Landing in türkiyE

Aug. 5- Aug. 11:

Istanbul —> Sanliurfa

This is a round-up of Türkiye-so-far, which includes two cities, 6 to 7 days (depending upon your timezone counting), so many cats, a certain amount of candy, 6-8 miles walked a day, a shameful amount of plastic water bottles, and (currently) vigorous drumming and music outside my door. [I learned that the correct spelling/pronunciation is officially, for in America or here or anywhere, Türkiye and calling it “Turkey” is not so preferred.] I have been here for less than a week today! One week since I took off from the states. I feel like I’ve been away for a month already. Does everyone say this? Have you had experiences like this, that bend time and space? I know we all have. It’s definitely the language and then every single thing else… the smells, sights, the newness, the oldness, and being pulled from my social fabric, as new as it’s been in LA. I spent the first 4 nights in Istanbul— a little change of plans because the excavation team was arriving later than I’d originally planned— which gave me a good footing in getting the run of the city (I know, it’s just a quick footing for such an expansive place but the learning curve is sharp in the first few days?), to get out of each increasingly larger comfort zones, so that I was walking across the bridge into the bigger big city, out of the old town into the new and beyond city. Many places I walked on that big walk, on my way to Taksim Square, felt like a blend of SF and Soho/NYC and a Brazilian city. I met a friend, Yun-Hsin from Taiwan- we were both saying hello to some special cats (ALL THE CATS ARE SPECIAL) and I knew instantly that we’d be buddies. She went to U of Nebraska to get her doctorate in music, which is cool as hell. We went to the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque and the Grand Bazaar together, and it was sweet to have a friend and shared new eyes to this old city. Being in Istanbul, I felt simultaneously exhausted and like I was on the most free and breezy vacation. This is a funny time for maybe more than just me— it seems like a time when I’m really aware of giving myself a hard time and wanting to be on my timing and in my lane. And impatience at the edges, even if there’s nothing to do. Mostly I get to battle with self-doubt (BORING) but I’m about done with that life partner. Let’s go for heartfilled loving trying and envisioning and doing. I feel like this is a great chance to try this newness out for myself. There is so much to notice here, much more than anywhere I’ve been lately.

Speaking of this, I go to Göbekli Tepe, the actual site, tomorrow. (I’ve been kickin’ around the palatial museum in Sanliurfa, which has a lot of pieces from the excavation and has models of the t-pillars… it’s the AC version of the site?) (I read a hilarious review of the site, a travel-blogger who called the site exhorbidantly expensive and a “real rip-off”! I love the idea of, comedically-speaking, an archaeological site as being a rip-off. 11,000 years old? Not impressive. Very few amenities. Hilarious!!) (TO BE FAIR: Obsessed as I am, it could be true that it’s not a place that makes everybody’s hearts sing…) (Just kidding!! EVERYBODY GET INTO IT!!) So then I got on a plane to Sanliurfa 2 days ago and this entailed a whole new airport, SAW, and shenanigans ala delays followed by my heart swelling, when I least expected it—knee deep in some academic reading and in a slight power struggle with the man in front of me—as we landed. How bare and beautiful and dry the land was and milky-hazy the air was as we landed in tandem with the dusky sun set. The wall of heat. Grabbed my checked bag pretty quickly and stood outside the airport just watching people, a weird bemused peace surrounding me- watching grandmas scooping up grandkids near popped trunks, the people boarding the public buses— should I get on that bus? I could get on that bus? I push off to ask about the bus and a man comes out of nowhere (not really- this is just me never knowing fully what’s going on, is all) and says no, take a taxi, wrong way. He helps me with my bag and I get dropped off with a driver who turns on the meter and I pummel him with questions for all 35 minutes drive in broken Turkish. We pass by olive vineyards, pistachio orchards? If they’re not orchards, I’m still calling them orchards. We talk through our respective google translates. So different now, this technology. It makes it easier, it makes it harder. I’m definitely cheating, being able to look up whole sentences. We’ve skipped the (probably definitely) vitally important phoneme phase of learning Turkish and leap-frogged to full robot translation. But I’m also doing this whole landing in Turkey thing in my classically outgoing way, and I close my hotel room each night uttering out loud “I love this place, I love these walls, I love this AC, I love this shower,” because maybe, just maybe I’ve exhausted myself talking to every single soul I come across, against their will or not. I’m proud of myself for showing up as me. There’s no other way? We each have to show up as ourselves, I keep telling myself. The one time today I was mad was when a woman with her two kids called me a tourist but she was doing a very tourist thing. The heat had peaked to 105F and it was just as simple as that. We were also at a necropolis and, well, either way, petty feels are present, along with some pretty lofty loving feels. I don’t even think she was being unkind, I’m just an American woman who reacts fearfully if someone doesn’t crack some kind of smile in my presence. People here, in Sanliurfa and Istanbul, are incredibly generous— obliging, very giving with their time, energy, resources, WhatsApp numbers, insta handles, directions, rides and walks, and cups of çay (tea). Above and beyond is the way here, I know I’m right even if I’ve been here for 2 seconds.

