Is this normal?

Tiring week full of long nights of work, and one night of great fun…We will belittle it as fun, we will belittle it as something that had to be done, we will not speak of it again in any way, and we may or may not have another chance…but now after the fact, in my own time and space, and with my own ‘port and lemon’ in me I can call it what it deserves to be called…a great moment of human contact…I don’t mean sex. Life is short and, at times, lonely so when there is someone to share a moment of intimacy, even if (or perhaps because) that word is not uttered, one should celebrate it. Rejoice in the glory of being able to share a touch, a feeling, an unnamed purpose…and that’s what this paragraph is about, no games, no script, no past nor a future…just the present…a present from which you wake up and wonder if it ever happened.

Went to my local pub tonight…The Palm Tree…an East End gem…where on Friday and Saturday nights East End old geezers and birds sing Rat Pack and Cole Porter. It was marvellous. A quite night by Palm Tree standards but wonderful soundtrack to two friends struggling to hear what the other is saying…’The man I love’ sang my favourite local singer, a woman of an advanced age and walking stick, with short hair and long earrings, huge boobs and deep man’s voice courtesy of years of smoking…

At one point as my friend was talking, I drifted away from what she was saying and started wondering how is it that the air that trembles through her vocal chords and travels through the air reaches my ears and then to my brain and gets converted into understanding. Those few seconds when I wondered about that there was nothing more important in the world. Is this normal?

Then I came home, sitting on my sofa, I heard a bus stop at the bus stop nearby, open doors, close doors and pull away. I could not see the bus but I sat here wondering about the people who must be in it. Who are they? Where are they coming from? Where are they going? Did they have a good night out or have they just been made redundant or dumped? Are they awake thinking about thinks or have they fallen asleep? I sat here wondering all this and feeling almost physically there on the bus. Is this normal?

I see planes approaching to land at City Airport and circling above London to land at Heathrow. I’ve lived in the same flat more than 10 years. But only recently I’ve begun to look and wonder who are in them? I began to feel transported into the plane, seeing the stewardess walking the aisles making sure everyone has their seat belt on. I began to see the faces of each and every passenger, wondered where they are coming from and why and who they are. Is this normal?

I’ve been doing this a lot lately…living the present to a fuller degree than I’ve ever done before yet wondering about the countless lives that pass me by in that very present, lives that I will never know. What stories do they hold? What is it that makes them get up every morning, get dressed and go out and go very far out at times? What is it that makes my mind extend like a telescope and transport me to where they are? What is it that makes me wonder all this?

Is this normal?

Feels like it’s not.
Feels like it’s the start of some psychosomatic situation.
Feels good.

Is this normal?

My name is…

I’ve been so busy lately that I almost missed the news that Orhan Pamuk has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. It’s a personal honour to be writing about it. I love his books.

Not always I have to admit. It seems I like his books in rotation. For example I couldn’t get my head around Black Book. But I know of Turkish people of the generation one before mine who found themselves in it. New Life I loved. They didn’t.

I loved New Life not because I was searching for a new life or the book offered a new life but because it offered an adventure. I read the book in my 20s when I was leading a conventional life by all accounts but I had hopes for a new life: a life spent in pursuit of a dream even if it is impossible to fulfil. The idea of an impossible dream appealed at the time. How can you not like a book the first sentence of which is “I read a book one day and my life was changed”?

Those were the days when life seemed to offer more possibilities. While the hero of that book was after a dream that would end his life, the dream I was after was a loose notion of a better life. What matters is that I shared the dream of a life that’s possible to change. It didn’t matter that what the hero wanted and what I wanted (not that I knew what that was) were two different things. I identified with the desire for change.

Then there is My Name is Red. Possibly the best book I read. I of course remember the overall story. But what I remember most is the pleasure I had reading that book. It took me a long time to finish because I kept going back to sentences, paragraphs to read them again and again, they were so beautiful.

I also liked his very clever idea to juxtapose what is happening in Turkey now with a murder mystery in the 16th century. Murder mystery is simply a tool to tell the story of a quest for an individual identity. Do we carry on as a part of the community and follow the rules instead of what we wish to do or do we make our individual mark on the world? Community offers love and support. But it seems only if you follow the rules unconditionally. Individual identity gives you freedom but at the price of loneliness, at least at times. I think my thirst for freedom is what keeps me in London and what keeps me single but as I grow older loneliness that comes from being an outsider – no matter how well I fit here – and being alone – no matter how many so-called boyfriends I may have - becomes a bigger price to pay. Still I continue.

There seems to be a debate in Turkey whether he would have won the Nobel prize if he didn’t make that infamous political speech about the Armenians and Kurds. I can write loads about this point but I want to believe that he won because he is a great author so I will not honour the doubt by discussing it. In fact, if there is a universal anti-Turkish wave, then the best way to confront it is not to have debates about what someone said or meant, but by trusting ourselves as a nation. I repeat I think he is a great author and like any great author of any nation he deserves this award. End of story.

Pamuk explained this best in an interview he gave to The Guardian a few years ago. He said “when an English language author writes a love story, it’s a universal love story but when I write a love story it’s a Turkish love story”. Here is a great author, undoubtly a product of his culture but global in his appeal and message. Congratulations. I am proud of you. Not just because you are a Turk but because you are an author whose ability to take me into new worlds I admire.

Happiness…

I’ve been having a bit of a difficult time lately. Nothing objectively bad mind you, just too much to deal with: a lot of work (good), tiredness (changing seasons, burning candles); friends leaving town; family issues; many things I talk and think about but can’t do at the moment for various reasons – some but not all within my power.

So, after another long day at work and saying goodbye to M who is off to his Tanzanian adventure; and having bored myself with the last couple of entries and inspired by I-D magazine’s cover story this month (never read this magazine before but am enjoying this issue so far), I’ve decided to make a list of happiness (in no particular order). So here it goes…

· That moment before falling asleep;
· Comfortable silences;
· A hot bath on a cold day;
· ‘urban moments’ like catching a stranger’s eye on the tube and smiling;
· No holds bared free flowing conversations;
· A big, long hug;
· Smiling;
· Making others laugh;
· Happiness of those near and dear;
· Daydreaming;
· Clean and ironed sheets;
· To be woken up by sunrise;
· Colours of the sunset;
· The sound of light rain on the roof of a tent;
· Swimming in the sea first thing in the morning;
· Receiving unexpected calls, post, emails from good friends and family (with good news of course);
· Watching the excited concentration on the faces of small children when they are learning something new and fun;
· Learning;
· I love you;
· Reading, watching, listening to something that opens new avenues for my mind;
· Chocolate for about two days once a month;
· Foodstuff associated with Turkey and childhood;
· Memories (good or bad for different reasons);
· Dancing;
· Letting go;
· ‘Yes’;
· Quirky shoes;
· My red leather jacket;
· Blue and yellow;
· Fresh flowers;
· Achieving goals;
· Travelling;
· My hair being stroked;
· …
· …

Just realised, some of the above makes you happy, some you can only appreciate if you are already happy and some both...Go figure!

No more!

Take another piece of me
I’ll give

Pull me in all directions
I’ll stretch

Crash
I’ll restart

Give up
I’ll hope

Run out of breath
I’ll wait

Talk and talk and talk
I’ll listen

Lie
I’ll believe

Cry
I’ll console

Ignore me
I’ll persevere

Disappoint me
I’ll forget

Be desperate
I’ll help

Be selfish
I’ll understand

Be ruthless
I’ll give up

Ask for forgiveness
I’ll forgive

Until I can no more

And I will no more

A bit down…

After the relatively relaxed time in August during which I was able to think and write, September so far has been total chaos. I have so much work on at the moment that I guess less frequent rants will be more likely than some slightly more thought through arguments (that is if, at least, some of the previous ones were).

It’s not just work either (or is it ‘neither’ I never know). Two of my non-Brit friends are leaving London. J, an American, is going back to the States after about 10 years. We went on short breaks several times with mutual friends and solved the world’s problems several times over...though unfortunately the ideas left with the first signs of hangover. J is a bit of a pop-psychologist and loves to hear others’ conundrums. I hope email and telephone will suffice until he comes back. There are no plans for a return journey but I am sure he’ll be back!

M is a Pole. He might as well be my third brother (I already have two blood brothers you see). At first meeting, M is not the easiest person to get on with: he comes across cold and stubborn and can be far too straight with words. But all this is because he is honest and strong enough not to take any sh*t from people. But if one manages to get through (and only a few do), he is one of the most loyal and caring people I know. Perhaps the fact that we are rather similar (though am much weaker than him) makes me love him so much.

M may also be leaving. It’s not certain yet but he is seriously thinking of going back to Poland after 12 years in London. I am in denial still. I don’t even want to think about not having M in London. Sure, we’ll stay in touch, and our friendship will continue. But it’s never the same. And after a few months or at most years, the ties do get weaker, they get replaced by others that are more immediate. I am really sad about this.

I hate goodbyes. And I am not just saying that. My life has been full of goodbyes. From parents at an early age to aunty when I came over here, several friends who came and went through my life over the years…and here I am spending the day entirely on my own on an exceptionally warm September Sunday.

