The Hamam

Everyone seems to have a Turkish bath story. I have been to the hamam twice thus far; the first time in a hotel and the second as part of the Temal hot springs experience. The hamam makes me feel like I should be reverent, as if I am to experience a baptism of sorts. Yet while thinking about getting my entirely exposed body scrubbed to a pulp, I am anything but. This time, my friends and I have gone to a proper bath (hamam) and by proper I mean there is a pile of chopped wood to the left of the doorway, and we have to climb a precarious latter to reach the second tier changing room. The place is humble and low key, traits which the guidebooks often equate with authentic. Translation: it is not overly sanitized, no one who works there speaks English and the procedure for what the hamam experience entails is not made completely clear. There is absolutely nothing I see so far that reminds me of the glossy ads in TimeOut Istanbul.

I strip down to my underwear and put on old lady slippers. We are ushered in to sit by one of the sinks with old-fashioned handles shaped like spades. There are colorful plastic bowls and we are instructed to douse ourselves with water. You must follow the order (although what that is remains unclear), or face the wrath of the old woman wearing nothing but saggy underpants and a kerchief who runs the joint, as my friend found out when she tried to wash before her scrub. She was immediately reprimanded with a firm slap on the back. We splashed water on ourselves and laughed while our skin absorbed the moisture. I felt like some mystery meat that had been set out to defrost. Ah, the anticipation before the scrub...not exactly sitting in the waiting room reading People before your green tea facial, but this wasn’t Burke Williams.

I waited for what felt like forever. My pores looked open, my skin supple. I went from defrosting to a chicken basting in my own juices. I sat in my underwear waiting until it was my turn to lay face down on the marble.Finally, the lady screeched in my direction, which I guess meant I was up to the plate.

Her prune face placed her in grandmother territory, but her strong legs and vivaciousness put her in the middle-aged category. She was probably timeless, perhaps having spent most of her life in the steamy tranquility of the hamam.

She grabbed a bowl to rinse the dead skin flakes from the floor, and the motioned for me to lay on the heated marble. She then proceeded to scrub with the same mitt she had used on the previous moistened body. I knew I should’ve brought my own mitt.

She signaled it was time to turn with a slab of the thigh or back. I was on my back, stomach, and sides with an arm overhead in some version of a sexy cheesecake pose. She seemed pleased at all the grime that was falling off me like grey snowflakes. I had no idea I was so dirty. I tried not to think about bacteria or water bugs, or look at the old lady crouching in front of me. I found it oddly cathartic to watch my skin slough off.

I rinsed, I toweled off, and put on fresh clothes. When I went back to the changing area, I noticed a tiny window into the men’s side through which money was exchanged for water. This made me realize there could be many such holes coming from the men’s side or even the roof of the hamam. A not so comforting thought.

Despite the unconventional circumstances, I felt clean and refreshed in body and mind. Its amazing what shedding your old skin can do.

Promises, Promises (a belated New Year's story)

New Years does’t phase me. You can keep your champagne flutes and sparkily silver hats. I feel no need to engage in debauchery as one last hurrah before I go cold turkey on whatever vices delude myself into thinking I will give up on New Year’s Day. I am perpetually crossing lines I have made for myself, constantly repenting, and then drawing the lines closer, tighter, firmer.


Do: read more, eat less, be more assertive, be less neurotic.

I am always making resolutions, not out of choice, but out of obligation.

Be: organized, unassuming, cool as a cucumber.

Mine are not instantaneous transformations. There’s the one minute you’re a smoker the next your not resolutions – but the brand of resolutions I a m speaking of requires slightly more moral certitude and time. A history of actions , evidence that one can point to as proof of your new and improved self.

Learn: to cook, belly dance, speak more Turkish.


New Years gives us infinite second chances without having to repent , confess, or apologize. Even you atheist secular humanists need forgiveness. The slate is wiped clean and get a brand new box of crayolas to desecrate it with.

But what would starting fresh really entail? Can you esponge the memories? Reputations? Past lives?

Brush your hair, don’t let the dishes pile up, eat three meals a day, post your blog,
stay in touch, don’t take it personally, investing not spending, news not tabloids.

No matter how much you improve, you are still fallible.

Loose that last five pounds, renovate that old room, don’t loose your temper, say thank you and I’m sorry.

