The passing landscape

Almost every morning when I take the train to work I see the landscape in a different way. Most of the time it is the landscape that is passing, not the other way around. I sit still, listen to music and think about everything there is to think about. Sitting on a train awakens my creativity and many of my stories were born during those endless trips. I like watching people, the look on their faces when they receive a text message, the way they stumble their way out, the way they look (sometimes stare) at me, the way they treat other people – politely and often not so politely, I look at the books they read and take a peek at their iPod. I wish I could photograph them secretly. I wish I could make their expressions, their happiness and their sorrow eternal. Or as eternal as a photograph lets them become.

Every morning we pass a part of a river and every morning I wonder why there are some cars lined up on the other side of the highway across the river. There are no buildings in walking distance, there are no places to go, but the cars are parked on the same spot every day. Where do the owners go?

This summer, when I stop taking the train every day, I need to find a substitute for the passing landscape.

I am so f****** done!

“The one I know wouldn’t act this way,” my friend said and referred to the one I used to be. Before I decided to become rational and all grown up.

You don’t get to feel the things you feel, because it is not rational.

You don’t get to do the things you want to do, because it is not rational.

You don’t get to say the things you want to say, because it is not rational.

You don’t get to regret the things you have said and done, because it is not rational.

You don’t get to be angry, because it is not rational.

A part of me is Turkish after all, which means being passionate, slightly mad and irrational come with the package. Whether I want to or not.

Yeah, I am so fucking done being rational!

…and everyone loves a big fat lie.

Surfing

If I were a boy, I would go surfing, I said to my friend yesterday. And I giggled, of course.

Girls do surf, you know? Why don’t you get a wetsuit and go surfing with me? he replied, like he doesn’t know me at all.

Haha. What a funny thing to say.

Coulda. Woulda. Shoulda.

What to write. What to tell. What to share. Gather my thoughts. Put the words together. Put the sentences together. Create a story out of the words and the sentences. Or write an allegory. Or maybe a poem.

The thing is; I am so bored and empty that none of my stories are close to be put in words. I could tell you about the places I have traveled to. I could tell you about all the places I have ran away to. I could tell you about the endless green fields and the villages on Turkey’s Black Sea coast I have been dreaming about for ages. I could tell you about how it feels to fly coast to coast  above my emotional landscapes, not knowing where to touch down. I could tell you about the beauty that lies in between the opposites that/who never meet. I could tell you about ice cream breaks. I could tell you about my friend who had an emotional breakdown the other day and ended up doing an oil painting of me. I could tell you about how much it made me miss him. I could tell you about the abandoned, silent island. I could tell you about happiness. I could tell you about misunderstandings. I could tell you about evening sun. I could tell you I am amazed by the way Siri Hustvedt manages to put everything in words, even the things you did not know you thought about. I could tell you about getting on trains. I could tell you about getting off trains. I could tell you about how people manage to pass each other, not knowing when to get on and off the train. I could tell you that we all should be handed with road maps and time schedules, just so we don’t get caught by fate when we stumble on our way. I could tell you how much I romanticize Lucy’s mom who used to sit awake all night in the dark smoking cigarettes and listening to jazz records. I could tell you that I love to do the exact same thing, because it makes me calm and happy, not sad and lonely, like Lucy’s mom must have felt. I could tell you how good it feels it sit in a park listening to the sound of a city. I could tell you that I need something to ease me through the minefield of becoming too cynical. I could tell you about my best friend who thinks I have already become too cynical.

I would tell you about the strange, little things that have happened lately if I only knew how.

Well, what do you know, I did manage to write something after all. Better than nothing, I would say.

Anger

There’s always some hope in anger, I think, hopes for things to be different.

 

Siri Hustvedt

the past. the present. the future.

leave your scars behind, erase them, I said to myself. myself replied in silence. put a smile on my face. and dragged my eyes away. down to my hands. my teeth…myself let them bit my lip. countless times.

I looked at my fingers and nails through the plastic glass of beer. and wondered how they would look in a photo. the dim light made them appear in the warm yellow shade I prefer on my color photos. just like the one that reminds me of spring. and the air, the evening sunlight and the feeling that comes along with the season.

the past, the present, the future…everything that does not make sense, makes sense. only during spring.

New Yorkers

New Yorkers aren’t bound by a common tongue or by similar backgrounds. We’re everybody from everywhere, and most of the time, we tolerate each other pretty well. The people in this city know that in this we are unique. No other place comes close to our diversity. We have our share of ugliness, brutality, and pockets of cruel and stupid racism, but the fact is that if you don’t like the hectic jostling of innumerable cultures and languages and ways of being,  you wouldn’t have to live here. The terrorists understood nothing. When they hurt New York, they hurt the whole world.

Siri Hustvedt

but in art…

knowing isn´t everything – the unknown often pushes its way to the surface.

siri hustvedt

Those for whom…

…the world is not enough: poets, philosophers and all lovers of books.

Joseph Joubert