Mmmmm, We Might Be Friends

Well, Istanbul,

It's taken four trips, but I finally found where I feel at home here.

Yenikapı ferry terminal. Give me seagulls and a body of water across which I can't completely see (no, Marmara's not the Puget Sound, but it'll do),

and I'm yours.

Merry Christmas from the Sharon and Len Salvadors!

Dear Family,

I'm writing this because it's nigh on 10:00pm here, and as we're getting up for the bus at 6:00am tomorrow, we may not get a chance to greet all of you properly. The bus ride from Cappadocia to Bolu is quite long.

You came through, and you sent pictures! This was the one gift Mom didn't hold back for later.  Friday was the first time I got to see the Alaska trip picture book! Our godmother even took the time to make me a family picture calendar for 2013. I can't tell you how marvelous it is to see pictures-- recent pictures (Aunt Nancy, is that your birthday party?!)-- of all of your smiles. I now have hold-able pictures of the extraordinary Norah K., as well. Thank you for letting me keep up with these times in your lives. I know I'm missing out, but the pictures help.

Mom also didn't hold out on the creme wafers. It's two hours to Christmas, and there's still one left. Mom, Dad, and Spencer are all convinced it will have gone stale, but I'm going to eat it. There's no way to be a snob about this cookie: it's going to fulfill all my Christmas hopes and dreams (especially if it magicks my boyfriend here!). At two-days-to-twenty-eight, I'm realizing even more emphatically that there's just some things about your mother's cooking that you never quite get over.

The following pictures are of the people who've known me longest and best. I'm not one to make outrageous claims, but I'll just say this: after sleeping in the same room with these people for the last three nights, I can say not only that I love them, but also that I like them. 

Truthfully, I've re-learned some weird things about them, and I've learned some new things about them.

My younger brother has an incredible nose. As in, he smells everything. This is great when good food is sitting in front of him, but it's a real curse in a lot of other, more malodorous situations. Also, he doesn't know how to eat a meal without meat.

My father loves a chocolate pick-me-up, a good joke about his 401K, and taking photographs when he's happy. Don't keep him from his coffee, either.

Things Mom has said:

Mom: "I do not talk long. Dad talks long."

Jessica: "Keep going."

Mom: "Well, we used to visit Dairy Queen together..."

At 2:30am Saturday: "If I have to be awake right now, so does everyone else!"

She and I ripped a book in half, and she's already through the first half. So I'm giving her the second half because her reading's far outstripped mine. The best part of her waking us up in the middle of the night is the little lisp she gets.

It was Blondie's idea to go hot air ballooning.

I still talk in my sleep, I still notice certain things (secret pockets in jackets, certain subtle designs on Coca-Cola cans) slowly enough that Spencer gets to laugh at me, and I'm still that girl who's so obviously a dork that-- get this-- our hot air balloon pilot, Mustafa, whose first language is not English, when he was giving us our "flight certificates" at the end of the balloon trip, said to me, "You can add this to your C.V." What? Am I that appallingly dorky to strangers?

We've had some incredible adventures together: Turkish taxis, ordering hamsi, jet lag, Turkish buses, sarma, churches with snakes, underground cities, apple tea, gnome homes, and hot air balloon rides. But I think the greatest adventures come when the four of us sit down across a table from each other. We wait for a meal. We say things to each other. Or we don't. Or we laugh. Usually Spencer and I are laughing at our parents.

Everyone deserves to be loved and well-considered. At this time of year, and especially you, our friends and family, you deserve our love and consideration. You are in our thoughts! So, in all, dear family and friends, the Salvadors-- LennyBaby and Blondie (Sherry or White L0@7z if you're really trouble), Bug and Gus-- send you Our Christmas Love!

My Best Friend and I

Je: Remember that Gus Van Sant movie you fell asleep in-- it was about those guys who got lost in the desert?

Michael: That's the worst Gus Van Sant movie ever.

Je: It's my favorite.

Truth, Like Love

I used to get confused when some voice-- that of a real person I knew, that of some academic I was reading, that of the Gospels, or that of my paintings talking back at me late nights in the studio-- would encourage me to follow my truth. That in so doing I would be creating and upholding a working ethical code.

What is this truth, and how do I find it? I was out to get summa that.

If I'd spent more time pondering Rilke, I might've felt less compulsion for a road map to truth: "don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer" (Letters to a Young Poet, edition and page currently unknown).

Living the questions does not mean waiting. It means creating discomfort in your life. It means taking risks. It means enjoying dynamism.

Truth is like love (and, I want to add, chance in backgammon) in that you are capable of dealing with it inasmuch as you are [self-caring and] open to it. It knocks at your gate.

I might've just figured this out today:

1. An idea takes hold of you.
2. It persists.
3. You pursue.

There's more: sometimes you have to be courageous to take up the truth because sometimes it cuts against the grain of your daily life, of your politics, of your religious upbringing, of your social networking. 

I imagine it's worse if you don't heed the truth, but I can't be sure. I imagine that polite knock at the gate eventually becomes a battering ram that can't be ignored. And suddenly, in denying truth, you create a terrifying thing in your relationship to truth. Maybe when the gates crash down around you, you feel like you've failed, but really, in the words of J.K. Rowling (Harvard commencement speech 2008), you've just "stripped away the inessential". I know a little about this.

When something persists in your life, don't try to run right away. Take a good, hard look at it. It might be your truth, and you may have to get in that.

