The day I leave Konya Shams does some magic

I wake up moaning from a dream I forget as soon as I open my eyes and jump out of bed, grab my tablet and do my online check in and proceed with packing. Then breakfast. There’s this guy I saw yesterday too. Tall, firm, dark hair, beard. Something tells me he might be a journalist. When I get to the cheese section with my plate, he comes and stands close behind my back. Just like yesterday. Yesterday I turned smiling and made room for him to come next to me so he can fill up his plate, only to be refused and shown by a quick hand gesture to carry on. So today I don’t bother and just attend to my plate, feeling his presence in the room and his invisible touch on the back of my neck, under my hair being held up by two bobby pins with round shaped blue and black gems at the end.

I resume my seat next to the window. This time the room is full and some women wearing scarves wrapped around their heads are also here, still outnumbered by men. The TV is on again and everyone is watching the news, so I decide to crawl out of my autism and join them. Nothing to be worried about: arrests being made, police officers beating up people, protests, street explosions, a blast in an apartment building, speeches, riot police marching. I have no idea where all this is happening and I am not sure I even want to know. Wherever it is, it’s too close.

“Postane?” I ask my fat bearded receptionist when I finish breakfast. “I want to post some cards…”

“There, but is closed today. I think… But I can help you. Monday.” he says , looking directly behind my eyes somehow.

“Tesekkur, evet. I go and check now and if it is closed I will leave them with you. Tamam?”

“Tamam”, he replies and we say our goodbyes and, as I get out into the street, an old man speaks Turkish to me, so I know I have become a Konyan. At least partly. This, too, is one of my homes now.

I get to the post office and find my receptionist was right, so it will be the second time in Turkey that I leave my postcards to be sent by a receptionist after I am already back in Romania. I still have time before my flight, but I decide to go back to the hotel and write. Then I see this natural shop on the left and go in. I let out a sigh of pleasure as a smile warms up my face when I get in and dip myself in the mixed smell of spices and herbs and oils. Did you know that the Turkish word for ‘mixed’ is ‘karma’, by the way?

It’s sunny and quiet as I come out of the shop and the thought of visiting Shams again starts challenging my decision to go to the hotel. But we said or goodbyes, I tell myself. It is good to respect that. Yes, but you don’t know if in this lifetime you can ever come back here again. So now you are here. You have time. Go. And so I go. And as I’m walking to the mosque, I realize it’s my third time here this week and I’ve always come from the right side and went away on the left side, surrounding the mosque every time.

shams park                     shams mosque

In front of the mosque, just like yesterday, some boys are running and laughing around the ablution fountain, scaring the pigeons away. I take off my shoes and get in without covering my head again. I remember when I am already in front of the tomb. The atmosphere seems more peaceful today and I have a stronger and more stable sense of the energy here, bathing in rose perfume.

You have come again.

I have.

You are already whole.

I am.

What is it that you seek?

My love, send him to me. I want my equal. My partner. If he is already close, wake him up, remind him of who he is. Send him to me. I want to be found.

mevlana museum

I walk slowly and calmly back to my hotel, finish packing and then carry my suitcase down the stairs to the reception. The ‘journalist’ comes in right as the receptionist hands me back my credit card. We smile to each other and he hesitates for a moment before getting into the elevator. I ask the receptionist to call me a taxi for the airport in thirty minutes and then sit in the red armchair facing the elevator, planning to take out my tablet and work on my writing. The ‘journalist’ comes down a minute later and, when he sees me, he says something in Turkish.

“Sorry?” I reply.

From here on, it all happens very fast and I just remember he asks me if I want to have tea with him somewhere and I say yes, but I only have thirty minutes before I should head to the airport. I think we also talk about where each of us is from at this point, but I am not sure anymore.

“What if I take you?” he offers and I do have a brief moment of hesitation before my right hand reaches out to him and I introduce myself. In something like a fraction of a second, the following inner dialogue takes place:

“You are completely nuts! You are absolutely not getting into a car with a stranger again in this place!” my mind says.

