istanbul

Our aircraft descended from the sunny skies through which we had been flying since we left Greece, and as we passed through a dense layer of clouds, Istanbul appeared.  The clouds stayed throughout our entire visit, low and heavy, making the contrast between that massive city and sunny Athens all the more stark, in spite of their proximity.

It was my first visit to a predominantly Muslim country, albeit a secular one, and the farthest east I have gone, aside from a visit to Russia a few years ago. Istanbul scrambles up either side of the Bosphorus, with one side in Europe and the other in Asia, and technically belongs to both continents. But it is not part of the E.U., and it feels very different from Europe. Actually, it felt quite like New York City. The first neighborhood we stayed in (for three hours before moving to another) was close to the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, and Topkapi Palace, and reminded me for all the world of a cross between Canal Street and just west of Times Square. However, Istanbul is twice the size of New York City, and because of its age and potential for earthquakes the buildings are low, so it goes on as far as the eye can see.  The original urban/suburban sprawl.

 

As is likely true for many women who visit that part of the world, the moment we landed I suddenly became aware of my gender as a disadvantage.  Even though I knew, in theory, that it might be that way, it was different to feel it. In Greece, while Townsend, who is at that charmingly mischievous age of two, had definitely been a favorite with everyone, Violette had been treated with equal attention and affection. In Istanbul, though, Townes was constantly doted upon by all, and Violette, standing right next to him, seemed to be invisible. There were a couple of shopkeepers who made very sweet exceptions, but not many. 

Our hotel was full of women who wore, at the very least, headscarves, and many the full burka with veiled face, while their husbands wore jogging suits or jeans and shirts unbuttoned halfway to expose an appalling amount of chest hair.  On our day visiting mosques, I wore an ankle-length skirt and loose turtleneck out of respect, and yet found that this degree of modesty was irrelevant until my hair was covered, which I did any time we entered a mosque. It reminded me of my least favorite aspects of my own religion, that feeling of sometimes being without a voice or invisible, and, conversely, of the most vulgar aspects of our secular society, which so often views a woman solely in terms of her sexuality. I couldn't help feeling that being so insistent on covering any hint of a woman's form in such an extreme way, with the assumption that men are unable control themselves otherwise, is equivalent to Jay-Z's standing in a tuxedo next to his nearly nude wife onstage at the Grammys. Both present women as no more than the sum of their parts.  I realize that those of you who have lived or traveled more extensively than I in Muslim countries may see it differently, and I swear that I tried to see the burka as a symbol of those women's faith and devotion to God and not as something that was being imposed upon them, but I couldn't get rid of the pit in my stomach at their inability to interact with the world around them, and at being viewed as so far less than equal myself.

We did some shopping, mostly for hamam towels, which I can never get enough of and usually have to buy for twice the price on Etsy or at West Elm, and for clothing--Istanbul is fashion heaven for a modest Mormon girl on a budget. We had great food, most memorably sitting on the floor surrounded by cushions as we ate a sort of crepe stuffed with spinach and cheese, made right in front of us on enormous cast iron stoves by women wearing white robes and headscarves.  We also drank fresh pomegranate juice and ate way, way too much lokum (turkish delight), the local treat. As in Greece, there seemed to be a lot of protests going on--the disadvantage of not reading the language is that we had no idea what the banners were saying--and we saw the usual tourist sites.

When I look back on Istanbul years from now, I think it will be the sounds that will stay with me: the calls for prayer singing out from the minarets of the thousands of mosques throughout the city, and the evocative regional music that played in taxis and shops everywhere we went. I am also glad to have discovered the work of Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's Nobel Prize-winning novelist, who writes so poetically, even in translation. Otherwise, for all the interesting history of the region and the beauty of the mosques and palaces, I'm embarrassed to say that Istanbul didn't capture me in the way that I had hoped it would. Is it just that I am so deeply entrenched in my own cultural or religious bias that I can't truly internalize something beyond it? I loved Moscow and St. Petersburg; the Moorish Alhambra in Spain ravished my artistic soul more than any other building I have ever seen, and I cried at the Parthenon. So why did I walk through Istanbul's significant sites and feel...meh? Why did they not make me pause in awe? Was I so unable to get beyond my own gender discomfort? Have I been irrevocably brainwashed into insisting that everything aesthetically conform to the golden mean? I think it's going to take a lot more travel to find the answers.

athens

It was during the two minutes that I walked alone, regarding the last few remnants of the Parthenon frieze and sculptures in the new Acropolis museum while Steve packed up the kids, that the tears started. I looked at those old, beautiful reliefs that I knew so well, though I had never before seen them outside of a book, heroes and maidens of the ancient Greeks, and felt such awe that I could be there, that I could introduce my daughter to them at the tender age of six. Later that afternoon, we stood at the Acropolis itself.  Our doubts at the no stroller sign quickly dissipated as we watched Townes scramble up the old stone steps in the mountainside, happy for the freedom.  At the top, in the shade of magnificent columns and pediments, I feasted for a long while on the sight of the caryatids of the porch on the Erechtheion, beautiful ladies that I had studied so often as a student of the humanities at university, while Townes collected rocks and asked his daddy about the huge crane that was enabling restoration work on the Parthenon, and Violette gathered flowers. I looked at them and all around us, and again, tears. An afternoon could not be more idyllic.

