ISTANBUL I

Journey to the Ancient Capital 

“There was still a light in her eyes, like that of a child’s; open to new experiences.” –Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk

Istanbul almost didn't happen. That's an ironic thing to say about a city thousands of years old, that's been the capital of Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, had three different names (Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul) as those empires rose and fell, and is still one of the only world capitals spanning two continents. Boats chug back and forth all day and into the night along the mouth of the Bosphorus, ferrying people and goods back and forth between Europe and Asia. Some catch the wind with a sail, some dredge nets into the water for fish. Small flocks of gulls whirl above the waves and the boats and the calls to prayer that unwind from the countless minarets of the mosques. Istanbul, it seems, has always been happening and has a kinetic energy that won't be fading anytime soon.  What I mean to say is I almost didn't go. 

Visiting Istanbul was a follow-on trip to a medical mission to Uganda with work. The Uganda leg got cancelled, though, just a couple of weeks before we were to depart, because of an outbreak of Ebola in Kampala. Our affiliate hospital there asked us not to come, and rightly so. It's a hazmat-suit disease; highly contagious through contact with body fluids and highly lethal. Surgery is a huge risk in the context of an outbreak. Godspeed their return to health, and maybe we can go another time. But there went the heart of the trip--the work. I'd already booked flights and accomodations, though, and it seemed a shame to cancel everything after the effort of organizing it. 

So I traded a week in Uganda for a week in upstate NY, dipping beeswax candles, trudging through the woods in knee-deep snow, and tending to some sheep on a family farm that I'm becoming friends with. It was freezing, but also starkly beautiful, and cozy by the woodstove, and monastic dipping candles in the snow. I talked over hearty dinners with good people and made things with my hands. I was happy. And then it was time for Istanbul. And then, again, almost didn't go. 

Waiting to board the flight across the Atlantic from the gate in Albany, an announcement goes out that there's a problem with one of the engines and we can't fly until it's fixed. An hour passes. Then we can't fly at all. We all get in line at the ticket counter to see what other options exist to keep our plans roughly in tact, but traffic through Albany is limited and most people book a hotel for the night. There's nothing they can offer me, either, except a refund and a $12 meal voucher for the inconvenience. I take it, and patch together connections through other airlines that can still get me to Istanbul within 2 hours of my original arrival time. I hesitate...but I'm going. I've come too far to turn around now. 

Albany. Washington Dulles. Frankfurt. Istanbul. It's 8pm and the sun has set. The airport is an hour from town. Beyond its towering arrival hall, outside, across a landscaped courtyard where yellow taxis wait to whisk away their Parisian ladies and businessmen from Berlin, the sound of conversations and car engines fade and I can hear, barely above the sound of my own footsteps, the wind tonging the clapper of a cow bell against its metal hull. One or two at a time, I hear the sound of a gentle wind articulated through these bells. I look up, and there are thousands of them! Hanging under the curved roof of the pedestrian walkways that connect the airport to the metro, the wind catches them, occasionally, and makes itself known. 

I carry two backpacks and it's after dark in this unknown place. I quicken my pace. Train tickets. Subway tickets. Cobbled streets intersecting like a spider's web. Beyoğlu; the New City. An address. A key code. A 4-story spiral staircase. A door with a key in the lock. The night sky on a patio. Orion. West looks into the neighborhoods of town, east looks out to lights glittering on the Bosphorus, the boats, the gulls, the low bellow of a big ship crossing the water. For the next week, this is home. 

From the roof deck of my little apartment in the heart of the city, I look up and see the stars through half a dozen pairs of circling wings. Mediterranean gulls floating in off the Bosporus occupy the middle distance between me and midnight blue sky, studded with the stars of Orion and a handful of other mythologies. They call to one another through the darkness, just as happy as ancient city to be within sight of land and water simultaneously, awake long into the night.

Hagia Sophia, the Devine Wisdom. A Byzantine take on the Roman Basilica built under the direction of Emperor Justinian after his first two takes were set on fire during the Nika Riots. The Arabic inscription of the dome quotes the 35th verse of the Qur’ān: “Allah is the light of the of the heavens and the earth.” UNESCO World Heritage site since 1985, completed in 537, and still standing. I swear it’s the disgruntled angels on the pendentives holding the place up.

Here's a 12-minute tour with a sweet guide if you'd like a virtual visit to Hagia Sophia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMvpQvboUTs&ab_channel=JustAdrift

And here's an amazing recreation of what choir music sung in the Hagia Sophia 500 years ago would have sounded like: https://www.npr.org/2020/02/22/808404928/listen-the-sound-of-the-hagia-sophia-more-than-500-years-ago

Five times a day we hear the call to prayer: Adhan. The voices of the the muezzin riseon tinny speakers above the streets busy with mopeds and tourists and roving cats, like so many metal tops wound and wobbling their vibratos out over the city in all directions. In the distance, from the minarets of another mosque; from the minarets of several other mosques, the call rises there also. Softer and off-set, like smaller waves rolling in behind a breaker,  these others in the distance are an echo, an undercurrent, and the whole city, for a moment, is bound in the unspooling call; then silence.

The Blue Mosque, an Ottoman-era Imperial Mosque, built between 1609-1617 is just a few steps from the Hagia Sophia off Sultanahmet Square is its cozy cousin.  Secular visitors are allowed on the main floor, where shoes are removed at the door. This one feels more personal; maybe for the smaller (though no less impressive) scale, or maybe because taking shoes off and walking on the carpet feels a bit like it’s a holy living room. People sit and talk and read, bend and kneel and pray. They're used to the little stream of tourists passing through a cordoned-off section of the mosque where we stop and stare and take photos with our phones. Secular guests are asked to leave as the next hour of prayer approaches. I find my shoes, take in the light one more time, and step back out into the square. 

