upon the summit of Zion

i start this with memory.

they say that smell is the most potent trigger for one's memory, second perhaps being a sound, when in fact i believe sight to be perhaps the most inaccurate. funny how pictures change in our heads yet we unmistakably flash back to beautiful memories upon the slightest hint of scent or the excitement that strikes our brains with just the touch of a hand. and its so curious to me that we have been so successful in preserving photos and images from our past yet it comes so natural to us to preserve our memories in long lost olfactory senses and dusty preservations of intensity such as our first kiss or the feeling of a person sleeping on your chest.

but these are memories, and its in this memories that we find ourselves so disconnected when we travel so far away. somehow memories don't even hold a candle of light to our consciousness when we are in faraway deserts and step upon high mountaintops.

i never saw that coming when i first began traveling; i was told we'd hold these things truer to ourselves.

for sake of avoiding esoteric ramblings i want to share my true experiences with the world, if not for myself alone. as i've said before, you stamp this moments in your personal history when you travel and they seem to connect to each other and form tunnels in the earth between the beautiful volcanoes of Nicaragua to the forbidden landscapes of Shao-Lin in China. you stamp (i stamp) these moments of beauty and connect the faraway collections of beauty that this world of sights and sounds has to offer and the world begins to look more and more like a rubber band ball each time.

i was tickled by an enormous map of the world i chanced upon somewhere in Taksim earlier today. it made me smirk devilishly to the fact that we live in a lifetime where one is able to connect the faraway moments of the world into our own masterpiece and recreate for ourselves our own version of how the world can be perceived. we've fought so many fucking wars over this that its unbelievable. its a shame.

i live in a city (and a country) that has been absolutely wonderful to me. let it be known that i never fell to the ranks of those who take for granted the beauty that has been bestowed upon them. yet this story is just starting. in a few weeks from now i'll be en route to the far southeastern corners of this country to visit Adıyaman, Diyarbakır and of course Mardin, where i have dreamed of visiting since i landed on this island.



whatever you believe in is cool with me just remember that other people believe in different things sometimes. the purpose of national identification is to celebrate our similarities and rejoice in our differences as human.. not to wage war over our lack of understanding.