What exactly are you striving for?


(perfection)

You’ll never be perfect.

Cyprus

I went to Cyprus. As a tourist with an American passport, of course. I booked my trip through a travel agency. An all-inclusive package with cab rides to and from the airport. All that was left up to me was the in-between. I flew into The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey, and, by default, a place that does not exist in the eyes of the rest of the world. I had no agenda.

I saw all of Guirne by the end of the first day, which consisted of a harbor and a castle. The next day I went to one pool and two casinos. I immediately lost 20 lira on video poker. Afterwards I took advantage of the free drinks and an overly friendly waiter who offered me cigarettes with my coke. I refused but he gave me chocolates instead. A consolation prize, I thought. First place money, second place smokes, third place sugar. At the second casino, the power went out twice over the course of a few minutes. No one moved. I imagined the legalities, and then remembered I wasn’t in the U.S. Everyone stood silent and motionless waiting for the lights to go on. I imagined the anticipation of the high rollers at the roulette wheel and craps table. Listening to the dice or that little white ball plunk on their lucky number, knowing their fate was sealed but unable to divine the outcome from darkness. We tried to go back the next day, but they wouldn’t let us in because my friend was wearing flip flops. I didn’t mind.

I figured we should cross the border into the Greek side because, well, because we could. You can’t say that about every border between contentious nations. When I looked back into Turkish Cyprus, a sign above the concrete boat reads: Northern Republic of Turkish Cyprus FOREVER. Didn’t have the same appeal as Welcome to Las Vegas or anything. I walked into Greece.

We took a shared taxi from our hotel in Guirne to Lefkosa, the border city. From there, we walked past a park, past a pile of bloody sheepskins surrounded by a halo of flies (likely slaughtered recently during Kurban Bayram - the sacrifice holiday), past deserted looking stores and down a tree lined street toward red and white striped security hatches in the distance. When the Turkish army invaded/intervened (your choice - depending which side of the fence you’re on) in 1974 during the Greek coup d’etat, their actions were justified/rationalized (again, choose your own adventure) by this statement: "each of the three guaranteeing Powers reserves the right to take action with the sole aim of re-establishing the state of affairs created by the present Treaty.” I will leave this ambiguous and open to interpretation, as did they.

We arrived at what appeared to be a ship sailing in cement. Actually, it was just a white oblong building with circular windows like portholes. As far as borders go, I was unimpressed. It wasn’t the vast militarized desert I looked upon through a fence on the Israel – Lebanon border. There was no hurry up and wait or excitement that comes with the potential nefarious activities as when heading to Tijuana. A border is a neutral zone, a no man’s land, neither here nor there. In theory. In practice, they are highly controlled and defined. Anyway, I went up to the window and displayed my passport. The woman behind the desk looked at my face, then down at my passport, then up at my face again. Stamp, stamp, stamp, and I was free run for the border.

Mythologically speaking, Cyprus is the birthplace of Aphrodite. Goddess of beauty and love. I’d like to be her, especially if I could look like Botticelli’s version. I would straddle the border and distract the military until they no longer knew what they were fighting for. These days, Goddesses get about as much respect as the tooth fairy.Just beyond the border, we passed an incongruous Ivy League looking building surrounded by a fortress style brick wall. I would’ve guessed it had some official function, not only because of the UN’s olive branch seal on the doors, but because privilege and power are always hidden behind impenetrable walls. A coil of barbed wire snaked atop the wall like an elongated notebook spiral. Heavy chains bound the doors, and through the crack I saw an armed guard. Buildings that looked as though they belonged on a southern plantation and cars with ornate hood ornaments were interspersed with charred, dilapidated houses. I wondered if it was left that way for effect.

On the Greek side I went to Starbucks and McDonalds. I went to a department store that resembled every other department store in the (first) world to the currency exchange on the top floor. I was bored and restless and intrigued. Every move I made. How disgustingly predictable, how totally pointless, how to make sense of the fact there was nothing out of the ordinary to make sense of. What was I supposed to do? Grab the microphone from the grade school choir singing Christmas carols in Greek and start interviewing people on the spot about what really happened? I drank my latte.

So throw me a bone – a time machine, a crystal ball, fluency in five or more languages, so that I can at least have the means to tell you more than you can read on Wikipedia.

