Tag Archives: Aegean Sea

Rumi’s guidance for road trips

Posted on by
8

Waking up center of the night, I rose up to quell the humm of the ever-present air conditioner over the door.  Uncharacteristically awake, I couldn’t help but notice the sneak-around-movement of the tiny chorus of dancing ladies.  They had exited their purse, and were carefully folding up all of my clothes and spiriting them away in the bag I was too tired to pack once escaping the terrace-by-the-Aegeaninvestigation à la Mrs. X.  Touched by their caring, I sent them a mental blessing before  quietly sliding the balcony door open to let in the relatively cool night air.  The shock of the warm velvet air against the prickly burr of nighttime-hours-on air conditioned plasticity was a bit jarring as I slid back into the somewhat crackly-crisp white bed linens.

Staring at the ever-so-slightly waving palm fronds, I tried to lose myself to sleep.  Flip flopping around, I began to remember every bedroom I had ever lived in during my lifetime – and all of the potential sheep I had counted as a ruse to color myself sleepy by numbers.  Just as I settled into the indellible vision of a full moon outside of my sister’s bedroom window as a child, a moon that seemed to accentuate the neonish blue of early morning and the chips of paint on the white trim of the screened-in window, Hacivad Bey made his presence known, very, quietly.  Hacivad Bey is a very learned sort, and while he often gets into tussles with the stoop-backed and wise-cracking Karagöz, he is also a devotee of the Mevlana Rumi – whose wisdom seems to know no bounds.

“It has, M’lady,” he whispers, with the utmost care not to wake M., ”it has been quite a trip, and you will be glad to move on for now.  Learn what you can from this experience when you are ready to revisit it again, be easy on those around you and remember the importance of forgiveness – as much as you can.  Your new road trip with M. begins tomorrow, focus on the learning there.”  Turning to pull something from his waistband, Hacivad released a scroll of parchment that lit up a warm, neon blue from the early dawn light.  The smudging sound of his dry-skinned waxy paper fingers on that thick parchment soothed me into feeling a bit sleepy…as I started to drift off, I listened to Hacivad recite these words:

“Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey to the ocean of meanings. The stream knows it can’t stay on the mountain.  Leave and don’t look away from the sun as you go, in whose light you’re sometimes crescent, sometimes full.”

Related articles

Last night in Bodrum Part II: Dodging Breeze snakes and coffee bullets

Posted on by
17

A captivatingly thick and sweet bullet of Turkish coffee

Snakes of warm breeze slid around me, curiously disconnected from one another.  I felt them swoosh up and down my arms, my palms flat on the table in front of me as if about to play a child’s slapping hand game.  My demitasse coffee cup was upside-down on the saucer it belonged to.  A smudge of muddiness marred the perfect flip-over, but I ignored it.  My coffee bullet was wending its way through my bloodstream.  Mrs. X. spoke the same words again…“Now,” Mrs. X. said, “I’ll tell you what I know, you tell me what you know.” She was referring to my boyfriend, M., her husband’s brother.  We were to leave Bodrum tomorrow after a couple of weeks that ranged from relaxing and interesting to trying and confusing.

Khadijah shook her wax-papery head with all the grace that a Karagöz dancing puppet can, their loose limbs akimbo on a stick.  “Here we go, the old ‘we’re all women argument,” she sighed, “usually I would buy right into that, but now, I feel the breeze snakes. You’ve got to watch for the breeze snakes. What does she want to know – or is her world that small?”  The bullet of hot coffee had cleared my rakı fogginess – and I had to respond to Mrs. X., not to mention  Hacivad, Karagöz, and all the other puppets waiting for my response.

“Does it really have to be about secrets?” I coughed the words, and they stumbled out of my mouth in between the breeze snakes.  My mouth did not want to cooperate.  The puppets all put their chins in the palms of their hand, waiting for more.  “I mean,” I gulped, feeling the coffee grinds left in my teeth, “I mean why?”  Leaning in, the breeze snakes transported Mrs. X.’s Turkish coffee espresso breath towards me faster than the gleam of her chemically whitened teeth through the dark night.

“You know, don’t you,” she spooned the words towards me softly, “you know he doesn’t want to have children?”  Only Karagöz let out a little tiny whoop before covering his mouth again to see what would happen next.  Delivering what she thought was new information, she lurched back into her armchair quickly, and watched for my response along with the chorus of dancing ladies, hands covering mouths in shock.  I knew what they did not know, namely, we had already had the “what about children?” talk.  I knew that M. loved kids, but felt so strongly about zero population growth that he did not feel good about having his own biological children. I didn’t know how I felt about that yet and it would be a while before I did.  Did she want to hurt my feelings? Did she want to warn me?  Did she think I would not already know?  Would I ever understand her motivations?  Probably not.  I settled on her thoughts about wanting me to know.