Doctor's Orders: New Power Dynamics, Beautiful Women

I ate at Çorbacı Mülayim twice today: ezogelin çorbası for breakfast in Düzce and mercimek çorbası for dinner in Bolu. Either I’ve got the blues, or I’ve got a cold. Or both.

But some other things happened.

I spend a lot of time here bossing other people around: my students, people who enter my kitchen, travel partners, people with whom I go clothes shopping, and etcetera. It may be my age or my aura, but I end up making a lot of decisions and telling people what to do. This is good because I often get my way, but I begin to tire of the energy it takes to plan and make these kinds of decisions. I’d like to be back in the kitchen I share with Erich and just be his sous chef.

So, when I get the chance, I relax and let myself be bossed around here. I don’t want to be exploited: I just want to give consent for others to have their way with me. Neriman hanım, my cooking class instructor, loves this. I’ll get to class a couple minutes early and she’ll demand I bring tea to the table. Tonight it was even better: the guy who runs grocery errands for the cooking class (there’s like a bazillion people there—I can’t know his—everybody’s—name!) shared a look with Neriman hanım and then told me to get tea for everyone at the table. What?! Now I’m getting bossed around by him?!

I was more than happy to get everyone their tea.

I left class early tonight—there were too many hands to fold too few mantı, but I’ve got the general idea now. I ate dinner and caught the bus from Asmalı Café.

Then I had a truly unique experience.

If I’d been paying attention as I’d gotten on the bus, I probably would have anticipated a Forrest Gump-esque moment and bolted before sacrificing my fare. Thankfully, I was preoccupied with a text message and didn’t notice much until I got to my seat, which faced perpendicular to the rows of other seats on the bus.

I have never been on a bus so full of stereotypically beautiful women: it was incredible.

The bus was standing-room-only and maybe five passengers and the driver were the only males there. And they (driver excepted, of course) were all on their phones, texting and wearing very self-satisfied grins.

Decorating House

On Sunday I hosted a Christmas decorating party. Abdullah and Ayşe, the Engin family, and my neighbor Bekir all came over to help put ornaments on my tree and walls.

We had to borrow a hammer and nails from Bekir. 

What to do with this wreath? We saw a lot of green and purple today.

The tree, as yet unlit.

Partly lit tree, partly hung ornaments.

After decorating, we ate. I had prepared meatloaf and lots of dessert; Stephanie had brought beverages and bread, and she chopped the salad. It was a lot of food, and it was nice to have cooked an American meal for the friends who have made my life so good here.

Strays Follow You Home; Gentlemen Don't.

This post was supposed to go:

Hisar Taksi is the worst place to try to catch the E-5 bus home. I flagged down and missed four buses to campus while I talked to this couple of guys at the stop. At least I got to practice my Turkish.

This post is actually going to go:

I am really grateful for the security station at the gates to Abant Izzet Baysal University's upper campus. I am not entirely sure how I would have gotten home safely tonight otherwise.

Because Hisar Taski, on a rainy night, is the worst place to try to catch the E-5 bus home. I flagged down and missed four buses to campus while I talked to this couple of guys at the stop.
They were curious about me and why I was in Bolu instead of Istanbul or Ankara. I put on the face that I've developed for such occasions: strangers who can tell I'm a foreigner, either because I'm wearing a hot pink coat or because I've just been speaking English at my cellphone. This face's neutral position is a very large, slightly stupid grin-- I want people to know that I'm friendly, but I don't want them to assume that I know Turkish very well, because I don't.
On most other occasions, I've been able to meet people and have brief and interesting interactions. Tonight, these two remained polite in tone but increasingly more insistent that I set my bag next to them or that one of them hold it for me; I don't know how many times I said, "No, thank you," but I moved away from them because I began to suspect that they would impede rather than help me catch my bus.

I don't need help catching a bus, by the way. Or holding a bag.

I made my stance bigger.

By the time my fifth bus actually arrived [I ran after it], I wasn't going to even give them so much as an "iyi akşamlar," but to my real frustration they got on the bus after me: these two who said they were taking a different bus. Tch.

The driver and three other passengers stared at us as I sat down and arranged myself in such a way as to occupy both seats with myself and baggage. One sat directly behind me; one sat across the aisle from me. I ignored them visually, but that didn't prevent my overhearing a low discussion between the two about where teachers live on campus.

Okay, Jessica. You have fifteen minutes. How will you get off this bus and get to your apartment in the middle of the woods? Will you ask to be let off at the student center and just drink tea alone until the coast is clear? Will you ask to be let off at your usual stop and hope they don't get off? If they do get off, what kind of scene will you make?

By the time the bus got to campus, I and these two are the only passengers left on it.

And I'm ready to make a scene if I have to.

We approached the security gates to the upper campus and I pulled my AIBU ID card out of my wallet, preparing to show it as usual to the security officer who briefly patrolled each bus that entered campus. I could see out of my periphery that neither of these two were getting theirs.
The security officer-- if I'd seen his name tag, I'd be writing him a thank you card right now-- looked at mine, and then looked to these two for an explanation of their presence. They didn't have cards. They tried the next best thing: association.
One of them tried to tell the officer that "our friend, the foreigner, needs help getting home to lojman," and before I could holler, "No, I don't know what these maniacs are thinking!" the officer was escorting them off the bus and barring them from campus.

What were these two strays thinking? I am one of three American foreigners working at the university-- all the security officers at the gates station recognize my face, or at least my ridiculous hot pink coat, and they know that I don't bring home stray pairs of strange men! What is this insanity?!

And on the other hand, I will never lack appreciation for the security station at the campus gates. It might be "intense," as a couple of my visitors have expressed, but I'm grateful for its no-nonsense policy. I'm grateful it wasn't any weirder or any worse.

