a scent for all occasions

Today marks four months since I returned to Istanbul. Super crazy. I feel like I've been here so much longer. To think that in a little over a month I'll be leaving it again - this time for good - is both a relief and also really fucking sad. I've had so many strange and enriching experiences here. So many "what the fuck" moments, both good and bad. I feel like I've changed so much as a person, and my values have become so much more evident to me. In some ways I guess I couldn't have asked for more from a place. In other ways I feel like screaming obscenities out my window at this country and its culture. (And its mothers.)

Needless to say (because I just said it,) my feelings are mixed at best. I made myself a countdown in the notebook where I write my lesson plans, not because I'm so eager to leave, but because I'm eager to leave the teaching of writing to apathetic beginner students. Trying to get Turkish people to write fifteen sentences is like trying to get fifteen cats in a bathtub for a monthly scrub. I've heard that it's a symptom of their exam-oriented upbringings, but I just hear it as a lazy whining. That I won't miss. At all.

I had a bit of a tram ride revelation this afternoon, though. After signing documents for a bank account I'll never use, I headed to Sultanahmet, Istanbul's historical and touristic heart. I unabashedly admit that I love going there. Amid the Aya Sofya, Blue Mosque, Basilica Cistern, and other ancient wonders, are heaps of Turkish kitsch and the charming/sleazy vendors who sell them. I went on a mission to buy my mom two hamam towels from a specific shop in a specific bazaar, and in that venture, I was successful. As I was walking back through the bazaar to the tram stop with my loot, a carpet seller did the usual tourist-wrangling and said "Hello. How are you?" I usually ignore the heckling, and feel bad about it, but this time I said "fine, thanks" and continued walking. The guy surprised me though, and said "Please meet my son!" I couldn't help it. I started laughing. Who does that?? Aside from nosy Jewish mothers? I didn't respond, but I couldn't stop smiling. The cheap flattery! The awkwardness! Most of all, the goddamn irony! This complete stranger sees a foreign girl walking down an alley and wants to set her up with his son. (Actually, he probably just wants to sell me a rug. But we're talking hypothetically.) Yet my thirty-two year old boyfriend's parents tell him that he has to break up with me because I'm foreign. It's a goddamn joke.

I make no pretense that I'm not still bitter as hell. Anyway. Revelation onward.

With a smirk on my face, I got back on the tram to head home. Scrambling on next to me was an immaculately dressed older American couple. The man looked like a bald Brooks Brothers ad (conservative navy blazer, navy pants, suede loafers in the rain) and his blonde wife wore a beautiful short(ish) navy dress, navy linen scarf, navy loafers, and some gorgeous matching gold and sapphire bling. I know most of you won't get this reference, but she was so Pasadena it physically hurt. If I'm being honest, she reminded me a little bit of my mom, but without my mom's perpetual enthusiasm, petite stature, and hipness I've (ahem) helped her cultivate. She looked like a country club version of my mom. A yacht-owning version of my mom. I'm just going to say it. A Republican version of my mom. I know this is super judgmental, and you're going to roll your eyes at me, but seeing these people struck terror into my heart. For the first time, I found myself thinking "HOLY FUCK I CAN'T GO BACK. EVER." I got stomach cramps. I started sweating, and tearing up.

It's not that Republicans scare me. I'm not uncomfortable with conservative, old, white, rich people. I've met a lot of them growing up in Southern California, and though I disdain their politics and think they're ruining our country, that's nothing new. For some reason, though, seeing this couple made me want to promise myself I'd never go home. Their casual, genteel comfort. The respectful distance they kept from each other, and the silence between them. Their complete lack of body odor. I know I sound like a crazy person, or at least wildly critical, but they seemed dead on the inside. And while I FEEL dead on the inside right now, I know that I've never been this way before, and theoretically I won't be in the future. I look at this insane mess of a city - dirty, crowded, ancient, misogynistic, proud, intensely sensual. Some people here literally live on other people's leftovers. They dig it out of the trash. They're dirt poor. Others drive absurdly expensive cars and own chunks of the economy. Men walk up and down the streets screaming "SIMIT" (that pretzel thing) all day for a living. Gypsies dig through the garbage bins for recyclable goods. Dogs roam freely. Seagulls squawk. Taxis honk incessantly. Processing the sheer sound of Istanbul is exhausting. This city is kind of a disaster. But it is nothing if not alive. Real. In your face. Energizing and enervating all at once. Gritty and loud and colorful and immediate. Nothing is easy. Nothing is comfortable. And absolutely nothing is gentle.

Seeing that couple reminded me of all of that, and how in comparison, home is like warm oatmeal. Like a nap. That I'm going home to a pleasant, friendly, boring nap. And that scares the shit out of me. I don't know if I'm ready to feel comfortable. I don't know if I'm ready for easy. Being here depressed and lonely is fucking hell, but at least it's hell that smells like honey and pistachios and roasting meat and men who don't wear deodorant.

PANIC AT THE DISCO.