Turkish Muse

Two-Way Ticket

This week I purchased two, round-trip tickets from Izmir to New York City to visit family later this year. It was a long time coming, as we haven't been back to the US since February 2010, which means that by the time we get there, it will have been some 20 months or so since our last visit.

Many of my non-Turkish friends head to their "home" countries much more frequently than that, at least once a year, maybe more, but Jeff and I average a trip more like every two years. We find it difficult to find the time -- Jeff is restricted quite heavily by his teaching schedule (not every teacher gets summers off, you know) -- but we have managed to plan this year's trip around Kurban Bayram, so that at least one week of it is a sanctioned holiday.

And though earlier this year, we entertained serious thoughts of going to the US this August (as in, next month), once we started looking at airfare we simply couldn't justify paying more than $3000 to fly to the American suburbs at the hottest time of the year. 

I always feel some anxiety about going back to the US, and it's not just because of the time and money factor. It's because I can never please anyone by going back, least of all myself (so that whole maxim about making yourself happy and everyone else be damned doesn't really apply here). Everyone wants something different from us, and I simply cannot make everyone 100% happy.

And I guess I'm feeling a bit of anxiety about something else too because I had this dream the other night where I went to the US and then I didn't come back to Turkey.

I can't remember the particulars of the dream, like where I was, or who I was talking to, but I remember quite clearly what I was saying and the sense of anxiety that pervaded in my dream. I remember listing all the reasons I couldn't stay in the US, that I had to go home:

"But I don't have a job here! Don't you know what the economy is like here? I have a really good job in Turkey, and I'd like to keep it!"

"What about my 4 cats? I can't just leave them in the flat! Someone will put them on the street!"

"But all my friends are in Turkey!"

"But my life is in Turkey! I can't leave it behind!"

Sometimes, when I'm being 100% rational, I know I won't stay in Turkey forever. Or maybe I will. I don't actually know. But every time I think about going back to the US for good, I cringe a little inside. Emotionally, I am simply not ready to give up the good life I've created for myself here.

Which is why, when I woke up, I -- I admit this is absurd -- I double-checked the confirmation email Turkish Airlines sent me and reassured myself that I had indeed purchased a two-way ticket, one that goes from Izmir to NYC and then back again.

As far as nightmares go -- and I have plenty of those -- this one was pretty tame. I didn't wake up still feeling anxious; in fact, I remembered the dream only much later in the morning, hours after I had woken up. I'm not big on dream psychology, but I do wonder if this whole episode is some kind of sign or something, like (at the risk of stating the obvious) that the real reason I drag my feet on going to the US is that I'm worried somehow I won't be able to get home again.

Or maybe this is me already fighting the onslaught of questions I am expected to hear that go along the lines of, "When are you coming home again for good?"

View from Bodrum

While in Bodrum a few weekends ago, Jeff and I were strolling through the shopping district lining the bay, following our noses, as they say, when we happened to notice a small narrow alley lined with flowers off the main street.

A beautiful sleek cat ran ahead of us, turned around to look and ran forward again. Well, that was our cue: follow the cat!

We headed up the steep incline, marveling at the flowers spilling over from a first-floor patio, hanging loose and carefree from iron gates. As we got closer, we realized that the free-flowing vines snaking up the building belonged to a pension.

We ascended the half staircase to the landing, intending to just pop in and get a business card to consider the hotel for our next trip to Bodrum. Instead, the woman behind the desk offered to show us around and even take us up to the terrace, where she told us there were gorgeous views of the Bodrum bay.

Well, of course, we agreed. Leading us up a few flights of stairs, which wrapped around the outside of the building, each new floor offered a growing glimpse of Bodrum from up above the city. She showed us a lovely and spacious room, then led us through the elaborate gate leading the way to the terrace.

From there, Bodrum seemed spectacularly different than it had on the harbor. 

Way up high on the terrace, I could make out the outline of the two small bays, separated by the Bodrum Castle. The yachts in the harbor seemed grander than when I saw them on land and reminded me of nights on Bosphorous, the way their lights twinkled in the dusk.

I preferred to concentrate my attention on the sea, instead of behind me where the hills were crowded with white summer houses that looked hastily built and stacked precariously on top on one another.

We sat a spell with the woman who had brought us up to the terrace, drank a coffee and swapped stories of living and working in Istanbul and what we had done in Bodrum thus far.

Though we spent most of our time that weekend on the ground, navigating the pazar area, laying on the beach, eating fish on the harbor, my nicest memory of the weekend was that moment when I came up the stairs, turned my head and saw this.

Conversation in Sultanahmet

I scanned the rows of park benches and one by one ruled out all those I couldn’t sit on. Family of tourists, no room for me anyway; young Turkish man who might get the wrong idea; elderly couple having a romantic moment in the dwindling sunlight.