On Friendship

This from a post of mine back in 2009:

"Erica Jong writes...

'... analyzing which had gone into each of these relationships, each of these relationdinghies, each of these relationliners. I knew that the way I described them was a betrayal of their complexity, their humanity, their confusion. Life has no plot. It is far more interesting than anything you can say about it because language, by its very nature, orders things and life really has no order.'

I'm finishing, or resuming after great pause, Fear of Flying.

I used to think I wanted to write a semiautobiographical graphic novel or play. One of my best friends plans to write a memoir.

This is all wrong: the stories that we tell about ourselves must continue to shift and transform or we'll die."

I like this person-- I like what she was thinking about. I like that she was interested in specifically acknowledging the organic nature of human relationships and how they're outside the capacity of language to describe. I also like how she knew this about the stories she was telling herself and others. I am not other from this person-- it's just awkward to say that I really like my 24-year-old self.

The other important thing is this: I've been taking an inordinate number of pictures lately of Kristin, Stephanie, and Claire. I'm just going to say it flat out: I didn't expect to make friends, and  I am absurdly grateful to them for their friendship. Yet even now I find myself on unsure ground in most of the relationships I've built here.

Trust takes time. We do have to be wary of boredom, stagnation, and complacency, but trust in relationships takes time. So does understanding: Claire, with whom I lived for my first month and a half here, said something so completely surprising to me on Saturday that my mind could not register it for a few minutes. I have known her intensely here, but I was reminded that I have not known her long enough to always follow her perfectly. And that's fine. Like language, with patience and listening, it will come.

What I mean to say is this: I am surprised at the fun that I'm having, but right now I want to center my mind on the friendships that are so old, dear, and well-established that I no longer have to explain myself. You know who you are:

• we always share the same family birthday party
• I have known you since preschool, and I was there-- in the boat!-- when you met your partner
• you call me "Gus", "Turkey", or "Jessie"-- things which would, out of any other mouths, be completely unacceptable (and, of course, I love that you call me this)
• you've known and loved my mother for nearly 45 years
• in first grade, yours was the first telephone number I memorized after my own
• the Grand Coulee Dam-- actually, mostly the car-ride there
• we competed to see who could read more The Boxcar Children books
• I've definitely changed your diapers (I was nine!), but now you're smarter than me
• in fourth grade, you loved maple bars from Winchell's (this was beyond my capacity to understand), and we'd go back to my house and record radio shows using an old tape player and a soy sauce bottle as a mic
• Red Cross babysitter certification trivia
• MYST, Riven
• Harry Potter Trivia
• you witnessed my first middle school dance with that boy you later said wore eyeliner
• Mt. Vernon Service Trip
• we always ended up in history classes together, starting with Wilk's ninth grade history-- at some point (I think this was Sr. Heck's class), you wrote out the lyrics to Rufus Wainwright's "Tower of Learning" instead of the desired short answer
• you made a hot-red dress for me-- what were we thinking?
• "Scarlet Locks" and Joe Natale
• you didn't act, but you had to take it on for the One-Acts so that someday you could direct... Hmmm!
• Harry Potter books on tape (yes, tape!)
• Settlers of Catan-- and you were always trying to trade those useless sheep
• many early mornings chopping vegetables at Sacred Heart
• your Geo hatchback
• your Honda Civic
• that terrible paper about Cuba and embargoes
• MJ's "The Man in the Mirror" at the worst hour of the morning
• those terrible films in Spanish class-- not Destinos, no, the ones we created
• the penultimate Christmas trip to Krispy Kreme after we were teenagesick of our parents
• however did we get through the winter of 2002-2003?
• you actually liked my poetry
• you were there when I smoked my first cigar (it was a Swisher Sweets!) on that camping trip right after graduation
• we don't share biology, but I call you my aunt, my uncle, my cousin, my brother, my sister
• we do share biology, and you still love me for it
• we lived, worked, and loved through J. Davis's The Core together
• I taught you Settlers of Catan
• February 2008: the Vagina Monologues
• Gender, Body, and Religion (and really, all those other M. Wilcox classes): by the way, I still have that blue knitted hat you got from a friend
• when I first met you, you were talking about how thick your file at the CIA must be-- and I knew right away that I would admire you forever
• you shaved my head in front of an audience
• you loved me even when I came home with a shaved head
• you fasted with me, and we danced in the rain
• I crawled under your rickety dining room table when I was sure the earth was quaking, but really I'd just had a beer
• I had the incredible privilege of working with you at Divina Providencia
• "YOU made out with that accordion player, too?!"
• The Late Foucault
• you were blueberry bagel/blueberry schmear guy at the bagel shop, and most of us who worked there were rather disdainful of your choice. I met you again in yoga class five years later, and the rest is history.
• Martini Tuesdays
• when you come to visit Walla Walla, we always eat weird Chinese food, and you always want to visit Klicker's (and I always love it)
• I painted you for an early experiment in my art thesis, and you may still be friends with me because I still have all those photographs. Burning ceremony before the one of us gets married next summer?
• you were married before you could legally drink champagne at your own wedding, and I don't know that I'd ever been happier for or had more faith in the love of two people
• Queer Beer
• the phenomenal(ly strange) pieces-- technical, performance, otherwise-- of New Genre Art w/ B. Bloch
• did we really live through April 2007 and come out the other end with the same Studio Art degree as those other people? Wow.
• you hollered when I graduated from college wearing the most ridiculous sunglasses
• you didn't begrudge me the right to stay in Walla Walla-- in fact, you were glad I had a job at all
• you tolerated me when I was a terrible bowling teammate
• you told me I wasn't insane for wanting to be treated right
• in fact, you've insisted on this my entire life
• you let me sleep on your couch when I couldn't go home
• you can't play Scrabble or Dungeons and Dragons without taking a fifteen-minute turn, and yet we don't hate you
• you're probably actually a "Badventist", but you taught me a lot of good things
• 2 East Birch Street
• you worked in the desert, and your presence has always given me courage
• you enjoyed the most remarkable dance at your wedding reception, and you asked us to remind you when times were tough that we'd stood at your wedding and would hold you fast to that
• I got stalked by a coworker, and you: offered to beat him up for me, offered to litigate, offered to move somewhere new with me and my cat
• I think of you often, especially when I'm thinking of Hillary Clinton or airplanes
• High School Musical I, II, III
• making you read Agatha Christie
• you are my favorite business major turned winemaker
• when we faked going to a Bavarian village for Christmas instead of back to our families
• you are a vegetarian whose job it was to slice meat several hours a day, and I still love your thesis even if it wasn't quite what you wanted
• we read Atlas Shrugged together, and we weren't even in high school anymore. Seeing the movie might've been a mistake
• you are allergic to everything! Sulfites! And I love to cook for you.
• you took care of that cat I adopted on "Free Kitten Day" for the first two weeks of his life with me-- he's still in love with you, I'm sure
• I enjoyed the dark beer we made together until it exploded in the Subaru all over those books-- ugh
• July 4, 2010: the place where we were going to watch the fireworks? You called it "the adult playground"
• one favorite wedding of my life, in which I'd previously met four of the wedding-goers (or participants) of onehundredsomething but was made to feel as though I was home
• we shared a season watching Twin Peaks and reading aloud to each other-- from Wendell Berry, Herman Hesse and Other People of Letters
• the Maker's Party
• 10.10.10-- you ran the Tri-Cities Marathon, and we held signs for you
• when we almost didn't make it down from the skiing fields at Thanksgiving near Joseph, OR
• I've read several of the most entertaining books (The Hunger Games, Kate Shugak, The Scorpio Races) in the last three years because of your recommendations
• when we made the gingerbread house, it was the most glorious thing we'd seen all season
• we have gleaned the seconds of Walla Walla's crops side-by-side for the last several seasons, and you gave me the gumption to make my own preserves
• I was there when you met the Pacific Ocean in person for the first time
• you taught me proper backgammon, you kill me at Scrabble, and you've made me Sudoku fearless
• at your birthday party, the boys sang and danced to "Baby Got Back". Do we have that on video? I want it.
• we don't share biology, but you have made me family
• and, after many years, and many warm discussions, you've persuaded me to love Portland, OR almost as much as I love Walla Walla and Seattle
• I am here, free, and unafraid to be in Turkey (during Christmas no less!) because no matter what, I am so well-loved by you at home

