Ypsilanti nights in Turkey

I went to college in Ypsilanti, Michigan. You've probably never heard of it.

Let me paint you a mental picture of what it was like 12 years ago:
Grey skies
Grey buildings
Graffiti

Blue collared workers
and
An industrial edge of creativity that surged throughout my community of peers.

Here is the most famous monument in Ypsi, the water tower. Can you guess what this icon's nickname is?

My friends from my Ypsi days are still some of the best people that I have ever had the privilege to know. The thing about Ypsilanti from my college years (it's a bit more "souped up" now) was that you needed to make it what you wanted it to be. Some people just took Ypsilanti at face value -- and for all intents and purposes it was a pretty slummy area. But other people had a very different perception. My friends created an Ypsilanti that was a wonderful place to be.

My people cared about music -- both creating and supporting it.

My people cared about politics and having a voice for the masses.

My people cared about the environment and promoting a green lifestyle.

My people cared about community in the most inclusive way -- everyone was always welcome and nurtured and loved.

And my people cared about art. Oh, the art.

College, what a dreamy time in life where everything felt possible and important and beautiful.

Naiveté. As I grew up and moved on in life, some of the virtues that I was so impassioned about from my youth fell away. I started looking at life through the lenses of a "grown up in the real world." While there was still a big piece of my heart that carried around my Ypsi values, I began to forget the feeling of how right everything could be. I became a teacher in a poor district in Appalachia. I had a job where I saw so much sadness in the lives of my students -- sadness that I couldn't fix no matter how much I tried. I worked as hard as I could at a profession that I loved (and then some more at my after work jobs) yet I couldn't get ahead of my bills. I knew I was doing some things right, and I loved many aspects of my social life, but I was tired. And nothing looked like it was going to change. Ever.

Though eventually something did change. I made a choice to move to Turkey. And being here in Turkey, in my new life, makes me feel like I'm my old self. I feel like I'm in college again.

When I say that I feel like I am in college again, I'm not referencing being out of control and capricious -- that's REALLY not the kind of person I am or ever was. I didn't stop being a grown up when I moved away from the United States. I still go to work five days a week, sometimes six. I work from 8 to 5. I direct the lives of 75 children each week on their educational paths. 

No, I'm not saying that I am reclaiming my young 20's and throwing responsibilities into the wind. What I'm referencing is a feeling -- the feeling of life being beautiful again. And things being possible. Anything being possible. My world keeps getting smaller in the best way -- I feel like I can access whatever I need to make the best impact that I can.

I didn't really mean for this to be a reflective blog post at all. I usually save this type of writing for my journal. What spawned all of this was where I found myself last Friday in Izmir. I randomly joined a couple of friends to check out a contemporary art exhibit. And what I found was nothing like what I expected.

While I was taking photos of the art to post later to my blog, I imagined myself writing short and snappy captions about each image and leaving it at that. But the evening ended up creating a much bigger impression on me than I was aware of at the time. I'm certainly not going to get deep with the meaning of each piece that spoke to me within this public forum -- but I've found myself talking about the ideas behind the art that I saw last week a lot in the past few days.

The venue of the show was an old concrete building. The art was a hodgepodge of photography, video, painting, found items, sculpture, textile, and writing - all embedded with a voice of social awareness. The outcome was beautiful and spooky and moving all at once. 

I won't get into the why behind these art displays, just my first impressions. It's more fun that way.

Felted dolls in a web. See what I'm talking about Ypsi people?

Anarchy. And potatoes. Anarchist potatoes.

Found sticks -- this was the only display that had no explanation. But really, the meaning is obvious.
(Just kidding, this shit makes no sense)

An entire series of photos of people who lacked faces.
There was nursery music playing in the background.

This yeti was about 7 feet tall. He was an imposing figure.

Also, I'm pretty sure that every hipster in the entire country was in attendance. Which was kind of hilarious. (In my mind I could hear the hiss of PBR tallboys being cracked open all around me. If you are from the US and have any contact with hipsters whatsoever, you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

Trying to blend with the hipsters. I look like I don't care, right?

Anyway, last weekend I was transported back to a time where this type of environment was my everyday norm. My Ypsi days. I honestly never considered it possible to compare Izmir and Ypsilanti in such a direct way because I always thought that they were eons apart. But they are not. I realize that a place is not simply a physical set of coordinates or anything you might find on a map -- it's more like a feeling that you carry around in your heart.

I am blessed to have so many sweet memories of the places I have traveled to during my limited time on this planet. 

And to Ypsilanti, my first home away from home, I salute you.

