Monday, August 4th - Tuesday, August 5th: Reflecting on Friendship

Monday, August 4th - Tuesday, August 5th: Reflecting on Friendship

Yeşim, me, Nükte and Dilek on Burgaz Island 8/3/14

Just 13 days ago, Nükte and I rescued my mother from an Aksaray tourist hotel, one which was sure to give her an impression of this country vastly different from the one I have carried with me over the past 3 decades. Without friendships and personal connections, Turkey seemed to my mother to be a loud, impersonal place. That's not the Turkey I know.

Now that I've fully relaxed in to this rich experience, I've had more time to reflect on my now 25 year+ love affair with this country. What drew me here in the first place was Turkey's proximity to Iran - what kept me coming back was the strong connection I felt with friends. Maybe I was just extremely lucky to meet the right people, to strike friendships with the kindest and most generous of the lot. More likely, Turkish culture simply inspires warmth and an intimacy between people that is unique and ubiquitous. Meeting Nükte Devrim in 1989 changed the course of my life in many ways: it inspired a love of writing and journalism, it awakened in me a more critical and analytical view of the world and the freedoms I took for granted, and it left me inextricably linked to her, her family, this language, and this country. There were other Turkish friends that I made over the years, many of whom I've lost touch with now. In most cases I have only the portraits I took of them. But each of them make up the Turkey that I know.

Turkey is diverse, it is dynamic, it is mysterious. In Küzgüncük I hear complaints that too many cafes are opening up now, and the signs are getting bigger, more commercialized. With each visit to Istanbul I see more women covered, some completely in black similar to Iran's chador. The politics of the veil, and the politics of the growing conservatism of the ruling AK Party are complicated and I have much to learn about the impact these have on the lives of my friends. But to me Turkey hasn't changed in the most essential ways. During each of my four visits I've had the benefit of living here (I've stayed in a hotel only once - in Cappadocia in 2007). I've traveled to the farthest reaches of greater Istanbul to explore its varied communities and I've seen Anatolia - Kayserı, Göreme, Ankara, Izmir, Trabzon, Van, Diyarbakır. In each place I met people who touched me in some way.

Amongst its secular classes, Turkish women dress and see the world much as I do. They are well-traveled and multi-lingual. They raise their children to be of the world-at-large. Nükte and Vincent's girls are no different. While American fathers might give advice to their daughters about more mundane subjects, Vincent instead admonishes his girls about mixing different languages in the same sentence. "One should finish a sentence in one language before changing to another," he insists. Such is the challenge for the children of a Frenchman and a Turk.

Nükte, Müge and their mother

So, during my time here this month, while the the sights of this city are stupendous and grand, and I shall make the pilgrimage to visit them, the memories I am making will be about the people. Nükte's sister Müge is one of the kindest women I know. Already I have enjoyed multiple meals at her table, I have played with her son, and reveled at the magnificent view of the Bosphorus from her living room window. Nükte's friends Dilek and Yeşim are warm and welcoming. I wandered out of my front door in Küzgüncük at about 3:00pm today to buy ingredients with which to cook dinner when I ran in to Yeşim having tea with Tansel, a woman I'd met on Burgaz Island. I never made it to the store, because I sat having tea for more than an hour, and then was invited to dinner at a rooftop restaurant just few blocks away. It is now 11:00pm and I just got back home. A slight cool breeze is blowing through the house and I feel so content sitting here, reflecting on the conversations we had, and the banter over glasses of Rakı. Dilek's backyard abuts Nükte's, and she frequently sits at her back table to drink tea with friends. Turks drink on average of 6 glasses of Turkish tea a day, and you must add to that the Turkish coffee they consume. These rituals provide daily opportunities to sit with friends. Dilek practices her English with me, and has been very patient about answering the many questions I have about the Turkish language. I haven't gone a day without sharing in the warmth of friendship from one of these women.

Each time I've visited, I bring the same tattered copy of "Elementary Turkish" by Lewis Thomas, the book that I first poured over with a young Turkish waiter in the seaside town of Çeşme back in 1989. I was so touched by his enthusiasm to teach me his language that it kept me motivated to keep learning. Every time I pick up that book I think of him. I still have cassette tapes of Turkish pop singer Sezan Aksu back at home that I haven't been able to part with, even though I no longer have a tape player in which to play them.  I grew up in Turkey and, as is Nükte, it is my abla, my sister.