Late night

How many nights passed like this she couldn’t remember. She’s been sleeping most of the day and sitting by the window at night looking over to the park in front, the lights of the city ahead and the starts above if the clouds let them through.

About one in the morning the bar on the next street closed releasing people into the quiet night. Some would be happy drunks continuing the joke that made them laugh back in the bar – the joke they would not laugh at in the morning. Others would be angry with each other. There were many occasions she thought she ought to call the police to prevent a fight, if only she could be bothered. In the morning, most would be forgotten anyway.

After the crowd, a lone man would walk slowly past, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a cigarette. As he passed under the street light, she could see his tired face. He was beautiful. Her heart was too tired to think about beauty and the possibilities it brings. But she still watched him as he walked past, turned the corner, entered the park and sat on the bench by the pond. He would light another cigarette, sit a little while after finishing that one and then leave.

She would sit all that time, in the darkened flat, by her window, smoke her cigarette and watch him, seeing in him all those who she loved, all those she wanted to be loved by and all those who remained distant and left.

When she resumed her place by the window earlier, she didn’t know tonight would be different. The crowds passed again. And he appeared around the corner. But this time he stopped under the light, looked up, waved at her, smiled and continued walking.

His smile, nothing special in itself, warmed her heart. It surprised her that her heart that was yet again broken, her heart that wanted to sleep all day and sit up all night in silence, her heart that was shrinking with every break was still capable of feeling warmth.

As in a trance, she got up, went downstairs, walked to the end of the road, into the park and sat next to him on the bench by the pond. He smiled again as if this is what they did here, this time of night, always, everywhere.

He got a cigarette out for her, she took it, he lit. They sat there in silence and darkness, looking at the pond. She had had the courage to get there but was afraid if she didn’t say or do something, he too would leave.

“Hi”?
“I’ve seen you sit here before?”?
“Nice night”?
Hold his hand?
At least turn towards him?

…something that showed him that she was a woman and him a man. But she was tired of being loved as a woman. She just wanted to be. So did he.

He just sat there, silent, motionless long after his cigarette had finished…her comfortable in his presence.

As the birds started to sing welcoming the first lights of day, he moved his hand and lights held her little finger. He knew that was as much contact as she could handle right now, and she felt love, human love, more in that one, quiet, little touch than any other.

With the sun, they left the park. She never saw him again, sleeping soundly at night in the knowledge that love existed and that that kind of moment was too precious to live again.

Summer

Apparently there wasn’t much of a summer here this year…July wasn’t bad I was here I know. August they say was grey. I was in Turkey for most of it.

Someone said to me back in July that I must have spent most of my energies for a long time on integrating here. That’s what most immigrants bent on integration do apparently. But now that I feel integrated, I have all this surplus energy which I am diverting to creative activities.

This blog has suffered a little as a result. But it has already served its purpose (and will for a while longer but not as frequently). Purpose? To make me write regularly. I now do. After the play in May – June, in August, I wrote a short story. Not the best one you can read but I am happy to have started and finished something. I know how hard some things in life can be and am under no illusion that they will happen easily and quickly. So one step at a time, one entry, one short play, one short story, one evening / morning entry in a little black notebook…

Back in April I had booked my trip to Turkey. First a couple of weeks, then three, then by the time I clicked on the ‘next’ button on Easy Jet website it was 4.5 weeks. I am glad I clicked when I did.

I am also glad I went when I did. Not because I avoided the grey. Grey here is not something you can avoid. You come and you go, and it’s usually here. But you learn not to mind it. You tell yourself that it’s all about atmospheric conditions and latitude and not because the gods above have anything against you personally.

I am glad I went when I did because I was beginning to burn out. A couple of weeks before I went, I found myself at the bottom of the escalators in Oxford Circus tube station one evening not remember where I was going and once I remembered how I was going to get there. Oh boy, it was scary. People walked past in fast motion, signs flew circles around my head. And after what seemed like an age, I turned right towards Central Line. I was going home after all and I couldn’t remember which line…the line I took for 12 years…

I also wanted to go to Turkey for a long time to meet the beautiful people of my motherland. Since I left in 1991, I’d not been there more than three weeks and not met anyone I hadn’t known before I left. Those I’d known before were mostly miserable now…if not miserable; ever so adult, what with kids, bad marriages, large credit card debts, boring jobs...We had fun together but it was only a respite from their lives. I wanted to meet genuinely happy people.