“Have it your way. Anyway, you know exactly how it’s going to be: you’ll say no, of course, because it’s the sensible thing to say, and then spend the entire taxi ride to the airport wanting to go back to the hotel and, after that, both flights designing plans to jump off the airplane and, of course, the next few months (at least!) wondering what could’ve happened and trying your best to forget you were so stupid and said no.” My heart doesn’t explain all this actually, but gives me a homeopathic dose of the feeling projected over the whole film shown in fast forward motion. Less than a fraction of a second.

“Hmm… OK!” I am actually shocked and, at the same time, happy at the sound of my own voice. He happily picks up my backpack, says something in Turkish to the hotel staff, who are all gathered around a table in the restaurant, watching the whole scene with great interest and some of them even envy, and then we both get out.

“You haven’t learnt anything. ” my mind insists hopelessly as I get into the front seat and he apologizes for the mess.

“No, I haven’t, thank God. Now just shut up.” I reply.

“Let’s see, where can we have tea…”, he says trying to focus.

“In Turkey? Everywhere.”

“In Konya… You know, when I saw you yesterday I wanted to ask if you want to have tea with me, but I… It’s hard… I didn’t.”

I say nothing.

“You look Greek.” he continues.

“Do I? Everyone here says I look Turkish.”

“I thought Turkish at first, you heard I spoke Turkish to you at first.”

And we talk about our professions, the political context, our living situations, family relations, anxiety, my birthday, my bike fall, my travels, my writing and why I came to Konya and I don’t remember everything and we decide going directly to the airport is a better idea than finding a place in the city because once we are there we can be more relaxed and just enjoy our cay.

“So are you going to write about me?” he asks.

“I think I already have, to be perfectly honest”, I reply and check my draft, which I already started earlier this morning, and find it’s right in the first paragraph.

“I will read it later”, he says.

Our interaction is pleasant and whole, natural and honest, lacking the usual aggressive courting heavily infused with sexual tension I have got used to in most of my interactions with Turkish men. Moreover, it is not seduction that has brought us together. So I finally start feeling I am being treated like a person, not a mere walking sex opportunity.

“So why are you traveling alone?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, right. I would be afraid to go alone even to Bulgaria. And you come here alone. It is not safe here. People get drunk and have knives and there are fights after dark. I have this pepper spray with me, look.”

“Well, I am not usually afraid. Now it was a bit stressful, it’s true.” I reply.

“How old are you?”

“34. How about you?”

“What do you think?”

“The same. Or maybe 35?” I reply.

“I am 34. I was born in…

“1982” we both say at the same time.

“When?” I ask.

“The sixth month… June.”

“What day?” I continue driven by my insatiable curiosity. “20? Something with 2, right?”

“12”, he says and he doesn’t seem to freak out.

We get to the airport in a short while and he takes my luggage out of his car and then I give him my mobile check-in printed by the receptionist and he goes in and asks what time I should come for boarding. He comes back triumphantly and tells me we have two hours. So he puts my luggage back in his car and we drive to a nearby place. It is a nice restaurant and we are both here for the first time. We sit at a table for two next to the window and he asks:

“How is your stomach?”

I mean to say fat, but I just say it is ok and, when the waiter comes to take his order, I can’t help noticing that the waiter looks so much like Hamodi, my good Syrian friend in Istanbul, so I smile to him perhaps with a little bit too much attention, but really I feel like hugging him.

And I also can’t help noticing that we are both sitting at a table for two next to the window, facing each other, just as we were yesterday morning at the hotel, only this time we are finally at the same table. And I remember how this morning I regretted having put my coat and purse on the seat in front of me and thought I might have invited him to share the table and eat together, since the restaurant was full and the only free table he could find was right next to the huge TV screen. But I figured I was leaving today anyway and women don’t usually do that here. Not because they can’t, but because they don’t need to. Men around here still seem to have balls. And I want that. Not needing to make up for someone else’s lack of balls. Plus, I thought there is no point in forcing things and I reminded myself (as I always do) that life always finds a way.

