anybody seen my baby?

early in the morning, earlier than usual, stepped out unintentionally. wintery day, first one of them. drizzly; and these -y's can go endlessly. no rush, you can get to work in your own sweet time. gives you time to take notice of the world. the morning that's, sort of, -almost- emptied of its crowds and traffic. gives time to stop at starbucks and grab a short cappuccino. then you walk out of the coffee shop with an extremely hot beverage in your hand -caution-, and see the lights, the only lights left from the night before. the green one says, 'yes, lady, you can cross the street if you hurry a little bit', but the red -rude- one interrupts and says 'i'm sorry, you're gonna have to wait'. " red light , grey morning, it's quiet- there's no one around. just a bang and a clatter as an angel runs to ground." -stay- by the time i get to work the daylike feeling has definitely settled in and the office is empty, 'you're still half a

the two skinny girls venturing across the lagoon for the stones.

years ago, back when we used to spend our vacations in oludeniz, my sister and i, two skinny little girls, our dad on the lead, we would rent canoes from our hotel and paddle to the other end of the lagoon, a pebble beach. the hotel beach was fine sand, good for sandcastling but we would miss the stones, we wanted what we didn't have. so we would paddle on to 'kum'burnu -kum means sand in turkish, but 'cape sand is not sandy at all-, park our canoes and start collecting pretty stones as if they were treasure. our canoes loaded with hundred little stones, each selected with utmost care, we would paddle back to our hotel. taken to our room, those stones would lose their sheen. after the polish of the water and the glint in the sun is gone, stones were stones not jewels. i would still take back some of them home with me. my mom would not let me keep them in a bowl full of water, saying they would gather moss. well, maybe, yes. still, i wanted back the thrill of the instant

not ready to lie. not ready to tell the truth. that's when you avoid.

A few weeks later, I find myself back in an office, this time a different one. I look around and see the pics that I brought here, 3 pics that remind me of and represent the things I love in life (the sea and the shore across in Bebek, Sena's painting on the wall of my apartment and the suitcase I place my tiny TV on, and the dinner table from the Swedish Midsummer day). To my side, there is an old postcard that says 'Istanbul Bogazici Bebek' on it. I have a water bottle that is the light green of my eyes. My Altoids box, my coffee cup. It's the first time I bring my belongings with me to an office- first time I bring myself in a way. Does this mean this is me, here? Not hundred percent maybe, but it's a hint of the person I am, that I bring here with me so that I don't get lost within the corridors of a financial corporation. In the end, it all comes down to the fact that we do what we gotta do. -thanks baby, for the inspiration.

you might barely know any of the people but when it's music and dancing everyone's connected, equal, one. i had the weirdest dream. there was a baby boy, and he was saying he was in love with me, that he thought about me all the time. i also dreamt that someone who used to be dear to me was killed, and i was there. i kept telling everyone he was dead, to register the shock, and i cried all night but i simply couldn't deal with it, woke up crying. but i'm happy. the vacation is still in there.

my relationship with stones goes back to a long time ago. it was my first time in ephesus.

i like doing portraits. capturing 'real' moments. sincerity.

"Mars, the god of war, has been left exhausted by their lovemaking, and while he rests, a group of playful fauns make off with his lance and armour. Naked and asleep, he is entirely vulnerable, while Venus retains both her clothes and her composure. The message is that love is stronger than war , and it is conveyed with a delightful sense of humor and sophistication." Young, Claire, Ed. Myths & Legends , National Gallery, London 2005. Sandro Boticelli, Venus and Mars , about 1485.

at the bazaar where they sell fruits and veggies, bread and clothes and whatnot, where i drove grandpa -minaluscu we call each other, yes he invents words, it runs in the family- there are all kinds of men, old, young, fat, slim- sitting around, selling their stuff. there are all kinds of men who lust after anyone out-of-the-ordinary who give you their case-specific, intense looks. after all, isn't it all they have, from where they sit, the power of the gaze is your weapon. a young, dark-skinned one- an older, fat one with a white moustache, you look like a sea-lion mister. i go around carrying plastic bags filled with peaches, apricots with a mini-skirt not so right for the occasion. the reason is, and i thought about this; i don't really care. all those men, sit there and staring is all they can do- the capacity to act is limited to that. my legs, i use them to walk and sit and swim. if anyone can get any tangible benefit out of looking at my legs, well, i guess we call them

i started taking photographs again. suddenly, the world takes on a 'photographable' character. i frame everything within my view. the blue tiles of the marina restroom. Gulin's shoulders. own body parts that can be 'self-portrait'ed. garden furniture. dad's nikon, my old friend. welcome back.