I was in the enormous Archaeological Museum and this 10-year-old girl walked up to me with beaming eyes, beaming smile and said “HELLO” and it was the kindest, warming greeting. Her family, mom and dad and little bro, hung with smiles in the background, and we all talked in google-assisted fragments of English, Turkish, “one second”/type type type/moments… I felt them seeing me and it was one of many generous moments here. In the span of these few short days, I’ve felt the weightless floating of suddenly having a very different life, and it makes me feel that very human sensitivity to kindness and generosity of warmth, of interest. I’m having a great time and, simultaneously, I feel the rug ripped out from underneath me, all designed by a sort of heartless past-me (the me in the past likes to make appointments too early in the morning, likes to quadruple book my Sundays, and doesn’t find anything scary… she’s all idealism and everything’s-possible and we’re-going-to-the-moon-at-noon) (now, cut to me going to the actual excavation site and I’m anxious about how I’ll be received, how real my project actually is, how the newness will feel there, no two ways. And I’m expectant and excited and ready… it’s all real emotions and experiences, all things my past-me just doesn’t really consider much). Have you ripped the rug out from underneath your life ever or recently, directly or indirectly? How would you do it? This time here feels very important and much muddier and messy and real than I’d imagined while I told everybody ever about this plan for the past year. Just walking through the open doors, into the open walkways. I can deal with the heat, though I have to keep my act together—- the heat makes any of us forget to eat and then, like today, I can have a slight/brief/it was totally fine blood sugar meltdown where I had to sit on a bench and drink water and distract myself by taking notes. Still, like Looney Tunes, all I could see walking by me were life-size protein bars. Intrusive protein bar thoughts. I went back to the terrace on the hilll, above the sacred koi pond, for some chicken kebab dinner. Eating by yourself is so weird, we just make it okay in America. Love the servers, lot of them are in college and it’s been sweet talking with them…people are studying to become doctors, nurses… archaeologists.

The dust here gets in my eyes and I hear August is hotter than September, which is great news, because it is as hot as I think it should ever get.

Oh, the Perseid Meteor Shower is happening tonight and then next 3 more nights. We can see that in Türkiye, right? I can’t wait!

I stood in the mosaic museum all by myself for over an hour. It did feel like a private tour, intimate, like the mosaic pieces were showing me their extra sides. My mom mused that maybe I had been one of those Amazonians depicted in the mosaics, because, according to her and a certain number of other people, I have nice broad shoulders. I think they’re pretty normal.

The Necropolis called me in at the hottest part of the day and felt important to see but/and I’m mostly sure I don’t need to be in that burial space much more. Caves and caves and caves in this part of the world.

Sanliurfa is a really special place. Here are some words and phrases for how it feels to me: peaceful, layers of time, lot of public spaces, holy koi fish, water running through desert, historical handsome buildings, giant plazas, spacious, glass-blowingly hot, tourism that’s a lot of Turkish folks (I’ve found in a completely air-tight census in broken Turkish-English exchanges), a town that’s a nexus of people, a meeting place, lot of money/little bit of money, nighttime bustling with families, a living place housing a lot of deceased and past and simultaneous. Now, I did go to the supermarket and, at the risk of sounding very unfair the whole walk there and back and the inside of it was bleak. We reserve space for a certain kind of industrial bleakness in every human place on earth. Or we guarantee it, with all the industrial demands. Okay, okay. Okay. I peeped into a construction site surrounded by barbed wire and metal fencing and it looked like a crater was taken out of building structures that were easily 500 years old, at least. So we’re working with a certain kind of quality here, in the midst of the dusty concrete slabs of new structures. I passed by a Roman-era aqueduct on my way, on this supposedly bleak walk. I can’t be pleased! But, truly, I’m grateful and full of life and skips in my step. I’ll drink enough water and try to be easy on myself, with all the newness, and I hope you’ll drink enough water and easy on yourself, with all the newness. We have a lot coming at us! My mission for this week: pour any doubt into the water and be alive to where I am. Ready to go to Göbekli Tepe.