The waiter brings cay, water and the same traditional desert I had last night with Merve. I get up and go to wash my hands and I simply notice, I just notice how I leave my purse with my phone and wallet with passport and everything on the chair in front of him. When I return, we enjoy everything together and talk.

He asks if I have eaten some traditional Konyan food and tell him I am a vegetarian. He asks why.

“Well, long story”, I reply.

“Long story and you think I wouldn’t understand”, he says reading my mind.

“I will show you a poem from Mevlana to Shems, so that he doesn’t leave him”, he says out of the blue and picks up his phone and types something. When he points the screen at me, a video starts playing. “But it’s in Turkish”, he adds. We watch a few seconds of it and then he gets the idea to find the poem in English so that I can read it.

He hands me his phone again and I barely get to read the first two or three lines and I feel something is changing dramatically in the atmosphere. I look up and ask if he is OK. I feel a sort of agitation and very ample movement, like spinning. In the beginning it feels like the tension preceding an earthquake, but then the movement is much more erratic, not only vertical and horizontal, but more chaotic on account of what I perceive as fear of letting go, of losing control. He is clearly affected by something and is struggling to keep it all together. I remain calm and ask the question again. He answers in Turkish, gets up in a rush, spilling the water glasses on the table and over his phone, a few drops landing on my trousers.

The waiter comes and accompanies him to the exit. Before getting out, he looks back at me and makes a reassuring gesture with his hand, telling me to relax, stay there and wait. And I remain calm, wipe the water off his phone with a tissue and continue reading the beautiful poem, wondering if I can find it in my book as my mind makes the connection between these lines, in which Rumi’s asking Shams not to leave him, and my complaints about his absence as I was visiting his tomb.

When he returns, he has washed his face and it’s wet and he keeps apologizing.

“It is first time, never happened to me before, I don’t know what this is, maybe tension, I don’t know, I have anxiety. I am sorry.”

“Have some water”, I advise him smiling calmly. I want to squeeze his hand and help him get down on the ground again, but at this point I don’t. I am just witnessing. And I have no doubt that nothing is wrong.

“Let’s go”, he says, “when I stay here my head is spinning again.”

“OK. Let’s get out of here, the air will be good. You are OK.”

“Daniela, I am so sorry. I am sorry. Daniela… Daniela… Where is my car?”

“It is in the back, let’s go this way.”

“It never happened before.”

“You haven’t met me before”, I reply and make him laugh so now he is more relaxed.

” Where is the car?” he asks again.

 “Where is my head?” I reply.

“Where are we? Who am I?” he continues and we laugh.

Having exchanged contact information, he now drops me off at the airport, complaining about my heavy suitcase as he is carrying it inside.

“Sorry, it’s not a Turkish guy”, I tell him so we laugh again.

konya airport

As I continue working on my blog post after the security check, I lean back in the chair at the boarding gate and rejoice in the silent and relaxed atmosphere of the Konyan airport.

konyan airport

The guy at the security check even insisted I should keep my water bottle. All my previous tension is history now and the atmosphere has either cleared or I cannot be bothered by its heaviness anymore. When I get in my seat on the plane, I start feeling the same rose smell as in the Mevlana museum and Shams’ mosque. Suddenly, I hear a girl at my back say in a British accent:

“It is your destiny, you can’t escape it.”

The weather is perfect and taking off makes me a bit high, as it always does, and I enjoy it like an addict taking a dose of his drug. On board service soon starts and everyone is relaxed, no one talks loudly, we smile to one another and I take pictures of the sky. It looks like a snow covered field, making me dream up plans about this winter.

flying above the cluds

“Istanbul”, I turn and say it to the big girl on my right as we have come down through the thick layer of cotton above the city. And I purposely stress the ‘a’ and add some air around it before I allow the other sounds of the name to slip out on the water slide my tongue curves into.

img_11321

“Istanbul”, she repeats returning my smile.

