tonight

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".

holiday project

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]

lions

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.

Dumped!

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 rejected brain in love.

-Helen Fisher

life here

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, giving their 'if looks could strip' stares. we walk on. [people do the craziest things on the beach. who would normally walk around half-naked or build castles with their kids only to watch them disappear into waves?] the beach is all sandy and pale. the rest is water, as wide as the eye can see. water, matte in the morning, glittering in the afternoon, salmon-pink at sunset.

ada

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.