A middle-aged woman sitting alone at the edge of one bench caught my eye and I approached her.

“May I sit here?” I asked in Turkish.

“Of course, of course,” she said, moving an eighth of an inch closer to the edge of the bench, the way polite people do when there is no need to make room but want to appear welcoming.

I sat and put my bags next to me, clutching the straps through my arm. It was still touristy, I told myself, you never know who might try to take your bag.

From my bench, I had the most beautiful view of the Sultanahmet Mosque, lit up by the setting sun, sparkling behind the water fountain’s mist. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been here in so long. I hadn’t ever noticed how many locals were doing the same thing I was, just sitting, staring, contemplating, maybe a wee bit in awe of how strikingly beautiful the view was.

I remarked as such to the woman next to me.

“It is gorgeous, isn’t it?” she nodded in affirmation. “I love coming here.”

She asked me what I was doing in Turkey, and I told her I lived here.

In Istanbul? No, I said. Izmir.

“I hate Izmir,” she said, vehemently. “I went there last year and hated it.”

I was surprised and said so. I’ve met very few Turkish people who don’t like Izmir. I asked her why she didn’t like the city.

“There’s nothing there, nothing at all. It has no soul.” Here she nodded knowingly, as if imparting some kind of sacred information.

“Now, Istanbul, Istanbul is something else, isn’t it?” she said, and it wasn’t really a question the way she said it.

We sat in silence for a moment, watching the seagulls swooping wide and low over the mosque.

“I’d offer you some tea, but I don’t imagine you carry a teacup with you,” she said with a smile, gesturing with her own hour-glass teacup, which she had produced from a canvas bag carrying a thermos filled with tea.

I laughed. No, I said, I don’t have a teacup in my purse, but thank you for the offer.

We sat in silence for a while longer, and then I stood up to go.

 

The Cat Who Came Back

It was nighttime when I first saw her. In the near darkness – the street lamp was out, again – her all-black fur blended into the night and all I could see was her small shape moving hesitantly toward me.

“Do you want something to eat?” I asked. “Here,” I said, dumping the dry cat food in front of her nose. “You have something to eat. There’s some water over there too.” I gestured to the empty yogurt container I had recently filled.

The cat sniffed the food and backed away. Not hungry, I thought. Sometimes street cats aren’t hungry, strange as it may seem.

The next day the kitten had crossed the street and entered our garden, or, rather, the overgrown patch of ground behind the neighboring municipal health clinic that happens to border our apartment building’s parking area. Nobody ever comes by to mow the grass or cut down the brush so it is now home to about a dozen or so cats that I feed and water daily.

The kitten was sitting in the middle of the driveway, a long stretch of concrete just wide enough for a single car to drive down. I gasped when I saw her and instinctively looked away. She cried, walked towards me and cried again.

“Help me,” she said.

The kitten’s nose and eyes were seeping green mucus and her matted, thin fur was prickled with burs and grasses that she wasn’t able to clean off. I wondered if she could even see or smell given what must have been an upper-respiratory infection raging through her body. And then I noticed her jaw, the slight drooping on the right side, the teeth jutting out at an angle, the hole where skin and fur should have been.

She cried at me again, her jaw aching at having to open to get the weak sound out.

I turned away from the kitten. My instinct was to pick her up and rush her to the vet, but I hesitated. I’d done that so many times, lost so many cats teetering on the edge of death, that I didn’t know if I could do it again. After the last time, I told myself, “This is nature. This is how the world works. Shit happens. And you can’t save them all.”

I went inside, having put down some fresh water and food for the cats.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the kitten. The next morning, there she was, waiting for me. “Please,” she said.

A friend, one who is much more knowledgeable about cats than I, came by and said that the kitten had to go to the vet. There was no way she’d make it otherwise, even if I force fed her antibiotics. The only vet open on a Sunday, unfortunately, was the one vet I can’t stand, the only vet I’ve ever met who cares more about his business’s bottom line than about helping animals.

But there was no choice. I was in it now. The cat had asked me for help, and I just – oh I had to give it. How can one not? How can a human being stare suffering in the face and do nothing?

An x-ray showed that the kitten’s jaw was, in fact, not broken, leading us to believe that several doses of antibiotics could clear up the infection eating away at her body and causing her mouth to fall apart.

On Sunday, we left the kitten at the vet and crossed our fingers. Let’s hope she pulls through, we said.

That night, I fretted at home about the cat, about the vet who put us off at first because he didn’t want to take the kitten in, about the asshole across the street who neglected to have his cat fixed and then dumped the kittens she bore into the street. I cursed every other person who walked by that kitten and refused to help it, who said, “not me, not today”.

