Happy New Year
Wishing you all a happy year in 2008…let it be the year of ‘laughter, change and romance’ said V but I’ve had enough change in the last 6 months….I want a quiet time of laughter, relaxation and love…
Most of all, I want to keep my eyes, ears and heart open to all the happiness around me…as I am becoming more and more aware that happiness is all around us but we are too busy / disillusioned / tired to notice it…
I wish you the same openness…
Monday, January 07, 2008
Observations from Istanbul
(30 December 2007)
I fall in love easily…..I used to think I’d never fallen in love since the guy who broke my heart when I was 20. But last night sitting in a café till 2 am with a friend I hadn’t seen since primary school, I thought I was falling in love. And if that’s how it feels, I’ve fallen in love on a daily basis for the last 17 years…
This is one of those rare occasions when the English language isn’t enough. While I think I may have written about this last year, please bear with me again. In Turkish, there are two different words ‘aşk’ and ‘sevgi’ - roughly ‘to be in love / to fall in love’ and ‘to love’, respectively.
Aşk is filled with fire, lust, emotions, tears…it comes from the heart and hangs over you like a halo. It remains mostly unrequited and ends.
Sevgi, on the other hand, is calmer, makes you happy, puts a smile on your face, doesn’t look for reciprocity, comes from your guts…its light shines from within and it lasts.
Aşk is for an individual because of something they have or do. Sevgi is for the whole person and for no reason.
Last night we both agreed that that state of being without reason (nedensizlik) is what we want in a relationship. Like most men of some education and self confidence, he enjoyed talking about his ideas, and like most artists, he liked talking about himself. Perhaps, though, he was quicker at getting to talking about love than most I’ve met.
Back at home, I fell asleep visioning my dream house…maybe he was even in it….
My dream house is on the shores of a calm lake….it’s wooden and has a veranda around its three sides – the fourth leaning against the land. I am on the corner of the veranda looking out to lake and land, my hair and long dress flowing in the wind (though the wind chime is not moving)…This image has been held in my mind for about a year now but I had never imagined the inside of the house before….Interesting that even in my dream house I am on the outside like we don’t belong to each other…
But in this visioning I was inside, I could see furniture: big comfortable sofas of light reds, oranges and yellows…rugs in the middle, wooden dinner table to the right, a big dish and flowers in the middle, kitchen at the back…somewhere in the house is my study and somewhere else there is the room where he works. I even lifted a toddler…I couldn’t see the toddler’s face but I think it was a boy...I don’t think it was my primary school friend working in the other room…but there sure was someone there…
Upon waking this morning, my first thought was ‘Olmaz’ – it won’t happen. At the time I wasn’t sure if this was ‘olAmaz’ – it can’t happen…But I knew that what wouldn’t or couldn’t happen was ‘with him’ not ‘my dream’…. I was filled with ‘sevgi’ for him that’s all. My dream can and will happen if I believe in it.
How wonderful!!!!
****
I am writing again – probably because I spent the last two weeks mostly sleeping, eating and walking. That and the anticipation of starting writing one-page-a-day from January 1st thanks to the stack of little notebooks V gave me for xmas. Thank you again - best present and will help me a great deal, I feel it already. I also started reading again...Siyah Sut by Elif Safak....review to follow.
****
The shutters are closed in our house in Istanbul. The lamp would be too harsh a light right now. And both the lamp and opening the shutters may wake my aunt up…so I put the TV in the room on mute, and write this (the original hand-written version) in its light. Genius.
****
They still show old Westerns on Sunday mornings on TRT 1 – the only channel of my childhood.
****
My family doesn’t do happiness very well. They don’t know how to share it, give it and believe in it. But they are great in sadness and pain and the love that’s needed to deal with it. They rally around, cook for you, give you their bed. It’s better this way. Happiness is easier to find with other people…but sometimes I wish my family trained me better in finding it…like truffle hunting dogs are trained.
****
They’ve changed the name of the driving school at which I met my first love – the one mentioned above – to “SPECIAL MEMORY” (Ozel Ani)….need I say anything more?! (bu kadar olur!!!!).
(30 December 2007)
I fall in love easily…..I used to think I’d never fallen in love since the guy who broke my heart when I was 20. But last night sitting in a café till 2 am with a friend I hadn’t seen since primary school, I thought I was falling in love. And if that’s how it feels, I’ve fallen in love on a daily basis for the last 17 years…
This is one of those rare occasions when the English language isn’t enough. While I think I may have written about this last year, please bear with me again. In Turkish, there are two different words ‘aşk’ and ‘sevgi’ - roughly ‘to be in love / to fall in love’ and ‘to love’, respectively.
Aşk is filled with fire, lust, emotions, tears…it comes from the heart and hangs over you like a halo. It remains mostly unrequited and ends.
Sevgi, on the other hand, is calmer, makes you happy, puts a smile on your face, doesn’t look for reciprocity, comes from your guts…its light shines from within and it lasts.
Aşk is for an individual because of something they have or do. Sevgi is for the whole person and for no reason.
Last night we both agreed that that state of being without reason (nedensizlik) is what we want in a relationship. Like most men of some education and self confidence, he enjoyed talking about his ideas, and like most artists, he liked talking about himself. Perhaps, though, he was quicker at getting to talking about love than most I’ve met.
Back at home, I fell asleep visioning my dream house…maybe he was even in it….
My dream house is on the shores of a calm lake….it’s wooden and has a veranda around its three sides – the fourth leaning against the land. I am on the corner of the veranda looking out to lake and land, my hair and long dress flowing in the wind (though the wind chime is not moving)…This image has been held in my mind for about a year now but I had never imagined the inside of the house before….Interesting that even in my dream house I am on the outside like we don’t belong to each other…
But in this visioning I was inside, I could see furniture: big comfortable sofas of light reds, oranges and yellows…rugs in the middle, wooden dinner table to the right, a big dish and flowers in the middle, kitchen at the back…somewhere in the house is my study and somewhere else there is the room where he works. I even lifted a toddler…I couldn’t see the toddler’s face but I think it was a boy...I don’t think it was my primary school friend working in the other room…but there sure was someone there…
Upon waking this morning, my first thought was ‘Olmaz’ – it won’t happen. At the time I wasn’t sure if this was ‘olAmaz’ – it can’t happen…But I knew that what wouldn’t or couldn’t happen was ‘with him’ not ‘my dream’…. I was filled with ‘sevgi’ for him that’s all. My dream can and will happen if I believe in it.
How wonderful!!!!
****
I am writing again – probably because I spent the last two weeks mostly sleeping, eating and walking. That and the anticipation of starting writing one-page-a-day from January 1st thanks to the stack of little notebooks V gave me for xmas. Thank you again - best present and will help me a great deal, I feel it already. I also started reading again...Siyah Sut by Elif Safak....review to follow.
****
The shutters are closed in our house in Istanbul. The lamp would be too harsh a light right now. And both the lamp and opening the shutters may wake my aunt up…so I put the TV in the room on mute, and write this (the original hand-written version) in its light. Genius.
****
They still show old Westerns on Sunday mornings on TRT 1 – the only channel of my childhood.
****
My family doesn’t do happiness very well. They don’t know how to share it, give it and believe in it. But they are great in sadness and pain and the love that’s needed to deal with it. They rally around, cook for you, give you their bed. It’s better this way. Happiness is easier to find with other people…but sometimes I wish my family trained me better in finding it…like truffle hunting dogs are trained.
****
They’ve changed the name of the driving school at which I met my first love – the one mentioned above – to “SPECIAL MEMORY” (Ozel Ani)….need I say anything more?! (bu kadar olur!!!!).
Othello at the Donmar Warehouse
(21 December 2007)
Pity thy soul for it hath missed Othello at the Donmar. Curse thy luck for there hath never been a better Othello. And there are no more parchments that will let thy person enter into the chambers that display before the eyes of the lucky few love, hate, humour and tragedy in perfect a measure as never hath blessed the stage upon which many a bard’s words have been spoken…
Enough of that…on with today’s words…as Othello even if spoken in Shakespearean is valid today as it was then…
An Othello – we get to know him not through mysterious tales he tells Desdemona or the delightful pleasures he sure is capable of giving but his weakness. Such weakness, such low confidence in self that he trusts another man’s words more than his own instinct. A man – not just a man Chiwetel Ejiofor – whose shaking and screams of “blood blood blood” make you see the red, whose desperate search for the handkerchief he’d given his fair love makes you want to jump off the balcony and tell him the truth and save them both.
And not just Othello…
An Iago – who has two faces…one which you’d fall in love with in an instant (after all he is played by Ewan McGregor) and the other will haunt your deepest dreams forever. Should you encountered his wrath, you may as well kill yourself like Othello since never again can you trust another soul. And if you can’t trust another soul, what’s the point of living?
A Desdemona by Kelly Reilly, who surely is the lightest, the most elegant creature on Earth…She prepares for her imminent death with scared vulnerability and willing determination in equal measure…a wrongful death, no doubt, but one she seems to expect and accept…To love someone with that degree of surrender…even when the object of your love is also your executioner?...I don’t think I’ll ever understand it enough to feel it myself but it does look beautiful.
There are many others…
The beautiful Casio…
The fool blinded by love, Rodrigo…
The Senor, Desdemona’s father, who is worthy of respect through his age not through his weapons – even if he needs to be reminded of this by Othello…
Bribe, steal, do whatever you can and get yourself to Donmar…if you miss it there, go and see it when it moves elsewhere…surely it must continue beyond its current run…In a larger venue and with different cast, it may not be the experience I’ve had on 21 December 2007 which would be a pity for you…but let me end by thanking A for letting me have her spare ticket and an evening I’ll never forget.
(21 December 2007)
Pity thy soul for it hath missed Othello at the Donmar. Curse thy luck for there hath never been a better Othello. And there are no more parchments that will let thy person enter into the chambers that display before the eyes of the lucky few love, hate, humour and tragedy in perfect a measure as never hath blessed the stage upon which many a bard’s words have been spoken…
Enough of that…on with today’s words…as Othello even if spoken in Shakespearean is valid today as it was then…
An Othello – we get to know him not through mysterious tales he tells Desdemona or the delightful pleasures he sure is capable of giving but his weakness. Such weakness, such low confidence in self that he trusts another man’s words more than his own instinct. A man – not just a man Chiwetel Ejiofor – whose shaking and screams of “blood blood blood” make you see the red, whose desperate search for the handkerchief he’d given his fair love makes you want to jump off the balcony and tell him the truth and save them both.
And not just Othello…
An Iago – who has two faces…one which you’d fall in love with in an instant (after all he is played by Ewan McGregor) and the other will haunt your deepest dreams forever. Should you encountered his wrath, you may as well kill yourself like Othello since never again can you trust another soul. And if you can’t trust another soul, what’s the point of living?
A Desdemona by Kelly Reilly, who surely is the lightest, the most elegant creature on Earth…She prepares for her imminent death with scared vulnerability and willing determination in equal measure…a wrongful death, no doubt, but one she seems to expect and accept…To love someone with that degree of surrender…even when the object of your love is also your executioner?...I don’t think I’ll ever understand it enough to feel it myself but it does look beautiful.
There are many others…
The beautiful Casio…
The fool blinded by love, Rodrigo…
The Senor, Desdemona’s father, who is worthy of respect through his age not through his weapons – even if he needs to be reminded of this by Othello…
Bribe, steal, do whatever you can and get yourself to Donmar…if you miss it there, go and see it when it moves elsewhere…surely it must continue beyond its current run…In a larger venue and with different cast, it may not be the experience I’ve had on 21 December 2007 which would be a pity for you…but let me end by thanking A for letting me have her spare ticket and an evening I’ll never forget.
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