Les Ts de David

Assise dans un David's Tea sur Queen's West, Toronto.  Canada.
Essayant de demeurer ouverte, en me sachant bel et bien au centre
Je suis encerclée de périphéries, de perspectives, d'opportunités, d'images, de souvenirs.
Le passé et le futur se buttent incessamment au carrefour de mes esprits.
Donc j'essaie, de rester dans la danse.  Yin et Yang qui ''jive'' et qui spinnent, 
Parce que: qui dirige.  Et qui suit?
Rester dans la Danse.  Y mettre du siens, écouter la poly-rhytmique.
Bien certaine que tout ça est un rêve.  Respirant grâce à la grâce des enseignements de tous les buddhas

À l'ombre de cette fameuse tour du CN, je relie dans mon esprit les références déjà vécues: la fameuse Fernehturm de Berlin, the tv tower.  Apparently,

The Fernsehturm is the fourth tallest freestanding phallic structure in Europe, after Moscow's Ostankino Tower, the Kiev TV Towerand the Riga Radio and TV Tower. 

(Yes, the words in bold italics were added.)

Il y a un an - seulement - je me trouvais tout autre part... à Berlin.  Dans l'automne de Berlin, pérégrinant ... presqu' exactement comme je le fais aujourd'hui.  Et pourtant: une année s'est écoulée.

Ce matin j'ai promené Luna sur des tapis de feuilles humides et bigarrées: rouge, orange, jaune, vertes, des érables, des chênes, des ... connaissez-vous les espèces d'arbres que vous côtoyer quotidiennement?    Pas moi.

Je marchais comme j'aime tant marcher  quand j'ai le temps pour marcher: sens aiguisés, coeur et poumons gonflés, pas léger et plus ou moins sans but.  Prendre le temps de prendre conscience de toute la beauté de ce qui nous entoure (= environnement).  La beauté dans tout ce qu'elle a de triste et de répugnant aussi.  La ville, c'est parfois ça aussi.

Je réalisai que je voyage souvent l'automne.  Je marche des rues qui me rappellent celles de Hamburg, puis de Prague, et me revoilà à traverser l'Europe.  Je repense à Portland, à San Francisco. Des rues d'automnes.
Des départs, des petites morts, des expirations.
Il faisait froid, à Prague, et c'était parfait parce qu'on buvait du vin chaud... Mmmhh.
À Istanbul, nous prenions le traversier en buvant de petits verres de thé noir.  Chaï.
À Toronto, je suis dans un David's Tea.  And it's pretty awesome, actually.

---

Méditations sur la fine ligne qui sépare la volonté du non-contrôle.  Je repense au dharma talk auquel j'ai eu le plaisir de participer hier soir, au Centre of Gravity.
Discussion sur la dualité et l'illusion du moi, Discussion sur le phénomène de la projection.  Say what!?  N'est-ce pas là mon sujet favoris!?  J'étais donc là auprès d'une vingtaine d'autres êtres humains, pour méditer et entendre la présentation de je-ne-sais-plus-qui, pratiquante de la lignée Tibétaine Shambala, et ''Gestalt therapist''.
Elle.  Assise à côté de moi.  En elle.  Que dire?  Une nouvelle amie.  Une nouvelle dynamique.  Une nouvelle flamme-en-effet, qui combuste lentement ce qu'elle a de carburant.  Qui se découvre. Une chaleur plaisante.
Feu feu, jolie feu.
---
Le familier.
C'est indéniable, désormais: cet '''état de voyage'' m'est devenu si familier.... si confortable, en quelque sorte.   C'est souvent dans cet ''état'' que je me suis sentie la plus fidèle à moi même: libre de m'émerveillée, de m'émerveiller.. libre d'être libre...

----

Sitting on the Dock of the

I wish it was summer outside.  I do.
My strong self knows I can pull this through,
but the truth is,
who wants to live like this?

I miss the sun.
So bad.
The green grass, even the rain.
(forgetting how brutally freezing a San Francisco summer can be)
This grass that's always greener,
on the other side.