I don’t know if there are such things anywhere in the world, let alone Turkey, where people have some genuine problems. But I wanted to believe there was. I wanted to believe that those atmospheric conditions I don’t take personally here will work for me there and get out of the way of the sun. Again not for me but they did get out of the way.

I sweated just the way I’d missed doing (I really had missed sweating).

I rested: I would go to bed at night feeling genuinely excited about getting up the next morning and having absolutely nothing to do all day.

I swam – sometimes sideways like old ladies used to do, sometimes pretending to be in the Olympics (which I couldn’t watch due to lack of TV).

I walked up a mountain at midnight to watch natural gas seeping from the ground and burning like it did for thousands of years.

I walked and swam amongst the ruins of an ancient town – where there had been a settlement since before the time of Christ.

I got on a cable car and climbed to 2365 meters above sea level…which I would not have done had I realized they cut through the forest to build a 7 km road to the base of the cable car.

I got into the sea at full moon at the early hours of the morning…clear as the day.

I partied like there was no tomorrow….sometimes there was hardly any tomorrow as I didn’t wake up or at least get up till late afternoon.

I drunk raki and ate fish while listening to Zeki Muren and crying.

I did much more…but let the literary critics find out about those as a great Turkish poet, Orhan Veli, says at the end of one of his poems.

Cardiff

I went to Cardiff on Wednesday…now why talk about Cardiff of all places when I haven’t written for weeks?...So long (and thanks to a laptop crash in the meantime) in fact that I couldn’t remember my account name to sign in to the blogspot!...well because I feel like it!

I went to Cardiff for the first time a few years ago…maybe as much as six-seven years ago. It was a work trip. We stayed at one of those soulless hotels for a couple of nights. I remember looking out of the window to this 1970s concrete cube of an office block turned hotel called The Big Sleep and thinking I’d like to stay there next time I come to Cardiff. There is great satisfaction in achieving something small as returning to a city to stay in a hotel that you wanted to. Another tick.

So earlier this week when I was told to be there for a 10 am meeting yesterday, I thought why not go the night before (instead of getting up at stupid o’clock in the morning) and stay at The Big Sleep.

Got there about 9.30 pm…
Grey and chilly…
Station – small but tidy.
A taxi rank with all the taxis in town there at once.
Asked a taxi driver the direction:
A taxi driver hailed from the deserts of Sudan or Ethiopia or somewhere around there…to the greyness of Cardiff.
“Walk to the end of this road, cross the street, you’ll see a crane – red of colour – it’s past that on the right” he said.
“A crane – red of colour” what generosity of poetry for a crane…
On a grey evening in Cardiff

The entrance to the hotel was unpromising but…
Reception – blue and white of colour – was relaxing.
My room on the 10th floor;
A quite city beneath my feet;
Hills in the distance;
Crane lights winking against the darkening sky.

Inside the room – blue and white of colour;
A big bed…
John Malkovich smiling from a huge poster on the opposite wall!
Bass beats coming from the Cardiff Arena across the road,
Jay-Z it was, I learnt in the morning.

I had wanted to have a quiet night,
Away from my usual surroundings and trillion things that have been occupying my head back in London.

Sleep wasn’t as generous as poetry….
It came quickly but didn’t stay long.
Shower in the morning was hot,
Shampoo smelled nice,
White towels were soft and warm.

Breakfast room was pink…
They managed to do pink without girly
And…the best bit?
Crumpets for breakfast…
There were crumpets for breakfast at The Big Sleep!
Put a smile on my face then and all day and on the faces of those I shared the crumpet story with…

Life is simple if we don’t complicate it.
Small things are indeed big sources of happiness.
“a crane – red of colour”…
“crumpets for breakfast”…

We won the project I was in Cardiff for.
Another source of happiness;
But even after that project is done and dusted,
The crane and crumpets will stay with me.

Correction

Ruthless was the wrong word to use (April 12). I am still not sure what the correct word is. When I said:

You want to use me, I use you…and I won’t play fair.

It was a confrontation. And that was the warning.

You want to use me? I’ll use you back so don’t even think of starting (or continuing any more)

is what I wanted to say…

Update

I haven’t blogged this month but I’ve written a short play. 10-15 minutes. The director and the writer I am working with both liked it. I am working on improving it. What I aspired to do most my life is becoming a reality – a small reality but a reality nonetheless.

