees of the island and they know it. I want Beth Moon to come and take their pictures for her next exhibition, I promise to be her guide for free: http://bethmoon.com/

Having her autographed book with the most wonderful ancient tree pictures as a present from John Scanlan (Santa Fe) was just amazing. Thank you!

The problem with Istanbul is the pace of life. It is so fast (at least for me who has been spoiled in the easy-going Mediterranean island and then in artsy Santa Fe where amazing hikes were just a short drive away).  I could hardly prevent my laughter when Santa Feans kindly warned me of the reckless drivers whenever they heard that I rented a bicycle to ride in/around the town. I simply answered: "Thank you but believe me there is no traffic here and I feel very safe." Well, I did. I loved riding my bicycle there. Any time of the day including the midnight with full Moon guiding me after she learned that I had more than two glasses of sangria on that particular Friday at El Meson. 

Today, on my way out of the Gayrettepe subway station at around 4 pm, a very polite man stopped me to ask how to cross to the other side of the road. If he did not have that Istanbul Turkish and fine clothes, I would say, he acted like he just came from a village and looked so confused in the big city. Well, it turns out that he did! He lives in a small town in Bodrum peninsula for the past 27 years. He asked me (just as I was thinking about it by myself) how we can deal with this chaotic city. He comes for family visits (mother & sister) since he is originally from Istanbul.  He was very thankful that I showed him the way. I was exactly in the same confused state of mind and felt quite idiotic only two months ago. Now, at least I know how to get in and out, which directions to go after being underground. I refrained from using the phrase I am getting used to it because I don't want to get used to it and I have no plans of getting used to it. If someone donates me a house in Bebek and I can use it as my home-office, that is another story. However, just because you are in Istanbul you want to go out and follow stuff. The Istanbul Film Festival is coming soon (two other film festivals were over IF & Film Mor), there is always something going on in Pera Museum or Istanbul-Modern and many other galleries. I won't even go into the live-music scene! There is always someone who recommends a new restaurant or café; a friend who wants to meet and do something different. You come home exhausted; resenting & asking your body: "Why are you so tired?" I actually have friends who suggested Skype meetings so that each one of us can stay at home, sip our drinks and chat. That may be one practical solution but it also sounds so absurd to me since I use Skype for chatting with my friends in Toronto and Santa Cruz. 

You must have noticed that I did not even mention the money-issue. It is depressing. If you really want to enjoy the city, you need to be rich not just in money but also in time. You need them both! I feel sorry for the rich ones who work so hard and for too many hours, come home exhausted, and cannot even spend the money they earn when they want to. Their leisure time coincides with the rest of the city, the weekends! There is something so weird about that relationship (money, the same 48 hours, traffic jam, shopping mall jam). One example: Last Sunday, at around noon, the line in Starbucks Bebek was so ridiculously long, I mean you would think that they are giving out free coffee or latte for everyone (even in that case no way I'll wait for it!)

Yet, if the whole country has a heart and brain they are both located right here in Istanbul. Everything is here. Everything becomes possible if you are ambitious, strong and patient. If your life style is going in the direction of a Sufi (simple, modest, clean, no-ego) then you are in the wrong place my friend! You will be devoured or unhappy in this city. Consider Bodrum or at least one of the Princess islands if Bodrum sounds far away. The gentleman I met today looks very healthy and enjoys a glowing tan year-round. Just for the record, he told me life is much cheaper there and for some reason, he mentioned parsley. He said: "The parsley is so green in Bodrum. Its scent remains in your palm when you touch it. Farmer's Market is so lively and colorful". Just like the scent of fresh parsley, his words and the excitement in his voice in reference to Bodrum-life remained with me for the rest of the day.

Istanbul, Michelle, Manuel and Me...

I am back to the megacity. My days fly by, many things happen, life flows... The traffic and noise, the fatal classics pushing the limits of all the saints’ patience, are matchless (!) as always. Friends are priceless but I will say no more for now. If coming back to one’s hometown is similar to coming back to a womb-like space, Istanbul is the most chaotic womb ever. It is cancerous and gangrenous. An alienated mother who does not feel obliged to welcome her own child. Yet, there is magic in the everyday existence, which hits you every now and then. Seagulls accompanying the ferries during a cloudy sunset or the blue tiles of a small mosque (e.g., Rustem Pasha) which you walked by but never walked in can blow your mind and take you to another dimension. The soul of Mimar Sinan probably suffers whenever he looks around the city yet must be very proud of what he achieved (even more today). 