I like to shop and eat, and when that is over, I like to walk around until it is time to shop and eat some more. Then I can put another pushpin on my National Geographic world map (or that silly places I’ve been Facebook application) and tell everyone about fantastic times here, there and everywhere. Or I could simply tell you this.

Winter Wonderings

It finally feels like winter here. Yesterday the air smelled deceptively of snow, but it turned out the heavens were only brewing cold air and freezing rain. Unless it is the bone chilling cold of the winters I grew up in, I refuse to believe I need a hat and gloves. In my mind Istanbul is still the sweltering city I came to over four months ago now. This is a new side of the city; the hard to catch a cab, swaddled under layers of clothing, can-see-my -breath–so-cold-side. It is a sort of cold that is usually thawed out by Salvation Army bells and decorations in the Marshall Fields windows (before it became Macys) and shopping for presents that will likey be returned before New Years. In recent years the cold only means its getting dark earlier, there is slush on your good boots, and your bus is delayed, you’re eating more and worrying about getting fat, or feeling motivated to go to Bikram yoga to work it off and feel warm for awhile. I do not much like this cold side of Istanbul that lacks the perks of winters I know, but then again I’ve been chasing warmth for many years.

I am headed South tomorrow, but I don’t know if Cyprus will be to Istanbul what Miami is to Chicago. The holiday coincides with Kurban Bayram, which traditionally is a day for the sacrific of cattle. My students gave me chocolate and told me eating sweets is what the holiday is all about. I’m sure it is both, or neither.

At a British hosted holiday party, some Turks asked my American colleages what their Christmas traditions were. Going shopping? Gorging ourselves at the dinner table? The beach, someone offered. We go to the beach and toss the frisbee around. That’s a nice tradition. Anyone can participate. You probably don’t have to be of a particular sex or age. It does not involve the ritual slaughter of animals. It does not involve a particular set of beliefs, like reverence to the frisbee god or frisbee commandments. The closest thing to a tradition I can think of is celebrating my mother’s Christmas birthday. Traditions seem passe, don’t they? I could give you a litany of what Jews do on Hanukkah, or Christains do on Christmas, but as for myself, well, I am not sure if there are many things I did then, plan to do here in Istanbul, or will do in the future.

The value of a thing comes in its repetition. There is nothing intrinsically special about the act of hanging ornaments or lighting the menorah. It is sacred or special precisely because it has been done before; specifically with the people you care about.

I am working on Christmas day, but there are plenty of holiday parties and events to keep me busy. I went over to Joanna’s to put up her fake Christmas tree. We listened to carols and ate hummus and beyaz penir (a cheese similar to feta) sandwiches on olive cibatta. I drank tea instead of diet coke, and eventually got a cab home in the freezing rain.

For the record: I am not a fan of airing ones dirty launry in public. Nor do I find value in blogs that document every hangnail and heartache as though worthy of front page news. I know, I know, its the facebook phenonmena, but there is something to be said for keeping some things to yourself. See what I mean? Now you're wondering what they are....

So lets just not call this dirty laundry....I mean, its not really laundry if you fold it neatly and put in back in the drawer even if it has stains, right? So please, be my guest: examine my blouse with the coffee stains, my dirty gym socks, my skirt with the red permanent marker on the behind. I haven't sorted it into light and dark.

Why does a woman spends her Saturday ripping apart a chicken to make stock? Carrots, celery, onion, salt, bay leaf, and the bones of a dead bird. Headline: Former vegetarian retches as she listenes to sockets pop and wishbone snap.

I am running – to North Beach, from Santa Monica to Venice and back, down McCormick Ave past sculpture park, around and around the Claremont colleges, through the Cook County forest preserve where sparrow wings are smelts shimmering along the Bosphorus from Yenikoy to Tarabiya. I am moving on fast forward, or they are going in slow motion, the fisherman who raise up hooks of rows of floundering fish, their tackle boxes cluttering the walkway. They have the right of way, not power walkers, not families strolling, not the runner, me. Quick: a simit stand with fresh sesame rings to the left, a tea table to the right, a bucket with half-alive bait straight ahead, get out of my fucking way.

There are so many places I want to go: The teahouse up and around the bend, the place called Passion with cheesecakes.I stare at the plates but people think I am looking at their faces....but I won't go alone. Or I will, and then I will want to leave.

