Home : A Shelter Under the Snow

in the loving memory of A. Kuruc

Well it snowed, snowed, snowed..

We had to stay in. For days..

drank a little..

ate a little

were bored a little

starwarsed a little

and laughed a lot..

This snow break..we lived it so well.

A Home Was His Dream

We met up.

He called. At the end of a long silence, he did, he called. After I met him by coincidence in the street in Greece with a young girl. After by the same chain of coincidence we returned back in the same bus, me, him and this new girl, it was a week after....

She came up.

She was sparkling.

She .. was amazed. That big smile on her face.. She couldn't eat the fajitas I so studiously prepared for her. She couldn't do much, but told me about last night.

She has liked him for years. She trusted him for months as a buddy. She worked with him in two different companies.

And then last night..

It was hot. It was August.

He was married.

..

He never called her and that shock of seing him with another in Greece.

Photo courtesy of i-gunler.com

So we met up in the January cold.

He was busy with the relocation and settling down after divorce. Messy as usual. This neat figure. He chose the vegetarian restaurant in the Cookie Street Zencefil where we had a nice evening, a good dinner and a sincere chat.

He was the pratogonist I told, like those ones in Hemingway novels: cool, good but unsuffiently heroic, somehow egoist, the other end of interventionist. And I was the narrator. He was just passing by my window .

He frequented many while keeping her wife's abandon secret.

He frequented many and my friend's sparkling eyes must have been among many. Just among others.

And now he was left by one.

His eyes were emptied this time, in the vast plains of not knowing what to do.

..

I listened.

My pratogonist was crawling and trying to find the answers. He was lost.

I asked him to leave the names and the complexity of so many concurrent relationships. I asked him to answer me about what he would like to do.

The surprise of his answer reminded me it was a life and not a novel:

"A home" he said, "I wanted a home, build my own family".

My heart melted, leaving the advocacy of my pure sparkling eyes girl friend  that was betrayed by his absence and his adventure in Greece.

My heart melted.

My hands that moved to hold his, froze on their way. I couldn't get that close to him,

I didn't dare.. to touch the wounded beast.

Leaving Like Snow

As I was walking to the bus stop this morning, I noticed that all the snow from yesterday disappeared. I mean the trees were not white anymore. But one could say it snowed yesterday. Something in the air..

Lately my dearest cousin Toygar, Oya and Jane from Posy, lived loss of people dear. My mind was busy finding them the words. When it is gone, the loss.. "fire burns where it falls" as they say. Empathy can not give more than confort but I wanted to find this "something new" to them. I thought of the things that leave like the snow of yesterday, pure, more and bright.
I searched the original poem of the turkish song.. "Dünle beraber gitti cancağızım, ne kadar söz varsa düne ait, şimdi yeni şeyler söylemek lazım"

"At one time when life was real, your soul was one with my soul:

All we were, open or secret, was part of the same whole.

If “you” and “I” are pronouns I use, they are only terms - -
In truth, there can be no separate you or I at all.
...

It is an enemy of the sun who climbs on the roof,

Covers both his eyes and shouts: “Look, the sun is dead and gone!”

How lovely to halt and rest – and then to go on your way,

Not frozen nor muddled, to stay fresh by flowing away.

Yesterday is past and gone – so are your words of yesterday:

How lovely to find for each new day something fresh to say.

I took a vow that so long as life does not fade away

From my heart, I shall stay on the straight path and never stray;

But then I looked to my right and to my left - - and I saw

My beloved right and left - - left and right - - every which way."

 
RUMI
from Ruabiyat

translated by Prof. Talat SALMAN

 

Lost or Stolen and Found

I lost my favorite black bag in a mall today. I tried to figure out where it could be gone, checked all the stores and thought it could be stolen but I was not upset enough.
Since childhood, I had this weird religion in me that I was the only member in which I was making a deal, a sacrifice. In Turkey when children loose a belonging they look for it singing a song that tells

"Satan took it away

Could not sell it
Brought it back"
So if  I was in not finding my thing, then I was negotiating with Satan and at the end I was ending up with the deal in such a way that I was totally convinced that I sacrificed and not lost the thing, for a better finding, a more beloved belonging such as my siblings.

