Here. Well, where are you?

I realize that I have fallen into the trap of simply relating my life in my blog. This I-did-this I-did-that bilge is exactly the sort of thing which I told myself I would avoid writing. I have resolved to write more ideas and opinions and less description – I have always hated reading long description – though, of course, I am in Turkey and even day-to-day is interesting. (Backgammon in the back yard, swimming in the sea. My green dress, blowing….)

Flipping through ancient family photo albums, it crossed my mind that my mother was a far more interesting youngster than I can claim to be. Mom once told me of a feat she accomplished when she was a little younger than I.

“I saw a movie where someone had to pull a match out of a matchbox, close the matchbox, and light the match – with their feet. I thought that was pretty neat, so I taught myself to do it.”

“Wow,” I said, thinking of my inability to light a match with my hands.

My mother also translated a book into German, read most of a dictionary, skipped two grades, and attended boarding school for about five years. She performed her own surgeries, sterilizing pins to use for splinter-removing purposes. She became a sister at the age of ten, lived in several countries, graduated from school as a cardiologist and married someone who did not speak her mother tongue.

What truly blows my mind, of course, is how people can forget their childhood. Because when I see my grandmother at fifteen, I cannot fathom how many years and experiences it took for the girl in the picture to become my recently-turned-sexagenarian Anneanne. And I cannot understand how anyone could experience so many years without a great deal of change in character and mannerisms. I look back at two years ago with disgust and regret, because that was long in the past and I am so very different now. Yet my father is not too different today from the man who holds his firstborn of twelve hours in the corner of his arm while my mother takes the picture that will feature first in a photo album, and will someday astound someone I have not yet met.

On Sunday I discovered the value of my mother’s friend the Power Nap. Aside from those ten minutes, I was up for well over a day – allowing me to destroy my jet-lag in one fell swoop. Someday I may post pictures, because I wish all of you could see this beautiful place.

Tamam, gitmak lazim.

There go those waves again.