Love and Other Indoor Sports

Based on my last blog, you might be wondering: is she just a teensy bit bitter or something?

Um, I’ll get back to you on that. But first, let me flip a u-turn and show you what lies on the other side of cynicism.

Sometimes I think we are in the Golden Age of love. We’ve had a handful of social revolutions, and now slowly but surely we’re moving past the notion that there are those whom we are not allowed to love – whether this distinction be based on race, religion, gender, or any other dividing line. Not that love hasn’t always crossed boundaries (and broken them down) .

Believe you me, I love Love. I identify with Love. I’m almost certain Love and I have the same birthday, or at least Love must a Gemini too. If I had to be any emotion, I’d like to be an inexplicable force that makes no logical sense but opens people up and changes their lives. Love. What else could seem sweet and flirty one minute, callous and fickle the next?

At this point I must note a distinction: while I find the bullshit that seems to come part and parcel with relationships utterly repugnant (and no, I am not advocating free love, bootie calls, friends with benefits, polygamy, or celibacy) love is, without a doubt, the most incredible thing there is.

“But, oracle of love, doesn’t love make us want to be relationships? How can we be willing to die for someone and not want to be committed to them and have their babies?”

Um, I’ll get back to you on that one too.

I say this because I believe that no matter how heartbroken, how devastated, how certain you are that you will never ever ever love again, you have to have faith that you can and you will, even when you don’t.

I say this because that which has the power to eviscerate you even through your invisible chakras and slice you wide upon must, in some upside down cake kinda way, be a damn good thing.

I say this because while the gurus and psychologist are trying to work out some formula for what makes love work (common values + commitment + togetherness=lifelong love?) we all know its best to just listen to your heart.

I say this because that seems to be so utterly, painfully, catastrophically difficult, and I’d like to figure out why.

So dear friends, lovers, and weird strangers skulking around the blogosphere in search of intriguing new online buddies, this brings me in roundabout way to the conclusion, or rather, the beginning, that I’ve been trying to reach for the past two blogs now: How does love work?

It's not you, it's ME.

“Love lifts us up where we belong, love is a many splendid thing, love is all you need.”

Discuss.

I attempted to start a cryptic new blog under the pseudonym of Eros, Aphrodite, Agape, or something equally cliche. Just call me Dr. Drew and dial up my love line. Lonely hearts, broken hearts, wild hearts, even cold, sterile, impotent hearts are welcome to punch in my digits for a dose of amor.

There’s a slight glitch. Every time I contemplate some original love thought, Ewan McGregor prancing around in Moulin Rouge pops into my head. ...five, six, seven, eight...jazz hands! Crescendo! Hold that pose...hold it...now sing: “Never knew love could feel like this....” Suddenly I can only think of voule vou couce and other overplayed top forty songs.

So I’ll just cut to the chase. What I really want to say to all of you out there who are dealing with matters of the heart is something much more sentimental and well thought out: Get over it. Love is sooo passe. Self-actualization is the new partnership. Hole yourself up in an ashram, read some Sartre, set up a tent in Wyoming, find a mantra, and if all that sounds a bit extreme, just make yourself some green tea and read a little O Magazine. If you still really feel the urge to find someone, why fall in love the old fashioned way when eharmony.com has practically got it down to a science?

If you still don’t believe me, just consider your options. Even if you do find love, you will inevitably use one of the following ideological pillars to support your wimpy union.
First, there are those who proscribe to the opposites attract school of thought. These people generally tend to fall on either end of the behavioral spectrum and love to stew in their stale personal issues and fermenting neuroses. (Nothing like a cocktail of insecurity and inferiority with arrogance and narcissism to jumpstart a relationship)

Case in point: the introvert and the extrovert. This brand of relationship allows those who love the limelight a justification for their obsequious, attention seeking ways. Those who scoff at small talk can sit back and sip their beer, cosmo, pelligrino or whatever while their other half does the talking. They never gave a shit about the cyst you had removed from your armpit, and now they don’t have to pretend to care. This category also includes the people who want to date someone from the other side of the tracks, the globe, or the dermatological skin scale (from 1 for pasty albinos to 6 for the melatonin rich ebony skinned) merely because they love the idea of something different (fyi I am a 2-3 for olive with a yellow underdone). Yeah, using someone to make a statement or rebel against your upbringing is really healthy.