I'm listening to Bjork, sitting on a wooden chair in front of this wooden table.  Pedestrians are bundled up outside, the sun is very bright.  My astrological planner to my right, an empty glass of orange juice, the English language, three juggling balls, a cell phone, two bandanas (two?)... and a pile of papers: my ''résumé'', flyers, a map, pamphlets and notes...
What's my summary? My résumé?
How to resume?
I would rather live in the present, with you
Wouldn't you?

It's hilarious, to be staring the process in the face like this.


A New beat generation, traveling through dubstep beats, gathering in festivals.
I must not give up.  I must.  Relax.

The truth is, I love not to work!!
Are you kidding me?  I'm sitting here LISTENING TO MUSIC AND WRITING, and learning and dreaming and watching the sun go around, on a different time wave, that's all.
Like the fool on a hill.
Pierrot la lune.

Et tous les souvenirs.
Ce romantisme chronique,
ces désirs.

Au-delà du romantisme et du nihilisme, je pense toujours à Nietzsche.  ''What would Nietzsche do?''
He would ask if this moment is worth living, over and over again.  He would ask if your heart is open so wide you could explode - or implode, as his did - of this passion for all things alive...
No, he wouldn't do that.  I would.

The truth is that I love to write.  I find the highest pleasure in feeling those waves of thoughts pulsate through my wrist onto the page, or to the very tips of my fingers, when it's a computer.
Otherwise, still.
''You may say I'm a dreamer.''

(Who are your heroes?)

In truth, right now I terribly miss San Francisco.  It crawled up on me last night, as I finally went to rest.  I had a heavy feeling in my stomach, the sudden pull of nostalgia, and my heart filling up with tears.  I didnt quite cry, but I let myself tear up and feel the pain.  I hadn't been feeling it.  I keep myself busy and/so I don't think about everything I left behind.
My life!  A clan of spiritual warriors, those streets and those parks I knew so well, all the stuff I tried so hard not to acquire but did, in the span of five years.  My things, my things I couldn't throw away.
They're in a bunch of boxes in the garage of my former ''boss'', who is also my friend...for we played in the snow and ''crazy carpet'-ed together.

I know that missing San Francisco doesn't take anything away from this new place.  Just as missing the culture of my former home doesn't take anything away from the hearts and mind of the people here.  I love you very much too, med ami(e)s, it's true.  Please forgive my absence then and understand that I am in a whirlwind, and simply trying to keep myself in the middle of the storm until it gradually winds down.

I know the value of time and timing.  I still have no regrets.  (Though in that wave of emotion last night, I did.)
And besides, I've already had a few of those moments since I've moved here... you know, those moments...  of pure grace, of great beauty!?  It's not the place, it's the state of mind.  That's a huge part of my experiment.
Spending my days thinking about the future of financial security, mine as well as the macro-scale's.  Spending my days thinking about what I want to be doing all day.  Turns out, that's what works ends up being: the thing you do all day.  What kind of days do I want to have?  What can we create?
Spending my days with flashbacks, flash cards of all the sublime encounters I have been blessed with.  Wondering if tomorrow can be as bright and light as what I had on the Left Coast.  Wondering about cold and industrial societies, industrious and creative societies.  Wondering about multiculturalism in formation, for ever and increasingly, the planet getting so small and the power of the few, so big.

Do you think that my degree in ''Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness'' might freak out or turn off potential employers?  Could that be it?  What do they think?  What do they know about what it means?  I can barely articulate it myself!!  I wouldn't know where to start.

''Once upon 14 billion years ago...'''

C.I.I.S. meant that we were in graduate school trying to face and cope with the Greatness of the Universe.  We had our own language, our own micro-culture, our shared experiences so that we could talk about what lays underneath it all... And we would smile and say: Namaste.  (Not without an awareness of the cultural appropriation issue it represented- though the school was indeed founded by Indian scholars.  It was 1968.)

Where have I been?  I've been beyond the pre-Socratics to indigenous populations through the earth and the thirteen skies... to the Big Bang that resounded in the Heart of Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu... beyond the first Sound to the eternal OM, and back.  I've been from the Middle Ages to the Far West, between lands and sea, running on a treadmill waiting in a traffic jam.  I've been.