I had grown up around my mother’s strong commitment to the zero population growth movement, thus the adoption of my sister, I suppose (or was it vice versa?).  I was mixed on the idea myself, and although it was way to early in the relationship to be deciding about whether to have children together or not, I could already tell that the notion of zero population growth was not going to go down well in this family in Turkey.  I felt the breeze snakes sliding back, as if in a tide, behind Mrs. X., as if ready to strike.

Taking the straightforward Yankee approach, I blurted out “Yes, I know about all of those views of his, we talk about it.” I didn’t know what else to do.  Before I could get the words out of my mouth in their entirety, I felt the hurtling swath of breeze snakes hit me full force – “but it is your right to have children! This is not fair to you!  I hate that he does this, it is wrong, what is wrong with him?” I could see that Mrs. X. and M. resided on different planets and that it would just always be that way.  One oppositional and non-traditional to the extreme (even without wanting to be, sometimes) and one caught in the gerbil wheel of a wealthy lady’s expected life (wanting to be and something told me also not wanting to be).

Hacivad stepped forward to jump up on my shoulder, a friend in the storm of breeze snake tides.  “M’lady, you just need to stay cool, calm and collected, you are facing a moment of cross-cultural conflict – your reality just cannot be computed in her reality.  Kids are wanted – expected – she will not understand.  Just let it be and focus on what is important.” Drawing on his zen-like calm, I channeled some inner wise woman with my final comment – some kind of wise woman that knows inside this woman in front of me, surrounded by breeze snakes, had her own crosses to bear.  “I suppose we all have strange or difficult things to deal with in the men we choose, don’t we, Mrs. X.?”

Before she could answer, I felt the warm bounce breeze that surrounds M. swagger over my way.  M.  had broken free from the clutch of middle-aged male observers looking over the balcony at their sons, dancing with arms akimbo in the air.  Swashbuckling up to me, M. galumphed into the seat next to me, throwing his arm around me.  Only I knew that he had promised to leave me alone with Mrs. X. as little as possible after the obesity comments at what I referred to as “cement beach.”  Watching the breeze snakes slither away, Mrs. X. touched the top of my coffee cup in defeat.  “It is ready to read,” she said with the empty, deflated voice of a tired middle ager at midnight.  I felt equally so.

Taking the cup into her right hand – the left one unduly occupied by a Marlboro cigarette covered in bright pink Chanel lipstick – she craned her neck to the side and peered into the bottom of the tiny cup.  “I see mountains and a goat,” she said with question marks abounding “you will have many difficult mountains to climb, but the goat climbs them easily.” Laughing – she stood and bent over to kiss me on the forehead before walking to join her husband in watching their son dancing below.

Hacivad turned to me at the same time as M. with dually quizzical airs.  “It sounds like the closest you will get to a blessing to me,” Hacivad whispered.  M. just kissed me on the cheek and said “it’ll be good to get back on the road together.”

After the breeze snakes retired for the night

Related articles

Last night in Bodrum: Fish cheeks, rakı and coffee

Posted on by
9

Grilled fish with tomato and arugula salad and rakı on our last night in Bodrum

Feeling faintly present during our last night in the gated compound near Bodrum, guests of Mr. X and family, I made my way through it all pleasantly enough.  The puppets were really nowhere to be found, not that I looked all that hard.  My brain hurt and I had given into the confusion.  I was allowing myself to sink into the background, much like I imagine Virginia Woolf did in a way vis-a-vis her yellow wallpaper.  Who says detachment from reality isn’t functional sometimes? See the previous few posts if you are wondering why I was detached on this night.  Let’s say that on this night, I did not refuse the rakı (rah-kuh, the Turkish version of ouzo).

I am sure the grilled fish, smoky and light, was, as usual, spectacular, but all I remember about that dinner is the honor of receiving the fish cheeks, served by Mr. X. himself.  Fish cheeks, quite soft, tender and tasty, are a delicacy for those not in the know.  Mr. X.’s children sniggered a bit at this old fashioned sign of respect from Mr. X. before they wolfed down their food in haste to get out of the house and down to hang out with friends, as teenagers are wont to do.  I vaguely remember feeling very middle aged in that moment.  I heard a mocking snore from Karagöz at this point, somewhere in the haze.  I took another swig of rakı, the instant burn a comfort to my hurting mind.  One of the dancing ladies called out from the purse, reminding me that ladies traditionally did *not* engage in the pursuit of rakı consumption.