Now I am walking, in my baggy pants and bulky sweatshirt, as unattractive as possible. I plug in my ipod but I can't find a soundtrack. I can’t listen to Dixie Chicks...I can’t listen to Shakira...I can’t listen to anything I listened to in California...I start, I stop. I break into run, and there are cars parked on the sidewalk. I step off the curb, and a motorcycle comes zipping around the bend. I start running, and a family is coming. I run in front of cars because I will be waiting until next December if I expect the world to stop for me here. I run across streets, accross cobblestones, accross my students. A boy and a girl. They are sitting, sweetly, on a bench. They smile, I wave. They seem startled to see me as a person instead of a teacher. They are having a talk, but I can tell by their postures they are new at these kind of talks, the boy and girl on a bench by the water on a Sunday morning kind of talks. I want to sit behind them and tell them what to say. Will they break up when they leave for college? Are they even together? Will they think of each other fondly or grow bitter?

Now I am running again. Fast. Sweating, wearing an unsupportive sports bra, I take up as much space as I please as my arms pump back and forth an my legs keep time with the bicycle way down the road in front of me. Rollerbladers in oakley sunglasses are the only insects on the trail, and moms who just had babies inside now push them in strollers. I know every curve and when I get to the tree with the tangled roots I'm almost there. I'm almost there. Thousands of miles and amost there. There is no fear that I will get lost, or find myself in a neighborhood of headscarved women who watch. It would be presumptuous to say judge.

I know: I’ll see if they sell soy sauce and ginger at the Macro center. I know: I’ll buy a cake and invite people over to eat it. I’ll get coffee and read the paper. But not alone. I know: I will make something. Yes, that sounds like a brilliant idea.

I am tired. I may or may not do crunches. I will probably rush to water in the form of a drink or a shower. I will catch up on foreign affairs in this order: CNN, Time, Tabloid. I will admit to myself I perfer novels to news and I think fiction is more honest than the truth. I will get my book and read until I will scold myself for being unproductive.

I will eat simply because its time. I will not talk to anyone. I will grade papers. I will have an inspiration for a lesson, decide it won't work, and do it anyway. I will sit on an overcrowded bus. I will do yoga and remove all stress form my life. I will wait for a call from anyone that says they love me and miss me. I will wonder what I am doing.

Turk Everlasting

A woman fainted on the bus today. She was standing a few bodies away from me, holding onto the rail with a glazed expression in her eyes, as was I.

But that’s beside the point. I wanted to write about a quintessential Istanbul day: I ventured out on my own and bought some reeds for my friend’s Zurna (a Turkish musical instrument). On the way back I finally discovered where the famed freshly squeezd pomegranete juice is sold. I then finally made it to the Blue Mosque and Hağia Sophia, two of the most important sites that I am embarassed to say I have not yet visited in my three months time here. I bought some generic postcards, a pair of pants from a Nepalese imports store, and... and a woman fainted on the bus.

I can only write about the woman. Turkish buses are beyond crowded. When it is hot outside, it is hot in the bus. When it slightly less than a summer's day, Turks blast the heat, and therefore it is hot on the bus on cold days. I am lucky to find a pocket of fresh air to breathe, much less a seat.

I was lamenting my own tired feet when I saw a person laying in the narrow aisle. I didn’t hear her fall, but I felt a human wave flow toward me as bodies moved out of the way. One minute she was standing, the next she was not. Those surrounding her looked down at the body, the up at one another, giving each other the universal look for “oh shit.” Some people helped her up and place her in a seat. I wished I had saved my water bottle. I wished I knew more Turkish.

I did not know whether to look away. I was too close to ignore what was going on, too far to actually do something. I assumed that it was a routine faint, the kind to be expected from standing in traffic during rush hour on an overcrowded bus. I imagined seeing a look of shock, confusion, or perhaps even shame or embarassment appear on her vapid face when she came to and tried to explain to others what happend. Would she be the type to soak up all the attention, or would she feel ashamed and try to modestly brush it off?

I would never find out. A minute (or was it two? Or five?) and she was still unresponsive. She had her eyes closed, mouth hanging open, face catatonic and pale. There was a second round of confused looks when old buxom women who brushed her face with their wet-naps and gently slapped the apples of her cheeks could not elicit the slightest response.