Walking the ancient streets of Istanbul, Byzantine, Constantinople... taking strolls on snaky hilly streets after dark, breathing the air of history, getting lost, feeling the beautiful complexity and the tension reigning and breathing with its people.  Prague, Marseilles, Carcassonne, Granada.

Here.

Bus ride with Allah

23:30, I step on the bus and walk to my seat: the very last row, the one that doesn't recline. Oh well.  I almost didn't get a ticket in time, so I guess I can't complain.  Sitting next to me is a young woman.  She's wearing a hijab, and a beautiful smile.

"¿Adonde te vas?" she asks with a sweet voice.

"Hasta Barcelona."

"Pues, que lejos!" she says.  "¿Vives allá?"

"No.  Soy de Canada."

"Oh! No eres Espanola?"

I'm flattered.  

We exchange names and more background information.  I tell her the same story I've carried with me around the old continent:

"No estoy de vacaciones como de transición.  Por que soy de Canadá, pero viví en los Estados Unidos por los diez años pasados.  Y después d'este viaje yo regresso para vivir en Montreal."

She tells me she's from "Al-Jazeer", or something like that, close to Cadiz.  Al-Jazeera? I heard that word before.  I did a bit of research and didn't find an Andalusian city by that name, but the point is that it's in the South of Spain, and obviously has that wonderful arabic influence.

She tells me she's originally from Marrueco (Morroco).  She has seven siblings; six brothers and one sister.  Two live in France, one in Deutschland, two (including herself) in Spain, and two in England.  (Who knows where the other one is!)  She asks if I'm married.  I smile.  I guess at this point it's not so much a cultural difference.  I know a lot of folks my age, who are getting married.  "No."

"Por que?"

"Por que... por que viajo mucho y quiero buscar mi proprio camino ante de casar me."

"Tu no quieres casar con alguien de otro país?  Por que?"

I explain that it's quite the opposite.  I tend to fall for foreigners.  And that creates a bit of a conundrum because I'm left with my family and my native land on one side, and a potential future and family of my own, that would be far away from them.  I find that very problematic.

She does have a husband.  She tells me he's much older than her.  She's thirty-one; her husband is fifty-six!  She says love knows no age, no race, no language.  Fifty-six!?  I gotta admit that I find that hard to imagine for myself... but she's got my respect.  Her presence is so sweet and loving.  I like her.

The bus is making its way North-East in the dark night; we are chatting away.  She asks about Canada.  She depicts her home in Morocco, her home in Spain.  She's in love with life and with the beautiful landscapes she's daily surrounded with.  She says I have a place to stay when I come to Morocco.  (I should have asked her if there's an expiration date on the offer or if I can show up in, let's say, five years?!)

  

She asks what I do for work in Canada.  I remind her that I haven't lived there in a decade, and tell her I worked as a nanny in San Francisco.  "Una kangaroo", as they say here.  She is a cook in a Moroccan restaurant.  Her husband is the chef.  She asks if I like to cook and what I like to eat.  "Comiste carne?"

"Pues.  No puedo decir que soy vegetariana... pero yo quería ser.  Es que, aquí, quiero probar la comida de las diferentes culturas."

She's silent.  I'm wondering where she stands on the issue.  I explain, "para mi, no es necesseramente que no quiero comer animales, pero a mi es una pregunta de la manera que los tratan.  Por que no se como es la industria aqui, pero en America, hay muchas fincas muy grande y industriales donde que les tratan los animales de una manera súper inhumana, sabes?"

Still silent.  "Para mi, es importante tener respecto.  Y si comio carne, yo digo gracias ante."

"Y comes puerco?" she finally utters.

"Eso no."

"Yo no comió puerco tampoco.  Y tu fumas?"

"Pues. As veces, si."

"Bebes?"

"Eso también.  Me gusta tomar, pero no para estar borracha.  Y tu?  Bebes?"

She tells me she has never had a drink, or a smoke... "por causa de la religion."  She says with a big smile and pointing at her headscarf.  "Lo hizo todo, el hijab, el Ramadan, todo."  She has the most radiant and pure look on her face.  She looks proud, but in a calm, humble way.