Sometimes I see something so moving I know I'm not supposed to linger. See it and leave. If you stay too long, you wear out the wordless shock. Love it and trust it and leave. -Don DeLillo, Underworld

Pepe said it's all black night by the sea but I felt a walk could do us good so we went. Full moon is out tonight. It wasn't just the dark sea , a dusk-like feeling when you go out there. We walked and walked. Kids flying fake fireworks. There was live music somewhere, some girl's beautiful voice and two guitars. Walked back. Sat on chaise-longues. Looked up unawares. Caught a falling star , we both did but Gulo missed. My first time this summer. "This summer".

we're putting on Little Red Riding Hood with Deren and Doruk. Most likely i'll play Grandma.

turning over a new leaf after all, this IS a new leaf. looking at me all clean and white. don't look back in anger or sadness or in regret or compassion. don't look back at all. learn from orpheus's mistake, and your own mistakes too. i can't seem to recall anything anyway, [other than 'the city' and what i love about it] right now, from where i stand looking, sit writing, lay sleeping, it's stark white and blank. waiting to be filled with days of laughter, colors, music, dancing, new places. eurydice stands waiting. [alive]

our next door neighbor has two kids, a 4 year-old girl and a 3 year-old boy, deren and doruk. this morning, post-swimming, pre-breakfast, combing my hair on the lawn, i walk over to their balcony with my red comb in my hand. talking about drying your hair in the sun and hair color getting lighter in the sun, i end up washing my hair with camomile water they had from before, deren and doruk get involved too. we all wash ourselves in camomile water, we sit on the grass, first combing then messing up hairs. deren and i have big hair now. fussy hair all over, i say i look like a lion, and we start imitating lions, rocking heads, roaring, showing claws. deren and doruk love approaching dangerously close to me, pushing me to the ground with threatening claws, throwing their little bodies on top of me, all three of us losing ourselves in the moment. the ecstatic state of imitating lions on the lawn.

Still, we human beings are intricately wired to suffer when we have been rejected by a loved one, and for good evolutionary reasons. I believe romantic love is one of three primary mating drives. The sex drive evolved to enable our ancestors to seek intercourse with any remotely appropriate individual. Romantic love developed to enable our forebears to focus their attention on preferred partners, thereby conserving precious mating time and energy. And long term attachment evolved to motivate mates to rear their babies as a team. So falling in love is one of the most important (and powerful) things we do; it profoundly affects our social and genetic future. As a result, we are built to suffer terribly when love fails-- first to protest the departure and try to win the beloved back, and later to give up utterly, dust ourselves off and redirect our energy to fall in love again. We are likely to find evidence of any combination of these myriad motivations and emotions as we examine the rej

the original plan was to move back to denizli, say goodbye to my life in istanbul and write on about how i will miss it, what i loved so much about it, and in a few weeks, write another piece called 'life here' . it didn't happen. i found it hard to say goodbye, then i found a job. and i'm staying in istanbul, where the life i love happens to be. but i still want to write something titled 'life here'. so, life here . we wake up in our attic room and performance-rate my snorring from the night before. i live out of the luggage and don't care if my stuff gets creased. i haven't put on make-up or shoes in the past.. let's see.. 4 days. i solve puzzles with my grandma and grandpa. every time in the shower, i read the warnings on shampoo bottles: 'avoid contact with the eyes' 'rinse with copious amounts of water in the event' . i dry my hair in the sun, just like when i was 15. we take long, barefeet walks on the beach. turkish men around

sometimes i visit my blog just for the sake of it, like the editor of a magazine checking out the latest issue. i look at serife's, ozlem's, and i go to mine. it's coming home in a sense. no that theirs are not familiar. just different. i believe with my girls we possess the same hearts, but we take different routes to self-expression. yes, i am away. blue is the dominant theme here where i am. at least for me.