“Guzel”, I add, this time stressing the ‘e’ like licking a lolly pop.

“Cok guzel”, she corrects me, her face lit up by an even warmer smile.

At passport control in Istanbul, with a big smile on my face and the rose perfume still in my nose, I get to this desk where a guy with a purple right eye checks my passport. And I think it is just too funny a coincidence and can’t help laughing and pointing to my purple right eye.

“Merhaba! We both have a purple right eye, look!” I say and close mine so he can have a better look.

He listens and takes out his pistol from his waist to show me how he got it, explaining everything in Turkish. Then I tell him about the bike crash, but I am not sure he gets it.

” Daniela… Daniela… Daniela… I am not handsome, Daniela…” he adds, composing the beginning lines of his first elegy.

We wish each other the best, like two brothers in arms and then I catch a glimpse of the most beautiful red sunset before it takes me almost one hour to walk through the entrails of the huge airport from the quiet domestic arrivals to the busy international departures, where I struggle to find a WiFi  connection.

red sunset

             attaturk airport international departures

The first time I hear someone speaking Romanian I think “Oh, how nice, they are going to Romania!” I feel I am not and it takes me a moment to realize I actually am. It feels as if I were just passing through, that it’s not really my destination. I feel I am on this long journey, going somewhere very far away. Such a strange and strong feeling…

plane view of istanbul by night

The plane takes off in Istanbul and I am looking down at the beautiful lights and taking photos, thinking that we all get this impulse to arrest moments, as if simply living them is never enough. We cannot just look at the beautiful lights and enjoy the feelings they awaken, but need to make them our own, to possess an image of them, frozen, stopped in time. A moment that is so fleeting and so artificial in its death caught on camera. We arrest impressions of time passing in an attempt to create permanency. Only that never really happens, everything keeps flowing all the time. Whirling.

 And I keep repeating I my head “the Istanbul of my dreams, the Istanbul of my dreams” and I remember my friend Hamodi calling me earlier today, before checking out of the hotel, reassuring me everything will be all right by telling me that I will always be safe in Turkey even if there was a war because “everyone loves you here and you have a friendship with the dangerous things”.

My last day in Konya and Turkey goes crazy again

Although I was planning to sleep longer today and I feel like hiding under the duvet rather than getting out, the stories still tossing about inside me, struggling to survive like fish out of water before they receive their words, wake me up at 7.30 and, despite my repeated attempts to ignore their impulses, eventually they pull me out of bed and soon my fingers are typing, weaving the new clothes my mind is tirelessly designing for the stories lined up around me.

The street and the air-conditioning noise make me think it must be raining heavily before I actually pull the curtain and notice it is a sunny day. I need to make plans and write and send postcards, meet another nice girl from couch surfing later on and let her take me around. And, yes, Rumi and Shams one more time.

The second half of yesterday in Goreme (a story I have not posted yet) is still haunting me and a part of me is still struggling with what seems like a bit of a trauma. That gives me something more to work on, if I didn’t already have enough. And it is still so fresh I am not entirely sure I know what to make of it yet, so I just ask my angel to help me make sense. And remember to thank him again and again.

I go down the stairs and notice the weird shape of the reception on my left and the breakfast room right in front of the stairs. I realise I must have been really tired last night not to notice absolutely anything. I stop at the reception, placing my hands on the stone counter and ask for my passport back. The fat bearded receptionist asks me my room numbed and then hands me back my passport.

As I turn and walk into the breakfast room, I soon notice I am the only woman there. Except the all male staff, three other men are having their breakfast. They all look at me as my painful knees only allows me to take small, carefully placed steps across the room. The open buffet breakfast selection is generous enough and I am happy about the fresh fruit, different cheese types and parsley plate.

As I sit down at a table for two next to the window, I get so cold I need to take a sip of hot cay before touching the food. On the wall on my right there is a huge TV screen and everyone, including the staff, is watching. I don’t usually pay attention to the news and I don’t watch TV, but now I feel I should try to make out what this is all about. I cannot understand Turkish, but I see Erdogan giving a speech, his facial expressions so cold and sharp, and then an image of him shaking hands with Angela Merkel, followed by images of street shooting, explosions and something about terrorim.