That night, standing on my balcony watching other, healthier kittens play in the street, I watched two women walk by and saw one yell at them, swing her hand towards them. I yelled angry, inappropriate things in Turkish down into the street.

In the morning, I steeled myself for the worst, that the kitten had died in the night, or worse, that she was lying in a pool of her own vomit or piss, neglected by the very vet who was supposed to be taking care of her.

At the vet, they brought the kitten to me and I saw her eyes for the first time and they were beautiful, big black eyes. And she was standing, something she hadn’t been able to do the day before. And her voice was stronger and she talked to me and the abscess in her jaw looked a little less red and raw.

She wasn’t out of the woods yet, that much I knew, but oh what a difference 24 hours makes! What a miracle antibiotics are! How much stronger her voice, her legs, how much clearer her eyes!

I opened the door to the carrier and reached my hand inside. The kitten came forward, head bowed low so I could pet her.

I bent my head toward her and spoke softly. “You did the right thing by finding me. I’m sorry I hesitated. But I’m going to take care of you now.”

The kitten nestled her head into my cupped hand and purred.

 

After about two weeks of antibiotics, minor surgery on her face, and plenty of water, food and vitamins, the kitten – whom I’ve temporarily named Lucky (I think she deserves a nicer name than that, one more indicative of her personality) – is doing much better. Unfortunately, I have not found a permanent home for her and she is now in my guest room while I attempt to find her full-time parents. If you’re interested in adopting her, please send me an email to barbara@turkishmuse.com. I'm happy to bring her to you anywhere in Turkey!

New Direction

First, thank you to all of you who sent me such lovely messages these past few weeks wishing me well, telling me it was okay to take some time off and letting me know that you wanted me to come back. Those messages truly did mean a lot to me. (“You like me! You really like me!”)

I took some much-needed time off from blogging so that I could create some space in which I could do a bit of exploring. The truth was, I was getting bored of this blog. I was stymied by the limitations I had set for myself regarding what I could and could not write, limitations that had been set years ago when I first came to Turkey

I’ve been writing on this blog for four years now, and I hadn’t realized just how much my original goals for it had changed since the early days. For a long time, this blog has been about expat life in Turkey. It offered readers a view on what living as a foreigner in Turkey is like, at least in my experience. It also offered travel tips, and hotel and restaurant recommendations.

The problem with that was it precluded me from writing about a lot of other things I wanted to explore, and it narrowly limited my view on the world, on life and on myself.

I realized that I was focusing too much what my life meant in Turkey and not enough on what my life meant period. For four years, I’ve been looking at my life through a prism. Everything has been juxtaposed through a single lens: in Turkey.

“Well, in Turkey, we….”

“Things in Turkey are like….”

“The way it’s done in Turkey is…”

Somewhere along the line, I got too focused on the “expat” in “expat life” and lost sight of the bigger “life” part.

I realized that what I wanted to write were about things that really mattered to me. I wanted to tell stories, to describe people and events, not just cafes and restaurants.

And then one day it occurred to me that I could that, here, on this blog. All I had to do was do it. 

So what does this mean? Well, first, it means I won’t be writing exclusively about Turkey anymore. It means I’m going to write about lots of things, like food and art and travel and cats and (gasp!) politics, all things I touch on here but not in a lot of detail (with the exception of the politics part).

It also means that I will do more long-form, essay-type writing and probably less pithy blurbs. I know, I know, essays aren’t exactly suited to the blog format, but I actually don’t care. There are plenty of good essayists out there who have blogs and I think the two can go well together. I won't subject you to any poetry, though, don't worry.

I know that this means I will likely alienate those people who came here strictly for the content about Turkey, and for this, I am sorry. I will still, of course, write about Turkey, but hopefully a little differently. If you decide you don’t want to come back, though, I would understand.

The other reason I need to change up what I’m doing on the blog is because I’m writing a book. It’s about – wait for it – life in Turkey. No, I’m not kidding. It really is. It’s a cross between a travel memoir and a regular memoir. Call it an expat memoir, if you will. I’m not sure if such a thing exists, but it does now!

And I know what you’re thinking: But I thought she just said she wanted to write less about Turkey?

But the book is one of the reasons I need to move away from writing about Turkey exclusively on this blog. In order for me to concentrate on writing the book, I need a space where I can be free to play with words, experiment with ideas and let loose on some other topics to create breathing space for writing about Turkey.

So I hope you’ll stick around. Though I haven’t been on the internets in recent weeks, I’ve been hard at work writing and I’m eager to share some of that with you. 

Hiatus

I'm taking a little break from blogging for a while. I hope to come back as soon as I can.