I'm so interested in this conversation!  I've been wishing to interact with an arabic woman for some time.  I had given up on that wish, actually.  But here it is now.  I have so many questions and I want to be careful... respectful.  I ask if she prays five times a day?  What time is the first call to prayer?  Do she go to the Mosque for all of them?  I tell her that I like the idea of stopping everything you're doing, five times a day, to remember and bow down to something greater than you."

"Y es bueno ejercicio también!" she says half serious.

I had never seen it that way!

She tells me that Islam is a very healthy religion.  Pork is very fatty, and it apparently contains some hormone, which is cancerous to humans.  That's why muslims don't eat it.  She says the holy book is full of recommendations that are targeting health.  She tells me about Ramadan.  The first two days are the hardest: no eating, no drinking, no sex.  But then, one gets used to it and the rest of the month gets easier.  She's been doing it her whole life, since she was eleven.  I learn that women begin to take part in Ramadan when they have their first menstruations.  Boys start around fourteen or so, when their voice begins to chance and they are becoming men.  When a woman has her period, she can eat normally.  Same thing when she's pregnant, or when she's breastfeeding.  Old and sick people also can eat.  It's important to remain healthy.

ablution facility

I guess ablutions can be seen in this light as well.  It's good to wash your hands and face, and feet, five times a day!

Prayer Hall
Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Our connection is very good and I feel that I can ask her the question that's burning me.  I want to know why women sit on the sides during prayer at the Mosque.  She smiles and explains to me... The woman's body has these... curves... (I see!!)  With the set up and proximity of congregants in the prayer hall, and with the multiple getting up and bowing down that is muslim prayer, it would certainly be very distracting to men!!

From what I understand, it's the same thing with the veil.

I've come to think that, in a big way, I've developed this tom-boyish attitude and dress as a way to protect myself from the other sex.  Sometimes I think wearing the hijab would be so liberating.

It's about two in the morning now and my being is filled with a peaceful kind of love and gratitude.  "Eres cansada?" she asks.

"Si. Un poco. Y tu?"

"Si. Descansamos un poco, si?"

These non-reclining seats are uncomfortable, but I think I shouldn't have a problem falling into that altered state of consciousness, between sleep and awareness.  I've gotten used to it.  I kinda like it.  She is trying to find a way to rest her head.  I tell her she can use my shoulder.

And I sit straight up, close my eyes, and thank God for this beautiful encounter.

Alhamdulillah! 

"One Love.
Let's get together and feel alright!"

Soft Revelations

A few shots form my day trip on the Bosphorus...

Finally... the sun shines!

The ruins of Yoros Castle mark the confluence
of the Bosphorus and the Black Sea.

It was built BCE and used by the Phoenician and the Greeks,
later occupied by the Byzantines, the Genoeses, and the Ottomans...

That, my friends, is called history.

I don't understand how the architecture is so modern!
I heard of a "Great Fire"... maybe they rebuilt everything at some point.

I read somewhere that the difference between the traveller and the tourist is that the latter seeks comfort, while the former seeks discovery.

What have I been seeking here in Istanbul?

I've had the comfort of staying with a friend who is a native and thus speaks the language.  I've slept on a brand new pull-out couch in brand new colorful sheets.  I've experienced the efficiency of Istanbul's public transportation, its modern everything, and a relatively easy access to the internet.  The food is especially delicious (although not cheap), and I happen to love tea.

Have I not really stepped outside of my comfort zone?  Is that what this lingering sense of disquiet is about?

I've been saying that I don't find Istanbul to be different enough.  I guess I was hoping that there would be more of a culture shock, since I'm so far from the new continent.  I was hoping I'd be confronted... and I've been bitching about tourism - in general - for a week now, unable to move past my frustration.  I worry that my writing has been redundant.  What can I say?  This is evidence that I've been working hard at processing somethings I couldn't quite put into focus.  
As always, I humbly hope that my blog can make room for others to go through similar processes.  We all have them, on all kinds of angles.


In this case, I now see how I've been standing in my own way. 

For my defense...