Searching for the meaning of life

I've been working on figuring out the meaning of life. Since I don't sleep anymore, I have a lot of time to consider hefty topics --  like what makes life good and what makes life not so good. I like to sit at my kitchen counter in the middle of the night and throw back shots of Ayran while sifting through concepts that may considerably alter the fibers of my life.

SIDENOTE: Ayran is not alcohol, it's a salty yogurt-like beverage with which I am obsessed.

The only drawback to my soul searching is that since I don't sleep anymore, my brain has mostly turned to mush. So my reflections aren't terribly deep.

Here are some of my recent thoughts:

1) The homeless guy I met yesterday seemed pretty happy. He was carrying a dirty, chewed up piece of Styrofoam close to his chest as if it were the holy grail and I'm mostly sure that it had magical powers. I want one.
2) My friend adopted a parakeet on the bus last week. A strange, drunk guy gave the bird to her in a small box. I think she is kind of a hero because she has given this tiny bird a second chance at life. She named him Kuş. That means "bird" in Turkish.
3) I find food like this in the office almost everyday and I eat it. I don't know why I always eat it. But I seem to consistently find a reason.

I not only ate this, I ate it RIGHTEOUSLY while viewing River Dance.
Pretending I was Irish for a moment made it feel OK.
But it wasn't OK.

4) Hypnosis MP3s are addicting! I find that lying in bed and listening to a man talking to my "unconscious mind" is both fascinating and unsettling all at once. The guy that I listen to tries to bully my brain into sleeping, telling is that if it doesn't shut off soon, my body will essentially be destroyed. His methods haven't worked yet (yay me for being resistant to bullying!) --nonetheless, I have purchased hypnosis seshes for "Healthy Relationships", "A Positive Outlook on Life" and "Great Skin." For only $2.99 each, how can I go wrong?
5) I just found out that Tom Cruise has gotten a haircut in Turkey.

Anything can happen in this country. ANYTHING.

I think about other stuff too. Some questions that plague me include:

1) Are my students becoming smarter with my assistance?

2) When will my life resemble that of an adult?

3) How long can I go without coffee?

and

4) Why does my ear keep bleeding?

I'll keep you updated on my epiphanies.

I stopped sleeping

Insomnia has some benefits.

For instance I painted my entire apartment the other day, I began at 4 AM and was finished before 8 in the morning. That made me feel both productive and insane.

It looks really good.

I don't know why I'm in this bout of sleeplessness. This isn't a first for me -- I've experienced periods of insomnia before. But I can usually pinpoint WHY I can't sleep. It's always because something is stressing me out. The problem with this time around is that I don't know what my problem is.

A friend suggested that maybe I just realized that I live in Turkey.
Maybe.

When you stop sleeping for a month you no longer exist in the same reality that you once did.

First of all, everything is harder. You no longer can complete a task without forgetting what's going on. It kind of feels like your brain is melting.
Second, one constantly must remind themselves that any emotion they are feeling is not actually real -- it's just another blip on the brain scan and will disappear quickly. It's best to not get invested in the emotions that coincide with sleeplessness. I've decided to treat insomnia like a form of mental illness.
Third, don't go out in public. You'll find yourself having a limited ability to contribute anything worthwhile to the social scene so instead of being appropriate you will stop conversations to make everyone listen to you sing Usher Raymond's hit from 1997 "Nice and Slow" but with the letters of YOUR name inserted into the song rather than his. And then you will wait for an applause, but people will just look at you in a concerned kind of way.

Like this. People have been looking at me like this.

So I'm trying to make strides to sleep again.

I'm cutting out caffeine, sugar, screen time past 8 PM and naps. (Although I accidentally fell asleep while sitting up yesterday afternoon.) Basically, my life is TERRIBLE right now. All I want to do is eat the entire box of ice cream bars that my neighbors left in my freezer last week. I could give the box back to them, especially since I slide into their front door Kramer style at least once a day, but like I said before: everything is really hard right now. I can't remember to do anything productive or useful ever. So the ice cream stays to tease me.

Wish me luck in sleeping please.
Hearts

a little bit famous

Guess what? Last Wednesday I became a little bit famous. It all started with a message from my friend.

Him: Do you know who Mary Wilson is?

Me: No.

Him: Ever heard of The Supremes?

Me: OhmygodyesIlovethemIgrewuponMotownbecauseI'mfromMichigan!!!!

Him: Mary Wilson is one of The Supremes and will be in Izmir tonight. Wanna go?

Me: Well..........Yes!

Fast-forward to 7:05 that evening. I led a group of friends in a frenzied power walk to a local theater in IZMIR to see a free show featuring my childhood hero. (I know that the title "hero" seems to be a bit of a jump seeing as how I didn't know her name earlier in the day. But stop being judgmental.) 

