Aegean Pearls: My Life in Izmir

This poem is about longing. The poet, Nizet Hizam (1902-1963), was an outspoken communist and often found himself in conflict with the authorities--often in prison for his political activities. He spent more than half his life either in prison or in exile. Living alone in Turkey hasn't been too hard. I read all I want. I write. I know that there will always be a longing for home, whether I'm 60 or 6,000 miles away. The cool thing about love, is that it knows no distance, and I can feel just as cared for by loved ones here as anywhere. One final note: as I was leaving and reducing the number of things to pack, I found dozens of "unfinished songs," which I scanned and saved to my Google Drive for later (image above: Turkish man with a saz, source: Fethiye Times ) If I have the experience here that I hope, I will return with many more. I,  in the darkness of my last morning,  will envision my friends and you,  and alone  take with me the grief  of an unfinished son...

Harvest is coming after a long, hot summer. Everywhere I look, i see trees and vines laden with fruit. Here are some photos I've taken. Pomegranate tree, Ancient Teos. Olives growing just outside my church, St. John the Evangelist, in Alsancak, İzmir  Grape vines outside a hike in Kozbeyli'ye near Foça.

This week my local town of Gaziemir--and the key points of Izmir--decked themselves in red & white. There were photos of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the "Father of the Turks (that's what Atatürk means) everywhere. Something big is going down, as you can see by these banners in the fairgrounds across from my apartment. The banner on the left is a portrait of Atatürk. The one of the right is the Turkish flag. You can see hundreds of small Turkish flags in the background. As it turns out, today is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Alıören, the turning point of the Turco-Greek War that had begun in 1919 with the occupation of Smyrna, as Izmir was then known. In Western histories, World War I ended with Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. Less-known in the United States, where I grew up, are the results of the Paris Peace Conference or the Versailles Treaty, which achieved little more than guaranteeing another world war, and setting countries like Greek and Turkey on ...

Next to the coin collection, this "Statue of a Running Athlete" is the highlight of Izmir's archaeological museum. This statue, which dates to around 50 BCE, was fished out of the sea near a village close to here. I'm not sure if my poem adds to its beauty, but I wanted to capture it in words. He runs--bronze athlete-- Laurel-crowned, eyes focused on the Finish line. He runs, His arms lifted not In victory, but outward, Reaching. One more goal! Why does he run, still? Fixed in bronze, his laurel won. Why does he sprint, still, Towards some eternal finish? He runs. Still, he runs. And I, when I have Stumbled far from finishing-- Dry dust in my mouth, Nettles for a crown-- Will think of this bronze runner Frozen in a moment Of glory and I Will get up and keep     On          Running!

Most informed people, when they heard I was moving to Turkey, assumed I was going for the food. They weren't wrong. Whether it's fast food like Döner, a market that the Turks dominate in Germany and other western European countries, or typical fare known as "Mediterranean" back in the States, Turkish food is some of the best in the world. Actually, a big reason I came here was to get healthier. Most importantly, I needed to get my mind far away from the stressful, drawn-out disollution of a marriage that had meant everything to me.  But I was in bad physical shape: I spent more time sitting in a car than walking in sneakers. I ate a pretty bad diet, and I ate quite often. In winter & spring, I had done a night course, nixing a pretty regular workout schedule I'd had before. Here in Turkey, I chose an apartment a 25-minute walk from the school, and I have walked every day (each Saturday I have taken a 7-mile hike, and each Sunday, I walk 20 minutes to t...

This one's pretty easy. The hexagonal red sign is a universal symbol (although the EU usually has a T with a white stem and a red top, I have also seen hexagonal signs there. The sign across the road, "KIRALIK," means 'for rent.' There are a lot of these signs here in Gaziemir, a boom town near Izmir's airport that has a lot of newer buildings. With Turkey's economy in a real downturn, there will continue to be vacancies in malls and shopping centers for the foreseeable future.

 Today was our assigned day to dive into the standards for my courses. I will teach 5 levels this year, grades 8 through 12.  For four of the five classes, I'm teaching with standards known as GCSE, compiled and administrated for schools around the world by Cambridge University. The standards are similar to the British system, and my seniors will sit for their A Level exams at the end of this school year. I have taught with standards for years, so this is nothing new to me. Still, I want to do my best here, so today, I used some down time to go through the standards and carefully highlight the skills they were recommending that I teach. Imagine my surprise when I was going over the standards for spelling. As you can see, dear reader, my American laptop spotted an error. There were many errors, pointing out the differences between the American English that I've been teaching and grading in, and the British English of the standards. Analyse was another oft-corrected word. New st...

I live a 25-minute walk from my school. If I walk the other direction, I can be in the hills in about the same amount of time. I plan to take a photo from my walk to work to post here every few days or so. From experience, I know that things get normalized quite easily in a new place, so I want to capture scenes that are new to readers, if not to me. About five minutes from school, I have to cross the highway. It's a busy highway that connects Izmir with the airport. Fortunately there is a crossing bridge. But look at this bridge! It has escalators on either side (there is an elevator in the brick tower at the back). It's nice to have a relaxing ride to the top of the bridge after 20 minutes of walking.  I don't think I've seen outdoor escalators as often as I've seen them here. One warning, though. The handrails are very dirty. If I grab one, i get a nasty black mark. Otherwise, it's a nice addition to my daily walk to and from school. H...