Another foreigner leaving London is annoying in a less personal way too: you can’t help but ask ‘what the hell am I still doing here?’. No family here, best mate is thinking of leaving…just the work and some, admittedly, very good friends. But where to go? What to do? I think some ideas are forming in my head but far too vague at the moment to share…and they are not plans for the near future anyway…just some exercises of visioning the future…but better not lose track of present between too much work and too much future-planning.

***

M was complaining the other day that most people we know are continuously talking about themselves these days. It’s either how terrible their life is or, and surprisingly more often, how great it is. The problem with the latter is that they seem to say this to convince them and justify their choices to themselves more than to the listener. I can hardly judge…I have a blog after all! But I wonder if this is one of the first symptoms of mid-life crisis.

We are mostly in our mid to late 30s, with some achievements under our belts but some mistakes and disappointments too. And the inevitable finality of life is becoming more and more clearer. As we are mostly lazy and scared of taking risks, if we are not entirely happy with life (and who is?), the best option is to convince ourselves we are entirely happy with life. There is genuine merit in this of course. But I wonder whether the best way is to loudly announce to whoever cares to listen (or pretend to do so)…there is something fake about that.

Cynical? I am not naturally cynical; neither am I naturally down. But with friends leaving, me being physically and mentally tired, having had an upset stomach since yesterday; despite the wonderful sunshine outside…this is as profound as I can be at the moment. Life is a simple matter after all…and, at times like this, an early night is the best answer.

Intervals...

I went to a seminar by Prof Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate in economics on Friday. He is in fact a psychologist but since he investigates the aspects of human behaviour that relate to the fundamental assumptions underlying economic theory, his Nobel award in economics is justified.

I won’t bore you with the details of the fundamental assumptions of economics. But, in short, they are that people are rational, selfish and their tastes don’t change. In my humble opinion, rationality assumption is exaggerated. Unlike what’s implied, rationality does not require all decisions to be correct – whatever that means and whoever could achieve it?! They just need to be consistent with the conditions at the time and the desired outcomes. Rationality also does not assume uniformity: what is rational for me can easily be irrational for others. Selfishness assumption is also generally misunderstood: we are selfish and seek happiness but that does not exclude the possibility of other people’s happiness making us happy. In fact, if it did, no ‘rational’ person would ever have children!

Prof Kahneman says people’s rationality and selfishness are bounded (basically they are not always rational or selfish), they have limited self-control and they change their minds. Yeap, this is why he got the Nobel…And it’s not surprising…both economists and psychologists spend their entire careers searching for ‘proofs’ for the most obvious. But for those who try to understand human behaviour (theirs or others’), is there any other choice than exploring the obvious?

Anyway, this is not a piece about economics or my cunning plan about getting a Nobel on the easy! It’s about another obvious – what would make life better…should I ever worry myself with such a question.

Prof Kahneman said “Think of life as a succession of moments. People think of it [life] as a story, a narrative. They want it to be meaningful. They want to improve it. All our intuitions favour life satisfaction. We live in the present but we don’t get to keep the present. We keep the memories…and our memories are selective. [In our memories] routine is not important.” This is from my notes so apologies if I got anything wrong.

It was really exciting to hear him say these words because they were a confirmation of my little way of making my life better. About three years ago, I suddenly came to the realisation that I lived my life as if I was in a theatre. All my excitement was about the ‘Acts’ and all my happiness came from them. The trouble was, I also realised, Acts were rather short and infrequent and most of my time was spent in the intervals. And there was only so much chocolate ice cream one could eat!

I promised myself that I would make the intervals more interesting. That’s when I pushed myself into things that I’d shied away from before, like learning to act by going to an improvisation course; travelling to Australia after 20 years of dreaming about it; staying away from people with negative energy who were bringing me down; starting this blog, taking photographs again and so on and so forth.

As I was listening to Prof Kahneman, it became clear that this realisation I had upon waking up one workday morning had been a life-changing moment. I am going to bed now, if I am lucky there will be another revelation tomorrow morning…but more likely I’ll rush out of the house…I have a deadline tomorrow!

P.S. Dating update update – I’ve thought about this more. I have no right or need to be annoyed. Anyway, bygones... Text received from the non-date; not responded, no need. All I say is that this ‘Act’ of my life has flopped until a better leading man shows up :)

Dating follow-up

For those of you who read my views about speed dating, don’t get excited, I haven’t yet changed them (but perhaps I should!). The follow up is not about a date from that event.

About 10 days ago I met someone through ‘natural ways’…started talking at a bar, got on really well and all that, exchanged numbers, texted each other a few times and spoke on the phone on Friday arranging tentatively to meet up tonight, his only night off these days.

Come 6pm, I’d finished my work for the day but he still hadn’t called. So, I called, to give him a piece of my mind. Series of supposed excuses about how he’d worked a 16 hour shift the night before, how tired he was, he had to wait for a new flat mate to come that night blah blah blah. Who is that busy to not find a few seconds to at least send a text?! I can’t believe any of it. He called back later in the evening begging forgiveness. I did give him a hard time of course. But why?

Why? Because, to be honest, I liked him. I am not having a self-loathing trip like ‘oh dear, I am not worthy, he doesn’t like me’. I’ve gone over that stage in my life. But I do feel like a small child whose new toy has been taken away before she got bored with it.

So, maybe, I deserve this. Maybe people only treat you the way you feel about them: like a toy in this case. A toy that they get bored before you do!

What gets me is the lack of honesty. Why can’t people say they don’t want to see you again? Why can’t they just not pick up the phone when you call or not reply to your text? Why can’t they just not call back when they say they will? So that you at least know that they are, for sure, not interested. Why bother give me all that story.

I am angry with him for not respecting me enough even to ignore me. I am angry with myself for investing energy and time in the possibility of meeting up tonight – I had to pass on one arrangement and cancel another! How weak am I? Why do I need human toys so much?

I called a friend who simply said ‘forget him’. I will. Of course, I will. People who don’t want to spend time on you are not worth wasting your time on. I know that. But this lack of honesty, this lack of courage, this lack of balls even by men who are fully endowed is disappointing me. It is making me feel despair about the (possibly eternal) state of humanity. Why am I so bloody transparent? Why am I so honest? Why, when the world functions in implied words and actions rather than explicit showing of cards, do I waste my energy trying to stand up and remain honest? When am I going to grow up and stop this stupid belief that honesty isn’t that difficult?

Any answers? No? Don’t worry. I feel better for writing it already. I just hope my Dad is not reading this!

This entry is inspired by Stevie’s comment to the entry on ‘appreciation’ (01 August 2006)…

First of all, thank you for your very kind comment. I do hope you’ll come back and bore me with the details of how what I wrote resonates with your life!

Stevie says he was looking at the blog while at work. This reminded of a favourite poem from one of my favourite poets: John S Hall (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=96884) Although I only have one of his books, it’s enough to declare him a favourite…he is that good!

So here is the poem Stevie’s comment reminded me:

TAKE STUFF FROM WORK

Take stuff from work. It’s the best way to feel better about your job. Never buy pens or pencils or paper. Take ‘em from work. Rubber bands, paper clips, memo pads, folders – take ‘em from work. It’s the best way to feel better about your low pay and appalling working conditions.

Take an ashtray – they got plenty. Take coat hangers. Take a – take a trash can. Why buy a file cabinet? Why buy a phone? Why buy a personal computer or word processor? Take ‘em from work.

I took a whole desk from the last place I worked. They never noticed and it looks great in my apartment. Take an electric pencil sharpener. Take a case of white-out; you might need it one day. It’s your duty as an oppressed worker to steal from your exploiters. Take stuff from work. And fuck off on the company time. I wrote this at work. They’re paying me to write about stuff I steal from them. Life is good.

“There is no turkey in you, you are one hot chick!”

Was what one of the judges said to Meliz, the contestant at the ‘How do you solve a problem like Maria?’: the new talent show on BBC1 aiming to find the star of The Sound of Music planned for the West End.

Meliz is 23, studied music and is from a Turkish-Cypriot family (http://www.bbc.co.uk/maria/marias/meliz.shtml): The first from the community to make to a prime time show for her talent. I emphasise ‘talent’ since not only she seems to have heaps of it but also Sezer who was in Big Brother earlier this year and Kemal who was in last year are not in the same league.

Before the show, I thought it was my duty as a Turk-Brit to vote for her. As the show started, I hesitated between being fair and voting for the best and being loyal to my community in its largest definition. But once she started singing, there was no hesitation. She was absolutely amazing. She is not only extremely beautiful but also really humble and sweet. Her reaction upon hearing that she was through was the loveliest response: just a huge smile and squeezed shut eyes; none of the extravert reactions of some of the others. Although they announced her as ‘sexy Maria’, she showed that she is also humble and sweet like Maria should be.

And what a choice of song it was! Son of a Preacher Man – sung by so many strong vocals, not least Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin. Andrew Lloyd Webber said it best: “You out Dusty'd Dusty Springfield," adding, "You acted the song brilliantly."

