Istanbul 7

Afternoon, leaning toward evening. I eased down the hill toward the sea. The narrow streets skirt the hill, so it’s not easy to find the water, but I did, through a narrow portal where I had to squeeze past backed-up cars. I snapped many photos of the OTHER Istanbul, shambling houses on ancient streets, hardly more than stacks of old lumber beautified by pots of flowers, but again my camera went awry, and this time there was no restoring it. I took no shots, then, of the Sea of Marmara and the great ships upon it, which needed no horns for the deep roar of themselves upon the water. I got no shots of the bearded hermit who’d built himself a shelter out of the huge gray shore stones. He had a little fire and companion cats, and salaamed me as I passed as though it were old times. When my camera failed I stood on the shore fussing with it. The cat I was trying to photograph came over and rubbed against me as I fumed. I was, as he had hoped, comforted. I walked into Guilhane Park along with about a billion schoolchildren. When they had passed, there was quiet enough to hear the squawking of the jackdaws and the screaming of the long-tailed parrots, The ground between the plane trees was littered with early spring flowers. Up against the palace wall, lovers danced hand-in-hand, and then he knelt and kissed her hand. I tried not to watch, but perhaps they didn’t care. I found a bench and I wrote poetry. The poetry was as if I had never read a poem, fresh and young and new, and for the third time this week I wept with joy. Long walk through the town. I surmised that if I kept sight of the trolley tracks I could not get lost, so I wandered in peace many of the same streets I ran in apprehension yesterday. Got as far as the university, where I sat for a while as the sky decided whether it was going to rain. I think I suffered seven incursions by handsome young men eager to help me, showing me what I had already found and telling me facts I already knew. All those relationships were going to lead eventually to an uncle’s rug shop. I wondered if I had “sucker” written on my forehead. When I have asked I was told that I have an open and generous face. It seems rather low to take advantage of that, should it actually be the case. An older man in the shadow of Ayasophia–almost on the exact spot where I met Julie-- said, “You are a writer. I see you have great potential to write many books.” That stopped me in my tracks. He went on to say that was a student of philosophy– Locke and Hume and Kant–but that there was no honor for that sort of thing in Turkey. “It’s a hard country for the life of the mind,” he said. Nevertheless, proving his point, the conversation was leading inexorably toward his rug shop, where I did not go.  Embraced–literally–by Osman and his brother when I approached my hotel. It was sweet. I checked for my wallet afterward.