I can’t seem to accept that I’m back – yesterday was a downward spiral into errands and jet lag – and today well catching up on 982 emails and more errands and very nice missives with Mr. Mesmerizer. Last night dinner with a friend who is having relationship problems, today another friend separated after 8 years, and yet another ended a long distance relationship. All this and the push and pull of friends wanting to…
3 hours of sleep and Fatma wakes me and I almost scream because I don’t want to leave – Lotus meets us at the airport and entangles my luggage that I still don’t have yet because she is young and doesn’t understand the rules – 24 hours of traveling later I am asleep in my bed without my dogs, my luggage, and my Fatmalicious and my Ferah and my figs and I get a text…
We wake to pouring down rain and Fatma comes to the window and says, look Rachel, all of Turkey is crying that you are leaving tomorrow. I think of Antalya – of all the beautiful people I have met, of the Russian girls who go to the coast for summer love, of our figs, and of my Ferah, who I want to take home with me. We eat fish and head to Sortie – the…
A new wave of guests arrive at the hotel – Turks – the Russians leave. The security guard tells Moustafa glad you are taking these ladies away with a smile when he comes to pick us up in the white BMW – the Turkish music blaring – we have been causing trouble here and there – just fun trouble. We fly back to Istanbul, which I miss more than anything, and first stop is to…
We sail out of Antalya along the Cleopatra coast – her bath is there, a ruin that you can still see the footprint of under the water – where she bathed, dressed, made up her face – it is so hot, when we are far enough along, we drop anchor and all of us jump in the water that is so silky cool and wonderful. The cook makes us a Turkish breakfast. We eat and…
The Russians have taken over the coastline – they are buying up the hotels and they are coming in droves – inching out the Germans who used to come and used to own. We wonder what the Russian maids think of us covering our painting with Putin’s picture. Gul is elected in Turkey – his wife appears beside him with her birka – a lackluster smile on her mouth. And we swim again in the…
Turkish people talk and talk and talk some more. Ferah tells us about her nephew who stood on a balcony lighting paper airplanes on fire and one sailed into the neigbor’s house and caused $20,000 in damage. We read in the paper about women cheating on their husbands more and more. We leave Ferah’s office and she dances a jig forgetting that the security camera is right there and her husband Ahmed is watching –…
We sleep late having come home at 5AM and eaten figs as we stared at the lights on the Bosporous. We head to the water for breakfast, again we are having our Turkish feast of cheese, honey, olives, bread, eggs, cay, and I order Love #9 juice and we see on the table a design of fish, and the bill is brought in a box with a butterfly, and we are by the water which…
Walked along the Bosporous and climbed stairs to have breakfast overlooking the water – a Turkish breakfast of feta, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggs, bread, cay and honey. We go meet Ferah and her son and have kebobs later in the evening – her son is headed to Columbia University in a few weeks, he reads my coffee and says there are butterflies, which mean free, there is a fish, which is a good thing, there…
Flew with Fatma and Beste on Turkish Airlines and arrived to be whisked to Fatma’s father’s apartment on the Bosporous, dropped our bags, and on to the salon where young gorgeous Turkish men styled my hair and rubbed my feet – I looked at Fatma – a big big smile on my face that never left. Back to meet Fatma’s neighbors for many years, the daughter is in love with Fatma, says she wishes she…