Deciding on the plans for the evening, Mr. X. waived Kalinka’s offer of tea off, and pronounced that we would walk down to the cafe by the water to see how the kids were getting on at the dance party, the evidence of which was wafting it’s way up the hill in bass form.  In our late evening amble down to the cafe by the water, I remember letting myself get lost in the lovely, enveloping warmth of the Aegean evening.  I am sure that I even enjoyed some of the sweet mellowness of the Cuban cigar smoke from Mr. X.’s side of the table, and do have a faint recollection of his wife’s commentary on what to do and what not to do in Selcuk the next night (it was along the lines of “there are no decent 4 star hotels, but you will live”).  My detachment was pierced, ever so slightly, by the throwing up of hands amongst the little lady dancing chorus over in my purse.  The eye rolls were evident, though I couldn’t see them.  I just kept sipping my rakı.

Down at the cafe, the chatter flowed out of my mouth as if I was not myself.  I just went with the flow, trying to focus on the positives around me as opposed to the sea of confusion and rakı my brain was floating in.  Hacivad asked me “What’s not to love about a late night drink by the Aegean with a new love?” but it fell on somewhat deaf ears, so to speak.  At one point, we went over to the balcony to catch a glimpse of the kids dancing, without their shock and disapproval at the horror of the presence of their adults in parent form.  Standing to the side of Mr. X. and his wife as they spoke with their friends engaged in the same observation, M. and I watched Mr. X.’s son dance to arabesque music, hands up, in Turkish man dancing style.  He cut a dashing figure at 13 years old (going on 30 if you asked me given his behavior, but that I

Turkish men dancing at a wedding near Marmaris (From Star of the Sea's blog - wonderful sellers on Etsy.com based in Marmaris)

shall share on another occasion) and even from our distance to the dance floor, we could see the girls swooning from the sidelines, all eyes on him, though he was surrounded by other young men. Turning to M., I asked “Did you ever dance like that?” before I realized that a joke response would ensue – which it did in the form of a spastic goat on it’s last dancing legs before slaughter emerged before me.  Karagöz squealed in approval – “what a joker, with him, his dance is better than a coker!”

Mr. X.’s wife swooped me up and saved me (whether I wanted saving or not) from my flailing boyfriend who was grinning from ear to ear.  She took me by the crook of the arm to go and watch – in the way that only a mother enamored of the beauty exhibited by the very being of her newly adolescent son can do, “he has not,” she snorted, “obtained the terrible dancing genes of our men, the bad dancing gene dies with them! Let’s go find some hot guys to dance with to make our men jealous!”  (Side note, for an hysterical recounting of an actual played out version of this story in another part of Bodrum with other characters, see Perking the Pansies blog post here).

How I extricated myself from that pseudo-teenaged dare I do not recall, likely as a result of the cumulative impact of my rakı consumption, but I do recall ending up at a table with Mrs. X.’s wife who was not, apparently, the same person who shunned my slightly pudgy self at the beach now – I was her friend from America, a potential gelin (bride) for the family – who needed schooling in the art of reading coffee grinds.  Absent since the afternoon’s tumbleweed melee between Hacivad and Karagöz, the dancing lady chorus cooed happily from my purse. “Yes, m’lady, you do need schooling in this regard.  The closest to coffee grinds you get is something along the lines of a green tea latte, whatever that is.”

After downing the aromatic warm bullet of coffee in one fell swoop, Mrs. X. placed the lid of the demitasse set on top of the cup, circle indent side down.  With great dexterity, she flipped the cup over, and set her fragile and precariously positioned cargo down.  “Now, you wait for it to cool, you must do the same.  Now we chat.”  Karagöz chimed in at this moment “now you wait for her to heat up, or run up the hill like a goat in a bleat-up.”  Hoping that the strong coffee would counteract the fog of rakı around me so that I could walk up the hill to bed, I complied with her order. There are many different approaches to this folk tradition, but I didn’t notice more than what is written here due to my tipsy state at the time.  You can read more about coffee fortune telling in Turkey here).

Hacivad, freshly re-cut from waxy paper after getting a bit frayed this past afternoon was exhibiting his usual composure.  “Just listen and learn, don’t reveal too much, just take it all in like an anthropologist in New Guinea in the 1800s.”

“Now,” Mrs. X. said, “I’ll tell you what I know, you tell me what you know.”  Khadijah spoke out from the purse “it’s always something with this one.”  Shifting in her chair a bit, Mrs. X. leaned in to me, snaking her arm around the cooling coffee cup to take my hand in hers.  “We women,” she said with an air of mystery, or at least I thought that’s what she thought, “we women need to stick together in this life.  So, you tell me what you know about M. and I will tell you what I know of M.”  All of a sudden, my rakı fogginess was gone and I was wide awake, or maybe it was the jolt of caffeine running through my veins.  Hacivad, Karagöz, Khadijah and all the other puppets leaned in from their various positions around me, wondering what I might do.  Turning towards the now-dark sea, I sighed.

To be continued.

Related articles