Turkey, Pt.1 Türkiye
May, 2023
Dusk on the Sea of Marmara. I’ve been attacking the days, staying awake most nights; taking nocturnalism to extremes; feeling spent but full, hopeless, quite wild. All fades away; it seems pointless getting angry at anything, or anyone, anymore.
I look after my body, clean the house, pay my bills, keep on top of my inbox. But slowly, irrevocably, I am realising the extent of the physical; the old tricks just don’t work anymore. There is a longing for solitude ––for something more than this,––simmering in me these days in Turkey. I left Holland, changed the scenery, but inside I am still on fire. I do all I can to keep the lid on. Simmering, simmering....
︎
It is election time here in the Republic: a tight race between 20-year-incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and reformist Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. At rallies in Istanbul and Bursa, the wolf call goes up to the heavens; the biggest flags I have ever seen in my life, blazing red silk adorned with the star and crescent; slogans and song pound from boom boxes and the children of proud parents glee in ignorance.In Izmir on the Med Coast last week though, high up in the slums above the city on old Mt. Pagos, the faces of dirt-poor people––shockingly poor––speak nothing of such commotion and showmanship; microcosms of the African, Arab and Turkish dregs of society. The wash-ups of our great economic system; up there, no politician’s concerned face hugs a baby or a crying elderly woman who is so overcome with nationalism; they do not stand there in all their glory in front of a fleet of aircraft carriers, aviators on, Top Gun style. Hollywood, baby.
︎
At the docks in Mudanya, my companion and I drink tea some nights. There is an old man there who speaks some English, at least enough to understand one another more than most. He brings us boiling hot black tea and interjects with catch phrases in English; seemingly at random, metaphysical, deeply allegorical, rooted in an interpretation of our interaction that on the surface does not make sense, but later, sets the mind totally ablaze. The man is a prophet.
Last night as we get up to leave he says:
‘Time is flying!
The words repeat in me all day.
'So strange, what does he mean?!'
It drives me crazy!
I tell him this evening:
‘Time is flying’, and tap the side of my head.
He elaborates, tells me he used to live in London in the 70s. A radio programme on the BBC would close off each night with those words.
As he rushes past some time later he says:
Last night as we get up to leave he says:
‘Time is flying!
The words repeat in me all day.
'So strange, what does he mean?!'
It drives me crazy!
I tell him this evening:
‘Time is flying’, and tap the side of my head.
He elaborates, tells me he used to live in London in the 70s. A radio programme on the BBC would close off each night with those words.
As he rushes past some time later he says:
‘I cry today already, so tomorrow I don’t cry.’
I laugh, not understanding the sentiment; he has his usual beaming smile on, glistening with silver teeth; how a smile doth mask the truth. How skilled we all are at lying through our proverbial teeth.
He walks past again with a tray.
‘Some days I am also feeling so lonely.’
‘Also? How does he know’...I think to myself.
On the way back, tray empty...
‘I miss my Mother so much.’
‘How many years ago did she pass away?
‘11’
︎
All this rushing around with website designs, tax returns, optimisation, productivity, risk asset minimisation –blah, blah, blah: it really is all absolutely meaningless, isn’t it? Though we wear it like a scout badge, what really goes beyond for this bizarre creature? What leaves a greater trace, especially as it gets older, more reflective, closer to death...
What will remain important when we look back on the great spectacle of our lives with a deeper understanding?
Wishing you had called your Mother, while you knew she would still pick up. Letting whatever petty, silly thing you were fighting about with your loved one, just be. Hugging them instead, telling them they were right, that you were wrong, that you’re sorry and that you love them. Tame the ego––Love will be the reward. It is all that is worth a damn.
As we leave the tea tent, I stand in the man's path as he clangs past and reach out and hug him: I hold him tight and he hugs and squeezes me back. We stand there in silence as the world rotates around us. I feel like a human again; tears burst from my eyes behind my sunglasses as I walk amongst the campaigning crowds on the seaside boulevard. The sun is setting, the birds are going home for the night. I feel blue and full, my heart overflows, spilling into the Sea of Marmara. I am the King of Cups. I hold the world in the palm of my hand.
︎
![]()