Istanbul is an expensive city.( And I have a lot of fears when it comes to money.)   It is particularly frustrating that I am regularly asked to pay more, just because I am a foreigner.  I want to tell them, "Wait! Just 'cause I'm visiting doesn't mean I have tons of money!  I'm not a tourist, I'm a traveller! Can't you see me, me, and not just some English-speaking wallet?!"

But I don't speak their language, so I can't argue.  

I am vulnerable.

It's tough, and humbling.  

I long to be seen as an equal, but I am different.  It's true on some level; I don't know what it's been like... I haven't worked amongst them, for the greater good of the region and its people.  Everything is give and take.  This is a basic natural law.  If I come here to take in the culture, I must give something back.  But it's been difficult.  I haven't come here to consume them.  All I want is to wonder, talk with people about differences and similarities, share a narguile perhaps.

Sometimes, I can almost believe that it makes sense for foreigners to pay more.  It's like a form of protectionism or something; "If you don't work with us, then you gotta bring something else."  But how much of this "protectionism" is based in fear, in xenophobia, in what I've come to term "reactive" nationalism?

When i talk about the realities of being a wanderer, that's what I mean.  Wherever I go, I wonder if people think just that: "If you don't work with us…"  So please note, I am not only talking about Istanbul.

As a joker, I work for all of mankind.  I work for the Divine (Not that my job description is clearly stated, but it does include the daily surrender of my ego.  Of course, I'm still very much of an apprentice.) How do I explain that, in Turkish?  Or in Czech?

So the truth is: I have been more uncomfortable than I've admitted to myself.  I've been more afraid than I like to think.  I've projected all kinds of feelings unto these people!

This is a modern secular country, but a muslim one nevertheless.  The Q'ran suggests that women cover their head; my hairdo is the opposite of modest, of "proper".  My appearance is screaming "other", at least, that's what the voice in my head has been saying.

Well... so be it.  I am fool of love still.  It is up to me to share my love.

So I took my juggling clubs this morning and I went to the park down the street from Ezgi's... right on the water.  And I stretched a bit, and I juggled for the Sun and the Water... and guess what?  I made more eye contact, shared more smiles, and said more "Mehraba!" than I might have in a week. :)

So what if my hair is different?  We all bleed the same red blood.. We all shiver and smile sometimes when music reaches straight to the heart...

Turkish band Alatav has refused to sell out to recording companies...
they make an offering of their soulful music in Taksim.

Random trivia:

There are no sidewalks in Istanbul.  (Well... there are, but people just don't use them.)  Cars, motorcycles, pedestrians, stray cats and dogs just dance a crazy dance all together.  One gets to walk in the middle of the streets, but one's gotta be alert.

Yes, one's gotta be alert...

Priceless

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Books about Istanbul !

Humming with Allah

The sun came out today!! The sun came out!!
I mean, I finally saw Istanbul in the sun!

It's been an interesting time here.  I've been having mixed feelings and I notice that it's been easier to write about the rougher parts, i.e. the politics, the sociological, the economy, the loneliness (wait, I didn't really write about that did I?)... Yet, I know that, if these things are bothering me it's because they reflect some shadows in my consciousness... but I'm not going to go there right now :)


I do want to say, that it's been good: this fullness of feeling, this getting lost (I walked for over an hour in Kadikoy by myself last night, nonchalantly but so very lost!!), this facing the reality and implications of my place in a foreign society as a nomad and as a stranger.


But I have also had powerful moments of being with/in All-ah.  I did end up visiting the Blue Mosque yesterday.  It was a powerful experience.


Funny how I've grown to seek out and enjoy churches.  I never thought I'd feel this way when I was a teenager, and into my early twenties.  I do remember the first time I let myself be touched.  It was in Cuba, in the church of La Caridad del Cobre (the santeria goddess Ochun in Cuban syncretism).  Since then, I've had my own personal relationship with "houses of God".  I could focus on the wrong-doings of many religious institutions, but I'd rather see those temples as places where people gather to remember, to celebrate, to reinforce the connection between them and what's greater than us.




I had that feeling in the Blue Mosque.
It was a different set up: no benches, no tabernacle, no crucifix, no high standing priest!  Instead, there was only a huge carpeted floor space (we didn't have to do ablutions, but everyone had their shoes off) underneath a dazzling dome.  Visitors were not allowed in the center of the mosque where muslim men go to pray.  (Muslim women have their own section, which is on the side.  I'm not sure how I feel about that part but I'll let it go for now.)