I resent my autism for the political world and for the first time since I left Romania I want to know what is going on. Facebook and WhatsApp are not working this morning and that makes me uneasy. I remember my decision to come to Turkey now was largely based on my feeling that things are going down fast and it will not be so easy to come here anymore. I do hope I am wrong. When I come back to the room, I do a Google search and become a member of the society again. Although I still have no access to Facebook and WhatsApp. I feel I want to go home. I finish my post about the drive back from the caravanserai, write postcards with random Rumi quotes from the poetry book I brought with me and decide to head out into the city again.

Excuse me, do you know why Facebook and WhatsApp aren’t working?”
“Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter. All finish today in Turkey”, the fat receptionist tells me. “But is ok”, he adds when he sees my face flaring up as my worst fears are coming true.

I find a way to communicate with Merve – the girl from Couchsurfing I am supposed to meet later: I send her a message using the couchsurfing app, telling her (as if she didn’t already know) that WhatsApp and Facebook aren’t working. She quickly replies: “At 4.30 pm I will come to nun hotel😉 unfourtanetly these arent working cause of political troubles anyway if you need sth write me here best see you😉.”

I can hear the muezzin as I am getting out of the hotel to go to Mevlana again. This is not the adhan. I have been here long enough to know that. It is too long. I’m feeling anxious and every loud noise is making me nervous. I look around carefully and curiously and I am happy I am not hiding in my room like a mouse.

I picked a bad time to be a writer in Turkey. I quickly evaluate my situation: I have just upset an influential hotel owner in Goreme who used to be a cop in Istanbul and brags about owning a gun and doing cocaine, informed me he has a copy of my passport and my fingerprints, along with perfectly valid DNA samples and threatened to stage a crime for me so that I won’t be able to leave Turkey; all with a smile on his face. (Did I decide to solve all my karmic issues by the end of this year, by the way? I wonder…) Let’s go on now, that was not everything: I am a single woman traveling alone in Konya, the most religious and traditionalist city of Turkey, where almost nobody speaks English. But let’s not get paranoid, shall we? I made an unfortunate choice of European clothes. Otherwise I look Turkish enough. Though I am not sure that is so good now, either… And can say ‘hello’, ‘goodbye, ‘thank you’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘honey’. That should do. So I hide my map in my pocket, put my leather purse in my backpack and head to Rumi. This is a holiday, after all.

So many people outdoors on their knees praying in front of mosques. I guess it is simply prayer time and the mosques are too small for the big number of people praying. I have never seen that before and take my phone out and take some photos. I cannot help thinking about writing. Tomorrow is not so far away and I will return home in one piece, inshallah.

There are many more people at Rumi’s tomb than on Moday. And I let the quote above the gate lead me inside: “This place has become a Ka’bah for the lovers of God. The one who comes here with flaws has now become completed.” I now walk before his tomb completed.

As much as I like going to places for the first time, I absolutely adore it when I arrive for the second time. It is like a bonus and I can have a better, more quiet experience once the rush and the excitement that accompany the first experience have settled. Rumi fills me again and my chest becomes round and light like a hot air balloon, taking me up.

When I get out of the Mevlana museum the crowd praying in front if the mosque has scattered and it is quiet again.

I cross the street to pay another visit to Shams. As I get to his mosque, some kids are trying to sell me tissues and as I hurry inside I forget my shoes on and they quickly help me remember. Then, after a few minutes in front of his tomb, feel I have forgotten to cover my head. As I am pulling my hood over my hair, I see from the corner if my eye the kind, blue-eyed man heading towards me and suddenly changing direction as my hood is finally covering me.

