Deniz Was Here

The breakfast table was waiting for Deniz.

F and I, cousins, we were introduced to each other only 2 years ago, through our grand-aunt. So bizarre that we never met before although she studied at my brother's school and her sister at mine around same years.

Anyways, lately but still luckily we became friends and "nice surprise cousins" although she lives abroad.

Last year we organised a family gathering at my home, on F's arrival to Istanbul with her new-born Deniz.

And today they were back.

Chocolate and Deniz became very found to each other and D's tiny index finger was touching Chocolate's nostrils iside his ears to which it was ok with even happy of its new friend's existence.

I liked the particular way they were so gentle to each other.

Thomas though, dared to come downstairs only at his nap time, and I had the impression he was watching him over while he was sleeping defenseless.

We had a peaceful rainy day in together.

and were sure to miss this extraordinary kindness and friendship even at the moment of goodbyes.

The Cut, The Pain and The Words After

When the girls came to celebrate my new appartment last year, Rice was not yet able to speak. I love this picture I took then, at a hot late august day in 2008, Rice playing with my mess among the boxes.

Today I dressed a breakfast-picnic table in the garden for us.

It still surprises me to see my excitement when they arrive to my home. Rice was looking so sweet with her curly poney tails. She was as exciteted as I am. Until.. she cut her little finger with my special kids cuttlery's bunny knife.

Seing the blood she cried.. cried.. cried..

She was consolated that it will be ok and she will not feel the hurt soon.

She kept on crying saying it was not ok, not yet

It was a upset time for her. So she didn't allow me for a photo. But I can tell about her beutifully brushed hair, her cheeks innounded with tears, her eyes downwards and contracted by the plain truth of the pain, head backwards busy producing tears.

As she said " it is not ok, not yet", I saw some "me" in her.

So, I am sending a photo of her and her beloved little finger from the day of their first visit to my home.

I find there, this "some me" as well as the not so grown-up Rice then

And her words defying the consolation, her way to live the pain made me so close to her.

Packing Up - Decompositioning

Last weekend at my parents, the doorbell rang, I answered since dad was sleeping. The tenants declared that he was not doing well financially and that he had to leave my parents basement. When I told him about the crisis in my life, he was more open to say that the preesure on him caused a nause bleeding that day. We were in the same boat.
My parents offered me the flat that would be emptied soon.

Although I was not totally decided about the move, I decided that packing up a little might be a good idea.

I have been thinking that the pressure of keeping this home has been here for a year now. And I was so pverwhelmed that at one point I thought moving will not only be financial relief but at the same time could be a fresh start. Just like my friend Ali said, I could always make a better one.

While wrapping, piece by piece, slowly and calmly, I realised, packing up has its own serenity.. where every packing up is a decomposition.. of not only your belongings.. but of your entire life.

Wrapping each glasses brought me back to times that I was dreaming of my own place, on how it would be.I have bought every piece of this home at my parents and kept them in boxes and waited for my time to come.

Touching each glasses, was touching a part of my self in the past, my dreams then. And in order to move, one has to move on, look forward, make new dreams, treasures hundreds of "glasses" out of his Glass Menagerie" *.

...............................

The best thing about being with my felline friends Thomas and Chocolate, is not missing any occasion to "play", have fun and enjoy each moment from their perspective.

* The Glass Menagerie is the so real and so beautiful story of a girl like me written by Tenessee Williams.

Enjoy the reading and think of my glass menagerie that I learned to pack up today.

Summer Afternoons Are Here

And my first cherry tomatoes are promising..

Semolina Helva for Good Bored Souls

I had to try my first semolina helva, I felt like doing it. I looked for some pretext to cook it. Very often, helva is cooked when someone is dead or on the years that follow, on the very same day, as remembrance, we "cook a helva to his soul" and share it and those who eat, prays for the remembered person's soul.

I thought of my grand mothers but they passed away in cold seasons and not in a blooming May.

So I cooked it for my own soul I guess. My very bored soul lately and I made a wish-best remedy for bored souls.

I brought one plate to my neighbour that shared her mother's village fresh eggs, one plate for my next door neighbour- Dunya's mother and a large plate for our gardener and security guys.

And guess what I have received today: the most beautiful rose I have ever been offered. I took a picture of my first helva and the beautiful rose from the gardener.

Here I am giving the recipe of Irmik Hel vasi- Semolina Helva with some added cheese the way our neighbour Nevin Teyze used to make at my childhood.

Semolina Helva Recipe

semolina, 1,5 cups

olive oil, 1/2 cup

butter, 1/2 tablespoon

cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon grounded

cloves, 3-4 grounded

sugar, 1 cup

milk, 2 cups

pinenuts, 1 tablespoon or more

any unsalty fresh cheese like ricotta, 150 gr (I used turkish lor cheese)

1-Roast the semolina and pinenuts

2- Add the boiling milk and sugar

3- Add the olive oil and stir constantly until the semolina absorbs all the liquid.

4- Add the cheese and stir for 2 more minutes

5- Add the spices and butter

6- Take a deep braeth close your eyes

7- Pray for my soul and my wish to come true (every little helps, I need it ! :)

8- Mold and serve

PS(Same Day at around 20:30): Dunya has just told my name today for the first time after having "aunt berfin's cake". His mother says he wanted to have it all. I am sure he will be praying soon :)

Don't You Have Time To Think? *

Don't you have time to think? I have had more than I should lately.

And the spark came yesterday as I was capturing the moments of the graduates' day  of Sainte Pulcherie High, my secondary school then.