When I finished the first draft, I knew there was still a lot to do before it can be finished but I had an immense satisfaction of having finished something…having thought of it from beginning to end and executed it…something I’ve created…something I will be able to share with not only those who read it but those who will come to see it played.

When I started writing it I was worried that it would be ‘too much like the real life’…I felt in order to write something interesting one had to create imaginary characters, life, events…my life or the lives of others I know wasn’t good enough. When I expressed this as a concern to the director he smiled and said ‘if it’s like real life, it will be a great success’. How true!

It’s only a short play. It’s only about something I know very well and lived over and over again. But it’s only my first attempt. Now that I know I can do this, I know I can do more.

Persepolis

Persepolis was a ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire – the earliest remains of which are found from 515BC. The Persepolis this entry is about is the animation film with the same name…over 2500 years after the city and as further away from the glorious days of ancient Iran as can be.

I read the two books the film is based on last summer at my friend H’s house in Ibiza. H doesn’t get up much earlier than noon so I spent the mornings – or what were left of them after I woke up – reading and writing. The drawing of a naïf girl (Marjane Satrapi) on the cover of Persepolis attracted my attention and I couldn’t put them down…correction…like all great books: I couldn’t put them down to start with but slowed down towards the end to prolong the pleasure of residing in the world they created.

The same happened in the film last Friday – I sat on the first row in a small room and was close enough to feel dizzy at times…by the swirling jasmine petals, people running away from police, flying cars and all the rest you should see for yourself.

Both the books and the film are magical…without the magic. Nothing magical just a life story…in fact its magic is in its simplicity…just a woman telling her life story – a truly and only human story…no artificial colourings or flavourings…just a tear jerking and side splitting masterpiece.

But it’s not just the story of an Iranian woman. It’s the story of all immigrants – and maybe that’s why I like it so much. It’s about the price paid for freedom and that all of us pay a price for freedom. The highest price of freedom immigrants pay is loneliness. The price is the same wherever you come from and wherever you immigrate to. And it doesn’t matter what you are running from – family, religion, torture, poverty even yourself…

The price paid is not just loneliness though – there are indecision, fear and acceptance. Every day the immigrant has to answer the question ‘should I stay or should I go?’. The immigrant fears the answers to ‘am I doing the right thing?’ ‘are they accepting me?’ ‘am I as good as them?’…all the questions immigrants ask herself is aimed at herself, aimed at putting herself down. Acceptance of self, of place and of own choices doesn’t come automatically. Yes, she arrives here – wherever that may be – willingly…but in fact what she willingly does is leaving where she was, she arrives not knowing the destination but knowing the departure only too well. As she gets to know the destination and the questions and indecision settle. Natives don’t ask themselves whether to stay or go – not as frequently anyway. They are accepted so…no fear. And most importantly, they accept where they are, why they are there so…no loneliness.

***

Some parts of the books didn’t make it to the film. The omission of one part in particular makes Marjan look cleaner but a little too deceivable…loosing it all like that over an unfortunate love affair, her first. Or perhaps one should loose it all over the first unfortunate love affair so that one doesn’t make the same mistakes again and again…

I cried every time she said goodbye to her family...I cried whenever one of the characters cried…tears, tears, tears…tears from the eye of the tiger…why tiger? It’ll become clear when you watch the film…and watch the film, you must.

You’ve been warned

Eastbound platform.
Overground.
Highbury & Islington.
6.26 pm.
8 April 2008.

It’s not the most inspiring of places on Earth.
But it had an orange glow from the setting sun.

A moment of clarity as I looked across the tracks to the westbound platform.

I knew then that I was now ruthless.

My expectations were zeroed.

I was to go with the flow but truly…no arm bands, no dreams of returning to shore, some shore, any shore…stopped trying to float and just floated.

I felt lighter…worries off my shoulder….I felt truly free.

Nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day or the days leading up to it.

The usual boozy Saturday night, the usual Sunday haze, the usual Monday blues.

