Aegean Sunset, Poem 1

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.

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Sunday at the İzmir Archeological Museum

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, ...

Dürüm: the Turkish burrito

When Americans and western Europeans think of Turkish food, the first word that comes to mind is Döner, that fast-food delicacy of shaved pieces of roasted lamb or chicken, stuffed into a pita with salad and hot sauce. As they say in Deutschland, " Döner ist schöner ," and the truth is that there are few snacks more beautiful or more delicious. But since I've been in Turkey, I have yet to eat Döner as I know it from England and Germany. İnstead, I have found dürüm, which looks like a chicken burrito 🌯 and tastes delicious. Like the burrito, the dürüm is wrapped in a tortilla. İ have seen tortillas for sale in the bread aisle, too. The meat for the dürüm is cut from the same, rotating spit of roasting meat that goes into a Döner. Unlike the burrito, the meat is really yummy. As you can see from the photo, it was served with red sauce that wasn't "peppery hot" as one would find in a Mexican restaurant, but was savory hot. There were small peppers...

Türkiye in one Photo: Hopes & Fears

The first week of school we went over procedures with the kids. One procedure that caught my attention was the Earthquake Drill. We have to be ready for earthquakes here. The ground often shakes. Here's what we do: a siren sounds for 30 seconds. When it sounds, we duck under our desks and protect our heads. When the siren stops, I lead the class out the front door to the edge of campus and follow a wall to a parking lot, where we wait for ... aftershocks, clearance for return, I haven't figured this out yet. I have experienced one earthquake already, the week before school started. It wasn't much. The building shook for about 15 seconds, and my swivel chair kept moving around under me. But I wasn't knocked around or anything. I saw the tweet below this week. For me, it combines fascination and fear. I'm fascinated by the history and art that has shook this landscape for thousands of years. People moving in and out, empires rising and falling, and art that is anc...

Aegean Pearls: My Life in Izmir

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