Observing

I say very little these days. Not that I've ever said much, but each day it becomes more apparent that there's nothing I can add that hasn't been added before. Teaching's thrilling and tiring. Students are wonderful and difficult. Our brains are getting smarter and dumber. The ocean's getting trashed while we research how we're trashing it. Religion causes problems and soothes problems. Authors write good and bad and interesting books and new music pulses out of every corner and the cheese is amazing and the beer is bland, but I don't like beer that much anyways. Do you?

I've always wondered how people who are good at talking and getting others to talk choose what to say. Of all the questions and topics and intriguing tidbits to say to someone, how do you choose? How do you choose the one or two things that will lead to anything new for either of you, or at least lead to a connection and a good conversation and a better understanding of who that person is? Other people are mysterious planets to me and one of the few ways of trying to understand them is by talking. Conversing. It's such a basic, daily ritual that I've never really thought about until now. Now that it's slipping further and further from my comprehension, along with the words that I've stopped saying because they feel pointless. It seems to be making me an outsider against my will, but in some ways I'm okay with that. I've almost always preferred observing over participating.

Though I do miss feeling close to anyone.        

I can pretend

I don't know if it's dumb or conceited or what, but listening to the silly recordings of the songs I wrote last year has been weirdly comforting lately. Maybe it's 'cause I miss the keys more than I want to acknowledge. Maybe it's 'cause I doubt I'll ever write songs again. Maybe it's 'cause keyboards are pricey here and I'll just have to pretend for an undetermined amount of time that I'm playing. And I miss those blinds and the pine trees on the other side of them.

Life from a balcony

Last night I ate dinner on my balcony for the first time. I frequently eat breakfast out there, at 7am, standing and staring into the layers upon layers of 7 story apartment buildings and wondering about the day, chewing and waiting for the coffee to brew. The metal spoon against the glass bowl always sounds really loud and embarrassing at that time and I try to not let them meet, but that's surprisingly difficult to do. There's usually this guy across the street and one floor up out on his balcony, too, but he's always staring in the opposite direction, puffing on cigarettes. As far as I know, he has never taken notice of me, nor been bothered by my breakfast utensil clinks. He just sits and stares and, other than his smoking arm, doesn't move for the entire 10 minutes that I am out there. His stillness and smoke make him seem sad to me. Like the day is too difficult to bear and the people milling about 6 stories below are too terrifying to face. But he can't do that forever and every day I hope he'll get up or turn around or go inside or do SOMETHING before I have to leave, but that day has yet to come. I silently bid him farewell and go about my day and hope for better luck and higher spirits tomorrow. Last night, though, I discovered that everything balcony-related is different in the late hours. Everyone's on their balcony, eating as a family, shaking out laundry, watching the city lights slowly turn on, entertaining friends, chatting across alleyways with neighbors. The clinks of my own cutlery don't even register in comparison to the nighttime balcony life of my neighbors. It's like a little sneak peek into a more intimate side of their lives. Like having the walls of all of their living rooms removed for me to see, and it's delightful. Especially when it comes to my sad neighbor across the street. Last night, as I slowly worked on my plate of sauteed pumpkin and carrots, I could hear him telling what I assume, based on the laughter, were jokes to his wife on their balcony while they ate. He was still smoking, but it had become the least of his mannerisms instead of his entirety. The darkness of the morning had evaporated and been replaced with a wide smile, a loud laugh, and a kind voice. I think I'd like to get to know him. I think I can relate to his reluctance to embrace the day, but his eventual acceptance and ultimate love of being alive. I can relate to not wanting the silence to end, but then also not wanting it to begin. And I can definitely relate to not being a morning person.

And now I'm going to go stand on my balcony for a while, listening to life and feeling like a part of something I'm really only a witness to.          

The Lunch Line

It starts in the school lunch line, a place that feels awkward at any age, day after day. First with pointing and either nodding yes or shaking no, smiling either way and getting quantities beyond my capacity. Next I try out pointing and saying either "hayir" for no or "evet" for yes and achieve the same result, but in a slightly more civilized manner. Then comes my botched "cok az", which means very little, but I only say "cok", which means lots, so I get a pile of pasty mashed potatoes on half of my plate. The next day I get it right and end up with tidy little piles of okra, chicken, and rice that don't get mixed up too much in the process. And soon I'm adding in the words for what I what I've learned (which isn't much and relates almost entirely to food) - cok az patates, lutfen, ve cok az pilaf, ve bu. A few potatoes, please, a splash o' rice, and that (chicken), and I'm set, desired food in hand and grateful that the servers smile and bid me a pleasant meal no matter how crude and uncivilized my manner of ordering is. Only they are bearing real witness to my puny, snail-paced language development and I kind of love them.      

A Summary

Antalya so far, in a brief summarized summary format:

The bus drivers take your bus fare by hand and return the correct change and kindly smile at you as you clamber up the bus steps. I get the feeling they really don't want me to get lost.

Pomegranates grow wild. You can pick them off the trees in your neighborhood. Meaning that you can eat a pomegranate grown on the same street as where you live, which two weeks ago would have sounded like utter madness. Also, figs are really good in their pre-dried form. Who knew?

Even the cucumbers have flavor. I don't need to add any dressing to a bowl of tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, onion, and feta cheese (my new favorite meal, ps) for it to taste good. Egg yolks are dark gooey yellow and I don't know why that fascinates me. They look more real than the neon egg yolks I'm used to.

People stare a little bit. Not much, but just a little. Then I smile at them and a wide grin spreads across their face and everything's okay.

My new Turkish friends don't make me feel like an oddity for wanting to live alone or for not being married - a cross cultural first for me. Perhaps being alone and loneliness are separated here, as I prefer them to be.