Spent the evening with M (the Turkish one…suddenly so many Ms around)…

In my new found flow I was no longer angry with him…all he did was say no to the scenario that cast him as my leading man…he knew what many others before him did too but I didn’t have the courage to admit to myself…the role was not really intended for him…

In that moment of clarity I realised…

In my efforts to cast my leading man I had given too much importance to every men I’d met, I’d given too much of my soul…I’d treated everyone with the same enthusiasm and love and tenderness…

Actually not everyone…those who were more likely to be ‘suitable’ got nothing…I was running away from the possibility of ever filming that scenario.

That was then…

From now on…

Everyone gets what they give…

You want to use me, I use you…and I won’t play fair.

You want love, you’ll get love…and I won’t shy away.

And that’s how I’ve become ruthless.

Two nights with Mamet and other nights

There are only very few things in life that will be satisfying two nights in a row…Mamet would have been one of those if only there weren’t so many similarities between Oleanna which I saw on Thursday and Speed the Plow which I saw last night…

In both plays, the only female character said ‘I don’t understand’ several times, delivered in almost the same voice, the same tone. One could follow the line of argument Carol in Oleanna does and say Mamet is deliberately making his female characters seemingly naïve but in truth manipulating.

Both plays develop at the same speed through their three acts as I illustrate below. In both plays, characters are annoyed or saved by the phone – that is perhaps to give those on stage a little breather from the verbal cross-fire Mamet makes them engage in…actors become fast talking loose cannons - they were looser in the Plow, a little more cautious in Oleanna…I don’t know about the plays enough to know if it was the acting or the script.

***

Act 1 in both plays is relatively quiet where we learn about the characters, their past, their expectations of future, what they do and don’t understand. This is where observations about society are made – in particular the society of the 1980s when both plays were written, but some things never change. Observations are of course mostly about what’s wrong in the society.

In Oleanna, there is a long exchange about the role of education – ‘our
predilection for education is prejudiced’ the Professor says. We don’t all have
to be educated. Education is a waste of time when it’s just about memorising and
retaining information. It should be about questioning information, knowledge,
positions, power and power games. My father argued the same when he took my two
brothers out of school aged 12 and 15. He didn’t want them to grow up fitting
the same mould as everyone else. Perhaps he was right but I wish my brothers
could have made the choice themselves – perhaps that’s impossible…but isn’t
there always a mould we fit in even if it’s ‘no mould’?

In the Plow, it’s about the choice between earning money and standing for ideas
when commissioning a film – the option where standing for ideas earns money is
not discussed (does it happen?). The two film producers call each other
whores…well yes, one doesn’t have to sell one’s body to be a whore, anything
personal and sacred would do, like your honour…but sometimes whores have the
highest honour…in a way it turns that way in the Plow too.

The second acts are where things change.

In Oleanna, Carol, the young student starts to grow up but can’t do it alone…in
every other sentence she refers to ‘her group’. She puts a different meaning
to things the professor said in Act 1 – for example his recounting of a
silly saying he heard years ago (the rich make love less often than the
poor, but when they do, they take more of their clothes off) is interpreted
as him engaging in verbal pornography.

In the Plow, there is Karen the temporary secretary who falls in love with the ideas in a book – we are all scared, we are all lonely, we are all after love. Why can’t we make a film about this? That’s what people want…share their loneliness and fears through film. Is realising this the moment your life takes a turn for the better?

All masks are dropped in Act 3 and what’s revealed underneath is not pretty. Anger, frustration, disappointment lead to violence… I won’t give any more away…

There were some very interesting ideas in both plays – some of which have now, 20 years on, become truisms. Perhaps most interestingly, both plays made me wonder what I would have thought about them had I watched them at the time they were written and I was a teenager…

Would I have sided with Carol – same sex, same age, same position in life…did I
think then that a man should not patronise his wife by calling her ‘babe’?
Probably – at least until I realised it was OK so long as everyone can be called
‘babe’.

Would I have fallen in love with the book like Karen –
even if I didn’t quite (or at all) understood it? Or do I now sell a little bit
of myself when I want to get something done?

Which side was, am, will I be – with the goodies or the baddies – cause we
always want to belong to a camp?

Who is good, who is bad and when? That’s the crucial question really isn’t it? When?

We are all good and bad but when we make the choice to be what, how widely known and when known how widely approved our choice is, is what labels us as a good or a bad person…

A play that touches upon this, a play that leaves the audience wondering which character’s choice to support and applaud is a good play.