Then there are the peas in the pod – the people who complete each others sentences and probably have a dog they dress in sweaters during the winder and wear the same outfits from the Gap and have bizarre pet names like my honey bunny wonny zunny! My cinnamon toast crunch! My organic soft noodle! They always seem to have some inside joke that you are left to wonder about, therefore reinforcing their air of exclusivity and thus reinforcing the foundation of their relationship: “Yes, we do inhabit our own world and don’t you wish you could be on it? We have to keep telling ourselves we like each other, or else we’d realize we’re just in love with ourselves. ”

So while all this lovey dovey stuff sounds thrilling, I’d rather you gag me with a spoon first.

Men are from Turkey, Women are from Abroad

Here's one thing I really don't understand. Call me culturally insensitive, but Turkish men have a severe staring problem. I bear witness to this problem in a plethora of situations from swanky restaurants to seedy street corners. Although I would like to attribute it to my smashing good looks and supermodel body(clarification: sardonic humor, not narcissism) I am quite certain my physical appearance plays only a small part in the national pandemic I've coined staringitis.

This country is full of men. Sometimes it seems there are men and primarily only men - riding on the metro, loitering in the parks, working at the bakkals, walking down the street, scooting around on motorbikes. Yet for the hordes of men out there, there seems to be a massive divide. They are totally inaccessible and unapproachable, and often this gap is bridged by the palpable stare.

Although the stare is sometimes completely unsolicited, it generally starts if I inadvertently catch a man's eye. Sure, a misplaced glance could easily be misinterpreted as a come on in the proper context, say, a bar or a brothel. But when walking down a quiet street on a weekday afternoon? When glancing down the metro platform to see if the train is coming? On a crowded bus? Must my eyes have no resting place besides the searing gaze of a stranger?

Then, they stare. Not just a quick up-down-up-look away 'I'm checking you out glance,'but a full-on stare. No, not just a stare. A Prodigal Stare. Excessive. Visually indulgent. Prolonged. Persistent. Without blinking.

Then we play this silly game: I glanced at you accidentally or because I felt you staring at me, but because I caught your eye now you think I'm staring at you. Now you think I want you. Now you are staring more intensely. Now I look at you again to see if you are still staring. Surprise, surprise, you still are. Now its confirmed. I must be staring at you. The vicious cycle continues.

(begin internal monologue)
WHAT? Do I have a bugger hanging from my nose? Am I wearing a scarlet A or something? Okay I may be a little cute but come on. What is the purpose of such prolonged visual violation? I mean, really. What do these men think they are going to achieve with a passive stare? I'll approach them and say, "hey, I noticed you boring holes into my chest with your eyes. Wanna grab a kebab and make out"? Or am I expected to take a more subtle approach? Write my number on a cloth napkin and pass it along from table to table Junior High style?

Perhaps we Americans divert our eyes because we find such interactions too revealing, to real, too human. Perhaps deep down we are starers too and our true curiosity and shameless voyeurism is submerged under a false sense of sophistication and nonchalance. Is it more annoying to deal with the guy who tries to mask his desire to stare with furtive glances from behind a newspaper, or the one who makes no attempt (nor sees any reason to) hide his actions? Does it do any harm besides making me uncomfortable and excessively self-conscious?

Here's the thing. I like to survey my environment. I hate feeling that I have to keep my eyes glued to the floor just so I can avoid a potentially awkward interaction. I just don't get it, but maybe there is nothing to get at all. Maybe its just because they can.

Misanthropic Musings

In fourth grade each member of my class had a hermit crab. Mine and only mine managed to climb to the top of the Popsicle stick that had my name on it. Still in its shell, it traveled as far as it could possibly go. Is this an allegorical reference? Perhaps.

I gotta tell ya. This (the way I function day in and day out in everyday life) is not my normal modus operandus. Deep down I am still the same girl afraid to ask for permission to use the bathroom. Still, I am determined. To do what, I’m not quite sure. This weekend, I scoured Craigslist for something. Anything. I found a language exchange group, and decided to hit it up.

Let me reiterate: not my typical M.O. I am generally hesitant to meet people off the Internet. I mean, really. Its not that I think a freak awaits me at the other end of my wireless connection, but rather the awkwardness inherent in meeting people without context (besides a website). The Internet is a massive chasm that sucks individuality into its deepest crevices and reshapes it – via youtube, facebook, and my personal favorite, the white-out commentary on PerezHilton. Personalities are shed like dead skin, and with the freedom to put our thoughts out into the ether, there is no need to cower under the protective shield our “character.” The Internet has totally lost it edge. Its no longer seedy or desperate to meet people this way, especially for a wholesome intercambio/tandem/language exchange.