The best part: The colors and the tastes of the Turkish food, the meyhanes, bazaars… Exploring them through old friends' eyes make me smile. I love the excitement in their eyes! People constantly complain in this city and the routine life kills the beauty. Beggars and stray dogs are everywhere but mostly harmless…  Ask the street vendors or Orhan Pamuk if you don’t believe me.

Although me and my brother hosted many non-TR friends in Istanbul over the years, I remember the first and the last one most vividly. Maybe because I actually came to the Ataturk Airport, walked in, and waited for the friend at their exit gate. After surviving the hours in a stuffy steel box called airplane, passport control and claiming luggage, the automated exit door finally opens up, he/she looks for you in that crazy crowd immediately. And just for you. They scan dozens of strange faces with the hopes of finding you there. There is a magic in that moment, at least for me. I have been to the both sides. The door opens, the eyes meet, the lips curve to smile, then the adventure begins!

 

Urfa, Mardin ve Dostlar / Urfa, Mardin and Close Friends

           

Bir turna olsam yollara vursam                         I wish I were a crane, hitting the roads
Uçabilsem kendi semalarıma                            I wish I could fly to my own skies
Bir seher vakti sılaya varsam                            I wish to arrive home at some dawn
Selam versem ah sıradağlarıma                       Oh, how I wish to greet my own chain of mountains (Sertab Erener, Lal)

 

Granted that it is quite unusual and challenging: Santa Fe, San Francisco, Istanbul, Kibris, Urfa, Mardin in 13 days. Maybe I was a migratory bird in my previous life.

I do enjoy the surreality of the move and the decisions taken on the road. Currently, there are challenges and some instability in my life but thanks to the support of close friends all over the world, they are not alarming or dreadful. I have hardly ever felt such big gratitude in my life. 

Mid-December: Impressions from Gaziantep Intercity Bus Station (Otogar):

In Turkey, there are ceremonies for sending young men off to compulsory military duty and welcoming them back. One can witness these ceremonies at the otogars (Bus Terminals) and they can be quite irritating if you do not know what is going on. I guess even when you know what is going on (in my case, I knew it). You can be mesmerized by the rhythm of the deafening sounds of the drums and shrill pipe (zurna), mannerism of the musicians, the people who are dancing, the foreign language or the sounds made by the dancers and the darkness (dark eyes, dark skin, dark hair, pretty “exotic”!) How outstanding the lack of women is! Easy to say which sex is setting up the rules of public performances. And why it has to be that loud, I wonder. One of my favorite Turkish writers speculated as such: In the land of centuries-long wars and struggles, one needs to scream in the Middle East and she includes Turkey in it. If you cannot scream loud enough, you are ignored, discarded or dead. Not only in one’s own language (among family and friends) but also when they go abroad. The Middle East shouts, screams and they need to be loud in order to survive. It is etched into one’s subconscious. You cannot help it even if you live in the West for decades (I am thinking of a colleague who is originally from Jerusalem and I am not going to name him). Same story with mourning rituals. If you don’t faint, pull your hair (literally!) or cry buckets, then you are not upset enough. 

My experience with the public buses in San Francisco continues in the southeastern Anatolia. I am very close to the Syrian border and I hear more Kurdish and Arabic than Turkish in the buses. In comparison to San Francisco: The smells of the people and the language they speak changed, but not the poverty, not the informality and/or the indifference. The facial features changed radically too. Maybe the type of hüzün/gloomy expression or tristesse on their faces change as well? I am not so sure about it though I accept that the deep wrinkled faces of people, mostly long-term chain smokers are almost the characteristics of this region.

I am not going to apologize if some of you are smelling some orientalism in the above-written passages. Sometimes listing or sharing simple observations can be misjudged as orientalism. After having spent years in academia analyzing orientalism and its various forms (be it hidden, overt, internalized, American, French, or whatever), I have come to the conclusion now that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. 

