Swimming in the Hüzün

I’ve not been posting much and I wish I could say it was because we’ve been so busy having adventures. Mostly, it was because I was pretty depressed for most of the winter. My posts would have been pissing and moaning about how inefficient everything can be; how tired I am of Turkish food; and how many nights I laid awake thinking about everything I gave up to come here.

I thought about creating a frustration index and “What the #$% did we do?” rating to give y’all a daily pulse. (The Frustration Index topped at 8, the WTFDWD hit about 7)

No one needs to hear that crap.

I got caught up in the hüzün--a pervasive shared melancholy, that Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk says defines Istanbul.

“Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Istanbul, it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed.” ― Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City

When I read this, I thought he meant another era but foolish me forgot that the past is never past here.

Things have improved a lot over the last few weeks. A January trip back home helped my mood tremendously. I got to see sorely missed friends and spend some time with Mom and Dad.

We’ve also met some fellow American during their visits here and got to play tour guide.     Experiencing Istanbul through new eyes was perfect therapy for my “I hate this place” mood. The new friends were a great free bonus.

We also found a great space for our cafe. It’s big. It is right in the heart of the tourist quarter, and the rent is unbelievable. Thus my other reason for not updating– I have been working like a gub’ment mule trying to turn a store into a cafe. We’ve been at it for about three weeks now and it is finally taking shape.

And after what the locals say has been an unusually long and cold winter, someone found the switch to turn on Spring.  So, yes, things are looking up.

Thanksgiving Day, Türkiye

Each year as the holidays come around, a theme emerges–surviving the time you have to spend your horrible family.  It’s the theme of unbearable movies released around this time (yes, I am talking to you Vince Vaughn); a full month topic for Dr. Phil during November sweeps; and an inexhaustible seam of comedic gold to be mined and beaten into cheap, shiny trinkets.

From the time we take down the ghosts and spiders, until the New Year’s Eve hangover subsides, we are force-fed a steady of diet of fathers who withhold approval; mothers whose back-handed compliments eviscerate like a scalpel; the racist uncle; the fundamentalist cousin; the brother who was always better than you; the Stepford wife sister; the spouse driven to insanity by holiday competition.

Is this really what your families are like? I know some of you have families out of Tennesee Williams, some out of Faulkner and some out of David Lynch. I always thought my family was normal, ordinary, boring. But the more I hear from my friends about their families, the more I see that my family is pretty damned extraordinary.  Boring, maybe, but only because of the lack of drama. Whatever choices I’ve made, they’ve been supportive.  When I’ve stumbled, they’ve been supportive-without question, without hesitation.  They embraced Earl and he them.  Even this decision to quit my job and move to Istanbul (which, let’s face it, really pushes the crazy meter) was met with full support.

Maybe it’s because of the distance, maybe it’s because I am in foreign land where its just another Thursday in November. maybe it’s because some recent drama amongst the in-laws, but I am feeling especially grateful for my family today.

May your turkey be moist
May the stuffing be plentiful
May your preferred team win
And may the spirit of Thanksgiving last longer than the leftovers.

Maalesef, Türçe Bilmiyorum

Some people have a great ability to learn languages. I don’t. I think it would be incredibly arrogant to move to a country and expect everyone to speak your language.  So for a few months I was spending about an hour a day, five days a week with Rosetta Stone and Mango. I think my gray matter was Scotchguarded, everything seems to have slid right past the language center of my brain. I am hoping something stuck deep down in one of the folds of my brain, and like some amnesia victim in a soap opera, some random occurrence will cause all those repressed memories to flood out.

The best I can muster is a vague sense that I recognize a word, but not its meaning.  Occasionally, I can point to things and call them by name.

Fortunately, Attaturk Latinized the alphabet in the 1920’s so I am not struggling with a new set of characters.  Unlike in English, the letter sounds remain pretty constant and they are mostly pronounced as they are in English so its fairly phonetic.  There are no genders of things as in French. Turkish still presents plenty of challenges. Not the least of which are the bits and bobs floating above or dangling below otherwise benign letters that make them unpronounceable with my oafish American tongue.

The hardest part for me is changing my assumptions about how words are formed. In English (and in most of the Romantic languages and Latin that we’ve absorbed*), words have a certain rhythm. I can almost see a suspension bridge, the towers of consonants standing upright and strong, linked together by the graceful swoop of the vowel sounds.

Turkish, on the other hand is like trying to join Legos bumpy to bumpy or bottom to bottom.  Consonants bang inelegantly against each other and vowels cluster into mush in my mouth.  We won’t get into how syllables that modify a word get jammed into the middle of the word instead of being snapped on at the beginning or end.

Oh, and its spoken very fast–like “Ohnoyoudidn’t-Angry-Latina” fast.

They tell me that Turkish, is actually very systematic, and that would work well for me.I hope one day to be fluent in Tarzan Turkish, as my friend Hakkan calls it.  “You. Me. Go store now.”

Until then, I have to rely on others command of English and my command of “Üzgünüm. Maalesef, Türçe Bilmiyorum (I am sorry.  Unfortunately, I don’t understand Turkish).

