A little note...

It's been a while since I've visited this space. You may have noticed that starting late last spring, my posts started to dwindle.  I realized that I could not longer try to be a super woman in all aspects of my life - something had to give.  So I gave up the blog for the time being.  I focused on getting married, transitioning to a new and healthier lifestyle, and just keeping up with my school work. 

I didn't forget the blog.  After our wedding and during our incredible honeymoon, I made mental notes of things I wanted to share.  Like the beautiful "secret" beaches we found when driving along the Mediterranean coast, or the joy we found in Fethiye, and the great times we had dancing to Turkish music at our henna night and Turkish wedding.  Yet, as soon as I returned back to the US - life took over.  I was consumed with moving house, enjoying life with my husband, and I faced the reality of the work I needed to put in to (one day) finish my PhD. 

The blog drifted further into the back of my mind and I decided to put it off…

I really hadn't given it much thought and I mostly took a full-reprieve from the blogosphere for several months.  Then, about a week ago, the forces that be seemed to draw me back in.  My husband made a batch of (gluten-free) aşure to celebrate the Muslim holy month of Muharrem.  I found myself browsing for Elif Shafak novels at the library and now I am fully immersed in the pages of "Honor"*.  Then to my surprise I found that three new comments had been left on my blog in the past week.  I realized that a blog cannot be put to sleep - we may abandon it, neglect it and refuse to feed it with our words, but it lives on (something that is both wonderful and scary at the same time). 

So, I pondered as I started making the daily pot of Turkish tea, should I revive my writing?  Should I let out all that creative energy that I had stuffed down inside? 

I worry that if I return my energy will not be enough to go around.  Perhaps the surge of productivity I have been experiencing in my work life will diminish when I try to spread the love back to my blog.  Maybe I worry too much…

For now I am going to honor the energy that encouraged me to write and I'm going to post this ramble, with a non-binding promise to return and write more often.    

A beautiful bowl of gluten-free aşure.

*I have since finished "Honor" by Elif Shafak - another great novel with an incredible story and message to share.  Highly recommended!

April - Keeping it Fresh

This past month was a huge hurdle for me, and the next several months are sure to be some of the busiest of my life.  Our two weddings are coming up and we will be hosting guests from Turkey here in my place for the American wedding and then traveling with my parents to Turkey for the Turkish celebration.  Then H. and I will be off for a 2-week honeymoon in Turkey!  The big ideas are mostly figured out - but many of the details are still up in the air.  I have faith that it will all work out just fine. 

Last month, a strange eye problem lead to a health diagnosis that rocked my life boat and sent a few things overboard in the process.  I am now back on solid ground and I have faced some huge lifestyle changes, such as a drastically different diet (no wheat/gluten, no dairy, no sugar, no coffee, no alcohol, no soy, no peanuts, no corn, no yeast) and the need for more calm moments in my life.  In all this hullabaloo I never considered shutting down my blog.  I love writing in this space and so for what it is worth - I will carry on. 

This month though, I feel like I might need a little motivation in the writing department.  With so many obligations with the upcoming weddings, the lifestyle changes, H. finishing his dissertation, and me finishing my PhD coursework - I need some inspiration for blog posts. 

I was intrigued when a fellow blogger, E., over at Slowly by Slowly used the BlogHer NaBloPoMo prompts in December 2012  to dive into a discussion of work-life balance.  I followed these posts with enthusiasm and I decided to check out the BlogHer space for future topics.  This month the NaBloPoMo is all about the topic "Fresh".  The prompts explore topics such as environmental issues, gardening, cleaning house, outdoor activities and more.  These are all important topics for me - and there are issues that I am interested exploring with respect to Turkish culture. 

So here it goes - in an effort to keep up my writing habit and to add a little something different to this blog space I'm going to participate in this April's Fresh-themed writing prompts.  I hope you'll follow along.

Back from Turkey and a sampling of what is to come

It feels like ages since we dragged our overweight luggage into my dark and musty apartment at 11:30 last Wednesday night.  Perhaps because I have been operating at full speed to get my life back to normal these first few days - doing loads of laundry, decluttering the mess I caused when my suitcase exploded all over the living room floor, and deep cleaning my apartment to get ready for a new semester, as well as visiting my parents, catching up with friends over email and beginning to make appearances back in my school/work life. 