My time in Urfa was short, too short indeed. However, a genuine conversation with a good friend was enough for me to make some near-future-career decisions. She and her husband (an officer) reported that the problems caused by the Syrian refugee flow and the lack of organization on the part of the government are only getting worse and will continue in directions that we are yet to predict. One of the worst and the most visible consequences is prostitution. Even in the so-called family or well-respected neighborhoods, there are flats with many women living together and the rest is not difficult to guess. The local families would complain and call the police until the flat is emptied and the women are taken somewhere else to be pimped. Cheap drugs such as bonzai are another very common, widespread problem among the refugee camps. There are many other scandalous stories which I am not going to narrate here but to say the least, they were very disappointing and makes one question the human nature and what kind of evil things it can be capable of. 

The bus ride between Urfa and Mardin takes 2.5 hours. My friend whom I have not seen for 7 years greeted me wholeheartedly and we began chatting as if we departed yesterday. I stay at Ipekyolu Guest house run by Ipekyolu Women's Cooperative in order to support Women and Children Centres. It is a stone-made, 300 years old guesthouse. The only problem so far is the cold weather. It is off-season and also not many people have been around after the Kobani events in the first week of October. Whomever I talked to complained about the lack of tourists.  Well, come with some layers since there is no central heating but only air-conditioning. I asked for an electric heater (UFO) and also for electric-blanket to feel the coming nights more comfortable. The breakfast was very nice (with French fries, unusual for a typical Turkish breakfast) and after I was done, I was told to help myself in the kitchen and take as many glasses of Turkish tea as I want. They had no milk or yogurt though which I bought myself and stored in their fridge. The two ladies who are running the place told me that I should act as if I were in my own house (kendi evinmiş gibi).

The same statement was made more than once by my friend who insisted that I stay with her. But I wanted to have my own space which I value and miss like crazy. She, a dedicated academic and an independent woman, above all fully understands and respects that. I am on my way to have dinner with her in ten minutes. Like my friend in Urfa, she too has big brown ceylan/gazelle eyes. Unfortunately, just like my friend in Urfa, she too warns me about coming to this region for a living and engage in any activity (be it academia or NGO work) and explains her reasons in detail. I respect them both and I am going to listen to them. People on the surface are friendly and respectful: “you are more than welcome and enjoy yourself fully”. BUT do not try to scratch the surface or else you will find some sullen faces and some secrets which are not ready to be shared, not if you are there only for a few days. Just mind your own business, do not ask certain questions.  Fine, fair enough. That is why I like Lars von Trier! For scratching the surface…

Can we claim that some of us working under certain circumstances deserve more praises than the others working or teaching in the West, such as Finland or Santa Cruz? Would it be fair? Aren’t they also dealing with their own baggage and history? But there is the safety issue, everyday safety issue… If there is a civil war going on just next you and you have to face the ones who escape from it on everyday basis, how can you teach? Deborah Britzman, one of the unforgettable professors at York University actually works on these questions: Speculations on qualities of difficult knowledge in teaching and learning. 

More on Orientalism: Sabancı Museum of Mardin is a must-see including Dilek Sabanci Art Gallery. In the main floor you learn about Mardin, its history, different cultures, religions, handicraft, food etc. The recorded short greetings from all over the world (mostly the US, Canada and Sweden) to the visitors of the Museum by the immigrants from Mardin was the highlight for me. In the Art Gallery, my heart beat even faster because of the two exhibitions:  An Orientalist in Mardin: Marius Bauer. He was a Dutch painter (1867-1932). He has dozens of sketches, a few oil paintings, water colors and letters. And then "Photographs of the East as viewed from the West" exhibition. I have to confess that after being exposed to so many pictures of Turkey taken by the Orientalists and listening to the story of Aziyade and the life story of Pierre Loti, I am now spending less time studying the pictures in the exhibition than focusing on how the exhibition is designed and the language that is being used to make the exhibition attractive. 

Good night gazelle-eyed. You make the stone houses you live begin to talk ("dile getirmek" like in fairy tales). Not sure from where your fascination with the stones originates. First Cappadocia, then Mardin… Creating paradises from rubble. What I know for sure is that you are such a unique soul and I am so happy that you are my friend.