On the website of the show, she says Rizzo from Grease (played by Stockhard Channing) is one of her favourite characters because she is gutsy. She is probably my the favourite character in fact. Grease was the first film I saw in a cinema when I was about 10. I watched the film countless times since and like her more and more every time because she knows who she is even though she doesn’t fit in with the norm. Meliz would be brilliant as Rizzo. So I finish by writing the lyrics of her best song of the film ‘There are worse things I could do’ as this is the song for all independent women. Oh, and of course, I wish Meliz all the best. Even if they don’t choose you as Maria, dear Meliz, you certainly are a STAR!

There are worse things I could do,
Than go with a boy or two.
Even though the neighborhood thinks I'm trashy,
And no good,
I suppose it could be true,
But there are worse things I could do.

I could flirt with all the guys,
Smile at them and bat my eyes.
Press against them when we dance,
Make them think they stand a chance,
Then refuse to see it through.
That's a thing I'd never do.

I could stay home every night,
Wait around for Mr. Right.
Take cold showers every day,
And throw my life away,
On a dream that won't come true.

I could hurt someone like me,
Out of spite or jealousy.
I don’t steal and I don’t lie,
But I can feel and I can cry.
A fact I'll bet you never knew.
But to cry in front of you,
That's the worse thing I could do

Should we trust our instinct?

Asked the woman sitting at the next table…’but isn’t instinct just about fancying someone?’ she added without waiting for my answer.

It was at a speed dating event.

I walked in, met up with my friend, got a drink and surveyed the room. There was no one of interest. Terrible to be so quick to form a judgement perhaps, but isn’t that the basis of the entire speed dating industry?

You must have heard about, if not been to one of, these events. Everyone gets a number as they arrive. Women take the table of their number, and men circulate spending three minutes at each. At the end of each ‘date’ you are meant to score everyone: yes, no, friend.

It’s efficient for the first round of screening. You get to meet tens of potentials in one evening. Three minutes per date are enough to know if you definitely don’t want to see the person again. But then if you like anyone you meet, you still have to spend at least a couple of hours trying to look interested and be nice even if you both know there will never be a second date.

All participants are potentially good catches: bankers, architects, graphic designers, mathematicians, doctors and so on.

They are not desperate. They just know how easy it is to be young(ish) with a lot to offer but not meet someone to offer anything to, despite living with 8 million other people in this city and no matter how outgoing and socially busy you are.

But, it’s not natural, again as the woman at the next table said. It’s scripted, careographed and staged…even if the script writers and actors are the same, the dates are by no means spontaneous which takes the joy out of them. Smiles hide the anxiety to look attractive enough and judge the other person all within three minutes.

But the natural is difficult. The odds of meeting someone worth your offerings are very low and that’s why the industry is so successful.

Should we continue with, what seems in bad times, near impossible odds? Should we wait for our fate even if it means accepting the possibility that there’ll be no one for us? NO, screams a voice inside. You are of a generation of women who are truly beginning to be free, to determine their own lives and defy fate others used to decide for them. So, sacrifice an evening, see beyond the staged 3-minutes and give everyone a chance.

There is another voice inside, though, one who says don’t let go of the dream of chance meetings. If it’s meant to be, it will be no matter how hard you try to make it happen or stop it. In fact, do we even really need a significant other to enjoy life? Can we enjoy life with a significant other, if we can’t enjoy it on our own? So, don’t sacrifice an evening, go see some art, dance, sing, enjoy the life that you have!

When it comes to meeting people: perhaps the question is not about how you meet someone but what you look for when you do. Should we trust our instinct or should we judge whether the man / woman opposite is good husband / wife material? Are they two different things as the woman at the next table implied? Can there be happy dating, let alone marriage, without a good dose of desire?! I seriously doubt it.

My initial instinct was right on this occasion. No one was interesting enough. I don’t mean attractive but genuinely interesting. The first three questions of all of them (and there was not time for a fourth one) were how my name is pronounced, where it and/or my accent is from and what I do for a living. Fair enough I guess but boring nonetheless…What did I ask? Not much…the same questions back – minus the one about pronunciation. So I was as much to blame, and as I guessed at the time, I only got two ‘friend’ ticks afterwards…Thank you, guys, but I have enough friends, as I am sure you do.

Thanks also to H – who has been an excellent source of potential answers as always.

Fuerzabruta at the Roundhouse

Hurry, go, see it.

See the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm for a start. Great venue with a long and varied past. As a quote from Tempest says “What is past is prologue” (from the poster on the Level 1 wall).

Fuerzabruta is something else altogether. If not in the Roundhouse, you must, I repeat, you must see it if and when it comes to where you are. That is if you can take the force, yes, the ‘brute force’ which I think the title means in Spanish. I don’t want to give anything away. No, I can’t give anything away anyway…words, however better they are than I can master could give away the show that will startle all your senses all at once.

A man walks, runs
Gets shot, blood.
Picks himself up, continues,
Gets shot again;
Passes by chairs, people, who look but don’t connect,
Rips through doors that explode in confetti, in boxes, in blasts
Runs through a diner amidst furniture in havoc,
Settles on a bed,
Dreams about a water fair up in the sky, kisses her and more,
Then it’s all a blur:
Girls running on walls,
Man and woman hovering on vertical trampolines in their finest,
Bouncing away as they try to get closer, missing, missing.
Parties, confetti, cardboard.
Huge wave out of foil passing over our heads,
Steam, rain, water, water,
At last the water fairies of our dreams,
One, then, two, three, four
The most beautiful bodies, small, delicate feet,
Wet legs, torsos, hair
Coming closer, closer, closer
We touch their faces, ankles, toes, bottoms
They look in bewilderment, my mouth still open
Again, again and again
Then rain, steam, thunder, water, water

A man walks, runs
Rips through a door that explodes two others
Up the stairs, a door beyond which there is nothing but running
Running, running, running…

F said it was about the relentless pace of modern life; ripping through, destroying everything; plastic, artificial, detached, but yearning to return to something that’s fluid, natural, caring, peaceful. I thought it was about life, death, the promised but undeliverable, unknowable beauty of afterlife. I think she is right, though.

Their website says “[Fuerzabruta] does not invent anything; does not have a purpose; it is”. I think they are right, too. They also say it does not repeat itself. So, hopefully, I haven’t spoilt anything. Hurry, go, see it and make up your mind, or just let go and enjoy.

www.fuerzabruta.net/website/fuerza_eng.html

Appreciation is not just a difficult word to spell!

Whenever I am down, I count all the things in life I am lucky about…I have all my sensory faculties, limbs and organs in good working order; have a job; have a flat; am not rich but not wanting for money; have a few creative hobbies, a scattered but good family, and good friends etc. etc. An annoying habit this, counting one’s blessings, at least for those who mock me for being such a Polyanna.

Despite appearances, until recently I didn’t truly mean any of it. It was all like Mary Poppins says ‘a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down’. I never forgot how bitter the medicine was. So much so that I’ve come to believe that the Robbie Williams lyrics “I don’t wanna die but I ain't keen on living either” were the best description of my life if I ever allowed myself to admit it.

But what I’ve, only recently, allowed myself to admit is something else: that there really is nothing to complain about my life. Not only that I am healthy and have enough money but I don’t live in a war zone afraid of my life. I have control over my destiny in more ways than one.

And as soon as I allowed myself to feel this, lots of good things began to happen as if my wishing alone was enough to make them happen.

I think it started a few weeks ago, when I spent a weekend with the extended family of my goddaughter, S. We played with the kids during the day and spent the night sitting under a tree, sipping wine and talking about all sorts of things while being bitten to buggery by gigantic mosquitoes (and that’s in Surrey!). But I felt part of that family and the love we shared. We even saw our first glow worm together…a good sign.

Weekend before last, I went to Ibiza to visit my friend, H, out of sheer desperation to get away. I expected a friendly home and a good host but she exceeded all my expectations. Not only she was a good host, but also a much better friend towards me than I had hoped. We spent four days sleeping (deepest sleeps I had in years), eating (only a little I must add), drinking (with moderation), dancing (with no bounds at least one of the nights), playing chess (H taught me), swimming as the sun set and talking about life and love.

It’s not an easy thing to talk about love with other people. They either get bored or anxious either because the conversation can truly be boring and repetitive or because you tell truths that they cannot admit even to themselves. H made it possible for me to say thinks (intentional misspelling) I didn’t even realise I was thinking – thinks that got me thinking even more. Even when she didn’t agree, instead of disagreeing she said ‘hmm, interesting, there is something here I shall think about’…the rare trait of a great listener…thank you H!

I came back to London far too soon…as the fox must return to the fur shop (a Turkish saying). A couple of days later I received an email from Easy Jet informing me that my flight to Budapest in a couple of weeks’ time was cancelled and offering me a full refund for the entire journey. I snapped the offer since even though I wanted to go and see the city and attend the music festival, my heart was not in it. I didn’t really want to go and couldn’t have wished for more than a full refund!

When someone wishes something and it happens, they say (at least in Turkey), I wish I wished something else! Why?! Imagine someone giving you a present and you telling them “hmmm nice and it was in my birthday list and all, but I wish you got me something else”. Imagine how that person must feel. That’s how God, energy, universe whatever you call it, must feel. No wonder not many of our wishes come true….we ungrateful gits don’t deserve them, that’s why!