I walked slowly, my eyes fixed on the exquisite calligraphy on the high vaulted ceiling.  I listened to the sound of space, the silence of awe, and the laughter of a few young children who ran around.  Then I sat on the ground and closed my eyes for a while.  I breathed, I smiled... I imagined a large group of muslims answering the call for prayer and gathering in that glorious temple, kneeling down shoulder to shoulder, reciting the Q'ran in unison... And suddenly a song grew inside my body.  I was humming, feeling the likeness of my body and this mosque... sound, vibration... spirit vibrating inside matter.
My body is a temple.

in Istanbul waters

The Bosphorus.

I have been in Istanbul for about five days now; and it has been cold and rainy throughout most of it.  It's a shame, because this historical city must be quite gorgeous in the brightness of the sun.

Drinking tea on the ferry.

Oh well. can't control the weather!   And besides, there are lots and lots of warm little cafes to sit in and drink tea (Turkish people drink a lot of tea!).

I gave another chance to the touristic neighborhood of Sultanahmet today, with the intention of visiting the "Blue Mosque" and the "Grand Bazaar".  I was looking forward to interacting with the place and the language on my own, without the help and translation of my friend.  I was also very much looking forward to getting lost in those myriads of narrow, sinuous streets that make for so much of Istanbul's charm.


I left the apartment around 9:30 and walked down the hill to the Bosphorus, which is the strait at the heart of Istanbul and thus her main feature.
I found a street vendor and finally got myself one of those Simit: a "Turkish bagel" covered in sesame seeds, which I found out today is served with fresh creme cheese and olive tapenade!  "Teşekkür ederim!" I said to thank the young man before hoping on the ferry boat that would bring me from Kadiköy ("Asia") to Eminönü ("Europe").
Then I sat on the ferry and observed, as subtlety as I could, the locals' appearance and behavior.

I'd say that, despite being halfway around the globe, I haven't felt especially unsettled or culturally shocked so far.  Everything looks modern, western... thank you Atatürk (details below).  Some women wear the hijab, many don't; it's pretty much just like Montreal!  As seems to be the case wherever I travel, what is most other to me are the food and the language.
Otherwise, it's the same souvenirs stands, only with a different flag.  It's the same hopes for deep human connection, and the same frustrations about the commodification of our traditions and cultural crafts.

Warm "castanes" on a rainy day...
4 Turkish liras = 100g.

I sound jaded I know!  My apologies, 't must be the rain, 't must be my unresolved feelings about the phenomenon tourism.  I'm sitting in this pub near the Blue Mosque (It was closed due to prayer) and I'm waiting for the rain to calm down.  I'm hungry.  Every price on the menu is almost thrice as high as it is in residential areas.  A minute ago, the waiter cleared the table of two American women who had each left an entire kebab with rice on their plate.  Man! I wish I was a shameless scavenger sometimes...

I walked through the Grand Bazaar for a time.  Carpets, stones, flavored tobacco, baubles, silks.  I remembered the markets of Oaxaca, and those of Sao Paulo.

Grand Bazaar

There are, of course, lots of little marvelous things I enjoy about Istanbul.  For instance, most pubs (although maybe not the ones that are cathering to tourists) apparently have only one beer on tap!  No need to make hard decisions between three kinds of IPAs and amber and lagers... you just ask for the desired size!

 And I must say that those pubs Ezgi brought me to are quite beautiful.  I haven't been particularly astonished by the architecture here (except for the mosques!), but the interior of those pubs, which are often built on three or four floors, are just astonishing!

Spanish gypsy music in Moda.

Ceramic fireplace!

I also very much like the bag-down-the-window system, whereas people living on the top floors of buildings send a plastic bag down their window for merchants to fill with their order!

Simits on their way up!

gotta go there..

I've been enjoying the conversations Ezgi and I are having.  We are both in a place of stepping into our own authority, and thus into adulthood, trying to bridge cultures and integrate our "San Francisco self" and what we have learned at CIIS with the realities and needs of the greater world.  