Not to say I am not cynical. What is a “casual conversation exchange in a relaxed atmosphere” could be a ploy for picking up naive foreign chicks. Or a scam to join a sales pyramid or something of that nature. Or, even if the other internet rovers are on the bright side of sanity, there are the just plan annoying individuals I’d rather not get to know: The socially inept. The emotionally vapid. The self-absorbed chatterboxes. Can’t forget those with intense body odor. To be stuck for two hours making small talk in a foreign language could be a wonderful learning opportunity.Or downright painful. Strangers are potential landmines. Don’t you wish you could dig a hole and crawl right in?

But...it was fine. Really. It took awhile to get a rapor going. To develop that witty banter. To know which jokes will hit home and which will hang in the air.

My anxiety and neuroses was the most interesting part of this story.

Title Untitled

I’m not quite sure what to make of any of it anymore.

Hillary and Obama’s faces are morphed on the cover of Time, a la Michael Jackson’s Black or White music video. Caitlin visited me and nearly got tear gassed on May Day. The day invokes fists in the air and si se puede and MELT (Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky – but I can’t take credit for the sassy acronym) and something profound about our right to a living wage, but since 30-odd people were killed in a demonstration in Taksim Square in the 70s, it has become the day when droves of protestors sporting pride and anger are met by droves of police sporting plastic shields and night sticks. And, apparently, tear gas. I am twenty pages into a novel, and I think I will always be twenty pages into a novel. Caitlin and I spent two days in Antalya on the Med coast, and now I’m not sure if I am a budget hotel sans hot water and a swampy green swimming pool growing pond scum girl or a five star resort with a private beach and choloates on the pillow lady. Suprise, suprise its the latter. My apartment is being fumagated for cockroaches. I am contemplating getting a motor scooter, specifically in hot pink or lipstick red. With taxes and parking I could take a taxi wherever I please for the same price, so the image of me speeding down the coast road with hair blowing in the wind will only be visible in the back of my mind. I’d probably end up in traction anyway. I can’t seem to find a decent kuafor (Turkish phonetic spelling) who I’d trust could conjure up a dramatic new look. Its confirmed – I can’t find a decent loaf of bread either. This week I’m cutting out sugar and alcohol. I’m still not sure where I misplaced Heart of Darkness, and for some reason I need it because I am surrounded by broken hearts.

A friend said something like this: the past gets closer the further away it gets. I don’t know why this is. Perhaps it has something to do with the buffer of experience that allows one thing (moment, event, person, image) to develop the magical nimbus of perspective. Perhaps only after the dust of a lifetime (and already there have been many) settles and he/she/it is still standing, we can fully acknolwedge the significance. Time is the proof that yes, it was important, and no, it will not fade. Its newly discoverd permanency extracts it from the past and plops in back in the present.
That’s why I hate to apply sweeping statments and grandiose conclusions to the stories of our lives. For example:
Question: How was it?
Answers: “A transformative experiece.” “An amazing adventure.” “The time of my life.”
Verdict: Wrong, incorrect, and wrong again.

We are all experts at applying headlines to the stories of our lives. That way, we can glance at the table of contents in another person’s eyes and go right to the part that interests us. I’m not even required to teach about subtext. No one bothers to read between the lines anymore. Nobody even bothers to read to the end, much less put the conclusion at the end. No wonder I am in a perpetual state of moral vertigo.

I know. Such summations, be it “it was great” or “it sucked” are necessary for the sake of conversation. Not every response can be a blog entry. But I worry. That if we unlearn how to respond, we unlearn how to empathize, we learn to no longer care, and we end up surrounded by our own broken heart.

FYI

Here are some things I have read, heard, or seen recently.

My body is not a machine, but a city of a billion inhabitants.
Rocks are at the bottom of the Great Chain of Being.
Some people can bend spoons with their minds.
On Children's Day in Turkey, all the flags come out. Thus, mine is the only balcony not dressed in red. Mine wears pink flowers instead.
They do not sell Matzah at Macro (favorite grocery store 1) or Migros (favorite grocery store 2), at least in my neck of the plowed-down and over-developed woods.
If you incorrectly type in your pin number multiple times, your phone will lock. Unless you have the card given to you when you purchased it (and who keeps anything these days? Pack rats are so passe) you will be banned from the joy that is text messaging. Forever.
I want to be the next Maureen Dowd. Make that Perez Hilton. Make that Joan Didion. Make that can't I get real pancakes in this country?
In the U.S., a Trojan is a condom, in ancient Greece is a warrior, in computerworld its a virus. My computer had thousands of them. Moral of the story: don't download music illegally.
Ultraviolence is a modern aesthetic. Think Tarantino. Think a slo-mo,exaggerated fountain of blood so graphic its spurting from the slushie machine at the 7/11. Think violence has become a narrative divorced from the pain and suffering it causes. Think a war can go on for five plus years because the beauty of mortar fire against the backdrop of skies that rocked the cradle of civilizaion is more aesthetically pleasing than Johnny with stars and stripes splayed over his coffin.
Tattoos are a way for people who don't want to bother figuring out who they are to stake their claim on individuality. I want one. But what? But where? Don't say butterfly on my back.

