Yesterday I lay in bed listening to David Bowie's cover of Wild Is The Wind (check it out - it's a very good version). I remembered the email I'd meant to write to S., my friend from Bulgaria who sails around the world as an engineer on a ship. In his last email S. talked about plans for a career change so he could stay at home with his wife and baby girl. Turning 30 he found his agenda in life; everything fell into places.
Seven years ago S. came down to Istanbul when I visited the city. Straight out of the army, S. had a honey-colored tan, ocean blue eyes and an amazing sense of direction. During the day he guided me through the city with a backpack on his chest and a map in his hands. Navigation was easy; conversations were not. For all his intelligence and energy, S. was a conventional guy who got bored when I took pictures of a cat at the mosque. I was touched by the effort he made to meet me, but it was hard to spend time with someone when you're on different channels.
When it was time to say goodbye on the forth day, I started sobbing at the bus stop. Here's someone who lived in some faraway land I might never see again! Bidding farewell conjured up emotions in me that only existed at that moment: I hated to deal with the end to a connection even though I'd secretly wished this person would leave me sooner rather than later. My grief vanished once S. had hopped on his bus and I'd turned around to dry my tears. I bounced off, half humming to myself, and went to meet my friend Umit who's my host in Istanbul.
My emotions may have gained some substance over the years but my nature hasn't changed. I tend to wait for others to say goodbye: through the act the parting I exercise and exorcise all the feelings I don't otherwise seem to have. There've been departures which saddened me and people I miss, of course. "Are you feeling cold?" a friend asked when I was trembling in his embrace. No, it's not the air-con, I just think we'd never see each other again like this and even though you're still here, in my mind you're already gone (you're crushing my arm).
The recollections of S. made me think of a time when I was very much alone. November 2005, to be precise--I reread my old diary and found the entry I particularly liked, titled 'Cry Me A River':
'I recall long shadows of metal frames of my balcony on idle afternoons, candle frame burning in the small hours and dying before the light breaks. Early in the morning I fall into a dream where my kitchen is on fire and a very small child is crying for help, but there's no exit and the child climbs up the windows and as he's about to fall, I try to rescue with my will, try to bring him back with my scream knowing it's futile since the only logical end is that he falls over and dies. The electric drills and garbage trucks then invade my sleep and I don't know if I've been rescued from my nightmare or brought back to a world that I can't make sense of because I don't understand the the light on my eyelids...
There's something I'd say about my not writing in my diary. It's usually when too many things happen and none of them has enough weight. Other times they come together to start a fire within me and as my vision begins to blur, I have tears in my eyes that magnify the characters wandering in my mind, living newly-formed beings that have vague faces, shapes, feelings, thoughts but not purposes. I look harder and try to trace their beings, stories that will, if I feel for these creates enough, translate into concrete existences and come to life, lives that I relate to and sympathesise with, lives that shed light on and accompany mine as I walk around in those fictional universes feeling more alone than ever. Sometimes they so consume me that I mistake their lives as mine and I don't want them to get hurt, don't want their stories to end--I don't want to let go, but they don't belong to me.'
This is why I haven't written back to S. in months. Dear S., I have my direction in life too but it's something you can't understand. In my world I'm always living the power of goodbye even before it happens but right now, I must stay where I am and wait for these beings to come to me.
Seven years ago S. came down to Istanbul when I visited the city. Straight out of the army, S. had a honey-colored tan, ocean blue eyes and an amazing sense of direction. During the day he guided me through the city with a backpack on his chest and a map in his hands. Navigation was easy; conversations were not. For all his intelligence and energy, S. was a conventional guy who got bored when I took pictures of a cat at the mosque. I was touched by the effort he made to meet me, but it was hard to spend time with someone when you're on different channels.
When it was time to say goodbye on the forth day, I started sobbing at the bus stop. Here's someone who lived in some faraway land I might never see again! Bidding farewell conjured up emotions in me that only existed at that moment: I hated to deal with the end to a connection even though I'd secretly wished this person would leave me sooner rather than later. My grief vanished once S. had hopped on his bus and I'd turned around to dry my tears. I bounced off, half humming to myself, and went to meet my friend Umit who's my host in Istanbul.
My emotions may have gained some substance over the years but my nature hasn't changed. I tend to wait for others to say goodbye: through the act the parting I exercise and exorcise all the feelings I don't otherwise seem to have. There've been departures which saddened me and people I miss, of course. "Are you feeling cold?" a friend asked when I was trembling in his embrace. No, it's not the air-con, I just think we'd never see each other again like this and even though you're still here, in my mind you're already gone (you're crushing my arm).
The recollections of S. made me think of a time when I was very much alone. November 2005, to be precise--I reread my old diary and found the entry I particularly liked, titled 'Cry Me A River':
'I recall long shadows of metal frames of my balcony on idle afternoons, candle frame burning in the small hours and dying before the light breaks. Early in the morning I fall into a dream where my kitchen is on fire and a very small child is crying for help, but there's no exit and the child climbs up the windows and as he's about to fall, I try to rescue with my will, try to bring him back with my scream knowing it's futile since the only logical end is that he falls over and dies. The electric drills and garbage trucks then invade my sleep and I don't know if I've been rescued from my nightmare or brought back to a world that I can't make sense of because I don't understand the the light on my eyelids...
There's something I'd say about my not writing in my diary. It's usually when too many things happen and none of them has enough weight. Other times they come together to start a fire within me and as my vision begins to blur, I have tears in my eyes that magnify the characters wandering in my mind, living newly-formed beings that have vague faces, shapes, feelings, thoughts but not purposes. I look harder and try to trace their beings, stories that will, if I feel for these creates enough, translate into concrete existences and come to life, lives that I relate to and sympathesise with, lives that shed light on and accompany mine as I walk around in those fictional universes feeling more alone than ever. Sometimes they so consume me that I mistake their lives as mine and I don't want them to get hurt, don't want their stories to end--I don't want to let go, but they don't belong to me.'
This is why I haven't written back to S. in months. Dear S., I have my direction in life too but it's something you can't understand. In my world I'm always living the power of goodbye even before it happens but right now, I must stay where I am and wait for these beings to come to me.
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