Friday night, I went to a sufi music concert. It was very moving and the amateur group that was playing and singing had improved immensely since I last saw them two years ago. They announced that they would finish the night with a hymn (or ilahi which is the Muslim equivalent). I am not religious…or rather I don’t practice. But there is this one ilahi about a conversation between the musician and a yellow flower which my grandmother had taught me when I was a little girl and which I still remember. I thought ‘I wish they sang Sari Cicek’….law and behold, that’s what they sang which made me happier than I would have if this had happened a few weeks ago…so happy that I didn’t mind going to a restaurant and having dinner by myself…in the middle of Islington, all on my own, on a Friday night, surrounded by groups of friends, families and dates. I would have done it anytime anyway but would have had a bitter sweet taste in my mouth. This time, I experienced a calm happiness about sitting there on my own, making notes for myself about lucky things in life as I watched others with a hidden smile on my face.

The weekend was spent at a wedding, that of F and R who’d met on holiday in a Central American country five years ago; then spent most of the time since living in their respective countries, only meeting for a few weeks every few months. The groom said he was so lucky to have met the bride who changed his life and opened up all sorts of possibilities for him that he never thought possible. There is love after all, so long as one has faith in it. I didn’t feel left out, lonely…despite dining at the table with two of the siblings of the groom and one ex boyfriend. Considering I am the ex of one of the groom's brothers, I felt joy and luck having met these people and not only having been invited to share their joy but also be sitting in a still-close-to-family table.

Even this morning when I turned up at work the first thought in my head was not ‘oh, damn, it’s Monday morning and I am still tired’, even though I was still tired, but ‘how lucky I am to be able to come to work as late as 10.30’!

What’s happening to me? More importantly where is this entry going? Nowhere particular. I just wanted to share how lucky I’ve been feeling. It’s as if I write, this feeling will become even more real.

I do have these pangs of doubt every now and then: like if I allow myself to feel happiness and luck for any prolonged time, i.e. more than a few moments, it will either be taken away from me or I will be forgoing something better. But who, why should it go away? And if it did, wouldn’t it come back again? What could be better? Yes, I could have more material goods, I could travel more, not have to work, I could have a family, a loving husbands, kids. But would having these suddenly make me appreciate them truly, or would I still be either afraid or unsatisfied?

Yes, I guess that’s the key word: appreciate. That’s the change, that’s the difference. It’s not that my life has changed significantly. It’s not that I was granted my wishes by a gene or found a four-leaved clover. It’s just that something changed in me to make me see my life, myself differently. And finally, I begin to appreciate myself; not because I am special but just because I simply am. Maybe this was the change I’ve been waiting for a long time. I just hope I’ll now get over the fear that I jinxed it all by announcing it through this entry. Please, please, let me wallow in this appreciation for a while.

A little cut & paste hasn’t hurt anyone!

I don’t want to make a habit of this, but it’s been too hot lately to write something (though I have a review of the Kandinsky exhibition at the Tate Modern brewing), so here is something that moved me. It was sent to me by my dear step mum (oh, how we love the phrase J). So, as it says:

Read Each One Carefully and Think About It a Second or Two

1. I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.
2. No man or woman is worth your tears, and the one who is, won't make you cry.
3. Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
4. A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.
5. The worst way to miss someone is to be sitting right beside them knowing you can't have them.
6. Never frown, even when you are sad, because you never know who is falling in love with your smile.
7. To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.
8. Don't waste your time on a man/woman, who isn't willing to waste their time on you.
9. Maybe God wants us to meet a few wrong people before meeting the right one, so that when we finally meet the person, we will know how to be grateful.
10. There's always going to be people that hurt you so what you have to do is keep on trusting and just be more careful about who you trust next time around.
11. Make yourself a better person and know who you are, before you try and know someone else and expect them to know you.
12. Don't try so hard, the best things come when you least expect them to.

REMEMBER: WHATEVER HAPPENS, HAPPENS FOR A REASON.

Oh, this London town…

…was like The South of Tennessee Williams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Williams) today:

muggy and grey…that stifling heat, that promise of rain which is late in delivery and disappointingly short and dry upon arrival; which leaves sins and streets unwashed.

I felt like a character from A Streetcar Named Desire or The Night of the Iguana. Like Blanche DuBois or Maxine Faulk. Having seen both plays (the former on film, the latter on stage), I think I’d like to play Maxine for now (am too young for Blanche). She, unsuccessfully, hides behind laughter, flirtation, sex and bottle. She has a nice hotel, hot weather, gorgeous young lover – steps up to a good life for most but down to a pool of quick sand for her. My steps are different but I understand her position. And that’s why, and especially if it meant sharing the stage with Woody Harrelson (who played Rev T Lawrence Shannon in the West End production I saw in December last year), I would definitely take up this role!

Alas (or 'luckily' depending on your stance), London ain’t no Southern town…rain did come: it was short but wet enough, followed by brilliant sun shine.

History repeats itself…

…they say and it’s true for individuals, families as much as it is true for nations and the world. But why is it that it’s always the bad, stupid stuff that gets repeated and the good stuff has to be built anew over and over again?!

Why is it that everyone knows this and no one does anything?

Why is it that we don’t learn from our and others’ mistakes?

Why is it that even though we fail over and over again, we still think we know the best?

In fact, how is it that, some of us all the time, and all of us some of the time, have the total conviction that we know what’s best for everyone even if we have absolutely no proof of it?

How is it that we learn everything but we never learn to let others speak and to truly listen to them when they do?

Why is it that most mistakes are made and repeated because we can’t talk to each other?

Why is it that despite learning that we don’t really have to be afraid for ourselves or for others (of whatever), we still are and that fear is what locks our lips and closes our ears?

Why is it that we sometimes make the life most difficult for those we love the most and that our life is made difficult by those who love us the most?

Why is it that we assume our title entitles us to automatic respect, when we should full well know the respect needs to be earned?

Why is it that we continue to try to speak to deaf ears?

Why is it that instead of writing this, I can’t just pick up the phone and talk the person who needs to ask these questions to himself before making yet more mistakes of the same kind – the kind that made me / us sad so long and continues to make others sad, too?!

What’s the answer to all this?

It’s all too fast…

It’s only been a little over 2 weeks since the last entry…but so much happnened that it felt like an age…My new year resolution was to slow down / diminish....oh, yea...

I haven’t got anything good / interesting to write right now, but wanted to write something anyway…So, what’s happened since?

I was creative (two improv shows, three more articles in the Turkish woman’s magazine);

I met all but one work deadlines (this is the first time I missed a deadline by this much - at least 6 weeks!….but the Client was fine about it which is great…learnt (once again) that missing a deadline is not the end of the world and that I should trust myself a little more);

I did what I preached (see the review of Big Stone Gap, from May 16th) – I was honest even if that meant I made myself vulnerable and, yes, surprise, surprise, I am still standing… I am much more confident in myself than I’ve ever been before…someone’s hesitation is never going to be rejection of me ever again! (especially not when I told them I wasn’t sure I wanted their heart in the first place….who is rejecting who, I ask you!)

Oh, yes, and I helped organise a friend’s 40th birthday…music, comedy, cabaret, DJs, slide shows, the lot….he worked a lot too of course and it was great fun…it was last Friday, we went to bed about 7 am…am still recovering…

The only bad thing is that I’ve put even more weight on…but have been ‘salad’ing since Monday and will hit the gym again (after a year of paying but not going) so I’ll get thinner again I am sure…

Oh dear, it's all me, me, me....but, hey, it's MY blog so it's OK for me to be self-indulgent every now and again!

OK, bye till I can find something more interesting to say….I’ve been reading the next two books after Big Stone Gap – will review them shortly…

By the way, 23rd June is my birthday… If I can't write before then, any goodwill wishes would be much appreciated :)

A commercial break…

I have no intention of advertising any product on this website but SAQI books sent me an announcement about a book ages ago which has been sitting on my desk for ages and it’s bugging me. So, here it goes.

Turkish Cookery by Sally Mustoe (ed) – see www.saqibooks.com. It features favourite recipes from Nigella Lawson, Gary Rhodes, Ainsley Harriott, Antony Worrall-Thompson, Anton Mosimann, Caludia Roden, Nevin Halici and other renowned chefs.

Recipes include that for hummous, meat pies, lamb tagine, yoghurt soup, Turkish delight, aubergine pate and dolma. Turkish chefs offer recipies for sweets, wedding banquets, street food, market food, coffee, olive oil, wines, breakfast, mese and raki and many others.

So, a great book for cooks with international taste – or for those like me who don’t really cook, a good present idea. Most importantly, the proceeds from sales will go toards providing further education for children orphaned by recent earthquakes in Turkey.

Istanbul vapurlari (ferries)…

If you are from Istanbul or if you’ve ever been there, you know the beauty and the crucial role of the ferries in the city life. I mean the commuter ferries that cross the Bosphorus – that is from Asia to Europe, from Europe to Asia, from the main land to the Princes Islands, back and forth, back and forth for years and years. Ferries unite residents who define themselves as being “from the other side” much more than the two bridges that physically unite the city.

They don’t just carry people from one side to the other, they also have an altogether other world living on them. On the open decks you can feed the seagulls with simits (Turkish pretzels), drink ruby coloured Turkish tea in small glasses with narrow waist lines and read your paper fighting the wind which messes your hair but also clears the cobwebs away. On the closed decks you can buy tat that won’t last to the other continent from salesmen who entertain you better than last night’s comedy – or annoy you more than last night’s news….