Each of these moments may look different to you who were present in them. I am not their master, only a temporary conductor of what these small things mean to me.

Any Kind of Day...

Things I Learned Today:

1. Especially beautiful snow will not stick.
2. 200TL may leave your wallet not of your volition, but it may still be your fault.
3. Just because you're standing at a bus stop doesn't mean that you are waiting in the right place for the only bus that passes by. In fact, you're probably waiting in the wrong place.
4. If a room full of women asks you to dance, and you don't refuse their invitation, you'll find you can smile at any kind of day.

"Bolu: Where Everything Is Possible..."

... or, "Bolu: four seasons in one day." Frequently here it rains in the morning and is burning hot by the afternoon. 

However, I think we're about to experience some pretty consistent weather for a while.

"Bolu: kış geliyor." Winter is coming. Snow.

Kristin Visits, and Advent Begins (No Causality Implied)

I got home Thursday evening from Ankara, and Friday we administered the midterm exam and enjoyed a workshop presentation from Lindsay Clandfield, author of the Global series we've been using in class.

One of my favorite parts of this work is the constant negotiation of how and why English is employed in the "expanding circle", what it means to be using English in a global community, and who controls the use and dispersal of English in these various circles. I am beginning to question the validity of identities such as "native" and "non-native" speakers. If young people begin to learn, speak, and become immersed in a language by ages six or ten, and they are consistently using it effectively throughout their lives, who would deny them the same [privileges?] of a "native" speaker? To me, the distinction becomes ever more dubious.

Kristin was planning to come Friday night, but she was also administering an exam and missed the last bus to Bolu. Then I got a late-night call from Buket: are we doing dinner at Balıkçı soon? Sunday? Shall we have breakfast? Where? We quickly determined that Mado serves some of the best breakfast downtown, and we agreed to meet at 9:30am.

Well, 9:30am came a little soon for me. Both Buket and I were excited to have our first cups of tea for the day.

Then, Kristin called from Düzce, and we planned to meet at the bus station within the hour. Buket took me to another bus stop and waited with me until we realized we'd been waiting too long.

(Mom, and anyone else who might be worried about my getting into cars with people I don't know (or know well), don't read this section further. Skip past the next picture and move on.)

One of my students, a young man who works in the home furnishings store across from the stop, offered to take me with his friend to the station. I gratefully accept the ride and promise lots of tea: he says, "it's nothing, teacher. We love you!"

This happened twice today, by the way. Once on the way to the bus station for fetching KP. And on our way into downtown Bolu after my 7pm lesson with Umut.

