I can't get into it and don't want to, but my heart's companion, Vodka, died on Tuesday April 5th. I say with absolute sincerity that I have never lost someone I've loved so much - which I suppose is in some ways fortunate and some ways not. Voddie made the three of us more trusting and more trustworthy people. I couldn't miss him more.
His very rapid decline coincided with our preparations for Istanbul, so I think neither my mom nor myself had the mental or emotional space to find excitement about our trip. My mom, an obsessive list-maker, planner, and researcher, essentially left me to scrape together the details. Considering I work at a travel bookstore and could not be in a better position for such things, I seriously sucked this time around. We're not really allowed to buy "the last copy" of anything, so though I bought a map and took down some tidbits of advice from coworkers, most of my information was based on a book published in 2002, and some actually very stellar lists from my friend Matthew, and now tragically defunct nextstop.com. (Thanks for the tattoo, boys!) I could've done far worse, but I could've also not been a lazy prat and bought a book that included the newest half of the metro system.
All this to say that I wasn't exactly prepared. But I realize now that I couldn't have been. The furthest east I'd been before was a frigid Helsinki, special in its own right, but not exactly an exotic land of sultans and magic carpets. (Reindeer jerky and hipsters, yes.)
It was walking through Atatürk Airport on our way to to our hotel taxi that I started realizing what I'd signed up for. As absurd as this sounds, MEN. So. Many. Men. Staring. Smiling. Sometimes at me. With dark curly hair, heavy beards, some fair and some darker. Some painfully gorgeous, some less so. There were women, too, after the initial shock of the wall of men holding up signs for cars. Women dressed entirely in white with scarves covering their hair - Christians, my mom said (she'd read an article, she said). There were also women in skin-tight jeans. Women in niqabs. Women dressed every which way in-between. Women much younger than me toting two children with another one on the way. Muslim women from Malaysia. Women giving me the stink eye. Women who were eyes and giant swathes of fabric. Stunning women who looked like Snow White, but better and with amazing eyebrows. In case the sentiment isn't getting through: WHOA OMG WHOA. Welcome to the real world, Anya. Shit's about to get raw.
I live in one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, but this was different. Skin color and language are one thing - the visual representation of religious belief is a diversity of its own. I don't want to harp on this, but I also can't ignore it. To do so would be totally dishonest, and also really lame of me. Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country, and there are different rules at play. While I knew that mentally and was interested to see this manifest, I can't explain how subtly (and constantly) surprising it was in reality. To see women cover their hair, to see some cover the majority of their faces, and to see it look entirely unremarkable in its context totally shook me to the core. I don't want or need to comment on whether I agree with that practice. I have no right or desire to judge. What touched me more than anything was how I felt among these women. Not just because I got a few glares of stink eye for my tighter fitting clothes, but because I realized just how much my hair relates to my sense of self. Probably more so than my face. I had a moment half-way through our trip at the Sülemaniye Mosque when I was preparing to enter. I'd taken off my shoes and was trying to cover my hair up when the attendant smiled at me. Not in a condescending way - in the friendliest way possible. She took my scarf in her hand and tucked my hair behind my ears, smoothing, pulling the fabric here and there. We both knew mine would come off when I left the mosque and hers would remain, but she treated me with such kindness and respect. I realized, feeling so false, that to cover my hair - to hide it - would change who I am.
That was an entirely serious sentence, as ludicrous as it might sound. For those of you who haven't had a Felicity moment and drastically altered your defining physical feature, you might not understand. I don't think I really did until Istanbul, despite chopping my hair off first year of college and crying afterward. My hair is my greatest source of vanity. (Which I understand is partially why Muslim women cover theirs.) I let it speak for me when I can't represent myself. People tell me I look better when I straighten it, (and I agree,) but my heart says a secret "fuck you." It can't be tamed. Stop trying.
I'm supposed to be talking about the city of Istanbul, I know, but for me this was a big part. Feeling somehow "other." Feeling like if I changed my clothes and tucked my hair away, I would absolutely pass as Turkish. But instead I got stared at a lot - a lot - and felt the discomfort of feeling remarkable, and for once, beautiful. Who knew, right? It's not a sarcastic exercise in self-deprecation, I promise. It's that I usually feel like a bitter, Daria-esque piece of wallpaper. A goopy, acidic one who weighs too much, who smiles too rarely, and who dresses like a grandma in training. Sometimes when I get my eyebrows waxed and my skin lady says "sexy! fierce!" I chuckle awkwardly and think "tranny!" So to watch men look at my hair (and... err... the rest of me) appreciatively and say silly things like "oh! you break my heart!" was bizarre. Feeling like a mild hussy when my sweater cuffs rode up? Bizarre and befuddling. Being the recipient of so much attention and cheap flattery? New, weird, uncomfortable. Initially delicious.
I asked my new Turkish friend T. why Turkish men were so un-subtle in their glances and comments*. He said "because they think you and all other Western women are easy."
At least he tells it like it is.
Ok. I'm fading. This is clearly going to be a very long series of posts. Stay tuned for the next installment!
*Though they were vociferous and didn't even try to hide their gawking, I never once felt disrespected, or offended by anything anyone said. No one was lewd, vulgar, or even remotely rude to me. In fact, Turkish guys are not only super freaking hot - they're extraordinarily charming AND manage it in a foreign language. A+, silly men.
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