Once upon a time, and far, far away [Turkey, pt. 2]

Once upon a time, it was summer, and sunny.

We traveled, O. and I and my parents and his parents and my sister, to a far away land: Turkey. The first night, we lost my parents very temporarily, and I yelled at O.'s father. The second night, we prepared to leave Istanbul. The second morning, we rose at dawn and piled suitcase upon suitcase into two taxis, dividing the Turks between the two cars so that no one would get cheated. The taxis swerved through cobble-stone alleys and across lane-markers, and deposited us, slightly out of breath, at the ferry terminal on the Sea of Marmora. Confused and staggering under our luggage and passports, we found our way onto the ferry that would take us to another continent in a short hour.

On the ferry, we ate cake and sesame-encrusted simit, and O. drank whole milk from an aseptic carton. I stole sips from his paper cup. It was warm and creamy. A weather forecaster on TV chattered on, and I tried in vain to decode her incantations.

Once docked in Bursa, we deboarded in chaos, some squeezing into an elevator. I refused and sought the stairs, suitcase in hand. My sister followed, and my father. On land our party of seven was reunited to stand, looking lost, in the shade of the bus terminal, awaiting a van that would take us into the city.

The van came, and its driver arranged our bags like Jenga blocks in the back. Some roads were closed, there were delays. We wound through the hills and for the first time I saw the Turkish countryside--sun-colored hills rolling away from the road, and olive trees standing in silver rows. It was oddly familiar, evoking California and the south of France, the countryside I stayed in when I was fifteen.

Arriving, after a winding journey, the van pulled up onto the sidewalk in front of an open garage on a busy street: the car rental agency. There the Turks haggled about the insurance portion of the rental contract, and the Americans sat around, bemused and uncomfortable at blocking traffic for so long, and having no idea of the proceedings but noting the increasing loudness of the incomprehensible conversation happening twenty feet away.

Eventually, an agreement was reached and the contract was signed. Having arranged our suitcases in another jigsaw puzzle tower in the rear of the van we were actually renting, we now arranged ourselves inside it, and got on the road in our big black van.

The journey across the Anatolian peninsula began.

* * *

Now it is cloudy, and the leaves are turning red and yellow, and carpeting the sidewalk. We are back in New Jersey, and I am longing for summer (so recently past), for sunshine, for California. O. is talking about quitting his job in a week, and I am thinking: I will never get home to my garden.

But surely this is the start of another journey. Job or not, there will be another road trip across this continent in June. My exile far from the golden state will conclude. In California, even if we can't buy a garden, the hills will be there, rolling and golden, tall grass the color of summer. The oaks will be there. The sea will be there. The sky and the sun will be there, and I will be there with them.

This is a journey, and there will be many arrivals.

Fall, Dusk

Winter is coming, and the green and gold of summer that have not yet faded are all the more precious and beautiful because they are passing away. They will be gone, tomorrow or the day or week after. They will be gone, and the trees will be bare and the world barren. Winter is coming and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

But for now the trees are green in the park. The sky is clear blue and the sun was warm today. It is setting over the mountains and sending its golden light into my living room, and this is more precious to me than diamonds or gold. Today in the park, I looked up and saw the light streaming golden through the trees and falling on the sweet-smelling grass, and my heart was light as I had forgotten it could be. I smiled, and it felt unfamiliar, as if I had not smiled with a light heart, and seen the beauty of the world, in months.

Which is not true--I rejoiced on the road to the beach two weeks ago, when O. and I wound through the California hills at dusk, and the grass was golden and the shadows of the oak trees lengthened. And I rejoiced by the Sound last weekend, at sunset again. The clouds blushed and bruised, lavender and marigold and coral on a darkening sky. On the little beach, two swans prodded the coarse sand with great black beaks, and hissed at us when we came too close. One was dirty gray, the color of the sand almost: between cygnet and swan.

We are between seasons, and I am torn between mourning summer's departure, and celebrating its lingering presence. We are between, and someday we will be one or the other, but for now I want to be at peace with being both, or neither.