[Side note: Saturday's lesson with Umut was oodles of fun for me. We've ordered Word Clues: The Vocabulary Builder, but we've pre-emptively started working on a few critical prefixes and suffixes. BTW-- did anybody else from Ms. Towner's 10th grade English class save this book? My old copy is in Walla Walla, and I've found it completely invaluable. So when Umut's parents (and Abdullah bey) suggested that we focus on vocabulary, I knew this would be the right pick. He's an incredibly logical person, so I think that defining words based on their etymologies and how the prefix, root, and suffix fit together will be a good puzzle for him. Soon, we'll have a Christmas lesson in which he (and his sister Umay, I hope) will assist me in decorating the apartment for the big holiday.]

The rain was coming down hard. In fact, I don't think I've seen it rain so much in Bolu. Kristin and I were chased down the hill by a mean, scraggly dog. We stood at the bus stop for maybe forty seconds before a car pulled up and a young woman leaned out her window and asked where we were going. After finding out that we were headed downtown, she said, "Yes, we can take you there." So we got in, made a little small talk, and discovered that she was a medical student at AIBU. We were dropped off less than half a block from our destination and much drier than we anticipated being. Thank Goodness for the kindness of humans.

It's a good thing to be in geographical proximity with people you can love. Kristin now has the spare keys to my apartment, and I hope she uses them whenever she needs to.

The usual suspects: Murat, Claire, Stephanie, and Ceylan's arm. For some reason, none of the pictures I took of Ceylan came out: I think she moves too much. Sly girl.

Sunday brunch was quite the affair: Stephanie prepared eggs Florentine and banana pancakes. We walked into the apartment and Jack Johnson was playing. Le sigh: when in Rome.

Sunday afternoon, I put Kristin on a bus back to Düzce. That was really hard. I'm realizing that I don't like to say goodbye to people, often because I'm so unsure of myself and my situation here. I truly never know when I'll see anyone again-- because seriously, KP lives 45 minutes away, and we've seen each other all of twice since Ankara. I've never been able to predict the future, but I think I'm more cognizant of that now than I ever have been before.

Consequently, when I got home Sunday evening I decided to floss, clean my ears, and eat a cough drop for comfort. I took care of my animal self and didn't really feel like taking care of my spiritual self. I went to bed feeling ambiguous about Advent.

Advent? Advent!

Yes, it started yesterday!

And yes, I feel much better about it today than I felt about it yesterday.

More to come.

A Busy Week

Dear Mom and Dad,

I got home from Erzurum late Monday night, threw my clothes in the laundry, and had to be ready to leave Bolu again by Wednesday morning. You see, I'd been invited to Ankara for a luncheon with the English Language Office and a visitor from Washington, D.C., Tara D. Sonenshine, the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. She works closely with Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton, and here's an interview with her.

As you can see from this photograph, I was often looking the wrong way throughout lunch.

But it was a really neat experience, and I thought that your seeing this photograph would make you smile.

With love,
Your Daughter

Thanksgiving

This is what I came home to late last Monday night. Claire must've come by and brought in my mail, because it was waiting for me on my kitchen table when I got in from Ankara. I'd just spent the weekend in Erzurum with the Eastern Bloc ETAs, flying in and out of the Esenboğa and Erzurum airports.

The reason why mail's (from before Halloween to Thanksgiving) getting to me so slowly? It's my own fault: I've given you the wrong postal code. It's 14280, not 14030.

I spent several hours in the airport in Ankara writing Christmas cards. I haven't sent them all out-- not by a long shot-- but I've started on them. When I address my cards during this season, I always remember a time three or four years ago when my art students at DeSales were working on sending cards they'd just illustrated. One of my ninth graders (a young man only ten years younger than myself) didn't know how to address an envelope: he'd never done it before. When you're Sharon Salvador's daughter you know how to address an envelope almost as soon as you learn to write "thank you".

The handwritten card or letter is a discipline that I want to be faithful to, even if the USPS raises its prices skyhigh because fewer and fewer of us practice this discipline any longer.

I was writing cards home because I needed to and because I wasn't sure what to expect from Thanksgiving. The only people in the East that I'd spent any significant time with since orientation were Will, Jeremy, and Wyatt. But Emily, Elizabeth, HelenMarie, and Korey welcomed me into their homes with food, drink, and friendship. It was an exceptional Thanksgiving weekend.

Elizabeth (Erzurum) and Duncan (Trabzon) munching scones.

Will (Gümüşhane) making his family's famous cranberry compote
(sans cranberries).

Prep time with Erin and Kate (Amasya) and Wyatt (Bayburt).

Emily (Erzurum) and Duncan (Trabzon) also making meal preparations.

Elizabeth and Hank Hindi.

Eric (Osmaniye) and Jeremy (Gümüşhane) at the food table.

Dessert!

These are a few of the faces of friendship in my life right now. My pictures of HelenMarie and Korey from Saturday weren't loading properly, but I definitely slept on HM's couch all weekend. I highly recommend it. I only hope that I can make my visitors feel equally welcome in my home as I felt in Erzurum.

Wait, wait! Here's a picture of Helen! Here she's making gravy, and she's lovely. Also pictured: Nermin and Elizabeth coaxing the turkey to perfection.

A Few Words

I got this idea from Chance Brodsky several weeks ago, and perhaps it will bear fruit.

"Claire is better at understanding Turkish..."

"... than you, Jessica."
"Claire, you get more Turkish than Jessica."
"Claire knows more Turkish than Jessica."
"Jessica, why don't you speak Turkish like Claire?"