Basilica Cistern, the great basin of fresh water under Istanbul, surrounded by the salty sea. Miles of aqueducts carried the water from distant rivers to this central pool where the heads of medusas guard the aquatic reserve. The lighting changes every few minutes, making it even more haunting and magical than any subterranean reservoir might already be on its own. It's chilly and humid, and water collects on the ceiling and drips back down in places; it's raining underground. 

From the cistern I wander a bit, looking for somewhere to eat dinner. Every other establishment in the tourist area is a place to eat, so you'd think it'd be easy enough, but so many places are mostly outdoors, or serve only desserts and coffee, or are kebab shops. The sun is setting and the night is cool and I'm hoping for a warm meal indoors. I pass a couple of hotels with restaurants in the lobby, but this feels overly formal. Then, at the intersection of two streets, there's a place called By Chef Restaurant. This is it! It looks like an old row house and has cafe tables on the second and third floors, and a rooftop terrace. I'm offered a table on the second floor among some other diners and gladly accept. The window to my right faces west and the clouds are peach and grey. I can see the traffic and the people in the distance but the street below is quiet. I'm offered a plate of pita bread and mezze which could easily be a small meal, and told this is on the house. Kindess here abounds. I order a glass of red wine and a plate of dolmas. I joke that I'm having wine and leaves for dinner--everything but the grape itself--and the woman next to me smiles. I eat quickly, but enjoy it all. I have a ticket to see the whirling dervish a few blocks away and only half an hour for dinner. I finish my mezze and my leaves and drink my wine and ask for the check. It arrives with a beautiful square of baklava sprinkled with pistachio, also on the house. Would I like some tea, also complimentary? It was a shame to decline but I had to go. I shook the hand of the restaurant owner as I stepped out onto the street again, not sure how he stayed in business, but grateful for his hospitality and generosity. 

The Whirling Dervish. Five men in long white dresses with full skirts. Each wears a black belt and a brown camel hair sikke, which is a cylindrical "tombstone" hat that represents spiritual freedom from what the soul desires. The lights dim in the old Hodjapasha bath house-turned-theater, the musicians begin their chant and then their song, and the dervishes begin to spin. With dresses unfurled, the stage is fully inhabited by their presence, although each man has his eyes softly closed. Not shut tight but softly closed to the full view of the outside world, rendering them suspended inside the rhythm and the procession of their spinning. I watch their faces, taking in the countenance of each man. They are so peaceful. The right hand is raised overhead, a salute to the divine.  The left is at the level of the heart or so, palm down, tracking what is earthly. The head tilts a little toward the upraised arm with this man; with that, both arms are lifted exultantly, with another, there's a gentleness to the posture of the hands that makes me wonder what he was like as a boy. There are no sudden changes, no big moves. The dance goes on for an hour, each man tracing his way around the stage the way the stars cross the sky in a night, unbothered and unwavering in their course. When they stop, there is a reverent silence. The men bow to fold their practice back within themselves, not for applause, and we understand. We wait for them to leave the stage, then stand ourselves up and head out the door, and the night is cold and busy again, and bright. 

Parting shots of Istanbul. Midway through Ramadan the messages strung between the minarets of the mosques change. Small affirmations of perseverance and goodwill. On my last night in town, I had to cross through police barricades set up along the main streets  to prevent riots forming out of Women’s Day demonstrations. The demonstrators persevered, without riots. 

I'm a couple of blocks from home.  A boy of six or seven sits in front of a Burger King with a cup and sings into the night. I don’t know the language, I don’t know the words but the melody is of a person unmoored and my heart knows something of that nomadic sorrow, here, alone in Istanbul. A man walks by and hushes him quiet. I can’t say why. The boy is unbothered. Another boy—a brother or a friend—approaches with a deflated ball and they kick it around oblivious to all facts except that they are boys in a public street with a blown-out soccer ball and their happiness is just as available and real as happiness has ever been.

Returning to the airport feels like the moment of closing the circle on Istanbul. I spent a week walking in a city full of history and sound, begun with the gentle ringing of bells at dusk and concluding with the same ringing in the bight light of mid-day. The waves of bells are meant to evoke a memory (or imagination) of cows in the fields of Anatolia and I can't help but wish for a day in the countryside. This was designed as a journey to the capital, a week on foot to add my steps along paths tread since ancient times. Perhaps, Anatolia, another day. 

In Berlin, I took class at Tanzfabrik, saw dance performances at Dock 11 and Gropius Bau, accompanied Kit to check out a venue for a sound installation with a friend. We walked through the Turkish Market in Nuklon, and had the most amazing breakfast of the whole trip at Cafe bRICK. I revisited walks along the Spree at sunset and ramen shops and coffee houses and the gorgeous art deco Hackesche Hof Kino where I saw the new Bob Dylan movie. I ran straight down the middle of the runway at Tempelhofer Feld and wandered along the Berlin Wall, remembering my birthday two years ago; how I'd walked it at dawn and lit candles at the memorial to close out a sleepless night dancing at Berghain. It was sweet and familiar and good to be there again. 

Home is the place you go back to, where you can set your things down and be who you wish to. I'm headed home to Cincinnati this time, but feel as though I'm leaving one home for another. It's a good thing the heart has many chambers, and can hold all these little homes around the world.