Tonight was a hard evening, trying to get home under the snow. I had the same feeling, but I did not know what I would get back instead.

I have just hang up the phone now with someone I was searching in the internet for years, someone very dear and remarkable in my life: my highschool professor of french litterature. He was the one to tell me in private that I should not be in the sciences section, but in letters instead.
Took me looong to find him back. I haven't heard his voice for 18 years now. He was travelling the world.

I own life so much.. for all that it brings back to me.

For all the unfinished coming near.

ps: He wrote back to me saying:
"Quand tu m'as connu, j'avais 32 ans
J'en ai 50 maintenant..
Je t'embrasse
Yves"
means "when you knew me I was 32, now I am 50". When I met him he was much younger than me now.

Life, beautiful life.. with all the lost or stolen and found.
With all the trees under the snow of winter and those in blossom in summer.

Auntie's Kitchen Table

Safest, warmest, favorite place on earth at childhood: Auntie's kitchen tables. They lived in several cities, in different homes, but the kitchen tables had the same warmth as her arms and slightly fragrant coat. It always made me happy and safe, there her kitchen table.
I felt the urge to meet together from different cities at auntie's table in Ankara this weekend.

Playing 51(a family classic) as asked.. Laughing, chatting laughing.. forgetting the inevitable anxiety of not having them one day.

Visiting the New Baby !

There she came earlier than expected - and more than expected..

A new life

Two large eyes to discover the world

Two small hands protected with too large mittens

Wrapped so much

With love

in our world

I whispered Rice that she may like the baby when she grows up,

and who knows one day they may be good friends like us, I said.

like us since we were eleven or so

So welcome baby with no name

to our girl's gang

of 4+Rice = 5

We've been here  for more than 27 years together

Books for My Resolutions

No more clutter in my home !

I am following the book: A Year to an Organized Life.

I have to beat my insuline resistance:

500 Low Carb Recipes

to show you that I am practising:

The Unpotato Salad as given in the book

You will not believe how potato salad and how delicious it is without my beloved potatoes.

The Unpotato Salad

Red onion, diced 1 large

Celery, diced 2 cups

Cauliflower, 1 large cooked, chopped

Eggs, boiled, 4

For the sauce

Mayonnaise

Vinegar

Splenda

Leaving A Year Behind

My Dear 2009 Calendar,

Such a relief to throw you in the bin.

I know we had few happy moments together

but admit it, you've been such a challenge(a.h.):

Learned about loosing my job in February,

Broke up with boyfriend in March,

Had debts to keep my first home.

Well ok, you made me write more,

you made me publish,

you gave me this blog.

But, did you really have to make your very last move

by giving me the last day of December

where I learned that I have a insuline resistance?

Come on ! I am so happy to leave you.

Dear Sweet Calendars of 2010,

Most of you are gifts.

I have been waiting to fill your white pages

open your brand new, shiny covers.

You have been so promising through the words of Susan Miller.

Let the Pisces year begin !

Here are my new year's resolutions:

1- Use all your body creams in the bathroom

and in the bedroom on daily basis and not every 6 months.

2- Brush your teeth 2 times a day

3- Gather all your money left in one bank and invest

4- Start your low carb diet

5- Walk at least 20 mn a day, preferably in the mornings

6- Sell TelcoAnalytics

7- Bring your ex CRM project team together on a dinner.

8- Have your dream birthday party with friends

9- Empty your wardrobe

and give away the clothes and accessories that are not exciting anymore

10- The chosen challenge of the year is Blind Dates.

Every year I do one thing that I would think I would never do:

So far, I ate liver for a year, dyed my hair and became a false blonde in another, used colored contacts for another year.. a very good habit to make you enlarge your borders

The Day After The New Year's Eve Party

Oh, it has been a beautiful sunny, morning with loads of rest after the new year's eve celebration of ours

What party?

First: it is a FUNNY tradition to wear red underwear at new year's eve..

Second: Feels SO GOOD to be brave as a Turk to dance all night

Third: To share a beautiful table with all the good foood from the participants

 

Fourth : VERY GLORIOUS to push your very ill friends to join you, to get them up and running for the celebration

This is us pausing with our security guy waiting for our cab..

but feels SO SILLY to cause them more fever the day after

Anyways..

We wish you a happy new year from our home !