Tuesday, 13 April 2010

Doorstep - Letting In


The reason I was not writing since my birthday post is very understandable: I lost my job again.
When my boss told me the company is not doing well at all and they can not afford my salary that was ok, but when I heard the words "we have to close this position" that, that seemed like a joke.
It will feel as unreal to you if you would read my previous post. 
Well, nothing to do. I gathered my belongings and rushed home to join H that learned about the cancer diagnosis of her mother.

All these words, what do they have to do with a doorstep?
Well it was in that awful rainy weather that I returned home in a hurry with all those bags full of my office stuff, in the doorstep of the building sitting there looking for my keys in all that clutter that from my back I heard this voice for me: "what is that does not exist in a woman's bag?". I turned, this was the waterguy, smiling with his limpid blue eyes. I wiped my cheeks and avoiding my face I said " oh, yes, what is it?", he replied "order!" and laughed.
I knew him from before. His name was Mesut which meant "happy" but somehow I saw the deep sorrow in his immense blue eyes before.
It was only in the lift that he learned about my day. He was sorry to hear. He said that he has blue days as well and that the ones we love are the ones that hurt the more. He told me about how he overcomes bad days like these, with his glass of red wine going to his favorite hill or with her 3 years old daughter.

He was polite and said he had to leave for new orders and left with his warm words. I was sweeping my tears.

I went to the shower to leave soon for H. Best thing is to cry in the shower when you don't know what to do now and you are sort of collapsed.
The door rang, I wondered who it was.
It was him.. with a bar of chocolate and a bunch of water bottles in his other hand.
I hugged. And thanked.
...
The days that followed, I was busy but I had a plan.
But I could not contact him since he was not working for my water company I realised.
It was only after second time where I had this magnet of another water company that dropped when I opened my door of my 2 cat populated home, that I realised it was him and he was trying to contact me as well.
The photo above is taken this morning, my very human touch, M and my cat and my new water bottle.
He was surprised for gift package for his daughter and the small note I wrote for him as well as a letter of appreciation to his company where I explained the reason why I converted to their water.
After I told him my part of the story after he left, he told me his.
The day afte he left, he had a terrible car accident where people were surprised that he survived.
In his hospital room, he saw a dream where he wakes up and sees me as a nurse, my smile and a bar of chocolate that I hand to him saying "this chocolate will make you feel better and ease your pain."
What a beautiful story to write back to you..
What a life..
Such a healing of strangers, in a doorstep.
Where indoors, it is the ones that we love the most, that hurt the most

Monday, 8 March 2010

A Very Happy Birthday

The night before my birthday, somebody knocked on my kitchen window, some gigles and then the candle lights on a delicious cake. Can there be a better surprise?


So we paused as my favorite chilren's book series heroin Aysegül (Debbie in English, Martine in French) by Marcel Marlier and Gilbert Delahaye which made me believe in such a beautiful world.

The morning after which was my birth-day, we all agreed to go out for a modest breakfast in the junction of the Black Sea and the Bosphorus that you can see behind H on the photo.

Although we born as "one" and we die as "one", we need our happy crowd along the way.

Laughed loud, ate all well and paused for the occasion.

Aren't birthdays about this happy crowd in life?

The night when I was going back to my bed, I realised I felt so happy and safe like our little hazelnut in her mom's arms.


I remembered my birthday last year, not a cheerful one at all. As an abondoned amusement park in winter.
Having lost my job with 260 employees in the company due to the crisis, friends and family came in but there was a silent sadness in the air as the boyfriend didn't show up, neither called. A birthday of sudden losses.

We own so much to our happy crowds. we must never stop being grateful about them.

Monday, 1 March 2010

Making A Home, So Far Away from Home

I have joined to sis' friends to be together for a special sunday breakfast in Polonezköy in the occasion of a good friend 's birthday

Polonezköy is in the countryside in the very north of Istanbul


ut what makes Polonezköy so special and so different than the texture of Istanbul is not only the greenery,


The history of the village is quite interestng. It was built as an emigration center to Polish in 1842. So far away from home..
Hence the name Polonezköy which means Polish Village in Turkish.

"At the beginning, the village was inhabited by 12 people, but there were no more than 220 people when the village was most populated. In the course of time, Adampol developed and was flooded by a lot of emigrants from the rebellion in November 1830, during the Crimean War in 1853, and by runaways from Siberia and from captivity in Czerkieska. The first inhabitants busied themselves with agriculture, raising and forestry. After Polish independence in 1918, many returned to Poland. Before World War II, the first tourists already began to arrive to the village. The remaining inhabitants of Adampol (Polonezköy) took Turkish citizenship in 1938."



Still the inhabitants speak the Polish language and the signs are both in Turkish and Polish

Today Polonezköy is an excellent escape for Istanbullers like us on weekends.


The spring, the unaging spring is already here. I enjoyed my short walks to take photos and caught up the birthday wishes at the end of their long wee session.

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