It also seems like I stepped into another world, it's my world, but not the one that I had been occupying for the last month.  I miss H.'s family and relatives and all those long afternoons and dinners spent chatting over plates and plates of food and Turkish tea.  I miss the feeling of being in Turkey, with the confusing traffic, bustling streets, and calming ezan.  But in about four to five months we will be back for our wedding, so for now I'll enjoy the bittersweet feeling of missing all of that and get ready to savor more of Turkey on our next trip.

A month long vacation is a strange thing.  It is wonderful in all respects, especially when visiting lovely relatives in Turkey, but it causes a time recognition problem in the brain.  For me it was hard to tell if that trip was really just one month, when sometimes it felt like two months, or two weeks.  Time dripped by on the days when we had nothing planned and sat lazily watching Turkish documentaries and drinking coffee and tea all day.  Then time zipped by while we raced to beat rush hour traffic to do some shopping in the city and then raced to a relative's house for dinner and then before we knew it hours had passed and we were back at home with full bellies and nodding off to sleep. 

I had planned many things for this trip, because for me, one month seems like a very long time.  I had expected to study Turkish everyday, read many books, write a blog post every other day and get one chapter of my dissertation worked up (ha!).  Lady life smirked and gave me a loving, yet sarcastic pat on the pack and taught me once again that my plans are child's play and I need to get over my naivety.  I learned that it is not wise to make too many goals, but instead to keep it simple so that I can enjoy the feeling of accomplishing something and not the constant disappointment from trying to overachieve.  I'll keep that in mind for the future.

However, I can say that we (jointly) accomplished several of our major goals for this trip: we spent lots of time with family and H.'s friends, we made our plans for our Turkish wedding, and we took care of necessary heath visits.

For me, I gathered lots of writing material that I am currently processing into blog posts that I hope to get on here in the next couple weeks.  Here is a sampling of what you can expect:

1.  I'll explain some of the Turkish treats we brought back with us - the things we can't live without and which ones can be found here in the US.

2. While I didn't formally study Turkish everyday on my trip, I was working on it through speaking and trying to understand all going on around me.  I think I improved!  Now, how will I keep up this momentum?  I plan to write a post about a couple items I picked up in Turkey, as well as some media available in the US to keep me moving forward to achieve my language learning goal.

3. Updates on our Turkish wedding - was it as easy to plan as I had hoped?  Also, my experience and some research on what it means to be a "gelin" or bride in Turkey.

4. We stopped in Istanbul for a few days before leaving Turkey and visited a few tourist spots.  I'll share a few impressions and perhaps a new way to experience the Maiden's Tower.

5. Have you ever heard of Kahramanmaraş?  I would say that many haven't.  I'll give a little background about the city and what may inspire you to come visit.

The city of Maras at night from one of the best spots to visit when in town 

6. To continue on the Maraş theme -  Maraş Dondurması or Ice cream: perhaps the number one reason to visit this town for tourists and it's no gimmick.

7. Turkish Chip or Tarhana (the Maraş version): what are these tasty chips I mentioned before and how are they made?

8. Outsourcing Dinner - a phenomenon in Turkey (or perhaps Maraş) that I wish we had in the US

Well I said a sampling, so I should stop there.  These posts could keep me busy for the next month.  There is more in the works, but I don't want to over-promise. 

So stay tuned…I'll be back shortly!

Breezy, (Should Be) Easy Saturday

I woke up to the sounds of wind rattling the blinds and papers flying off the desk.  It seems crazy, but it's the 10th of November and we can sleep with the windows open.  Here in the middle of the country we should be starting to take winter coats out of storage and buying new hats and gloves for the season.  Instead, it feels like spring - except it doesn't look like a season of renewal - many of the trees are bare and any remaining leaves are orange and brown. 

(Source: http://www.criativa-arts.com/home)

 H. and I found the weather disorienting and not prime for having a productive day.  We had hoped to spend a cozy day at the coffee shop getting work done and then a cozy night at home with a warm meal and a nice movie.  Instead the coffee shops were packed, and with no place to sit inside with our joe, we tried to enjoy the park on this balmy day, but the wind threatened to blow our cups off the table and put grit in our eyes.

As I sit inside now, with my tea to my side and the wind howling at the dark window, I want to open my arms to the wind and let it pick me up and take me across the ocean.  I want to leave behind the work and deadlines that stifle our weekends and gnaw on our consciences and just hit the road.  This time of year in the academic calendar it feels like we all are just trying to get by and get it over with.  Just keep afloat a couple more weeks and then we can all be rewarded in our own way with a few weeks of peace (there will still be work, but there at least is peace). 

