Story Archive - August 2007

Erkek Kardeş (08/24/2007)

Emek olmadan yemek olmaz.

We take our seats in the dinning area and they start serving the forty rounds of food. My table has four Americans and four Turks but English is the linga franca.

The bridge and groom enter and have their first dance to "The Luckiest." It ends and father of the bride takes her hand, my mother joins my brother and the parents dance ensues. Then the parents of the bride begin their dance, "Jordan, you've been promoted!" I jump up and grab my mother to dance with her. The first dances end and we sit back down at the tables.

Dinner is over quickly and the techno beat cranks up a level. The kids hit the floor. For better or for worse I have graduated to dancing maniac in the last four years of my life. It is a mix of American songs and Turkish songs, but all pumping to a wonderful dance beat. The bride's group of gorgeous friends joins the floor and I saunter my way over. "Çok güzelsin." Laughter ensues, but don't tell me a little Turkish can't go a long way.

I grab a rakı and the girls grin, "that's Lion's Milk. It gives a man strength on the dance floor. How do you like it?" "I love it." Giggles. "I'm a professional." Giggles.

My mother is pulled onto the floor as well. It is not lost on many of us that she is the only person in the parent's generation who is out there, but she is having an amazing time.

A Turkish song starts and we lock pinky fingers. Two bouncing steps to the right, kick with left leg, kick with right leg, repeat. Turkish dancing! We're professionals. The song switches to belly dancing and the women take the floor. We are pulled to the side by one of the men and he has us all drop to one knee and begin clapping. "This is how you make the dancing great!" We smile. "And, if the women do really well." he pulls out a bunch of Turkish Lira. Giggles.

Dancing goes until 1am when we have passed the noise ordinance by an hour. Everyone wishes well to everyone else. No one has fallen into the Bosporus. "İyi geceler."

A Few Last Minute Changes (08/23/2007)

Gökyüzünde düğün var deseler, kadınlar merdiven kurmaya kalkar.

Turkish dance music is playing loudly from the speaker behind me as I sit on the rooftop of the hotel. The cars are traveling across First Bridge at a good clip, but just a little later rush hour will set in and the bridge will come to a complete stop. People will step out of their cars for a smoke and to eat a snack. It has been a different week than what I had envisioned, but a restful one full of soul searching for me.

There are far fewer family members from the states out in Turkey with us than had originally been planned. Multiple members of the family had to cancel for medical issues and a few more cancelled for job-related reasons. I think I have done a good job to never let my job make me miss the important parts of my life; it's easy to get another job, but very hard to get another life.

Up until the last moment before the wedding, things were changing. Just the day before, as the oldest man in the family attending, I got promoted to witness (similar to a best man). I was pulled aside before the ceremony and they added some of my information into the wedding papers and was told by the planner, "at the ceremony you will need to stand up at one point to sign the book. There are other things, but I don't know the English for it. Just do and say what the other witness does." Peki!

The bride has chosen to descend the stairs alone to avoid the custom of the woman being passed from one man (her father) to another (my brother). She is at the top of the staircase when she caves and signals to her father who runs up to join her. They take their long walk unto the stage and the officer signals for us to join them. I see the other witness, her 90-year-old grandfather, go to their right so I head to left but am blocked. "Tamam mı?" I am pointed next to the grandfather and make my way over there.

The officer reads and asks Sinem a question. She says something in Turkish (I hear "yes" a couple times) and the audience laughs and cheers. They ask Justin, he says something else in Turkish and the audience laughs and cheers. They ask the first witness a question and I listen closely so I can repeat it, but it is long. They ask me something; I have no clue what, smile and say "evet!" We sign. Fireworks blast behind us. I'm pretty sure that twenty-four hours earlier there were no plans for fireworks.

Call to Prayer (08/20/2007)

Namazda gözü olmayanın ezanda kulağı olmaz.

I'm standing in the big open courtyard in between the two major mosques when the call to prayer starts. The muezzin's voice comes out beautifully from the speakers on the minarets of Sultanahmet. I've been wondering how the call to prayer happens when you have two mosques so close to one another and the answer is beautiful. After the initial call completes I hear another call from directly behind me. I hear the call from directly behind and spin around to the Ayasofya to hear a beautiful response. As it ends I turn back towards Sultanahmet for the next part of the call but am shocked when a third call to prayer comes from my right.