Īzmir doesn't have a lot of tall buildings or points of interest. Earthquakes have a bad habit of knocking things down in this part of the world. The clock tower dates back to 1901 and was originally dedicated to the Sultan Abdul Hamid II. I loved the frame of palm trees.

After church today, I resolved to beat the heat and go to a museum. My target: the İzmir Archeological Museum , just south of the bazaar in the Konak district. My friend, Jen, had told me about a slogan she had seen: "Turkey, it's the world's largest museum." It's true. At any given place where I might stand, especially at an important harbor like Izmir, I may have seven millenia of history at my feet! I quickly learned, upon entering the gallery that ancient history is a pretty broad topic to examine. When we think of Ancient Rome, we think of a specific civilization that endured for 500 years. Ancient Greece casts our minds to Socrates and Alexander. But Ancient Turkey? There is really no one thing.  I don't want to go into much detail here. I have years of living in and exploring this fascinating country ahead of me. So I have plenty of time to figure it out for myself. I'll just write that before the Greek civilizations, known as Ionians and Aeolians, ...

One striking place in Izmir is the harborside that separates Alsancak from the bay--an 80-meter-wide, green, grassy park, perfect for strolling. It is called the Kordon  by Izmirians, and it stretches one kilometer along the waterfront. Simple math shows that it is 80,000 meters squared. On a typical evening, the park fills will people strolling. A few fishermen stand at the water. There is a bike path and a tramway. Every few hundred meters there is a playground--or a statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. People are hawking sunflower seeds or Gevrek , a special type of bagel, covered with roasted sesame seeds. Once, I saw a man carrying two thermos bottles and paper cups, selling Chai . But as I learned, reading Giles Milton's Paradise Lost , no matter how much the harborside seems like a place of leisure and tranquility, it is the sight of one of humanity's greatest tragedies: a fire that consumed the city in September of 1922 and put an end to the complex balance of Greeks, Turks...

I passed this place on my way home from the train station today. I pass it every day.  It's quite common to see owners here playing with a Köpek. It's not the only place I see a Köpek or two. Most are strays I see lying languidly throughout the day. In the evening they clean up the streets and make their rounds of alleyways. My landlord says they keep him up at night, but I haven't heard any barking...yet. Köpek . Your newest Turkish word! Postscript: i spotted this sign on my hike Saturday. I took several shortcuts, but never when I saw this sign.  Var  means "have or has" in English. 

I live in a suburb called Gaziemir. It's a 30-minute train ride from downtown Izmir. In terms of Nashville, where my family lives, I live in Madison. I've noticed that when people here go into the city, no one says, "I'm going to Izmir." It's too big! Its shoreline includes (by my estimate) 40 miles of harbor, and the city stretches inland a good ways. People say, instead, "Let's meet in Alsancak ("al-SAN-jack")" or "I live in Karşiyaka" or "I need to get some papers signed in Konak." east Wednesday I was in Konak, registering as a legal, foreign resident. (It's a long story not worth relating here.) Konak is where the city government is located. It's also the center of the old "Turkish Quarter," a term that dates back to pre-World War I, a conflict that unleashed the demons of nationalism on this region of the world as well as 90 years of genocide. Konak is Turkish, as my guide, Ipek, said proudly....

Yester we had Turkish coffee for our lunch break in the Konak bazaar. For those who are unfamiliar, a Turkish coffee is lies at a savory midpoint between an espresso and a really strong coffee. Ours came is tiny Turkish delights. As we drank, Elyas (from Lebanon, the new chemistry teacher at MEF) and I compared superstitions with our host Ipek, whose family has lived in Izmir for generations. We began by knocking on wood. I "knock on wood" when I mention a plan that isn't yet fulfilled and I hope will go well. Turks use it to ward off evil. They also grab their right earlobe before knocking on wood (they rap their knuckles on their teeth if wood isn't around). The conversation moved on to fortunes. We were drinking coffee, after all, and coffee grounds are used to tell fortunes.  I looked into my coffee, and all I saw was grounds, more than a quarter inch thick (half a centimeter) on the bottom of my tiny cup. Ipek showed us to place the saucer on top of t...

  Two dimensional, The colors of Aegean sunset Splay the horizon I'm up to most challenges, but Aegean sunsets have me in thrall. I don't know if I'll ever be able to describe them. The poem above was one of my first tries. It may take me years. The most beautiful sunsets I've seen were in Arizona. Those were vivid, 3D spectacles that reached orange-purple arms across the sky and embraced me. I'm not sure if it's the summer haze or a lack of clouds (I asked someone, "When will it rain again?" and they told me, "October."), but the sunsets look like a watercolor painting, back-and-forth swathes of color. Zoom in on this photo and look at the horizon. There are deep-purple mountains (or islands--that's a mystery I WILL uncover personally, I assure you) just above the waves.

Today in the bazaar, a local friend encouraged me to try the Kazandibi, Turkish rice pudding. She shipped around, turning up her nose at servings in plastic boxes. She found what she was looking for at Süt Cilcepi, a shop not far from the mosque. They gave is a whole pan with two servings left in it. My friend sprinkled it with cinnamon, and she, Elyas and I dove in. I love rice pudding, but I don't remember liking it enough to scrape from the bowl.  It gave me yet another chance to practice my newest Turkish word: lezzetli. Delicious!