Stain-glass Eyes

When I walk along the Bosphorus I feel quite at home.  The pick up in the breeze, the slightly cooler temperature, the light from the open water with no shadows.  My memory of spending so much time on Lake Huron by the boat docks and along the shore kicks in.  I'd love to have someone test to see if my blood pressure goes down significantly, because I can feel it change.  My shoulders start to relax, my posture becomes more centrally located over my hips and I'm myself again.  There are different routes I take down to the ocean.  My favorite one is when I leave my doorstep, walk across Yoğurçu Parki and end up on a beautifully designed boardwalk made of flat stones.  There's a low fence of enormous stones piled up between the walk and the wake from the Bosphorus.  When I say enormous I mean some as big as a kitchen table or a VW Bug.  They are piled as wide from the water to the walk as a two-way street.  I start at the park and walk almost an hour or more curving

Considering myself a writer is not easy.  It has no framed, signed document, hanging on the wall.  No papers with editing marks and comments from the teacher in red.  Writing a blog is very loose in its permission of freedom. When I think of myself as a writer I have to brave the unknown affect of my words.  Along with the unknown, I have to realize it can have an affect on myself and others.  Dorothea Brande says in her book, Becoming A Writer ,  "You are persuading your reader, while you hold his attention, to see the world with your eyes, to agree that this is a stirring occasion, that that situation is essentially tragic, or that another is deeply humorous.  All fiction is persuasive in this sense." I don't consider persuading an audience by what I'm writing.  Most of my writing is written from a place in me I sometimes don't even know. A stranger.  I guess that's why I tend to think I'm crazy.  My logical ordering side reads my writing aft

Thinking through my day, I've had better.  Many better than today.  But my judgement on my day clouded my thinking.  I expected more.  I wanted more.  I got today.  Disappointment is easy when I put my expectations too high.  I know that but I can't help myself sometimes. Heidi is now a gradate of U of M.  I wanted to not feel okay about not being there this weekend.  I tried but it didn't work.  Being a mother is full-time, forever.  I wanted to be the one there to hug her and congratulate her and cry during the ceremony.  It's impossible to separate myself from being a mom. Elizabeth will soon move to California to begin working on her doctorate.  I'm already seeing the thousands of miles and unread books separating us.  The mom kicks in and makes me anticipate and worry. I think about Jacqueline and the "mom" spells she must be in right now.  She gets today, too.  I hope and pray she will have a good day and Mary Jean will surprise everyone with a

I'm shelved with your left-overs. Saved scraps to piece together your meal. Collected and stored. I poured easily into the jar with no lid.   Just the size for a small teacup plate to cover. You were ready to toss me. But, I see I was useful enough to be used today. Perfect to moisten your vegetables. They inevitably dry out in storage overnight. You scrape me out of this jar I sit in. Parts of me remain on the sides and bottom. Quickly and carelessly you set the jar in water running under the faucet. What remains of me falls into the drain. Even the jar will be recycled or reused. I feel luke-warm when you finish heating me up. You pour me over and stir me in. Not very exotic or gourmet. To you I'm not the sought after delicacy of noble recipes. But, I know there's more of myself. I regrettably came without a label of ingredients. I was set behind the tomatoes and pickles.  In the jar without a lid. I become what I

Editing can be addicting.  So, before I head out to find a place to sit and have a coffee and soup, I have to fix a few errors.  I finally got some help in figuring out WHY the poem I wrote a few weeks ago didn't have to spaces in-between the lines where I wanted them.   Heidi helped me.  She suggested I look to see if i had it under html instead of compose----which I did.  Thanks, Goo. Tomorrow I go with a friend, Birim, to a place (don't remember the name because I can't visualize the Turkish words unless someone writes them down for me-good excuse, eh?) where there are more than 10 million tulips.  Now is tulip time.  Flowers have a way of making me smile (quite universal I think).  With my new computer I ought to be able to get some pictures on my blog soon.  But, remember, even the pictures I take will be seen through... Stain-glass eyes. Oh, tomorrow is a national holiday here-NO SCHOOL!!  I'm including the national anthem for you to see on youtube.  I'm

It fascinates me I am at the same stage of my self-awareness as I am in my acclimating myself to Istanbul.  I have started to place less judgement.  I take it more as it is.  Less comparing.  I recently finished Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore and feel much of what I've been learning start to sink in.  I'm observing myself more than analyzing myself.          Moore says, ' When people observe the ways in which the soul is manifesting itself, they are  enriched     rather than impoverished.  they receive back what is theirs,   the very thing they  have assumed to be so horrible that it should be cut out and tossed away.  When you regard the soul with an open mind you begin to find the  messages that lie within  the illness.  The corrections that can be found in remorse and other uncomfortable feelings,  and the necessary changes requested  by depression and anxiety.' I realized it the most when I returned from my trip to America last week.  I was seeing th

Home is here for now. I like it. I like the temporary feel of living here. I think it makes the things that are so frustrating to me more tolerable. I arrived back from the states late Monday.  The wind and rain storms in Detroit and Chicago on Sunday made my trip about 4 hours longer than I expected. When I arrived in Istanbul my luggage didn't arrive with me. I went through about 2 hours of the "run around" with Turkish Airlines. Now I know where the term "run around" comes from. They had me run around from place to place looking for my luggage. Each time I returned to the office I had to wait in line again to get someone to help me. (4 times to be exact) After waiting in line or clump, to get help, I heard other people talking about their lost luggage from Chicago. They were all passengers who had been on American Airlines with a connection in Chicago to Turkish Airlines. I figured it wasn't Turkish Airlines that caused the problem. But,

Not able to post my writing lately. Extemely frustrating BUT there is a positive side! I'm reading more and picking up my guitar to work on songs I'm writing. My computer died. I hated it anyway. So I'm tapping away on my Kindle trying to write to tell my readers, "Don't give up on my blog, I will replace my computer in about ten days and be back in words." I have many stories to share and find writing this blog very, very satisfying. My last blog was actually a song,I wrote and wanted to post. I head for the U.S. shortly to be "Mom" at Heidi's senior recital at U of M. I'm hand delivering special sweets from Turkey (Elizabeth's idea) for the reception after her performance...Turkish Delight, hand pulled candy, and baklava that will melt on your tongue. I really wanted Betsy Laug to make her homemade specialties she made for other family events, but no computer---no skype---no phone calls. I'll return to Istanbul on April 15th and