Before the days of the loud speakers all three mosques were likely to have just done their calls to prayers separately and at the same time. Modernization has given them something new and something that must be even more impressive. Now there is an intertwining of calls from three mosques so close together.

A woman in full black covering is standing in the middle of the courtyards with her video camera quickly turning it on the pedestal each time the voice switches. It is a beautiful day.

Hoş Karşilamak (08/19/2007)

Bekara karı boşamak kolay gelir.

"Which of the women you met last night did you find the most attractive?" Even in Turkey, it is a favorite pastime of friends and family to set me up. Not that I object at all; I openly invite them to do it. I have been on more first dates over the last four months than in the fifteen years leading up to it. I am also constantly interviewing people at work. The two things get mixed up. On dates I nearly ask, "What do you see as your career path over the next few years?" During interviews I want to say, "how do you spend your free weekends?"

This is about me in Turkey! I'm here! I can hear the call to afternoon prayer coming from down the street. We looked for a hotel a little ways from a Mosque, but those don't really existing in Istanbul. My older brother is getting married at the end of the week and I am exploring this fine country. It's my second time here. I was last in Turkey around ten years ago with my older brother and mother before the woman he's going to marry was in his life.

I have been traveling a lot lately. I've been in North America, Australia, Europe and Asia in the past three weeks. If I can find a way home through Africa, across Antarctica and up through South America I would be all set. Turkey is different today than ten years ago. There are far fewer zeroes on the currency, inflation is down and more woman walk around Istanbul with head scarves on.

Rushing Water (08/10/2007)

There can be no prestige without mystery, for familiarity breeds contempt. - Charles de Gaulle

I stretched the next morning on the floor of the cave. The dirt had bundled up on my clothing over the night providing me a blanket. After breakfast provided by the gremlins, I moved my way farther back into it's depths. The cave, though familiar home, treated me like a simile.

My old friend the rock blocked the passageway into the heart of the mountain. I willed with all my might for the rock to move but it sat quietly. The rock had grown lazy in the years I'd been gone. I'd grown lazy in the years I'd been gone. I begged. I offer bribes. I tried one last force of will and rock awoke and slowly, joints grinding and spewing off the dirt in a fine powder, the rock moved aside for me. As it opened, the mouth of the passage vomited darkness on me and the room filled up with it. Vile, disgusting and warm it was tangible everywhere.

I entered the orifice, pushing past the shadow. The gloom clung to my clothing and made the path a challenge. From time to time I would become too burdened and have to stop to clean off the murkiness that clung before I proceeded further in.

Deep inside, my feet touched the edge of the lake and the fish scattered away from me. I waded out into the center of the pool. Even at its deepest point the heart of the mountain was shallow. I could feel the slick creatures scooting around me, pecking at me in curiosity. They were all too young to remember my scent permeating their world.

I closed my eyes and sank flat against the pond floor. The water rushed into my nostrils and into my ears and I could hear the sounds of life everywhere. A minute passed. Another minute passed. Not long now. I can't wait. I give in. For a moment it's just like going home.

Grew Up in the Cave (08/08/2007)

If you turn your back on science it will take you from behind. - Dr. Tiki

I slowly unrolled the paper across the ground enjoying the crackling as its crispiness spread out. The parchment was old and stained with grass and coffee. There were tears and cracks and burns across it, but the paths of the mountain were clear. My mountain was clear. In my childhood I wouldn't have required a map to find my way around, but things seem so distant and surreal now.

I left camp early, while she was still asleep. I bathed in the pond to the sound of the birds singing. The mushroom circle was back in bloom and there was a faint hint of sparkling dust across the tops from last night's dance.

I headed towards a point on the map I knew well, a place she shouldn't come. On the shadow side of the slope I found the cave and wandered in. The memories rushed back of the kite that never flew, the fire that always choked us and warm embrace of the summer's air. And if we had talked to one another, don't you think we would suppose that the names we used applied to the things we saw passing before us? They didn't. The things were just shadows on the wall. They were our shadows.