Flip Flop Weather

Today I walked to the laundromat in my flip-flops. No scarf, no hat. The clouds disapproved, and the wind made sure I noticed it. But there was just enough sun to justify my bare feet, and my toes rejoiced for one more experience of freedom before December snaps shut around them and they hibernate for three months.

IJ

Once upon a time, we sat by the window in the third floor of the library and watched a hawk chasing a swallow. We were young, and I was unbroken. Later, night fell. You came for me, and I could not drive you away, and I could not dip and soar like the swallow to escape. Your hair was the color of night. I should have known the sun would leave me, and like the silent owl, you would arrive.


You left. You left me, broken; you left me broken. You left my space, my time, my thoughts, but I could not leave you. I keep finding you, a splinter in my heart. You are still exactly the same as when we soared over the island and the waves diminished into minute wrinkles below us, and between us the silence roared so I could scarcely hear the music that still calls up your ghost for me, when I hear it, these long years later.

It is November, a season I never saw you in. Yet I find you living in my memories, as you have lived with me since that single rainstorm.


In a few hours, my husband will come home, and I will live again, in the beautiful present. In a few years, these memories will be buried under more strata, starting with the autumn leaves of today. When I die, they will die with me. And when I live again, there will be no more tears, no more secrets, no more death, no more night.

Chrysanthemum

The air is crisp now, and cold, and the flowers are all flame-colored. These are chrysanthemum days. They burn against the cold. They wait for winter.

They bloom among leaves like stretched hands, peach-fuzzy. They grow on stems whose innards are dry and spongy. They are gold and ruby and topaz.

Here on our dresser, they are amethyst. Here they are concise, precise, with pale centers glowing like the cool sunlight of today. Here they face ceilingward, skyward, heavenward, looking up from the ends of their long, long stems. I tied them with a silver satin ribbon, one of many that wrapped around gifts to us from our friends. The glass vase is from our wedding, too.

Three wedding things in one simple arrangement of hope: symbols of ceremony, communal blessing, a celebration that continues, punctuating the passage of months. Frost is on its way, but flowers are still opening.

Autumn

The wind has scattered
oak leaves like hands
all across the sidewalk.
Shadows of the arching leaves
strain away from the sun
like desperate fingers.
The wind is still sighing.

Falling Leaves

There's never enough, really. Do, do, do, but the tasks keep coming, falling, like leaves from the swaying trees. Autumn is still on its way: leaves, stay with your trees! Don't come swooping down, unexpectedly. I am not prepared for this onslaught--not prepared for the flurry of leaves when the breeze brushes by--not prepared for the fluttering in my peripheral vision, in my face, in my eye when I whirl around.

I close my eyes, but the leaves keep falling, falling. I can't stop them. Suddenly gravity is calling, and every leaf is falling. Who am I to sing over Gravity's endless music?

Eventually the trees will be sleek and bare. Their spare lines will slice the sky, while their lush leaves fill the earth. Such extravagance, the bright leaves that fall, like expensive gowns shrugged to the ground. Scarlet, violet, russet, gold. So much color spilled heedlessly, because the trees know: When spring comes home, the leaves will grow again. Then no branch will lack for its emerald cloak. But winter is the time for dancing naked.

Why do I keep looking for a rake? What am I really looking for? A mountain of leaves, a landslide of colors. A place to leap.

Clouds

Walking home today, I wanted to rise to join the clouds. Above the buildings on the horizon, a sliver of the sky glowed pale gold. A layer of cloud blanketed the rest of the sky, softening it. Sometimes the blue vastness seems hard and dauntingly empty. Under the cloud ceiling, though, the earth felt more like a home, less like a speck in the vacant blue.

More puffs of cloud were floating on the soft sky. If I climbed a tree or maybe a few flights of stairs, I could reach out and grab one. A handful of softness would come away, trailing wisps of white and gray. The fringes of the cloud would gradually reform themselves to restore that neatly rounded edge.

But I didn't reach for the clouds once I had climbed the stairs. I didn't want to disturb their quiet contentment. Instead, I let myself into my little apartment. There, hot soup and tea were waiting to warm me, to round my edges, to set me against a soft backdrop, to raise me into the sky where the light of the setting sun turns all things gold.