Most people think I'm German and say auf wiedersehen to me as I leave, which I find kinda charming and don't mind in the least bit. American tourists are actually pretty rare here, I've heard, which is both nice and confusing. Americans are missing out.

I haven't swam in the Mediterranean Sea yet and feel surprisingly little desire to do so, even though it's the thing to do here. Even though it's a deep azure blue in spots with twinkling little gray stones reflecting the sunlight underneath. One thing I've discovered about myself: I'm not a beach person. I don't want a sunburn. I hate wearing sunglasses. I hate wearing hats even more than I hate wearing sunglasses. Walking around in a wet swimsuit underneath regular clothes feels disgusting.

The mountains are tall and meet the sea. Their tops are an ashy gray color that I've never seen on mountains before. I like imagining my hiking boots and legs covered in that ashy dust, once the weather cools down. I don't mind hiking sunburns.

The heat and humidity make me sweat instantly. Even when sitting still and doing absolutely nothing other than waiting for my tomato, cucumber, carrot, onion, feta salad to arrive. Getting up from the table and seeing damp sweat spots in the creases of my shorts is horrifying. But then I see that everyone else has darkened sweat spots in the creases of their shorts and everything's okay. We're not all peeing our pants. We're just sweating. Which is healthy and detoxifying, right? Plus, almost everywhere has air conditioning and that first brush of air conditioned air is always full of inexplicable relief.

History is everywhere and I want to start learning about it. I also really need to find a Turkish tutor because what I've learned of the language so far (which is minuscule) is blowing my mind a little bit. Suffixes! Prefixes! Infixes!! A whole sentence can be communicated in one gigantor word. Madness!

The Future

I'm leaving soon.
In nine days, I'll board a plane in Reno and in ten days, I'll get off a plane in Antalya, Turkey.
In a couple of weeks, I'll hopefully have my own apartment within walking distance of the Mediterranean Sea and in about three weeks, I'll go through some sort of teacher orientation and training.
In a little over a month, I'll start teaching English as a second language at Antalya International University while hopefully learning Turkish grammar and history, drinking Turkish coffee, baking Turkish cookies, and making Turkish friends. And, with luck, other nationalities of friends.
For the first time, I am doing this on my own, without Peace Corps, and I think I can already see some of the pluses and minuses.

Minuses:
Without a doubt, one of the minuses will be not getting the PC language training. As difficult as it was, I now realize what a blessing it was to receive 4 hours of intense language study 5 times a week. If I learned anything during grad school, it's that you need to be exposed as much as possible to a second language in order to really learn it.

Not living with a host family for 3 months. Living with a host family is completely awkward and I would never opt for it, but I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain why this was a benefit of the PC. You're exposed constantly to the language, culture, and habits of the people around you. Without the host-family requirement, it's going to be hard to force myself into those awkward cross-cultural experiences that PC practically forced down our throats (in a kind, loving sort of way).

Not having an immediate cohort of like-minded friends. There are new foreign teachers who are starting at the same time as I am, but I can't imagine that we'll go through the same bonding experiences that we did in the PC. Who knows, I could be wrong, though.

Not having everything taken care of for me. Only now do I realize how nice it was to have the PC apply for my visas and buy my plane tickets and pay for my health care and doctor visits. It's all up to me now (with the help of the kind Turkish friends I'll hopefully make).

Pluses:
Money! I know that's a lame plus, but dang it, I'm looking forward to making a semi-decent salary for once in my life.

Freedom. I chose Antalya. I chose the university I'll be working at (after being offered a job there and all that jazz, of course). I wasn't "assigned" there. I'll be able to pick out my apartment and if I don't like it, I can move without having to go through all the PC motions. On my days off, I can travel around the country, or outside of it, without having to notify anyone. I don't need to develop a secondary project or apply for a SPA grant or fill in another VRF form ever again.

It's a real job in a real university...not a job that felt, at times, fabricated for the sake of bringing a free foreigner into a business or school.


I don't know if the pluses outweigh the minuses, but it's time I try this on my own and I think I've had my fair share of the PC. I'm very excited to start this new chapter, but, as always, it's going to be so hard to leave again. It never gets any easier. Never.    

Dear Stranger

I hope you don't mind my writing to you, but I must ask you a question. You don't know me, nor I you, but I saw you last week. You probably don't remember me. I was standing, waiting for the crosswalk signal to change so I could safely traverse a busy intersection when you pulled to a stop at the closest stoplight. We were both waiting. But then your light changed to green and that's where my question comes in. Where did you go? In that one minute space of time where your light was green and you did not budge, despite staring directly in front of you, towards the greenness of your traffic light, unblinking and neutral-faced, where on earth did you go? Had you been there in your car, you would have noticed the changing colors and proceeded as usual through the light, but you weren't there. And no car was behind you to impatiently beep you away from your journey. I'd like to know because the possibilities are endless and I've been dreaming up new ones ever since. Were you visiting some long lost childhood friend? Clasping hands and climbing limbs and dangling upside down, knees crooked over the highest branch they could find. Or were you watching the first soccer match you ever won...ponytail askew and legs green up to the knees with the dust and dew of morning grass. Or were you rehearsing your big monologue...pausing for the laughter of your audience and trying not to look directly into the spotlight. Or were you walking through hospital doors, pushing against their weight and inhaling the medicinal draft, on your way to a room that I do not want to imagine. This is why I'm asking. This is why I want to know. So many possibilities, and too often we leave our surroundings only to go to the painful places in our lives. But your face looked so calm, so neutral, staring into the bleak green signal, that I have hope for you. Hope that you're one of the few who are capable of using such journeys to be happy. I know it's a strange question, but I hope you can see why I want to know so badly. The depths of the mind never cease to mystify. So, please, where did you go?