It was only ten years ago on  my way back home from the hospital where I left my sister struggling with the sudden deadly disease, it was only then that I realised that the school yard was much smaller than I remembered.

But those doors always welcomed me.

My registry to this old girl's school was an honouring family "thing" and we were all so excited that summer of 1983 for my first day at school in September.

My parents were so proud of my efforts I gave to success in the exam .

The second thing I knew after the name of my secondary school was the "spotless cleanness" of the white marble stairs admired by my mother. But my favorite place have been the whitest loos with tall windows looking at the dirty backstreets we were never allowed to stroll. There were only ladies at that time and I was wondering which loo the unique male at school have to use, our professor of religion, distinctive wiith his very manly voice in the official ceremonies when he had to accompany our weak voices for the national anthem.

My school has been a temple to me not only beacause it had a chapel inside or 4 old nons waiting to put us in order in the early mornings at those white marble stairs.

School was better than home where somehow in this small building from the 19th century, I felt safer than at home and able to look at any truth enlightened and armed with what was there in those old books.

And when my last day at school came at my graduation year, I felt as clueless and orphelin as a child, out of the arms of her mother and life seemed so crowded as the dirty back streets from the window.

And some things have changed.

While some remained the same

Like some strict rules and our oak tree in the yard I noticed, as my friends were busy chatting about their actual lives.

I was more into leaning back and watching.

I stayed there up in the stairs contemplating our oak tree and the diverse population dancing down below. Although pruned too much, less green with less leaves, to me it looked like the sacred tree of life with young and younger lives that it went through.

And I was there watching until my old professor came up and asked what I was doing there. We were her first students. She told me she celebrated her 25th year in this school last year. She got married in time and had two sons, one 23 the other 17 years old now. We walked downstairs together as we talked. She introduced me to her new collegues and young graduate students.

The night was falling. I remained there watching each and every movement of the younger crowd dancing under the oak tree. I was surprised to see their lips synchronised with the lyrics of those new songs they sang heartfelt and together. Those songs I must have heard, somehow, somewhere, everywhere but never noticed the lyrics

Where did I leave learning the lyrics of the silly funny songs? When did we stop dancing together like them? When was I left alone? Were my friends too busy being parents and all ? What was taking me from joining them now singing and dancing? Why wasn't I on the dance floor?

Neither courage nor strength were the answers. The only reason  was "this time I gave to think" about these questions and the quest for the answers.

I realised that two young girls were insisting on something in the big party noise to the new professor I was just introduced to. I asked him almost shouting to be heard:

- Qu'est-ce qu'elles veulent? (What do they want?)

- Danser. (To dance) he answered promptly.

He  didn't join them, remained there watching.

He might have had this time to think.

This time out of time.

I did my best. It took some wine and some more time there watching and I invited, through the end of the party, the new school master which turned out to be a nice gentleman and a good dancer.

We exchanged smiles with the young professor.

The moment I felt standing there like our oak tree, felt pruned too much with less leaves, I left the party ,when the music was ended and the boys were gathering the equipment.

* "Don't You Have Time To Think?" is the sweet autobiographical book of the bright physicist Richard FEYNMAN

Doorstep - Letting In

The reason I was not writing since my birthday post is very understandable: I lost my job again.
When my boss told me the company is not doing well at all and they can not afford my salary that was ok, but when I heard the words "we have to close this position" that, that seemed like a joke.
It will feel as unreal to you if you would read my previous post. 
Well, nothing to do. I gathered my belongings and rushed home to join H that learned about the cancer diagnosis of her mother.

All these words, what do they have to do with a doorstep?
Well it was in that awful rainy weather that I returned home in a hurry with all those bags full of my office stuff, in the doorstep of the building sitting there looking for my keys in all that clutter that from my back I heard this voice for me: "what is that does not exist in a woman's bag?". I turned, this was the waterguy, smiling with his limpid blue eyes. I wiped my cheeks and avoiding my face I said " oh, yes, what is it?", he replied "order!" and laughed.
I knew him from before. His name was Mesut which meant "happy" but somehow I saw the deep sorrow in his immense blue eyes before.
It was only in the lift that he learned about my day. He was sorry to hear. He said that he has blue days as well and that the ones we love are the ones that hurt the more. He told me about how he overcomes bad days like these, with his glass of red wine going to his favorite hill or with her 3 years old daughter.

He was polite and said he had to leave for new orders and left with his warm words. I was sweeping my tears.

I went to the shower to leave soon for H. Best thing is to cry in the shower when you don't know what to do now and you are sort of collapsed.
The door rang, I wondered who it was.
It was him.. with a bar of chocolate and a bunch of water bottles in his other hand.
I hugged. And thanked.
...
The days that followed, I was busy but I had a plan.
But I could not contact him since he was not working for my water company I realised.
It was only after second time where I had this magnet of another water company that dropped when I opened my door of my 2 cat populated home, that I realised it was him and he was trying to contact me as well.
The photo above is taken this morning, my very human touch, M and my cat and my new water bottle.
He was surprised for gift package for his daughter and the small note I wrote for him as well as a letter of appreciation to his company where I explained the reason why I converted to their water.
After I told him my part of the story after he left, he told me his.
The day afte he left, he had a terrible car accident where people were surprised that he survived.
In his hospital room, he saw a dream where he wakes up and sees me as a nurse, my smile and a bar of chocolate that I hand to him saying "this chocolate will make you feel better and ease your pain."
What a beautiful story to write back to you..
What a life..
Such a healing of strangers, in a doorstep.
Where indoors, it is the ones that we love the most, that hurt the most