sunlight in the balcony

i like to be surrounded by colors
i like seeing them when i look around
i like sitting in the sunlight
and looking at my pale reflection in the window
i like having soft hands
i like calling an old friend just to hear
that the same night as my gig, she was listening to patti smith in new york
smiling, thinking of me
i like the memory of a summer night in 1999
my excitement and melting at hearing the first notes of 'because the night'
i like that old crushes are over
that there is no life in the past when it comes to love
but i like to have mental pictures of it
nice, colored, airbrushed snapshots of past encounters
i like possessing the words to express it when i have something to say
today i have them, i feel.

h a p p y n e w y e a r !

this morning i woke up and thought

i miss driving in fethiye. the sea would be right beside me while i drove what seemed to me to be the smoothest of cars. the sudden sight of the city would always, always surprise me. the sea breeze would come in through the open windows, giving me a sense of freedom i believe few things in life will ever be able to provide. there would always be a good, fun summer song on the radio, i would hear my voice, i would see my suntanned arm on the wheel. now it's one of those things that are so simple, but so far out of reach and unattainable at the same time. say i did get a car, a smooth car, and drove through fethiye again, will i ever be able to go home to our summer house with all its original contents in it?

i know why i didn't call:

he didn't
lift
a finger

coming soon

is my critique regarding Paulo Coelho's book The Alchemist -just got around to reading it, it's quite good-, just wait a little longer.
Oh and, of course, quotes from the book- also coming soon.

the picture of how badly i want to leave sometimes and what would ideally happen if i did 

quote

Love is a very peculiar thing. A moment hits, and perhaps out of an inner decision, you love a person. Right now it seems like i'm not able to love anything. And i know it's not true.
It's funny how familiar Sena is, after getting to know all those people i never chose to meet in the first place. She feels like home and she is home. You never realize the difference when you're hanging out with whoever comes along, and when you hug her and put your head on her shoulder, you realize how long you've been away and how much you missed her. But you can't keep the moment forever and it passes, and you adjust, and life's all about adjusting. Thank God we don't always remember what the real thing felt like.

-me

moonriver

i'm crossing you in style - someday
oh dreammaker
you heartbreaker
where ever you're going
i'm going your way

quote

It seems then that men and women are equally at fault. It seems that a profound, impartial, and absolutely just opinion of our fellow-creatures is utterly unknown. Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old. In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows. And why, if this—and much more than this is true, why are we yet surprised in the window corner by a sudden vision that the young man in the chair is of all things in the world the most real, the most solid, the best known to us—why indeed? For the moment after we know nothing about him.
Such is the manner of our seeing. Such the conditions of our love.

-virginia woolf

people walk past me

when i'm in love, i feel like the object of my affection walks right through me. and that's how it hurts. suddenly you're not solid. but granular, transparent, loose.

i know by now that i am in command of my life and my actions, and like i fancy expressing it, i'm the lead actress in my own drama. it's a useful bit of information, and it empowers me to a certain extent, while at the same time drawing this dividing line between me and all the others. knowing this encircles me and leaves every other person on the outside of this circle, and defines the realm outside of me. and when you come terms with the fact that you don't have the same control over the will and actions of others, you don't go around trying to bend others' will, thinking you can, wondering why you can't, running into the same glass door everytime. it avoids a lot of effort that goes to waste. i would advise the same to everybody.

quote

I would say that what people really mean by happiness is unlimited consumption. We are a society of consumers. I think if you ask people what their concept of Heaven is, they would say, that it is a big department store with new things every week, all the money to buy them. Actually we are the eternal suckling, the eternal baby who wants the bottle.Happiness should be not an aim in itself but something that accompanies intense relatedness to many things - to man, to nature - a relatedness that does not exclude deep sadness, because one cannot remain sensitive and responsive to the world without often being deeply sad.

-Erich Fromm

birthday pick

wallpaper

there is usually a backdrop in my mind as i go through everyday motions.

i will be doing something completely different, like talking to a client or listening to a lecture or shopping, and even without me realizing it, my brain will be displaying a frozen picture. sometimes i try to ignore it but it doesn't really work, and i like certain forms of distraction, so i drop my current concentration on the outside and turn inwards, look at what my mind is presenting me. what i'd like to do here is to honor these backdrops, the recurring ones. to be updated.

-oludeniz, hotel meri, where the swings once were
-a certain classroom we had when we first came back early from vacation in summer '97
-hisarustu in general
-the pansiyon we stayed in ayvalik, the picture of the stairs as you step in

monday

i try not to be so negative about it, but experience has showed me that, i don't like mondays. all i usually want to do is to get home and stay home until after tuesday's breakfast. today's an ok one. i still wanna get home, but all in good time. Work awaits.

come sunday

tomorrow is a sunday. i'll wake up late and unrested, will walk barefeet in the house taking in the day and the warmth of my flat. maybe i'll walk to paul, return with their undescribable special wheat bread and get the sunday paper on the way back too. we'll have breakfast, my sister and myself. eggs, tomatoes, olive oil, cheese, tea for her, coffee for me, almonds, and honey will be the pillars of this extended sunday bliss. i'll check out the astrology article in milliyet, probably only that. we'll go down to bebek for a walk, i wanna take a long walk. we'll come home. maybe i'll cook. maybe we'll go to see our grandparents, or maybe we'll procrastinate. i'll do yoga. we'll hang around. barefeet. that's how Sunday looks from where i sit here and now.

december 7

is, in the end, a day like all the others. it is meant to pass, by nature. and i showed no attempts to capture it, really. but i loved it. loved the pancake breakfast in deni's dining room washed in daylight, loved the presents, the walk on the shore and the sunlight on the surface of the sea, loved my clearminded mood, the mosque, the prayer, loved gamze and myself having birthday cakes, indulging, cukurcuma and getting the only affordable antiques in the antique store, harvey, sofyali, the longing, the wine, the mezes, the treat, the kiss, the beer, denwood, taps, baileys, the surprise birthday cake with one single candle that i blew that put a perfect end to it all: couldn't have captured, even if i wanted to, but i want to remember the light of it shining coming towards me out of the blue.

PARADE MARK

is a trade mark i haven't registered yet.

reasons to be happy

-my birthday is coming up (7th, buddies, get your stuff together)
-my concert went well, i still love to sing
-still haven't gained winter weight (birthday cake danger still dangling ahead though)
-there's harvey
-i have a place to live that i love
-everyone in my closest family circle is alive

matthew

i used to know this boy called matt. i had met him on a trip to kalkan on our spring break, with four of my best friends. we were having the greatest time. he was such a sweet and nice person. i don't hear from him anymore. he lives in california. sometimes i think about him and sincerely thank him for the time we spent together, though brief. brief as in, a bus ride and cocktails and an early evening walk on the shore. i hope he's doing well.

so how did it go?

how the gig went? i want to say it was flawless and so much fun, but no gig is like that, so i have to revert to the truth. we had our shortcomings, we hadn't had so much time to rehearse, and considering that, it went well. especially the last few songs were really fun. i am beginning to be more and more confident and less and less self-conscious of my presence on the stage. i will post pictures as i gather them from around. for the time being, this should give an idea: