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!!!!

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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.

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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.

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They still show old Westerns on Sunday mornings on TRT 1 – the only channel of my childhood.

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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.

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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!!!!).