So perhaps two nights with Mamet were two good nights…

***

There were about 10 members of audience in Pentameter Theatre for Oleanna, while the Old Vic was full for the latter…A couple of young actors in the former – one J who was in Faustus I wrote about last May, and Kevin Spacey and Jeff Goldblum in the latter. I think Oleanna deserved more audience and Speed the Plow deserved less enthusiasm from whoever turned up. But I guess that’s fame for you.

***

I went to see the Plow with a Turkish friend, M. I thought he’d appreciate it given that he is going back to Turkey to study theatre directing and has been an actor and musician for 10 years. He didn’t know who Kevin Spacey is…

I am not KS’s biggest fan but he is in three of my most favourite films: The Usual Suspects, LA Confidential and American Beauty. When I saw the former with the then boyfriend back in 1997, we’d spent 4 hours talking about the film afterwards – nothing to do with being younger and excitable but all to do with having grey cells in common…and that’s during the then yet unspoken end of our five-year relationship. Now, 11 years later I finally can answer the question how we managed to have such a long relationship. And I need someone like that, not someone who doesn’t know KS, any of these three films but just discovered Rowan Atkinson’s comic genius – as Mr Bean mind you…

I knew this evening, in one way or another, would be the end of the episode with M – at least it’s been a happy episode.

KS is excellent by the way…he was a little over the top at the start I thought – though that could be the cocaine habit of his character – but I Act 3 he was fantastic and all through both KS and JG had excellent energy which never once dropped…that energy is what’s hardest to achieve as an actor I think.

***

Two nights with Mamet were definitely better than the one night I spent Slow Dating earlier in March…You know about speed dating which is 3 minutes long, this is 4 minutes long. I had had enough of this kind of artificial introductions but I thought such a simple yet clever marketing ploy deserved rewarding and took up a friend’s invitation.

I wore a nice dress with a little cleavage, made myself up, nice hairdo (loving my new hair cut), met with three other friends (one, a man) to have a drink beforehand. All went well for about the first half…Then my round of misfortune struck…

Unfortunate man no. 1 looked at my name tag and said ‘that’s gotto be a joke’. I
may have laughed had it been delivered in a friendly manner.

Unfortunate man no. 2 (immediately after no 1) said ‘oh so you are from Turkey and you drink alcohol, you must be very liberal!’.

Unfortunate man no. 3 (immediately after no 2) was more civilised, very polite but also a little distant which I thought normal since he’d learned I was from Turkey and he is a Greek Cypriot. And I was relieved to see that two people from societies which are supposed to be notorious enemies can be civilised. What he didn’t realise was that the girl sitting at the next table was a friend of mine and she would recount to me how as soon as he sat at her table he would shrug his shoulders and twist his face in disgust and say ‘the girl in the previous table was from Turkey’…

Unfortunate man no. 4 (yes, immediately after no 3) asked permission to go to the toilet when it was his turn at my table and came back stinking of cigarette smoke…

I was very upset at the end of the night…for all the work of integration I’d done and the comfort I’d felt as a result over the years were for nothing. With people like these who are likely to be majority here I will never be integrated. I was just fooling myself and living in a little world I’d set up for myself surrounded by just friends. Then, a Turkish friend, M, consoled me the next day saying I would not be integrated with racists and fascists and boring, ‘too straight’ men even back in Turkey, and even there I would be in my little own world. An English friend, G, said the other day he had not realised how much prejudice I had faced. I laughed, I had not realised either.

***

Have you heard the radio ad by Anti-Terrorist Hot Line? I just have and am appalled. Some vulnerable and sexy voiced woman asks

‘How do you know if someone just videoing somewhere for fun or as surveillance for a terrorist attack?

‘How do you know if someone is just buying something in bulk or buying to make a bomb?’

And one more question I can’t remember now…a trustworthy male voice says you don’t have to know…if you suspect call the confidential anti-terrorist hotline and we’ll investigate for you…My God…what better way to set off mass paranoia? Who are most people likely to suspect - Muslim looking, darker skinned men and women? I am disgusted!

***

Just finished typing this, am going to read through it with a glass of red…why not, it’s Easter weekend, it’s a respectable 3 pm in the afternoon…and it’s snowing one minute and sunny the next…and to be honest I can’t think of anything better to do…hoovering perhaps…OK where is that half-drunk bottle from last week….

…At the bottom of the glass and this text and feeling awfully sleepy now…