Also, Turkey's history, its politics, and its collective psyche has been a recurrent topic.  That's because we get inspired - or should I say "triggered"? - every time we see the portrait of Atatürk... which is virtually everywhere: apartment lobbies, stores, offices, etc.  Why?  Because he is considered the father of the republic.  And also, because it is the law that his portray should be in public offices.

Mustafa Kemal "Atatürk" greets us every time we come home.

Atatürk became the first president of the Republic of Turkey after having led the Turkish National Movement during the War of Independence (1923).  The Allies had defeated the Ottoman Empire and were now occupying its two most important cities, meanwhile talking their ways towards some sort of treaty arrangements.  But Atatürk rallied the people and eventually had himself elected as the head of the "Grand National Assembly", or Turkish Parliament - even though there was no actual republic yet!  For a time then, there was actually a diarchy (dual rulership) situation, and somehow, after some more warring against Greeks and Armenians, etc., the Nationalists obtained their sovereignty.

This is a simplistic summary.  I only wanted to give a bit of background so we could situate ourselves, as I'd like to muse over the concept and intricacies of Turkish nationalism.

(Oh nationalism! Always a lively topic! Always nuanced and multi-faceted!)

But first I would like to mention a significant event in the history of this nation.

Beautiful twisted crucifix sculpture!
St-Anthony's Catholic church, Taksim.

During my undergraduate studies at the University of Maine, I wrote a research paper about the Armenian genocide which was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire.  Never heard of it?  Perhaps it's because the Republic of Turkey has refused to acknowledge the 1.3 million deaths as such.  They prefer to use the terms "mass deportation, or ... relocation".  But look into it... it would seem that German Nazis didn't invent gas chambers and extermination camps. 

This was one of the few things I knew about Turkey before coming here, so I was curious to see how the subject might be treated here.

Let's just say that I haven't heard of any memorial in Istanbul.  Let's just say that instead I'm told I shouldn't talk too overtly about politics.  Specifically, I'm told that I shouldn't question the legacy of Atatürk.  

He brought the gift of secular modernism to the people of Turkey; and without him there would be no freedom.

At least that's what a lot of people allegedly believe, and that is on both the "right" and the "left" side of the political spectrum.

I must say here: I don't like that spectrum.  

Pera Museum...

Anyway, the problem with nationalism is that it so easily gets misdirected.  It works alright when you come from the victims perspective.  It's legitimate maybe.  But when you get in a position of power, nationalism gets scary...

And so I'm learning about the situation and the treatment of ethnic minorities in Istanbul, and in Turkey at large.  The Kurdish people is the largest minority group in the country, yet their language, their music, their traditions have been banned in this country for years... all in the name of nationalism, of a common language for one nation-state... the gift of modernity.  The Kurdish people are also fighting for recognition in Iraq, Syria, and Iran...

Don't get me wrong: there is A LOT to celebrate about the Ottomans:

ceramics and mosaics, calligraphy and silks...

architecture and music...

Thank Allah!

This is all so interesting to me, as a Québécoise.

It makes me feel impatient to come back home and assess the situation there.  With so many immigrants and so many social debates, I can already imagine how much fun I'll have!

:)

Contemporary Turkish street art :)

Europe Smokes

It was disturbing in Berlin, living in an omnipresent cloud of cigarette smoke.  Inside their houses, their apartment, inside bars and train stations, everywhere, everyone smokes!  And as it turns out, it's been the same in Prague and now in Istanbul.

I even got on board for a while, seduced by that strange idea I got somewhere - movies? - that coffee (or wine) and cigarettes make for a good time.

Polluting one's body is not a good time.

Inhaling vitiated air, fighting for oxygen, feeling one's eyeballs dry up and itch, waking up with the breath of a train chimney… what's pleasurable about that?

Yet we do it, we roll and lit that tobacco like there is no tomorrow

Wait a second!

Is that why people smoke so much?  Is it because we believe there's no tomorrow?

I've come up with this loose theory that Europeans might have a more nihilistic/fatalistic attitude towards their health, because of they have that special flavor of existentialism, and that special relationship with the weight of history.  