*I have friends who are cunning linguists and I am sure they will correct or refine this statement.

Internet, Expats, and Fortune Cookies

Seems like we’ve been in a black hole of internet connectivity ever since we moved out of our house in San Francisco, with spotty DSL and wonky routers plaguing us until last Saturday. I am sad to say that addiction has completely consumed me and internet withdrawal was making me twitchy and irritable.

But this past weekend, we made connections of two kinds–internet and fellow expats and both helped move us a few steps toward normal.

Peter, first came to Istanbul as a boy in the 1950s when his father came to teach geology at Istanbul University.  He’s more or less resident here, buying rugs and selling them to dealers in the States.  Mostly he lives down on the Mediterranean coast (another dream of ours) and keeps his visa up to date by taking a 25 minute ferry ride to a Greek Island every few months.

Douglas was a fellow San Franciscan during our tenure but sadly we did not know him them.  He’s a professional expat having lived in SE Asia and Brazil.  He kind of stumbled into Turkey but then met the love of his life–a dancer/lawyer.  They kindly invited us over to their place in Cihangir (the neighborhood where, ultimately, we plan to live).  It was a steep, San Francisco-ish hike up the hill to their place.  It was well worth the effort for both the hospitality and the mesmerizing view of the ferries crossing the Bosphorus and the cruise ships at the docks.

Doug and his partner have started the only fortune cookie factory in Turkey. Part of what   is so enticing about living here is that there are so many niches to be filled, but I don’t think I ever would have thought, “Hey! I know!  FORTUNE COOKIES!”  They did the research, found the machine to make them and imported it to Turkey and its been a big success.

Now, here’s the thing, fortune cookies are really an American invention and phenomenon. Most people had never seen one before so they just put the whole thing in their mouths only to end up with a spitwad of paper. They had to give instructions “Crack. Look. Eat.”

The funniest story was the one of a woman who opened her cookie and  it said

 Wait.

So she did.  She thought the waiter was propositioning her.  And since here, they don’t bring the check until asked, she sat. Until the place closed. When she found out it wasn’t a secret message, she was angry and embarrassed and started throwing plates at the not so amorous server.

I guess its too early to try to introduce the “in bed” rule.

Innocents Abroad

Mark Twain wrote about his visit to Constantinople in Innocents Abroad.  He wrote about the experience of the Turkish Bath.

For years I have dreamed of the wonders of the Turkish Bath…Many a time, in fancy, I have lain in the marble bath and breathed the slumbrous fragrance of Eastern spices that filled the air; then passed through a weird and complicated system of pulling and hauling and drenching and scrubbing, by a gang of naked savages who loomed vast and vaguely through the seaming mists…then rested for a while on a divan fit for a king; then passed through another ordeal more fearful than the first; and finally, swathed in soft fabrics, been conveyed to a princely saloon and laid on a bed of eider down where eunuchs, gorgeous of costume, fanned me while I drowsed and dreamed, or contentedly gazed at the rich hangings of the apartment…drank delicious coffee, smoked the soothing narghili and dropped at the last, into tranquil repose…

That was the picture I got from incendiary books of travel.  It was a poor miserable imposture.  The reality is no more like it than the Five Points is like the Garden of Eden…

They took me to..a marble room, wet, slippery and steamy, and laid me out on a raised platform in the centre…Presently he sat me down by a tank of hot water, drenched me well, gloved his hand with a coarse mitten and began to polish me all over with it…I soon saw that he was reducing my size.  He bore hard on his mitten, and from under it rolled little cylinders, like macaroni.  It could not be dirt for it was too white.  He pared me down in this way for a long time.  Finally I said, “ It is a tedious process,   It will take hours to trim me to the size you want me; I will wait; go and borrow a jack-plane.”

One hundred and fifty years later, the experience is not too different.  Still old guys wrapped in what look like table cloths will scrub you with a coarse mitt and cheap soap until you shed macaroni.  The traditional massages–if you can even get one–can be brutal (my first time a wiry little guy stood on my back, grabbed my wrists and pulled me into the pose of a Rolls-Royce hood ornament).

Still, there is something to love about the experience.  They were never intended to be a place of pampering but a necessary part of daily life.  Many are gone now, having falling out of fashion long ago as people got private baths in their homes.  A few, like Cemberlias and Cagalogu are quite spectacular but cater to tourists, making you feel like you are on a production line.  The smaller ones still cater to the neighborhood but can feel a little faded, almost seedy, in comparison.

But even in a more modest neighborhood hammam, you’ll find a large octagonal room, 100 years old or more, clad in slabs of white and gray marble, rising high to a domed ceiling, pierced with round glass skylights. In the center of the room is a raised marble platform, heated from below with coal.

Rooms off the main hall are lined with carved marble basins, with a pair of taps–scalding hot and icy cold.  The basin has no drain and you balance the taps to get the  water temperature to your liking and douse yourself from the stone bowl with with brass (now more often plastic) bowls provided.  You can let the water run and splash as much as you want.  Maybe this is why it is so satisfying–it’s everything you couldn’t do in the bathtub when you were a kid.