Why am I writing all this? Because I’ve learnt (with some delay admittedly) that they are planning to replace the old fashioned ferries with ‘modern’ ones that are entirely closed, boring to be in and ugly to look at. There doesn’t seem to be an environmental or efficiency reason for the change (as was argued for replacing double-decker busses in London with new ones). It seems to be a change for change’s sake; for modernity; for conformity; for uniformity…Besides the new ones are much smaller (300 passengers) than older ones (1000-1500) – about 4 new trips for each 1 of old in an already congested waterway. If they change the ferries, they’ll regret it…the way they pulled the tram lines up in the 1960s-70s because buses were more modern only to build them again in the late 1980s. And who will pay? The residents of Istanbul of course – with loss of amenity and their taxes which will finance the new deal.

OK, I am also nostalgic…despite living in London for 15 years, the wallpaper on my mobile phone is still the silhouette of a ferry from Bostanci to the Islands in a pink January sunset. But to keep the old ferries running is not just a nostalgic wish of a ‘European Turk’ (as the likes of me are called these days) but very real wish of the locals too. So much so that they’ve started an online campaign: http://www.vapurumuvermiyorum.org/ I’ve signed it, try it for yourself…

The website is on the right – it’s in Turkish but you can at least see the pictures. And as for my Turkish friends – they can all read English.

Am off to Brussels tomorrow for a week or so – to fight the EU bureaucracy and for some mussels, fries and beer…

Pushing 36 and still a romantic….

I’ve never denied being a romantic. I like to be given flowers. I cry at films. Other than a few bitter and hormone-deficient days when I feel like slapping them, I smile at young couples canoodling in public. And all the rest…I just hadn’t realised how much of a romantic I still am…I actually had tears in my eyes reading a book today.

The book? Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani (http://www.adrianatrigiani.com/). Not many sentences you want to read and re-read again because the way the words are put together has an unexpected and thrilling beauty. Things start rather slow and move on rather too quickly towards the end. And, to be honest, even though the book was recommended by a friend whose literary taste I respect, I wasn’t impressed with it at the beginning.

But there is a level of truthfulness that is hard to come by and that makes it more worthwhile a read than many books which have those sentences of rare beauty and plots of impeccable tightness. This book has warmth that makes the reader feel not alone in the world.

The heroine, Ave Maria, a 35 year old ‘spinster’, is more real than another single heroine, Bridget Jones (two recent references to this feeble excuse of a woman in this site – promise you won’t see many more!) . At the height of the ‘BJ’ hype, I remember thinking I didn’t know anyone that scatter brain. But I know many (including myself) at times ‘deceptively’ strong women like Ave Maria. Here is what I mean in the author’s own words:

“What has happened to me? I get so afraid now. I never used to. Why am I more vulnerable now than I was when I was alone, in charge of everything? I lived by myself in the middle of town, for God’s sake. I checked my own oil, lit my own furnace, caught mice. I had a routine: running a home, a business, the Rescue Squad, the Drama. I was never scared then. So much for strength in numbers, I think as I look at my husband, now that we are a family.”
(What she is afraid of is something bad happening to her husband, her happiness.)

I say ‘deceptively’ not because women can’t be strong but because sometimes we confuse being strong with being able to deal with everything on our own. Strength is not in being able to do everything single handed but being able to let go once in a while; to let one's self be vulnerable.

Well, I cried toward the end of the book – not only because Ave Maria realises the above definition of strength but because that means that she finally lets go and says ‘yes’ to the proposition of the man who loves her. Aaaaaahhhhhhh….

Actually I take back what I said about Adriana Trigiani. She does have a way with words…a very subtle way. By the time the quiet hero of the book makes his last declaration of love (which I would have loved to write here just to show its simple beauty had I wanted to spoil it for would-be readers) you will be there with them, with your heart in your mouth (is that the expression?).

And let’s face it, at this day and age, there are not many occasions that get your heart that far up!

A very non-Bridget Jones morning (?)…

A recent “success” at acting like that Goddess of stupidity that is Bridget Jones, I woke up a couple days ago realising that I’ve had enough of all these little games. I stay in situations longer than I should…it’s my character, probably even my star sign. But once I have enough of something that’s it. And I’ve had enough of this stupidity and wanted to share it for the benefit of all those non-Bridget Jones girls out there who sometimes lose their ways …

I am slightly annoyed with him and with myself...why should I blame myself about what I may have said or done (or not)? Or rather why should I blame myself alone...who the f*** is he?! Not only: 'who does he think he is?!' but also 'who do I think he is?!'

Not asking whatever I expect him to ask / not calling / not returning emails, texts or whatever...my life is just too precious and too good for someone else of potentially no consequence whatsoever to inadvertently muddy. Or more importantly for the supposedly accurate perceptions of my over-active but wrongly channelled brain to knowingly do so!

And so on and so forth...

Replace I/he with any private name you wish, it comes to the same thing. This slightly (rather?) defensive stance made me rather happy....aunty says not to give up on people so quickly but at the same time not to get too involved too quickly or not to value them too much….the last one is where I fail but am determined to correct.

And so on and so forth...

I’ve read recently somewhere “the princes you kissed turned to frogs; the frogs you kissed remained frogs”

And so on and so forth…

The promised account of the Morocco trip…finally!

All immigrants have one conflict in common: where to go on holiday. Do you go home and quench your longing for your home country, family and friends? Or do you explore this vast world as much as your time and budget allow? A solution to this eternal conflict is to meet your family members in a third country.....and Morocco may just be the ideal destination for Turks.

Why? It’s almost half way between Turkey and the UK, almost always sunny, does not impose visa to Turkish citizens and it’s cheap (£1 = about 15 dirhems). I spent the last week of March in Morocco with my aunt so can vouch for it.

I met her in Casablanca. She came on a package tour from Istanbul and I joined the same tour from London. I normally prefer the freedom of independent travel. But this time a package holiday was the best option for two reasons. First, the fact that all logistics were taken care of meant that I could spend more quality time with my aunt. Second, the presence of other Turks on the tour lessened my longing for the mother country – at least a little (more on that later…).

Morocco is a kingdom. Majority of the 29 million population is Muslim and consists of Arabs, Berbers and mix of the two. Very beautiful people I tell you. It’s almost as large as Turkey but because about half the country is desert, most live in the northern half. The French which ruled here between 1912 and 1956 left behind large avenues and beautiful, tall (though now mostly run down) apartment blocks.

Our tour was called ‘Royal Cities’ and covered Rabat, Meknes, Fes and Marrakech. The tour started in Casablanca because of its transport connections as the biggest city. It has all those beautiful French apartments but little of the romance the film of the same name created on screen…it turns out the film was made in Hollywood anyway!

Rabat Medina (the old town - Medina means town in Arabic) is beautiful but the rest you can skip. Meknes – you can totally skip…Moulla Idris is a small town between Rabat and Fes – interesting in that it’s not a beautiful town to be in but a great one to look at, the way it’s positioned on a couple of hills cradled by two larger ones. The nearby Roman town is also worth a visit. Fes and Marrakech, on the other hand, are unmissable.

The old town of Fes is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of the streets are so narrow that two people can’t walk past. Not only the architecture but almost even the life style of the city seems to have been preserved since 9th – 12th century when it was founded…that is except for the multiple TV antennas that don every roof.

The oldest and largest square of Marrakech, Cemaa el Fna, is another World Heritage Site. The square, which was once where public executions took place, is today full of life. During the day, it’s full of dried fruit and nut and orange juice sellers, and Moroccans of all sorts running after their errands. At night, it is a festival of Moroccan cuisine, fortune tellers, sooth sayers, alchemists, snake charmers, musicians, dancers and many other treasures.

The liveliest parts of any old city during the day are the souks. It’s impossible not to get lost in them. Colours, smells and noises emanating from the shops are simply thrilling. “To look is free – no need to buy” they say but once you are so much as hesitate for a second in front a shop, it’s near impossible to leave without bargaining and then, of course, buying something….usually very good value but possibly for something that you don’t really need.

The similarities between Morocco and Turkey don’t end with souks and bargaining. There are also men’s cafes almost on every corner: the difference is that theirs are less depressing. Women are also dressed rather conservatively (with or without head scarves) even if it’s hard to see what Moroccans (men or women) wear since they mostly wear a jellaba over everything that covers them from head-to-toe and depending on the material keeps them cool in summer and warm in winter.

Mind you, my fellow tour goers from Turkey changed my understanding of how ‘conservative’ Turkish women can be. They were two couples (brothers and their wives). All four were hajjis and women covered their heads – even though due to her colour coordinated outfits, at least one of them looked more feminine than my aunt and I who were just slopping it! The other woman wasn’t as happy with having to cover her head I think…. She would sneak around and have a cigarette every now and then (her husband knew but not the older brother-in-law who clearly was the Alpha male of the family). She also had a great sense of humour. One morning when asked how we spent the night, my aunt said the people in the neighbouring room in the hotel woke us up by having showers at 3 in the morning. Her response was “perhaps they were living their fantasies” (fantezi yapiyorlardir)…the fact that they may have been living their fantasies would have never occurred to me - less so to suggest it to strangers in a package tour….and I call myself liberal!