I have heard these statements or some derivation thereof at least four times a week since Claire and I moved to Bolu from orientation in Ankara. Claire and I lived together, we spend a lot of time together still, so naturally our colleagues, our friends, and people who work in the places we go see us together a lot. It's a common inclination to distinguish between two people whose lives are so interrelated-- so, why not try to differentiate between Claire and me?

I'm taking the time to write about this because it became a huge problem for me. I don't have thick skin, especially in the context of a learning problem: I couldn't understand why people would go out of their way to let me know my Turkish learning was insufficient, I was sure that people thought I was incompetent or worse, that I didn't care about their language.

Then I decided I wouldn't let it be a problem for me any longer. I will be attempting to follow-through on this decision here.

Comparison gives rise to competition. This is not a place for defensiveness, justification, or excuses. I want to acknowledge the truth of these statements, and then I plan to reject these statements and what they stand for.

If we consider adjectives, "better" is the comparative mode of "good" (and "best" is the superlative mode, just to round off). For example: Claire is good at Turkish. And she is! And she deserves to be: she wants this language acquisition very, very badly; she's working really hard at it; and she has a gift for language. Claire is good at Turkish-- and I am really happy for her. She's sitting on my couch right now, and I can look over at her and say, yes, I am completely happy for (and proud of) her that she is accomplishing one of her main goals her with good success.

Now, what happens when people use "better" with us is that it inevitably implies a "worse" (the comparative form of "bad"). That's me. And I won't deny it. I have no excuses, justifications, reasons, anything. Don't forget that I failed out of two quarters of graduate school and had to make those up. I will acknowledge what I lack and look hard at it.

And I can say that right now, Claire is good at Turkish learning. And I can also say that right now, I am not learning Turkish as fast and as well as I (or others, apparently) want.

But are the two connected?

Does Claire's success mean my lack thereof? Does she look better in the eyes of our colleagues and friends because my attempts at Turkish are hilarious and appalling?

We spend too much of our lives comparing ourselves to others. This is an activity that does not serve us. On the contrary: comparison poisons our relationships to others, and it deranges the basis of our self-worth. Comparison means that we consistently evaluate ourselves on standards that are not our own when we should use the measuring-rods in our heads to perceive ourselves. And how can we judge others? (This is actually not a question for which I have any semblance of an answer. Making an evaluation of a person based on observation is sometimes necessary for survival, or for making friends, or for knowing who's going to throw you under the bus at work, and etcetera.)

I used to keep this poster from the CrimethInc Workers' Collective on my bathroom mirror, and I think the quote is as applicable to this situation as it is to looking at your reflection: "Beauty must be defined as what we are, or else the concept itself is our enemy. To see beauty is simply to learn the private language of meaning which is another's life-- to recognize and relish what is. Why languish in the shadow of a standard we cannot personify, an ideal we cannot live?"

We become our own enemies when we compare ourselves to others. Why would we do this to ourselves? It's an incredibly easy cycle to get ourselves into, especially if we usually compare favorably against others. In fact, this is the greastest, most subtle poison: telling ourselves that according to these social, normative standards we think smarter, we run faster, we look prettier, we work harder, we learn better. Because inevitably we will meet the person whom we realize is smarter, faster, and prettier. And the self-worth we built up on the backs of others will be compromised.

So yes, my good friend Claire, my teammate, my comrade-in-arms in these incredibly confusing and wonderful times, is getting really good at Turkish. And I stumble along in her linguistic wake. And I'm fine with it, and I'm not.

I don't want to be better. I don't want to be worse. And I certainly don't want to be mediocre. I want to meet my standards for myself. I reject comparison. And I plan to learn Turkish. As I do.

Cooking Class Makes the News

Last week, Claire and I made the news in cooking class. We were told the press would take some pictures, and (strangely) we assumed it'd just be pictures and maybe an article in the local paper. But then! We were interviewed on video. And then! the next morning, Hurriyet (one of the biggest papers in the nation), ran the story online. So, Claire and I will go down as those two American teachers who wanted to learn about cooking Turkish cuisine.

For the article in Hurriyet: http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/yasam/21920726.asp
For the video at OdaTV: http://www.odatv.com/vid_video.php?id=8B15C

I would ask...

This is not traditional Turkish behavior; in fact, when I told my students that I liked to dip my Biskrem in my Ayran, they squealed in horror. But it's delicious-- Ayran's just salty enough to offset the chocolate inside the cookie, but you've got to go one step further: open the packet of cookies a few hours or the night before you plan to eat them. When you first open the Biskrem, they're just a little too crunchy, but after a few hours they've somehow managed to soften up. Now they're right for dipping into your yoghurt drink.

Further evidence of my living alone.

From which comes my plea: the holidays are upcoming, and a lot of people have asked if I need a care package or what I'd like for Christmas, and I'll say, just pictures. Pictures that I can hold, please. Pictures of you, your children, your children-to-be, your home, my homes: I'll take them all, and gladly. Here in Bolu, I have all those material things that a creature needs-- and I'm even going to go get a tea cooker today! But for some (insane) reason, I didn't bring any analog pictures of the people and places I love, and I'm getting a little desperate for more consistent reminders of you all.

This Thanksgiving, you are what I am grateful for.

Running for a Long(ish) Time

I've written about a lot of my experiences here. The task of writing about running 15 kilometers in the Istanbul Marathon (a lot of prepositions here, I know) is the first time when I've been really driven to write and not known what to say. Much of what occurred on the course was not an interaction with other humans; it was an interaction with myself. Bear with me.