I am not sure where I got this image of Shams as a tall, thin, bald man, wearing black. It is more than just an image. I can feel his presence. The strongest man I have ever felt. And the most free. His strong, black eyes looking at me and through me. I can only address him as ‘my love’. That clock on the right side of his tomb makes me cry again. Measuring absence. Why do we do that? I complain to him a lot about his being away. It is so hard to leave again.

Carry me, my love. In your strength, I can be weak.
You are not to be carried, my love. You are strong.
It is hard here without you. I don’t want this strength. I want you.
I am you. I am inside you. You are me. Go. You are never without me. It is not here that you will find me. But in your heart. In your eyes. In your hands.

I let him convince me and I finally get out of the mosque. It is a warm, sunny day and the fear and tension floating around cannot scare me anymore. I am a writer travelling in Turkey. Strike all the description I made above. I am free. I am strong. I am smart. And I am no threat to anyone. I do not fight wars. I have no ambition or interest in any conflict. I believe we are all very similar, our differences are merely geographical, which makes us allthe more interesting to one another. My strength is serving only love. And it shall never change its master.
I take a walk through the old part of the city and get lost in the narrow streets, lined with packed shops and loud buyers. My stomach is still protesting against the tension and tells me a better idea would be to avoid crowds, but I simply ignore it since I have not come here to hide.

I leave the old center and find the post office eventually. After a long line, I manage to make the lady there understand I want stamps for ten postcards, not just ten stamps regardless of their value. So after she gives me ten stamps and I pay for them, I convince her to give me twenty more. “Expensive”, she says laughing. ” Evet!” I almost scream back, thinking how difficult it is in this country to keep in touch with the rest of the world. There was this box in the post office and I couldn’t help thinking Turkey should get one, too:

I then get back to my hotel and release my knee for one more hour from the terror of the tight jeans. (Did I just write terror?) I lie in bed working on my blog as I am waiting for Merve. When she finally arrives, having driven through busy traffic and then left her car somewhere and walked to the hotel because the road was blocked, I am so happy to meet her in front if the reception, as if I were meeting a very old and dear friend and we hug and kiss and look in each other’s eyes with so much gratitude.

“So what’s going on?” I ask as we are walking to her car.
“Ah, well, political trouble. The news here said there was an attack, an online attack, and that is why Facebook and WhatsApp and Twitter are not working. And they are now trying to fix the situation.”
“Bullshit!” I hear myself say before I can stop myself and quickly add: “Sorry!”
“Yes, of course it’s bullshit.” Merve replies, making me feel more at ease now.
She’s about my height, wearing a scarf over her head and glasses and a long green coat over black trousers and purple knee length dress. She looks so beautiful and strong and I am feeling so lucky to be in her company. She tells me she is a doctor and has an exam in two weeks and feels rather anxious about it. We get to her car and I can’t help thinking I’m getting into a car with a stranger one more time. Although this time I am sure I have nothing to worry about.
She then takes me to dinner to this nice place next to a river and we also feed some cats and the ducks on the river. We talk about Romanian and Turkish and make a list of common words, while Merve is taking photos of us. Then we drive to Meram and have hosmerim, a traditional dessert, on a terrace with a bird view of the city. On the way, she suddenly exclaims:

“Oh, yeah! Internet is back! I am happy!” and my thighs can finally release some of the tension.

It is here that she hands me a small black box with a gift from her – a necklace and a pair of earrings, right after I get another “You look so Turkish!” from the waiter.

“I just like making people happy” she says.

We then make a stop at the mall and drive to Nari and pick up my luggage (I can’t help making a note of the fact that I leave my bag with my wallet and passport and everything in the car as I go up to Nari’s apartment to get my suitcase and I tell myself I never want to be so ‘careful’ that I trust no one; though, maybe, I should be a bit more selective, I admit) and then head back to the hotel. By the time I get to my room I am so tired and my knee is so upset I just want to pass out I my bed and forget everything. Tomorrow seems too far away. Oh, yeah, and again I get the precious advice to AVOID CROWDED PLACES. Right.

PS It looks like the images are not uploading, so I will have to do that in Bucharest.