If you don’t want to go on a package holiday of royal cities and shop till you drop, Morocco also offers Berber villages, wild Rif and Atlas mountains, lakes, beaches, desert, and plains covered in wild flowers. In our tour, we covered over 1000km (feeling guilty about the CO2 emissions). The scenery during the whole trip was made up of thousands of wild flowers of all colours imaginable…the best cure after the grey winter of the UK.

A holiday that’s close by, sunny, green (at the right time of the year), historical, cheap and requires no visa…. A holiday that’s a welcome alternative to making endless visits to friends and family during which the same new stories are told and the same old stories are rehashed….what are you waiting for?!

Hey, I've just remembered today is Children's Day in Turkey...I still remember one such day when I was about 7 or 8 dressed in a white princess dress and joining the parade...it used to always rain on the 23rd of April, so it's not surprising it's rained today, too...Never mind. Happy children's day for the child in all of us :)

I think I am a placebo…

It’s been a, in all meanings of the word, cloudy day in London town. I really wanted to be in a big cinema, dark and warm, watching a light big screen movie, with popcorn and coca cola in hand. So, instead of walking around the Victoria Park and feeling depressed and afterwards doing some work and feeling even more depressed, I walked down the canal to the cinema in Canary Wharf.

American Dreamz was the only non-horror movie that started around the time I arrived at the cinema. I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised. It has a good script – even though it doesn’t say anything new, it says it well. It could in fact be blamed for trying to target too many things. Its characters are too obvious…but then again the obvious is usually funnier than the ‘clever’.

Perhaps the most obvious character is President Stanton who is so clearly Dubya that it hurts to watch Dennis Quaid at times…he is simply too good. The title of this blog is in fact one of his lines. When Mrs President tells him that the happy pills are placebo, he comes to the realisation that he is a placebo for a president… Such life changing realisations can only happen in films! Or are we all placebos of ourselves..ha ha ha

Finally, Hugh Grant is excellent in this film; I’d hazard, even better than in Four Weddings and A Funeral. He does the nasty, sarcastic but deep down sorry character much better than sweet and the sleazy look of his eyes is better than the puppy dog one.

I wouldn’t recommend this film for a Friday date but it’s excellent for a cloudy Sunday afternoon…and let’s face it, despite almost the end of April, we are set for more cloudy Sundays.

Oh, so many things happen….so little time to write them…

It’s been almost a month since my last entry. I can’t believe it’s been that long and….apologies to my readers who are very small in numbers but very big in support.

Trip to Morocco which was responsible for one of these four weeks was great. I’ll write about it separately (and long) in the next few days. In the meantime, here is Easter and the Babazula concert I promised to write about.

Easter – what do eggs have to do with rabbits?

It’s Easter Bank Holiday Monday, I still have the heating on…. I am pleasantly and healthily tired having spent the three of last four days walking. We hiked along part of the South Down Way.

On the first day we must have underestimated the length of the route and overestimated our fitness as after walking for about nine miles we were still just about half-way to our destination…practical people that we are, we took a taxi to Lewes! I don’t know if any of you knows but Lewes has the most fairy-tale like castle I’ve ever seen…the towers on the top are soft wave shapes instead of being angular as they normally area.

The second day, there was another taxi, this time in the morning to cut a couple of miles off at the beginning. So 6.5 miles and some rain saw us arrive at Alfriston about 2pm. I spent the afternoon reading, watching the rain and sleeping. I wont’ bore you with hotels but Dean’s Place (Best Western) in Alfriston was wonderful (http://www.alfriston-village.co.uk) – especially the single room facing the front garden I stayed in. The hotel as with the most of the rest of the village is from 15th century. Apparently the hotel is known to have a friendly ghost ‘a woman in a blue dress’….If I tell you I am reading a detective story called Devil in a Blue Dress at the moment…you can imagine how many times I woke up through the night…luckily, no lady in blue dress showed herself to me.

The third day was the hardest hike: 13 miles the last 10 of which was the Seven Sisters…Seven main and some smaller cliffs on the way to Eastborne…and at least 1.5 miles on the clean but depressing promenade of Eastborne. The day ended in Brigthon – a train ride away – and despite my previous fond memories of it, a hen / stag night nightmare of a town…or am I getting older?!

Older I surely am getting, but also fitter. The hardest hike on the third day felt much easier than the first day. I am very happy about that – despite a body aching all over. We are planning another hike for the first May Bank Holiday.

Babazula is the Daddy

The Saturday before last I was at the Babazula concert at the Carling Islington Academy. It was kind of weird…good weird – accompanied with a mad looking belly dancer who came on every now and then and a fantastic VJ who, non-stop, drew abstract figures that matched the music and lyrics on a pad that showed up on a huge screen behind the band.

The concert started with Mad Professor (professor of dub). After 2-3 songs by him, his DJ team and his West African (or so I think) dancers, members of Babazula came on stage and they all started playing together – first the percussionist (darbuka only), then the keyboards and finally Murat on saz and vocals. They were not introduced – not even lights came up as they came on stage. I really liked that “fusion”. It was meaningful about the possibilities of cooperation between seemingly very different people and purposes and it made bloody good music too.

Once all three members were on stage, they were joined by the VJ who was so impressive that friends and I just stood there listening to the music and being mesmerised by her drawings, incapable of dancing which, without the VJ, we were more likely to do.

I’d love to write more about the experience…another thoughtful choice and good organisation by Kazum (www.kazum.co.uk) but I am very tired…so I’ll finish with a sentimental note…one of their songs is ‘Babasiz Kizlar Balosu’ – ‘The Ball for Girls without Fathers’ - after which I called my Dad whose birthday it was that day. I was going to call him after the concert anyway but that very moment felt more appropriate. Music is a great thing and capable of saying things words alone fail to.

Note: ‘Baba’ in Turkish means ‘Daddy’ though am not sure what ‘Babazula’ means…

Under the (cloudy) Anatolian Skies

Erkan Ogur (http://www.erkanogur.net/) a Turkish musician who is one of the best names of ‘Anatolian jazz’ was in concert (‘under the Anatolian skies’) at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday, 15th March.

Except for some of his film music I didn’t know his work but it’s a duty to turn up at concerts of Turkish musicians in London! In the event, it was worth going to on its own right. ‘Anatolian jazz’ that was played on the night can in fact hardly be called ‘Anatolian’ since, while some of the tunes were inspired by Turkish folk music, it’s basically jazz…with lots of jamming...as it should be - universal and a little mad.

I liked it except for one thing, which is not a dislike as such but an observation: all the songs were intense…intensely searching, intensely yearning, intensely sad, intesenly rebellious…On the positive side, this intensity was an antidote to repetitive shallow rythms intended more for hips than senses (shikidam shikidam). On the other hand, one happy tune, one single happy tune, a glimpse of sunshine through the clouds would have been much appreciated.

Another Turkish concert is coming up in London. This time by a young group, Babazula (http://www.babazula.com/) , with at least some happy songs. The featured in the recent documentary of music in Istanbul (Crossing the Bridge). Check out the concert details at http://www.kazum.co.uk/

This is it for a couple of weeks. Busy week coming up and then on Saturday I am off for a short holiday to Morocco. Hopefully there will be many stories from there.

A new agony uncle: “Brother Trust”

There is a new Turkish language monthly women’s magazine in London: the first of its kind in fact. It’s only four months old. I got in touch with the Editor through a friend and it looks like I may be writing for them every now and then.

To start with, they asked me to write about their agony uncle. This agony uncle lives in Turkey and is called ‘Brother Trust’ (or Guven Abi in Turkish). Given that the main preoccupation of women is men (just as the main preoccupation of men is women), it’s much more logical for a women’s magazine to have an agony uncle than an agony aunt!

In his first article, he recounts his conversation with the Editor and how she persuaded him to take up the position. In his hesitation, he asks her ‘I don’t know anything about the concerns of Turkish speaking women over there…what am I supposed to write?’ That got me thinking.

I guess, in general, every woman has similar concerns (like every man does). But there are perhaps two main differences for a Turkish speaking woman (or man) in the UK (for that matter any immigrant in any country).

The first one is about format: having to write Turkish using an English keyboard. Well, OK, this one is only valid for speakers of languages that use hybrid alphabets. Those who are not as lazy as I am download Turkish software or buy Turkish keyboards. But I am lazy. So sometimes, letters i, o, u, g, s, c, appear in the most inconvenient places (that is, instead of ı, ö, ü, ğ, ş, ç). This leads to a particularly funny mistake every now and then when i gets mistaken for ı which turns the Turkish word ‘bored’ to ‘f****d’….it’s not impossible to be both at the same time but that usually is not what the writer wishes to convey….apologies for lowering the tone.

The second is about content. It’s the very fact of living abroad. To borrow the phrase I used in a recent post: that is the problem of being ‘twice a stranger’. I’ve adapted well to British society (or shall I say London?) but even so there is always something missing. Although I’ve been only very rarely made to feel a stranger, there is something missing. But we are strangers to Turkey, too. On holiday in southern Turkey a few years ago, someone asked me: ‘you speak very good Turkish, where did you learn?’ I laughed at it at the time but can you imagine how (unintentionally) hurtful a question this could be? Never mind.