There is always one: The hero. Nondescript, balding, public bus rider hero. He made is way calmly to the back of the bus. He held up a mirror to her mouth to see if she was breathing. I didn’t see it fog up. Other than that, he didn’t do much besides pat her on the cheeks a couple of times and orchestrate the passing of napkins and empty water bottles. He made a call on his cell and said something in Turkish that I didn’t understand.

It was a state of controlled chaos. My first reaction was to do something. My second was that I had no idea what to do, and if I did, how could I communicate that I was trying to help. I wondered if I should do CPR. I learned it, but could I remember it? Then again, maybe she was breathing. It looked like the man had the situation in control. People kept asking for water, and calling to the bus driver to make a wrong turn and go the direction of the hospital.

I had geared myself up for tune-out mode. Try not to bump anyone or look strange men directly in the eye. Don’t get pressed to death when the automatic doors swing open. Be ready to pounce on the first seat that opens up, unless there are frail looking old ladies around. I had successfully entered into the zone where I amthere but not really there. I was abruptly adusting to the fact there was a crisis playing out before my very eyes. I was surprised by the dramatic nature of it, but also the calm, as if we had rehearsed it and merely took our places: Woman passes out hankies, man calls hospital, girl in back stands and stares, thinking.

The bus took a wrong turn toward the hospital. The hero took of his leather jacket, scooped her up as if carrying a bride across the threshold, and barreled down the stairs of the bus as he presented her to the hospital, where medics were waiting with a stretcher. A number of people from the bus, including myself, followed him in to see what was going in. As soon as she touched the stretcher, they started wheeling her towards two swinging doors. The man shrugged his shoulders, and since I couldn’t understand what he said, I’ll pretend it was this: “What can anyone do now? My job here is done.”

Taking his cue, the rest of the passengers walked out, and we all went our separate ways.

I wanted to describe my glorious day off in Instabul, but a stranger's mortality got in the way.

Breaking Bread

This weekend I did something I thought I’d never do. Never in my wildest imagination did I contemplate something so delectable, so savory, so satisfying.
I baked bread. Ha.

Well, I had help of course. It started when my department head suggested that teachers (meaning the single females) come over for a day of bread baking. Although the idea seemed quite random, I was up for a challenge. The alterior motive of bonding and beating the blues of rain days in Istanbul just before the break made it well worth it.

I've baked bread a few times before: Once on a junior high whim with a friend who thought it would be fun to make the teddy bear bread recipe she found in a book, and a few times with my sister in an attempt to make challah for pseudo-traditonal Shabbat dinners. However, I certainly would not go so far as to say I actually know how to make bread. It always seemed like one of those esoteric skills known only by grandmothers who came from Eastern Europe or Martha Stewart types who always had matching napkins and placemats. Although my past attempts tasted good, they certain wouldn’t pass a taste test by a more refined consumer. Bread baking certainly did not enter the realm of modern woman who has only recently learned to use a chopping knife.

Alas, this was no Betty Crocker bakeoff. There were no aprons or hair nets in sight (okay, there was a rolling pin) it did not feel provincial or trite in any way. Along with my English teacher counterparts, we brought our ingredients to the spacious kitchen of our fearless leader. We had spent the week contemplating which type of bread to make, and by chance covered all the taste buds with our selections: sweet cinnamon raisin bread, savory garlic and herbs, aromatic olive, and my own simple challah.

We took our stations at the kitchen counter as our leader circulated and gave us pointers. “You’ll need a little more flour to compensate for the extra water” or, “put oil in the bowl so the dough doesn’t stick.” Cooking has both the creative satisfaction and the instant gratification of playing with an easy bake oven, making it pleasurable on multiple levels. I felt a carthasis of sorts as I kneaded the dough with the palm of my hand and, after it rose, deflated the sticky bloated dough paunch with my punches.

Baking bread is one of the activities I could just as easily do back home. I suppose there is noting intrinsically Turkish about spending a Saturday with friends baking and eating. Yet I cannot imagine standing in my friend’s kitchens in their small walk-ups or studios doing much else besides drinking wine and taking. I have come to discover my ability to discover here, to find new things not only in the cultural nooks and crannies but also amid the human connections I continue to form.