illumination

i've had two visitors this year and both were pretty equally spread out.  my friend Jetmir came to stay with me for a few days upon his launch into Ethiopia late last year and just last week Amos, my friend from Peace Corps, came out for a short week.  having a visitor is really something special because you get to show a person around a wonderful new place and you almost get to relive your own experiences through them.  it is also very nice to be a host for a while because i had forgotten about how different my life has become since i've first moved here.

i wake up pretty early regardless of what i've done the night before.  if i'm working in the morning i walk through a park surrounded by gypsy left-behinds and make my way to a crowded metro subway echoing with street music.  it takes me to the cosmopolitan center where i work and even had two different apartments this last year.  my days are busy and my nights involve winding adventures through the veiny side streets of Taksim to enchanting bars with no signs on the door.  i hang out on terraces with five piece bands.  i've traded indie rock (which i never liked) and hip-hop (which i still love) for clarinets, violins and accordions.  sometimes i make my way to the asian side of the city to catch up with familiar faces and groups of ex-pats who migrate the avenues of Kadıköy as one functioning entity.  when i have free time i simply wander off in aimless directions to find ancient ruins\re-buildings left behind by the layers of history that came before and all of this is a blessing with no disguise.

İstanbul is great.  it is centered in the middle of everywhere and it has served as a gateway between many cultures for hundreds of years.  i meet travelers who come and go as their fate allows and i've met a handful of good friends who, like myself, will probably always call this place their home.  i love to show this city to people who visit me both for their curiosity and for the happiness it gives me to remember what i am doing in the world..

..and thats where my recently illumination has come from

it begins with this wonderful evening to a day which bid farewell to my most recent visitor just a few nights ago.  the sunset was so beautiful over the city and it brought me back to that sensation i had when i first stepped foot on my lojman-apartment terrace a few years ago.  the night came into being and i laid in bed with my window open bringing to me a feeling of change quickly blowing in from somewhere far from here.  its these times when i play back in my head the travels i've made and the experiences i've had with people i've met along the way.  some cross paths again as promised and some fade off into dusty memories perhaps never to be seen again.  the tapestry that was stitched before me was patterned completely without coincidence.  i can play back every single conscious moment that made me choose the path i've created and i can now make sense of the things i could never understand when i was younger.  part of me has woken up and i'm glad this was the time in my life that it occurred.  this is a very exciting moment in my life and in just a few short weeks i am going to open up a whole new chapter.  there are no adjectives to describe my life anymore, no words to explain the feelings in my heart.