I guess other than these two, the concerns and problems are the same. There are Turkish speaking women here who, despite living half an hour’s bus ride away, have never been to central London; just as there are women in Istanbul who have never seen the sea. Then, there are those like me who live more closely with the rest of the British society, and, whose foreignness and gender have not been obstacles for them, but nevertheless long to hear a dear one say ‘canim, bir tanem, hayatim’ (my soul, my one and only, my life…wonderful terms of endearment). I am not saying these words come easily to Turkish speaking men or when said are actually meant whatever the language.

What’s clear is that Turkey we miss and Turkey we’ve missed out on are two different but equally worthy places to long for. But perhaps having such longings is what makes one more appreciative of what’s there as well as what’s missing.

Changing your life and other updates

I said I was going to go to the One Life exhibition to get some inspiration for changing / improving my life and report back.

Well, I am reporting back to say that I didn’t go…I was planning to go yesterday but thought ‘If I am going to change my life I am going to do it myself’. I don’t know if this is a sign of me taking charge or just an excuse to hide my lethargy…

Instead I went to my local library to get a trashy novel and then to the Broadway Market for some shopping. I can report that the campaign for Spirit is continuing in full swing (see the January entry about it).

Another local campaign, this time at the Roman Road Market, is against the construction plans for Cross Rail. They are planning to dig the tunnel from the middle, i.e. a shaft near Spitalfields, then carry the soil along two-lane-wide inner city roads in trucks, dump it in Mile End Park to be taken away by train….That is the Park for which they spent £12.5 million only 6-7 years ago! And trucks are planned to run 24 hours a day for years and years during the construction period……And on streets that have buildings on either side, streets that you can cross in less than 10 steps. It’s a stupid idea if there ever was any and I am glad there is a campaign against it. I signed the petition and will keep a close eye on the developments.

Where does wisdom lie?

Is it in knowing everything in the world enough to see the general patterns? Like all types of human character, how each will act under different circumstances, how one should treat a particular type of person etc. Until very recently I used to think this is where wisdom lied. We live, experience, read, listen, share: all so that we collect information which we then classify and categorise and then call up when we need to know how to analyse what we see and hear and how to behave in different circumstances.

I am beginning to think this is not the case…and that perhaps wisdom lies in not resorting to generalisation? After all generalisations are nothing but the product of our own analysis so they can only be as good as what we are exposed to and our ability to analyse them.

Yes, perhaps, wisdom lies in having the openness to take every event and every person as they come and in having the strength to deal with the outcome if it doesn’t fit with the generalisations.

Or, perhaps, wisdom lies in not pontificating without knowing what one is talking about! Well, at least it’s off my chest…

Rants and Roundabouts

It’s been only a week since I’ve last written but it feels longer…I’ve been travelling through life at high speed and slightly drunken and I don’t even have a car…

The weekend was particularly peculiar. The Guardian Travel section featured Istanbul on the ‘been there’ pages. Readers are encouraged to send tips about a city each week. Usually the feature takes up the two middle pages. This time though there was an ad on almost the entirety of one of the pages…not even an ad about Turkey but BA flights to Bahamas. Pah!

I’d got up early (on a Saturday I let you know) to get the paper to see if they published any of my tips. They did – three of them in fact. But there was no mention of any of the ‘must sees’, nothing on any of the palaces, Aya Sofya, none of the mosques…nothing, nada, zilch. It’s an insult to such a city.

I don’t usually subscribe to the school that thinks everyone is against the Turks. But if there was ever a last drop, this is it…I’ve given up. I put the paper down and thought to myself ‘I am leaving’…I used to feel part of London, used to sit in the tube and feel at home (you know what I mean, the feeling of belonging to a place not because the tube is comfortable). But now, I sit in the tube, the bus, bars, anywhere and feel a stranger. ‘Twice a Stranger’ in fact to quote the title of an interesting book by The Economist journalist Bruce Clark: a stranger here and (probably) a stranger in Turkey. I always knew there was an element of truth in this but looked at it positively – when you are a stranger to places, in a strange way, every place can be yours…anyway, difficult to explain. But now, I just feel twice a stranger.

I’ve also learnt that while I may not have mastered the art of getting people to help me to make life easier, I am capable of using them. Someone said to me at the weekend that I only talk to him when I am lonely and in need of company. He was right. I am not saying he deserves more but at least he had the guts to tell it to me as it is. I had to agree.

Anyway, I went to a stand up gig tonight to cheer myself up. The MsC sung a few songs. One them goes: you are just another roundabout on the ring road of my life. Roundabout indeed….ring road: even more apt. And I don’t even have a car.

A miserable old git and a sentimental old fool

My little brother called me in the office yesterday. I sounded as miserable as ever – I just can’t chit chat when I am working.

All he wanted to say was that he’d thought of me today, and when he thinks of me, he calls me because he loves me…I had also thought of him the same morning and what a bad older sister I’ve been neglecting him and our other brother. Why didn’t I call?…There is always something to be done first…and before I know it the most important thing, time, passes me by.

Afterwards he emailed me a song. As I type this and listen to it again, there is a lump in my throat and tears are welling in my eyes but there are also flutterbies in my heart as I truly love my brother. The song he sent says it all: what's important is not what's said openly but what's meant; not what's in the surface but what’s underneath, not what we see but what we truly understand.

My poor English translation of this song by Carlos Varela (http://www.carlosvarela.com) follows:

A word says nothing
At the same time it hides it all
Like wind hides the water
Like flowers hide the mud

A look says nothing
At the same time it says it all
Like the rain upon your face
Or an old map of some treasure

A truth says nothing
At the same time it hides all
Like a bonfire that does not extinguish
Like a stone born out of dust

If one day you lose me, I’ll be nothing
At the same time I’ll be everything
Because in your eyes are my wings
And the shore where I drown

Next time…

…it’s warm enough here or am in somewhere warmer, I will stand in the pouring rain and let the drops fall down from my eyelashes.

Some people know how to…

…make life easier for themselves. I am not one of those. Don’t get me wrong I am not unhappy. It’s just that I sometimes make life harder than it should be.

Last night, for example, having forgotten to have dinner but remembered to have two pints, I came home about midnight. Work has been so busy of late that I didn’t even have bread and cheese at home. So, I stopped at the petrol station - the only shop open that late - for a loaf – white slices of cardboard basically. Had a couple of slices with peanut butter and honey.

As I had this Michelin star worthy dinner, I exchanged some emails with one of the people I’d just been out with. She was up checking her emails and eating the dinner her husband had saved for her. When I told her I needed to go food shopping, her response was ‘you do not need shopping, just get a husband and three kids. It is working fine for me’….

You see, I can say ‘bitch!’. I don’t have a husband or three kids – though now I have food. And being 35.5, I am aware it’s becoming a bit late for husband and kids – for three of them anyway.

But I see it differently. She is one of those people who make life easy for themselves. I, on the other hand, have this obsession of doing everything myself. My only teenage dream was to have my own flat, live alone and be free. That I have – possibly at a cost of periodic loneliness. I don’t have a cleaner not because I can’t afford one but it’s a small flat and I think it should be my duty to clean it. Examples are endless but perhaps too personal and hence boring.

Anyway, I succeed at most things I attempt but I work hard and am tired. Until recently I used to think that’s what you do: you work hard to succeed. You ‘buy the flowers yourself’ as Mrs Dalloway says…But now I am thinking there must be an easier way. There must be a way of getting more people to do more things for me; a way to be a bit more selfish without a guilty conscious. But how?

I’ve read about the ‘One Life’ exhibition in London Olympia (www.onelifelive.co.uk) 3-5 March. I am going to visit it and report back. I am not after a tangible life change like a new house, city, job etc. but a more subtle one. All I want is to have enough good food at home at all times, even if there are no husband and kids….come to think of it maybe I should just try online shopping…

An urban moment

It's just before midnight. Woman No 1 must have got on the tube at Oxford Circus. She gets out a little black note book and starts sketching the men oppposite her. Woman No 2 (me) gets on at Tottenham Court Road (the next stop), sits next to Woman No 1, gets her notebook out and starts writing. Woman No 3 gets on at Holborn (the next stop), sits next to Woman No 2, gets her notebook out and starts writing. Sitting in the middle, Woman No 2 realises the oddity of the situation: three women looking very different but all in their 30s, sitting next to each other and furiously writing on their notebooks on a late night tube train.

Opposite two punk girls barely 20 and two Indian men in their 30s also realise the oddity of the situation and try not to smile....we are in London after all, human contact in the tube must be kept to a minimum.

At Bank (two stops after No 3 got on), No 3 nudges No2 and shows her what she's been writing. No 2 was thinking she was writing about No 1 but in fact it's about her. Having written about No 2 writing about the woman who's just sat next to her writing about her, she realised No 2 is writing about something else...about a man with a yearning look on his face. No 2 was writing about a scene she's just acted in her improvisation class. No2 is excited because she thinks she's just acted out the straight woman's Brokeback Mountain in the scene she was writing about.