Before you read any further, you need to look up two words/phrases at my favorite online Turkish-English dictionary, Tureng.com.

• Teşekkürler
• Afiyet olsun

These were some of the first words I learned upon arrival in this country, and I use them at least at every single meal, if not more times each day. Keep these in your pocket for the rest of the read.

When Will I Ever Get Another Chance?

I heard about this marathon while I was at orientation in Ankara. Someone (I'd like to blame John or Dorothy for this, but I can't remember) said, "if you run the marathon or the 15k, you get to cross the Bosphorus Bridge between Europe and Asia." And I thought to myself, "when will I ever get another chance to do something like this?" Touch two continents in one run? The Bosphorus Bridge is usually closed to foot traffic, and the Istanbul Marathon is the one time each year when pedestrians take it back from the endless gas-powered traffic.

If I had known that the folks doing the 8km category would also be able to cross the Bosphorus Bridge, I might have set my goal there. You see, I'm not a runner. Or, I wasn't. But I was aware only that the 15km and marathon runners would be able to cross the bridge and that I needed to do that, too.

Training Up

So I signed up and began to run. I wasn't wholly unfamiliar with the activity: I've been on a city rec soccer team for the past two years: "the Walla Walla Bing Bangs"/ "the Nancies". I've occasionally run in the Bennington Lake vicinity, too. I don't like to run in a gym-- there's too, too much monotony for me there.

Ironically I was running around the track at school, mostly because the material (I'm guessing recycled tires or something more sophisticated-- I'm pretty sure our Physical Education/ Sport department is quite well-funded) was easier on my knees and feet than the asphalt. I knew I'd have to run around on some asphalt before getting to Istanbul, but I was taking that a little bit at a time.

I don't run to music because I'm not enough of a consistent runner to maintain the pace that I want against a shift in rhythm. For the first few weeks, I was running to Jim Dale's audio narration of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I was hoping to save the last two hours of this incredible story for the marathon.

Stop. Just stop there and imagine. Oh, God, can you imagine? This is me, with my relationship to these books, attempting to have a life-changing experience while listening to the LAST FEW CHAPTERS of The Half-Blood Prince?! I don't know what I was thinking, but if I'd done it last Sunday, I know I would have had tears streaming down my face for the last 2k for both physical and emotional reasons.

But something changed, and it occurred during the disastrous/hilarious Lykian Yolu hike. During the hike, a muscle above my left buttock stopped working, and I developed the most fantastic blisters I've ever seen in my life. I realized during these ten hours that I could do a lot of things that I hadn't formerly expected of myself. I'd gotten to a point where my body was capable of matching my will.

I'm just going to say that after this sentence, some of what you'll read is graphic, gross, and impolite. But these are some descriptors for what occurs when you do things with your body that you haven't done before.

So, I stopped listening to anything (I still haven't finished HP-- I probably will during my next few bus rides into city centre), and the weekend before the race in Istanbul, I ran 16km around the track at school.

For my own sake, I had to make sure I could do it.

Erich estimated for me that if my track is standard (it is), 4 laps around it would be a mile, and 40 laps would be the 10 miles I need to reach a bit over my goal for the Istanbul race.

I ran it in the evening while a bunch of guys were using the field to practice American football.

I'll say here that Turkish men are incredibly affectionate with each other, and it was especially hilarious to watch them tackle each other and see the tackle become a hug and then a hand up. This is not Texas, and for that I am grateful.

I mean, if I'm not going to listen to Jim Dale, I'm glad for those young men who were practicing a sport that's pretty much antithetical to their attitudes about masculinity and each other.

I did the first twenty laps in 45 minutes, counting my laps on my fingers the whole time. Because really, how else am I going to keep track of the laps? In my head? What have I got fingers for, then, if not to count laps? Yes-- I ran around that track as the sun was setting and kept my odd fingers in front of me.

At about thirty laps, the call to prayer began. Too soon! I thought, I'm going too slow! But I maintained the pace that I wanted to keep during the race, and ten laps later I checked my phone: 88 minutes.

I stretched, walked home, drank water, and got on the phone with Nina and Andreas. N and A, you're reading this here for the first time, but I left our Skype call so that I could go lie on my bathroom floor next to the toilet. When I thought I was feeling better, I tried to call Erich.

But then I puked.

I ran the next afternoon instead of the next morning. I did 20 laps at 50 minutes.

I ran a little every day until Friday, when I stretched. And Saturday I stretched.

The Race

Then Sunday, I joined a crowd of about 10,000 people 300 meters away from the Asian-side entrance to the Bosphorus Bridge.

Most importantly to me, I was wearing a shirt that said "Walla Walla" on it. Most importantly to everybody else in the crowd (mostly of a European and British makeup), I was wearing my Vibram Five Finger shoes.

They freaked out in the friendliest way possible.

"Hey lady, are you really going to run in those things?"

"How far can you actually run in those?"

"Don't you need a cushion? Will you be in pain?"

"Have you run in those before?"

"Why are you running in those? What are they like?"

"I have only seen those on the internet!"

I tried to explain that these shoes are really common where I come from, but then some East Coast ETA would say, nonono, we don't do that in Boston, either. We don't do that in DC, in New York. So, I'm gathering that these Five Finger shoes are another West Coast phenom, and that I'm outing myself again (with real pride) by wearing them. I moved away from my States compatriots and made friends with some Turkish fellas and some British ladies who were there with their running club.

I was looking, but before the start I saw only one other person wearing them. After the start, I wasn't paying attention to that.