And when you’ve had enough splashing, you can go lie out on that warm marble slab (those plastic bowls, inverted, make a pretty nice pillow) and watch the steamy shafts of light pierce the dome and listen to the echos of the water dripping from tap to basin to floor until the warmth unties all the knots.

Gray, Autumn Morning, Istanbul

Merhaba Istanbul!

Our leaving was only slightly shorter than Cher’s Farewell Tour, but left we have.

The journey started pretty well.  Thank you Virgin America for a great first leg of our journey from SFO to LAX.    A wonderful woman named Debbie checked in our 200 pounds of luggage right at the curb.  Our four bags were first off and it was an easy walk to the International Terminal.

From there it gets a little prickly.  The service on Turkish was surly and stingy from check-in to wheel-down.  Our booked-at-the-last-minute hotel was shit.  The weather is cold and rainy.  But we ventured out along our usual pathways and it didn’t take long to find some of our friends.  Shopkeepers remembered us and welcomed us back.

Our friend Hakkan’s father Mustafa is managing a tourist apartment building, so we moved there after two nights in a shoe box.  While far from perfect, it is huge so at least we are not tripping over each other.  That helps immensely.  We are just off of the Hippodrome and we can see the Blue Mosque from our window.

View Larger Map

We made a pilgrimage to that internationally renown, massive marketplace.  IKEA may not carry the “mystery” of the Grand Bazaar, but at least you can shop without hearing “hello, my friend. Where you from?” at each step.  Buying a few lamps, mugs, glasses, an electric kettle and a french press for morning coffee makes it all feel more like home.

There were times I didn’t think I could go through with it.  The closer we got to leaving the more sentimental (or semi-mental as we say) I got.  But you, my friends and loved ones, have been extraordinary.  Instead of telling us this is a stupid, crazy idea, you call us brave and adventurous.  And that makes me feel a little brave and adventurous when I was feeling neither.  And when the anxiety kicked in (somewhere over northern Canada), I started to run through a list of all my friends who left their home countries, seeking adventure or opportunity around the world.  You reminded me it could be done with great style and success and I knew it would all be just fine.

Still fighting for a reliable internet connection and trying to get a mobile phone up and running.  And to get residency permits and a long-term apartment.  But on this rainy Sunday, the most we can muster is a nargile and hammam.

Goodbye San Francisco

Anchors and Wings

We’ve found two really wonderful guys to rent our house.  They really love the place and we find them to be incredibly solid (I mean, how many former investment bankers have done Ph.D. level work in ethics. If investment bankers had any ethics, the global economy would not be in the toilet).

Still, this house is special.  I’ve lived here for a huge chunk of my life–nearly 15 years.  It is the first and only house I’ve owned and the only house I’ve ever renovated (those slightly crooked tiles? Yeah, I laid them.  My blood and sweat are quite literally in this house).

So its a huge and happy relief, but not without some heartache.   I imagine it’s a little like marrying off your daughter. Fortunately, I am marrying her off to a good man.  Or in this case, men.

I also sold my motorcycle.

Sadly, the bike has languished unused for a while so I am selling it at a bargain price.  While still pretty, it needs some work to make it work.  The idea of selling it for parts is just horrid.  I’d give it a viking funeral before that.

Fortunately, a really nice young motorcycle mechanic wanted it.  I hope he can get it back on the road where it belongs.

I also just sent some of my power tools off to my dear friends Ron and Aaron who just moved from a San Francisco condo to their dream home on 5 acres in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I am not nearly as as handy as I imagine myself to be, but I love tools.  Even if they rarely (if ever) get used, tools are about possibility–the thrill of knowing that, should the need arise, you can make a beat up piece of driftwood smooth as baby’s ass, or cut new fretwork for that carpenter gothic house you are restoring.  And while Skil saws have always made me nervous, my DeWalt chop saw gives me a rush that borders on the erotic (Aaah, the smell of sawdust in the morning.  Smells like victory).  You quilters and sewers and knitters and your rooms full of fabric and yarn know what I’m talkin’ about.  The thrill of the power of possibility.

But I let these go as well. I think of the tools as “on permanent loan,” like pieces of art in a museum.  It is a another conceit that helps me let go so I can give up the possibilities they represent for a new and more real set of possibilities.

When I was in my 20’s, I had three “by the time I’m 30” goals:  to own a home; to have a masters degree; and to own a motorcycle.

I got the Masters but walked away from that last October.  Now I am shedding the other two.

It is a little breathtaking to think that I have to give up all my “by the time I’m 30” achievements to hit my “by the time I’m 50” goals (which I am trying to keep framed as who I want to BE rather than things I’d like to own).

In life, we have anchors and wings.  The question is always which is stronger.  Sometimes anchors give security in a storm, and sometimes they just hold you down.  Sometimes you have let go of your treasures–even the hard won ones–so your wings can do their job.

In this world there’s whole lotta golden

In this world there’s a whole lotta plain

In this world you’ve a soul for a compass

And heart for a pair of wings

There’s a star on the far horizon

Rising bright in an azure sky

For the rest of the time that you’re given

Why walk,

When you can fly?