"As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date.
And one perhaps nearing its end." (Michel Foucault)
(Istanbul)

When the streets you walk on have been the theater for corteges of emperors, and kings, for crusades and plagues, revolutions, trenches, bombs, dictators, and now still this heartless, ever-so-absurd neoliberalism… When your history is so blatantly filled with suffering and double-edged promises of "progress" … you might not see as much of a point in trying to keep yourself "healthy."

Nature and Civilization
(Berlin)

  When you know war first-hand, on your own land, you might have a harder time according importance to your own individual health.  You might even hope to die from lung cancer, before the atrocities happen again.

Smoking tobacco is not evil in itself.  Tobacco is a medicinal plant, after all.  Tobacco was used in ceremonies, in peace pipes that bounded treaties.  (I guess it has always brought people together, in a way.)  I'm all for medicinal plants. 

We gotta take the power back!
(Leipzig)

But I'm not too sure about tar, DDT, arsenic, cyanide, and everything else!!  I'm not too sure about the ethics of Malboro, Gauloises, and Camel.

In these times of truth speaking, of demanding for accountability and of acknowledging the gap in power dynamics, I wonder… why are we giving away so much of our will-power to them?

Why are we giving away our desire and ability to take care of ourselves?  Why are we following tobacco corporations down the dark sooty  tunnel of decay and death?  Why are we so eagerly contributing to the pollution of our atmosphere, treating our bodies the same way we treat the planet?

East Side Gallery
(Berlin)

I know, it's far from easy to quit.

Addiction is a phenomenon to ponder.  It is everywhere in many forms.  (We'll talk about sugar in a future episode.)  We tend to see addiction as a personal affair, but it is also-so-social... and in the case of tobacco, so gregarious.

I don't want to romanticize cigarette smoke anymore.  I don't want to feel the inside of my body turning black.

Yes indeed, a behavior reflects a state of mind.  Sometimes I imagine myself as that weightless stream of smoke, going up into the ether, eventually dispersing, free.  Somehow, I associate smoking with freedom; with taking a vacation from the buzz of modern life.  

Sometimes I need to regroup myself, get out of the crowd for a moment, be with my thoughts and feelings for a moment.  I don't need to smoke a cigarette to take that break, but for some reason that's the normal thing to do.  Sitting alone on the curb looking at the stars would raise too many questions on my state of mind.

Finally taking time to write these thoughts down,
(Thanks, perhaps, to rainy Istanbul.)

I've been feeling a bit alarmed, obviously.  I've been dreaming of clean air.  I wonder if there exists a city where it is easy to take care of one's body/self.  I could use their momentum.

Because everything is habit.

Everything is habit.

merchants

Marchant

dans une cité de marchands

Ancien village portuaire

marché, bazaar, péninsulaire

Une culture jadis nomade

de chevaux, de tapis, et de sabres

De sultans voulant coloniser

ces terres stratégiques

profitables

Jadis nomades,

d'un coup de force

Ils établirent les citadelles

montèrent la garde

et défendirent leur port

pour défendre leur art

celui du commerce

celui de l'échange

Eating "Fish and Bread" on the water... 

One of my favorite sights
they are everywhere
ready for your ablutions

Don't get me wrong

If I "ponder" a lot

If I "ambivalence" a lot.

I am deeply in love with this Experience

I like this wandering and strolling

in the meta-physical bazaar

where I don't understand what people are saying

where I hear cryptic sounds

spilling out of their mouths

hands moving, smiles 

and bursts of laughter

Babel, animated,

While I sit watching,

Full of wonder.

And I can newly see

that my daily interactions, as a tourist,

as a passerby, an other

is also an opportunity

to engage with strangers

to see into an other

and to let them see me  

But they ask:

"what do you do back home?"

And I explain that I'm in between homes,

that I'm searching,

that I have studied... life

that I'm still studying.

And they say it's a good life

and they envy me. 

"If you only knew…"

says a voice inside

The path of a joker is no pleasure cruise

although it is blissful

it is also lonely

What do I do?

I translate, I mediate,

I meditate, I write...

Inside the Great Palace.