The Bosphorus Bridge was incredible. It was a clear day for the most part, and the gorgeous waterways of Istanbul stretched to each side of me. And I was moving in a speedy pilgrimage with thousands of other people ahead of me. You know I don't like crowds much, especially at shopping malls, big box stores, and college house parties. But this was different.

I was so happy. I was so excited.

After crossing the bridge, we got to the highway and everybody and their mother took a piss break on the side of the road (well, not this girl-- I'd already taken care of business once that morning because I didn't want to have to stop). I had been running on the right side, so I got a little too up close and personal with the smell of it before I remembered that I could move over.

We were running uphill, which is something I like to do.

Consequently, we were soon running downhill, and this is where my race and my body began to unravel.

When you train, you begin to understand that your body develops certain habits to compensate for what you're putting it through. This is my experience, at least. I can't speak to whether this occurs for other people or if it's even right. So I know I'm about 20 minutes into my run when my rib cage starts doing that thing. And I'm about halfway when the index toe of my left foot begins to feel that certain way.

What I felt, running down that awful hill from 3km to 5km, was a new and incredible pain in my spleen. I slowed down a ton and let a lot of people pass me. That's actually all I experienced for about 15 minutes: feeling pain, slowing down, getting passed. I was almost sure that I would have to stop at the side of the road, that I might not finish. I said to myself, "try to keep going until you have to stop. Don't stop until you have to stop."

Then I got shoved. [This is actually not an infrequent occurrence in a race; sometimes, if you're outpacing someone and there's no other way around hir, it's common practice to push hir shoulder and pass. But this is actually what happened:] I'm running slower than the crowd around me, but I'm trying to maintain at least a person's width distance on all sides of me so that I don't have to get shoved. Suddenly, a force from my left shoulder moves me right and I get a glimpse of this middle-aged man looking at me hard, and he asks, "what are you doing here?!" Then he disappeared and left me to ask the same question.

I am here to finish this race, I said to myself. And I know I can do it, because I've done forty laps before. So I told myself to breathe through the pain in my spleen and speed up when the road flattened out again.

And the pain began to adjust itself to my body and my will, and I began to feel it less.

Almost the first thing I remember seeing when I turned the first corner after the course flattened out was a guy coming out of a break at a Starbucks. One of the attendants was helping him put his number or jacket back on, but I remember thinking, "that guy got a pee break at a Starbucks?! Oh, man, I need to do that!" But the thought took too long, and I was away before I could break at the coffee shop.

I spent the next I-don't-remember-how-long needing to pee really, really badly.

And then there was a blue port-a-potty, and a woman flashing out of it, and my throwing myself into it and not knowing how to lock the door and hoping that I wouldn't be interrupted and exposed to hundreds of people in the street.

And then I was stumbling back out of the port-a-potty, unsure I could run, unsure I could merge back into the human traffic, and then I remembered that my spleen no longer hurt, and that I was relieved, and that I had legs that were still moving properly, and that I was strong.

I sped up, and soon I was on the Galata Bridge with the fishermen.

(I say 'men' because I didn't actually see anyone fishing from the bridge who didn't present as masculine.)

The Bosphorus Bridge was wonderful, but I am in love with the Galata Bridge. I was glad that I got to walk across it on the way home from the race that day because I almost stopped again, this time to observe the many and varied people and soak in the incredible views of the water (lots of boats and ships!). If you ever go to Istanbul, there're many good places to see, but I think the Galata Bridge is the best of them. And it's always open to pedestrians.

Suddenly I was climbing a hill again.

Suddenly I was on cobblestones.

Suddenly I was at Topkapı Sarayı, and I knew I could make it to the finish line in Sultanahmet.

Suddenly we saw the sign for 41km, and I knew I was only a kilometer away from finishing my 15km run.

After seeing "400m", the elderly gentleman running near me said, "Where the fuck is the finish line?!"

And then we were there, and I didn't quite know how to stop running. But I did.

And then some of my ETA friends were calling my name, and they gave me a bag that had these things in it: a medal (for all the participants), another vodafone shirt, a water bottle, a banana, a bar of Ülker chocolate with pistachios.

The Best Part

... was not finishing.

In Turkey, we don't drink our water out of the tap. That's fine for cooking and boiling and washing dishes, but people get their drinking water purified from bottles or, if you're lucky enough to live in Bolu, from the Kokez water fountains.

So I have developed a special relationship with water bottles. I try to keep one around me at all times.

When we were running, the water stations supplied sponges, apples, and bottles of water (not cups like I've seen in other marathons). The runners would swarm to the table, grab an already-opened bottle if possible or an unopened one if the attendants couldn't keep up with the crowd, and drink.

Some of us drank as we ran, some of us would give ourselves a break, but all of us had to ditch our bottles at some point. This was a bit heartbreaking for me, and a little obscene. Most of the bottles were only half-empty when they were thrown to the side of the road.

I saw one lady spectator get hit with a half-full bottle of water.

The road would be wet for tens of meters after a water station, and you'd have to run carefully to avoid slipping on a rolling bottle.

At the last station, I was in dire need of some water.

I was on the outside edge of the crowd, and the attendants couldn't open the bottles fast enough. I wasn't sure I was going to get a bottle, but I was going to try.

I had my eyes focused on one bottle, and my gaze slid up the arm of this attendant until I was looking at his face and meeting his eyes. All of this happened in a second.

He threw the unopened bottle at me, and in surprise and gratitude I caught it, already opening it and back on my way, crying, "Teşekkürler!"

And as I parted from the crowd and continued the last leg of my run, I heard him call, "Afiyet olsun!"