This is me with my other Michigan friend here in Turkey, pre-show.

She didn't let her crazy show as much as I did but trust me,
on the inside she felt the same way that my face looked on the outside.

My group of friends and I took up most of a row in a tightly packed auditorium -- and we sang and clapped along righteously to every beat that Mary produced. We laughed when Mary got really diva-licious (talking about her man-friends and whatnot) and  I'm pretty sure that a few of us got a bit teary eyed during some of her more sentimental tunes. I just want to say that I really appreciate a 69 and a half year old woman who is still wearing glitter and flaunting her sexual prowess. I also want to mention that the interpreter was so uncomfortable with what she was saying that he intentionally mis-translated. 

About eight songs into it, my Michigan friend (Rachael) gave me a fairly forceful shove and told me to get up. Just a few short moments later, this happened:

I wasn't really sure what was going on. But on my 30th birthday (I won't mention which year that happened) I promised myself that I would "do more stuff" without thinking too deeply about it beforehand. For better or worse. And that's how I ended up on stage with a Motown Legend last week.

Just another random night in Turkey.

Pretty things

People have given me a lot of stuff in my days here on planet earth. One thing I got A LOT of last week were personal requests to watch this ice skating routine to Ginuwine. Why does everyone I know need me to watch this? I'm not sure. But just in case you've never been on Facebook before, here it is:

Now if you were in high school during the second half of the 90's like I was, you were probably singing along to "Pony" up until moment 1:43 in this clip. But I'll tell you something: What homey did right around that time actually shocked me out of my sing-along. And I've been known to sing straight through things like unexpected flash mobs and even the occasional car accident. So hat's off to you weird man in the muscle costume, you were able to shut me up.

There are so many things that people feel I need.

Right before I moved to Izmir one of my besties gave me these:

they are sparkly -  like vampires when they are exposed to sunshine

She didn't explain a thing, she just handed them to me and carried on with her conversation about the high temps in Albuquerque, New Mexico in July. I wear the socks regularly and yell at people if they don't comment on them when I intentionally pull up a pant leg to show them off.

Because that's what gangsta's do. Yell. I think.

I had another friend send me a package with this magnet in it.

In case it's hard to tell, several naked people are holding up a disfigured, bloody woman. In the upper left hand corner it simply says, "Home." 

She made the magnet herself. You just can't find this kind of stuff in Turkey so I'm glad that I have it now.

Here are a few things that my sisters sent me.

Highlights include a pen shaped like a dagger that makes a stabbing noise when used, a felt wool heart blessed by a traveling Indian that gives hugs (Amma), a beer koozie that says, "My therapist thinks I'm cool" and a bag of organic herbs that, to the untrained eye, appear to be drugs.

But the HIGHLIGHT of my life was a gift that was left for me in my classroom. I was surprised to receive it, and I'm still unsure of who the benevolent gift giver was.

The gift was the tooth. I already had the pen.

I found it on accident, but I'm positive that it was left intentionally. It was in one of my classroom drawers. Due to a strange series of events, the contents of my drawer were spilled and amongst all of the normal school supplies that were suddenly littered on my floor I found this tooth. I wrapped it up in a piece of paper and I'm waiting to pass it on to someone special.

Please don't tell anyone, I want it to be a surprise.

I ate India

I just got back from two weeks in India and when I got dressed for work this morning I felt surprised that my clothes didn't fit. So I did the math and calculated that I ate approximately nine meals worth of food each day while I was away. Basically, I ate India.

Never ending thali plates.

I don't regret my choices because Indian food is delicious/nonexistent in Turkey. I needed to get in as much as I could in my limited amount of time. It didn't help that the clothing that I wore throughout my Indian travels were more like pajamas then anything else -- so I didn't recognize the damage until I was home. But I'm OK with my decisions to eat each meal as if it were my last as a prisoner on death row. Indian food delights me.

Also, I feel like I really blend in India.

blending

I want you to take these things into account:

#1 The food agrees with me (obvi)
#2 I love being barefoot
#3 Coconut oil works wonders on my hair

Unfortunately, the folks that actually live in India may not agree with me, in terms of my blendability that is. I mean they liked me, don't get me wrong. Everywhere I went people stopped and asked for photos with me and my friends. I felt SUPER popular. It is probably the closest I'll ever get to being famous, minus being famous, plus being pale.

and 

and

and

You can hardly tell from the photo, but Krishna really liked me. 