Sometimes I think I know nothing at all.

Transcendentialize Me

I did something I have never done in Istanbul.
Something I could've never expected or anticipated.
Drum roll, please.
Transcendental Meditation.
!
Allow me to digress into a moment melodramatic nostalgia, if you will.
In LA, spiritual practice and self-actualization practically comes knocking on your door. Despite LA's initial impression of a supercial fame whore, she (the city) has a a very strong undercurrent that cuts to the quick. There are a strong contingent of people seeking something real, even if the idea itself reeks of phoniness.

Anyway, I tried it all: yoga in its many manifestations (power, kundalini, Bikrams) guidance from a hand analyst, a channeler, and a chakra reader/healing bodyworker. Then there was the trip to Sedona to experience the energy vortexes and a plethora of mantras, affirmations, books, tapes, and books on tape. Finally, the capstone in my self-designed course on spiritual discovery: Vipassana meditation, a ten day course in the wilderness near Yosemite during which I meditated from sunrise to sunset and did not talk to anyone (well, accept my mother who thought I had been abducted by a strange cult.) Now it may sound as though I am rattling off a laundry list with a rather tongue in cheek attitude, but in all seriousness, these experiences were very meaningful. They were all part of an experiment, with myself as the guinea pig. Now that yoga studios are not ubiquitous and people make fun of me when I say things like I don't feel present today, it doesn't take precedence the way it used to.

In Istanbul, I had to to a little legwork to seek out the city's spiritual side. The metro let me off in an unknown part of the city. I felt like Dorothy entering an unknown realm(we're not in Istanbul anymore, toto). My friend Sarah and I made our way through the rush hour pedestrian traffic and, after getting lost only(which I consider a successful journey in this city) we saw it: Bright yellow letters amidst the ashen, pollution-caked walls of the city. A beacon of serenity in the chaos that is my life: transcendental meditation.
I discovered that transcendental meditation has been in Turkey for years. Yet somehow the two seem incongruous to me.

We entered and were ushered into a back room. I was told we were attending an information session, which turned out to be sitting in front of a televison and watching an informercial on an old vhf tape made circa 1985. 1-800-CALL-TM flashed at the bottom of the screen. I was initially intrigued by the actor's bad '80s haircuts and clothes. Did I really live through that? The video switched between testimonials from real people (with very bad hair) and scientific charts interpreted by the so-called TM experts. So it must be official. Just 20 minutes a day!
The information in the videos was much the same of what I've been exposed to in many of my aforementioned attempts at actualization: access to a boundless source of energy and creativity. A renewed sense of purpose and direction. Reversal of the aging process. The sense that you are refreshed and living your full potential.
The tapes told us everything about TM accept the technique itself. I asked if it was anything similar to what I'd learned in Vipassana meditation, and suddenly I felt like I was wearing a Sox hat at a Cubs game. "We don't like to mix techniques" the instructor told me. "Its like stepping into a boat and then putting one leg into another boat and trying to travel down the river. You just can't do it."
Uh huh. Interesting. So my legs are in about 15 boats.

I listened and found it fascinating, and therefore its hard to say why TM didn't appeal to me as much. Maybe it was the hefty price tag. Maybe its the energy of a different city. Maybe its that no one needs the East more than the West.
If anything, my reaction made me sad. Sad that I wasn't called to action the way I have been in the past. Sad about all the knowledge I once possessed that now seems to be relegated to the back of my mind, somewhere behind the Istanbul bus routes and all of my day to day worries. I remember the chakra reader telling me that I'd embarked on a spiritual path, and its not an easy one. It will be a long time before I see results. The channeler telling me I was in a five year cycle during which I was gathering all the important resources for what I would one day achieve. So perhaps results are not in. Perhaps I have yet to find out.