It turns out No 3 was coming back from another improvisation class that night. They get talking. No 3 had watched, only weeks before, the theatre company No 2 is training with and loved them. They talk about theatre and writing for another three stops when No 3 gets off at Bethnal Green. No 1 has fallen asleep about Bank. No 2 keeps smiling all the way to Mile End (OK, only the next stop) and then home and can't sleep for ages with the excitement of that scene and the urban moment with No 3.

No 2 is happy. And who says London is a place for free but lonely people? It's hard to find people to connect with anywhere in the world - even if momentarily, even if with people you are unlikely to see ever again. At least in London you have lonely (or shall I say free?) enough people, even only few, to share those moments with.

Some men are like...

...luke warm coffee....When I first came to England, you couldn't get a decent cup of coffee anywhere. The best you would have was warm filter coffee unless you were at a traditional cafe run by 2nd or 3rd generation Italians. Since the late 1990s you can get cafe latte, cafe au lait, espresso, the lot. And now you see loads of people in Central London walking to their offices in the morning with a coffee cup glued to their hands. There are even loyalty cards...if you pay an astronomical amount of money for 9 cups of coffee, you can get the 10th one free.

Unfortunately, men don't change as fast as the coffee tradition does. Some men are truly like luke warm coffee.

Imagine it. It's one of those cold mornings. Regardless of how much you had to drink the night before, you really want a strong and hot cup of coffee when you get to work. So you stop by at your local coffee shop. In my case, a traditional Italian cafe, not one of the new chains. Smiley man or woman says good morning, has a little chat with you and makes you a cup of latte (my favourite). You only realise when you get to your office that the milk s/he put in was frothed10 minutes before you walked in the shop. So it has all the cafeine you need but none of the warmth. Imagine the dissapointment. It'll stay with you all day.

That's how some men are...
That's all really :)

Some Samaritan Supplies

I know there are more important things in life to be annoyed about....all this cartoon stuff for example....but I am stuck at the new Samaritans poster. They appeared in the tube stations a few weeks ago. I see one every morning on the way down to the platform at my local station and again on my way up every evening.

It's '70s style colour graphics of rainbows, butterflies, birds and rabits and the slogan reads "if your life isn't like this, give us a call" or something like that. Whose life is like that these days? Or rather whose life has ever been like that unless they were on LSD?

I am undecided between taking it all seriously and calling them to complain that they are making me feel shit about the lack of colour and hallucination (is this how it's spelt?!) in my life and ask for help and taking the piss and calling them to ask if they could deliver the LSD to my address or if I should pick it up from theirs....

But, yes, there are more important things...I am scared of all these goings on about the cartoons. Not because of this particular incident per se but because this is another step in widening the gap between normal Muslims and the rest of the world. Cartoons were wrong: by depicting Mohammed with a bomb for a turban (that's the only one I saw), they made it look as if violence is preached by the religion itself not by some dangerous nutters. I think this was insulting to every Muslim's belief in the teachings of their religion - I don' t mean not drawing the Prophet but the peace, and doing good for others etc. all those messages that should be universal to all religions. Normal Muslims are as much (if not more) targets of extremists and the whole saga is doing more harm to normal Muslims and as we say in Turkey, buttering the bread of the extremists. What's a 'normal' Muslim?....The ones of varying frequency of daily prayer (for my sake at least 'never' included) who would not hit the streets with threatening plackarts, burn buildings and kill people. I think.

God help me...or perhaps I should call the Samaritans for that LSD...you never know.

BritBlog...what is that all about?

My application to list this blog on the Britblog.com has been rejected! They tell me that before I get annoyed I should read their conditions of submission. I read them and can't understand what the issue is. This site is not under construction, it is not commercial, neither is it pornographic nor anythingelse it shouln't be. But it's a personal site which is one of the categories that are allowed.

Maybe, they say, you don't have enough posts, post some more and try again....on other parts of the site they are very encouraging to everyone to add to their website. And who but the novice blogger will bother? Come to think of it why do I bother? Because I wanted to share my site with as many people as possible. In fact, I checked other recently listed sites and some of them have as few postings as I have...

This is all fine. And if this was all what they said, I would be sour grapes for writing about it. Then I see another reason in their rejection email: 'It may be that we could not establish if you were British or not'...Now that's interesting. Nowhere in their site it says that you have to be British. I thought to live in the UK was sufficient. Besides I do have dual nationality. To top it, to get a British passport, I had to swear allegiance to the Queen, which is more than those who are born British have to do.

You know, despite the weather, I like this country. It's been good to me and I've been good to it. But their email and reasoning pissed me off. What more does one have to do to be British? Maybe I should have said I had dual nationality in my profile....it didn't occure to me. Maybe there in lies the problem. In any case I am going to remove the link to Brit blog. They can stuff it.

Having written the above, I've checked bloglaralemi.com which is a listing site for blogs by Turks. They haven't put my listing up either. I'll give them a couple more days - things are slower over there.

But maybe (and this doesn't bare thinking about) the reason that neither the British nor the Turkish blog listing sites accept me is because after all these years of living in Britain, I am still not British and neither am I Turkish anymore....aaargh....

The good news is the site is up on the London blog listing....which confirms what I've come to suspect: London is a place for those who don't belong anywhere else anymore (or never belonged anywhere ever). Sad? No, come the morning I'll find a good angle to see all this from. Now (having been out enjoying good company and good wine) I am going to bed!

There is Spirit in Broadway...

That is in the Broadway Market, Hackney, London. I went to the market today first time in more than a year. Every shop had little posters on the window collecting money for Spirit. Talking to a rather earnest man (kind of cute but with eyebrow dandruff) carrying a collection bucket, I learnt that Spirit is the old man who runs one of the convenience stores on the same street as the market. He is forced out of his shop and flat upstairs by the landlord. The money was collected to make up half the £3000 the court ordered him to pay by Feb 3rd to support his appeal. Why was he forced out? The man went on about how bad the rich landlord was and that they suspected he lived in Saudi Arabia (God forbid not a local!) but had to admit (with the shadow of a smile) that Spirit had not been paying his rent for some time!

It seems this little omission by Spirit doesn't matter for his supporters, who are also occupying a cafe down the market the owner of which wanted to sell. 'Pasta not flats' the supporters protest on the cover of 'The Eel', the Broadway Fanzine. Their protest is beyond the shop and the cafe and for keeping the market as is against development of flats for yuppies.

Broadway Market is on every Saturday. It has farmers' market, fluffy baby clothes, expensive cheeses (but admitedly delicious), bits of art etc. etc. Regular visitors and the traders do clearly think that they have a nice little community. And on cold but sunny winter days like today, it is a welcomed change from the surrounding areas.

Reading through The Eel, I saw there is also a campaign against the development of nearby Dalston (developments for better transport links). I'll put a link to that site after posting this - to be fair their campaign is not so much against the developments but a plea to have full consultation about them.

All good but makes me think...why do these people care? Why try preserve Dalston, which does have a sense of some sort of community in parts, but is a truly ugly, deprived and depressing place. Perhaps development will make it better....I don't know. Or maybe what development will do is not as important as the exercise of social consciousness - that great British intellectual tradition practiced mostly by people who have more than sufficient means of living. Do the campaigners have the support of everyone in the community (including those who wish they could afford to live somewhere else or in a better developed Dalston and Hackney)?

I don't know...but I gave some money towards the Spirit campaign...partly because I couldn't say no to that earnest man but mainly because Spirit looks like a charming man and a true character. I hope he sticks around for years to come, playing his reggae music and being generally jovial.

Have you seen the new Ang Lee film Brokeback Mountain?

I have and loved it. The scenery swept me away. I was mesmerised by the vulnerability of Ennis and the corners of Jake's mouth. The fact that the characters are two gay man was neither here nor there. It's not a gay western....it's a love story in the widest definition of the word love....or at least that's how I saw it.

I sobbed for the last 10 minutes of the film. But as the credits rolled, what I was left with was the beautiful memory of that innocent belief in true love which I realised I had lost over the years amidst all those meaningless relationships I entered knowingly and with false hopes and all that talk of the possibility of finding that special person. I now remember that the key to experience such a strong and pure love is not simply to meet the right person but to trust love enough to let yourself feel it. I will do my best to never forget it again.

This is the Dr Seuss book that inspired me

Oh the Thinks You Can Think!

You can think up some birds. That's what you can do.
You can think about yellow or think about blue...
You can think about red. You can think about pink.
You can think up a horse. Oh, the THINKS you can think!
Oh, the THINKS you can think up if only you try!
If you try, you can think up a guff going by.
You can think about gloves. You can think about snuvs. You can think a long time about snuvs and their gloves.
Oh the THINKS you can think!
Think of Peter the Postman who cross the ice once every day - and on Saturdays, twice.
THINK! Think a ship. Think up a long trip. Go visit the Vipper, the Vipper of Vipp.
There are so many THINKS that a thinker can think!
Would you dare yank a tooth of the rink-rinker-fink?
And left! Think of left! And think about Beft. Why is it that beft always go tot he left?
And why is it so many things go to the right?
You can think about that until Saturday night.
Think left and think right and think low and think high.
Oh , the THINKS you can think up if only you try!