All of this notoriety made me want to dig into pop culture a little bit so I bought a couple posters -- one of Ganesha, one of Vijay.

Ganesha is a god, Vijay is a movie star. I had a lot of BK (BK = Background Knowledge for everyone out there who is not an elementary school student or teacher) on Ganesha already but Vijay is still a bit of a mystery. I'm not sure if there is any connection, but in my research (i.e. asking my friend Charlotte) I did come across a music video that stars a guy that resembles him. It even COULD be him. I have no idea, but the video is really good.

That's as far as I got in my quest for Vijay knowledge.

Overall, my trip to Kerala was perfect. Delish food, amazingly kind people, fab travel companions and utter beauty everywhere I looked.

Until we meet again, fair India

PS: As a side note, I didn't find anything to be really strange/random/wtf-y while I was on my Indian holiday. I mean having folks follow me around with cameras is not something that I experience on a regular basis, but I'm not going to kid anyone -- I loved the attention.

I did however, immediately notice upon my arrival to Istanbul three airport employees pulling a large plastic bonsai tree on a cart around the Duty Free shopping area. In circles. They passed me four times within the span of 20 minutes, each time with a look of sheer determination upon their faces. And with a small inward chuckle, I noted to myself that it felt good to be home.

My life is a musical (ish)

The other day I was sitting in my office when all of a sudden I felt inexplicably pumped up. Then I realized that "Eye of the Tiger" was being  blasted through the school wide P.A. system and my inspiration to go out and win a boxing match made complete sense. Unfortunately, the song was cut off almost as soon as I realized that it was being played. Which made me feel a bit let down because I had been excited about this surprising musical interlude in the middle of my day. Luckily, just a few short moments later the song "Don't Worry Be Happy" came on which immediately made me feel better. But this song was also discontinued after about 35 seconds and was quickly replaced with "All That She Wants" by Ace of Base. At this point, I felt mildly confused about this midday mash-up.

Allow me to lay out my thought process:

1) "Eye of the Tiger" makes the students feel like they can conquer the last week before break. (sensible)
2) "Don't Worry, Be Happy" allows them to know that everything will always turn out fine. (also sensible)
3) "All That She Wants" is about a psycho that is trying to get illegitimately knocked up -- which I feel is sending the wrong message to middle school students on a Friday afternoon.

I probably didn't need to explain all that.

So as I tried to work out the sense in all of this nonsense during the middle of my workday, I realized that I didn't actually care. Because whomever was DJ-ing began to play song after terrible song of music from the 1980's that I had never heard before in my life.

And if you can't sing along to the sing-along that is be played from the loud speaker of your school on a random afternoon for no apparent reason then what, may I ask, is the point?

A different musically driven event that recently happened to me here in Turkey was Camel Wrestling. I went to this:

I'm not sure if you can tell by the video, but essentially Camel Wrestling is an affair that closely resembles a crossbreed NASCAR race and music festival. With camels. It's probably the most redneck thing one can do in the Middle East. So obviously I loved it. 

About fifteen of my friends and I set up a picnic spot, grilled an exorbitant amount of meat and made ourselves right at home amidst the madness. We became best friends with our neighbors, one of which continuously tried to get me to drink his pickle juice that came out of a pre-manufactured pickle juice bag. I was all, "Stop trying to roofie me with your 'pickle juice'." But he didn't stop. Probably because he didn't speak English and therefore didn't realize I was accusing him of roofie-ing me. Then our neighbor-best-friends busted out their instruments and yelled at us through clarinets and drums for a couple (five) hours.

My friends trying to act natural.

Several old men attempted to teach me how to dance by hopping dramatically on one foot to a rhythm that I couldn't hear. At least I think they were trying to teach me something. I could have misread them. Everyone had been drinkin'. 

It was an interpretive type of dance.

Also, I don't really know how camel wrestling works. It looked to me that the camels kind of hugged each other around the neck (choked each other?) until one fell to it's front knees and then it was all over. One camel decided to run away. A lot of men chased after it. 

It was really hard to pay attention to the camels because all the musicians and dancers were fighting for the limelight.

There were about 700 "Hoşgeldiniz" mat sellers there. (Welcome mats) I think that all 700 sellers got into the camel ring at once at a certain point to yell about mats together for awhile. People love to yell in Turkey. It's very loud here.

And then at the end of the day, some random guy gave me his orange camel wrestling scarf -- which was a major bonus. I'm not exactly clear on the details of why he wanted me to have it, but he did reference me as the sister of my friend Mark and  then his friends took several pictures of the two of us standing together, me wearing his scarf, him looking stoically off into the distance.

Best day of my life.

American dollars, holla!