Deep into the cave, past where the sunlight ever reached, eyes adjusted to the darkness and then to the utter blackness. A wooden stick was driven into the ground. I placed it here a long time ago. The soil around the steak looked the same as anywhere else. I remember when I had first piled it on, how the soil looked moist and dark compared to the dry crust everywhere else. I start talking loudly, hoping the words will melt there way through the dirt to find her.

Another Escape (08/06/2007)

Where you decide to put your time and attention says a lot about who you are. - Merlin Mann

I packed my bag this morning and started the journey to my wilderness. I'm not sure why I didn't think to go earlier. It's been nearly three and a half years since the last time I was there. I walked slowly, kicking rocks, and as I passed the familiar landmarks everything was wrong in exactly the way it should have been. The place was surreal and not the home I had made all those years ago.

The ring of mushrooms was dead. The pond that sat nearby was just a tiny puddle of mud, nearly dried up from this year's summer heat. I closed my eyes and thought back to when their lights had drifted out of the forest carried on wind and laughter and enticed me to join them in dance. It was over. I knew nothing would happen tonight. Even if I stayed, even if I hid, the fairies weren't coming. I picked some flowers from nearby bushes and laid them in the ground in a circle where the wisps used to dance. I said a prayer over the ringlet of flowers and continued up the hill.

The prairie had a fence around it. It didn't the last time I was hear. It must have been around only a couple years but the fence looked old and broken like it had been there unattended for a hundred years. There were some cookies left inside, but I wouldn't call them wild. They nuzzled up to me and made the noise of a dumb tame snack. I remember when they would run in herds across the fields. I picked one up; it cooed at me and I couldn't bring myself to eat it. Someone had tried to farm them.

The last part of the journey would be the hardest. I could see the inset of the mountain I had made my home those years back. I wandered slowly towards it. There was no sign I had ever lived there. The fire pit was gone, the bunches of weeds I'd used as a bed were gone and it as just a lonely a cranny in the side of a big mountain. The light faded as the sun fell down below the horizon. My eyes wandered slowly to the place I had been avoiding looking: the tree.

There was still just one rope dangling and swaying gently in the breeze.

She was there with me. She was swaying side to side in the tree. I had expected a second rope, but she had fastened herself into the same one to keep our husks together. She was ingenious that way.

In the campsite her hand slipped into mine. I didn't need to look to know. When I go to the woods to escape, she finds me. Night overtook us. I heard the rumble of a cookie herd and the laughing of the fairies in the distance. I smiled.

It's Just a bit Weird (08/03/2007)

In a way Australia is like Catholicism. The company is sometimes questionable and the landscape is grotesque. But you always come back. - Thomas Keneally

Click. Click. Click. Click click click click. That's the sound the cross walk makes. It's no more annoying than the strange "whooping" noises that the US crosswalks make when it's time to go, but it's different. Seventy-five percent of everything is intuitive and works exactly the way you would expect, but twenty-five percent of it is flabbergastingly incomprehensibly stupid.

I'm in Melbourne two more days than expected, funny story really. I'll tell you sometime. Here's a picture of me downtown by the river and a blurry one looking professional. It's business formal at the bank here: suits. I wore a suite twice and did slacks and blazers the rest of the time. They have to accept my zany American ways.

I pull the car up to the petrol station and the sign says, "Enter amount or press fill, put nozzle in car, pump." I do this and nothing happens. I do this a second time and nothing happens. I figure I need to prepay and go inside.

"I am on pump three." "No mate, there's no one on pump three." I check and think that maybe I've got it wrong and read off the ethanol, "I'm on pump eleven." "Sorry mate, no one on pump eleven." "I'm in the blue Camry." "Yeah, that's pump three but no petrol has been run." "Yeah, it doesn't run I'm in here to pay." "Ohh, it's not prepay. Go back out and pump first."

I walk back out, passing the "please prepay" sign, and sigh. Once again I try the pumping without success. I try the "fill" button without success. I ask they guy next to me, filling his car, how I do it. "Oh, it's easy. Just pump." "I'm trying but no gas comes out." "Right, just put it in like you're pumping. It'll flash a light inside, they'll flip a switch and the petrol will flow." Ohh... hmm... I hold down the pump and wait and wait and wait. It clicks about a 60 seconds later, which is an amazingly long time while watching cars queue up behind.