This should be an easy Saturday for me - I have no impending deadlines, no test to study for, and no paper to write.  In fact, I am already half checked out.  I no longer can inspire myself to get much research done.  I keep thinking of that glorious day in December when I will get on a plane and wake up 12 hours later in Turkey.   I hope that a month of vacation in Turkey will be what I need to come back renewed and ready to work.

I also hope that some time away will give me more clarity.  Lately, I wonder about the usefulness of spending so many years in school.  Yes, I love classes and I would love to teach at the college level (or so I think), but is all of this worth it?

I remember those days when I felt so inspired to work and I felt that what I was doing was important and that I could make a difference in this world.  That feeling is fleeting.  Now I realize that even though my research could be important, most likely it will not make a difference.  The people that should be filling me with inspiring words and pumping me up are instead making this all seems like a game of "publish or perish", like that's all that matters.  

Trust me, I'm not feeling sorry for myself - these are my choices and I take full responsibility for them.  I'm just practical - I don't want to waste precious time and effort.

Perhaps this intense wind that seemed to change the season in the span of a day is causing me to think of the seasons changing within myself.  Spring has passed and I am moving into the "summer" phase of my life when decisions are made, families are created, and careers begin.  It's exciting, but daunting at times to be standing at the edge of your life looking out into the unknown.  Yet, if there is one thing we all know, just as we cannot stop the wind from blowing, we cannot stop the march of time.  Decisions will have to be made - right or wrong - life will go on.  All I can hope for tomorrow is that the winds outside (and in my soul) will quiet for a while and allow me to move forward with a little less resistance. 

(Source: http://eternal-sharingan.deviantart.com/art/Flying-with-the-Wind-195833964)

A journey into the soul of Turkey's most famous female writer

Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within
by Elif Shafak

Memoir has become one of my favorite genres in recent years.  For me, reading the real stories from the life of a living person can be just as interesting and ensnaring (if not more) than the made-up plot and characters from a fiction novel.  In fact, these two genres - Memoir and the Novel - are not actually that far apart in some respects.  Novelists are often inspired by or based on real life people and experiences, and in the memoir truth can be stretched when authors take liberties with story details and dialogue - not to mention the distortional element of the human memory that often creates images that are far from the true past experience. 

Elif Shafak's memoir, Black Milk, is a perfect example where the line between memoir and fiction are blurred.  I am not by any means casting doubt on the reality of the experiences Elif shares in her memoir, but her harem of Thumbelinas or "The Choir of Discordant Voices", as Elif calls them in the memoir, do add an imaginary element to Elif's story that creates quite a unique read.

Elif in Black Milk:

"There is a mini harem deep down in my soul.  A gang of females who constantly quarrel and bicker, looking for an opportunity to trip one another up.  They are teeny-tiny creatures, each no taller than Thumbelina….They make my life miserable and yet I don't know how to live without them…Each has declared a different corner of my soul her residence."

I'll be honest - at first I was unsure about these tiny characters that Elif employed to discuss her innermost thoughts and conflicts.  These Thumbelinas are highly exaggerated elements of Elif's personality, each one separate and individual so that when they come together for critical decisions in Elif's life,  they fight and argue, pulling Elif in six different directions.  Once I became comfortable with these characters in the memoir, I began to really appreciate this method of storytelling and I began to see how this idea plays out in my own inner world at times….

While Elif's memoir is slated as a book about post-partum depression and the struggle that Elif encountered when she became pregnant and gave birth for the first time. It is true that this period of Elif's life is a large part of the novel, yet for me this was not the lasting image that remained with me after I finished the book.  Perhaps it is my age and my own experience, but I can connect with Elif's journey as a woman who wants to remain true to herself and true to her intellectual desires, she sometimes dips too far into seclusion and rejection of her material self, but then she rises back to the balance of brain and body - of human love and love of ideas.  Many women, single or married with children, would be able to connect to this journey and I'm glad Elif shared it.  She is an inspiration to me to keep writing, keep pursuing my goals, and to not worry about - and even try to control - the voices inside my head that tell me to do twenty different things at once. 

For another review of Black Milk see:

An article on the Ms. Magazine Blog:

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/05/10/the-women-within-elif-shafak/#respond