Athens treated us so well, with big breakfasts at the hotel and homey Greek dinners out, strangers asking the children's names (Thomas and Violetta, they were soon responding loudly to any question, whether or not that was the answer) and spoiling them with treats and attention. We found the Athenians to be well-educated and very chic, though we laughed at the down coats and layers of sweaters they wore on what, to us, felt like warm spring days. We shopped and went to the cafe for baclava and deep, rich hot chocolate. We had sandals made and swam in the salt water pool in the hotel next door to ours. We marveled at the marble everywhere we looked, dictating a beautiful blue, grey, beige, and pink palette for the city. It was a lovely holiday.

After a few days, though, signs of unrest amongst poor Athenians due to the ongoing economic crisis became more obvious to us: the demonstration of a few hundred, perhaps thousand, unemployed men marching past our hotel on Syntagma Square, the blockade of buses in front of the Parliamentary building and dozens of swat teams during a meeting regarding the EU, the angry--though very cool--graffiti that covered every wall and most buildings, from Sephora to the townhouses abutting the Acropolis. Stray dogs lay about town squares and sometimes in the middle of busy streets, and there were kittens in every bush and alley, much to the delight of our children. Menus and boutique windows offered new, lower prices. Great for tourists, but so sad to see a place with such dignity and history struggling. Oh, Athens.

making merry

Squeaking in the Christmas memories just before the the end of January, that's so our life right now.  We are feeling ever more settled in--the maps in our heads are starting to feel somewhat complete and we know where to meet our needs, large and small--and yet I am always behind. Late. Hurried.  It's a good thing, really, because it means that we have friends, engagements, and church responsibilities that make us feel truly at home and happy here in a way that we didn't expect to for at least a year, if ever. But it is busy.

Christmas in a new culture is such a marvelous thing. It's a chance to look at our traditions and perspectives with new eyes. We keep what we want to keep, while discarding anything that feels superfluous to us. Here, Sinterklaas, one of the progenitors of the modern American Santa Claus, arrives via boat from Spain in November, and he and his helpers, the Zwaart Piets (Black Petes, which are a whole thing I can't even begin to go into, but it's worth a look on Wikipedia or YouTube), bring children gifts and treats on the fifth of December, for Saint Nicolas Day. This gets all of the commercial kid craziness out of the way early, and leaves Christmas Day for family gatherings and religious observance.  Brilliant. For years we have been hemming and hawing our way around Santa Claus, unsure how to celebrate that elaborate myth while still telling our cynical Violette that she can trust us to always, always tell her the truth about things. So, once the Sinterklaas festivities started to make things confusing, we had a family home evening and discussed which parts of Christmas are the real parts, and which are the fun pretend parts. She got it...

Or so we thought, until we were reading The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve. She looked at me and said, "But how do Santa's reindeer fly?  I mean the real ones, not the pretend ones."  I said, "You remember, Santa Claus is the fun pretend part of Christmas. Jesus is the real part."  She paused and nodded.  "Oh, that's right.  But Sinterklaas is real, right?" No, he's fun pretend, too.  She looked puzzled.  "That can't be right.  Remember, I saw him arrive at the harbor on his ship with all the Zwarte Piets."  And she had.

Dinner on Christmas Eve included four missionaries as our guests, decent recompense for the kind families who had us over for Christmas dinner when we were young missionaries. We made turkey, green beans, and baked macaroni and cheese that was so good that I must share the recipe here. The next morning we woke late, made Santa pancakes, read about the wise men, and then went in to open gifts. As we entered the room, Townsie sat down at his toy piano. We encouraged him to join us, and he replied, "I can't open presents. I busy working!" and turned back to his piano. Can you tell Steve has been working from home for the past few months?

Later, just before the sun set, we took a bicycle ride to the center of town. As we rode home, through the large Dutch windows at the front of each house we could see families gathering together in sitting rooms or around dining tables. It was a truly lovely sight.

And the gifts? There was a wooden train set under the tree for Townsie and a red bicycle for Violette. Earlier in the month, Sinterklaas had brought me a beautiful creamy white Fender Stratocaster.

As for Steve, he had a very domestic Christmas. Cast iron pots and pans, a spice rack, Alice Waters's new cookbook, and an apron sporting a cool red donkey. He likes to cook! I insist. It was all fine and good, and he really was happy about it, until Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer dropped the Christmas pj's at the front door. Steve put his on and came in with a quizzical look on his face. "Are you sure these are men's?" I got them from the men's section, I swore. I had even checked twice, because they felt a bit soft. He shook his head. Rudolph had given him women's yoga pants.

Next year he is getting tickets for a monster truck rally, or maybe fishing gear.  Promise.

Our friends the Wheelers showed up for New Year's Eve, a spectacular night in which every family in the Netherlands (or so it seems) launches bottle rockets from the sidewalk in front of their house from before midnight to until after 2 a.m. I've never seen anything like it. The sky in every direction was alight with fireworks, continually, for hours. Even so, our kids were so tired they slept through the whole thing. We spent the next few days relaxing and enjoying late-night chats, and exploring Haarlem and Paleis Het Loo at Apeldoorn. It was an altogether perfect way to start the new year.

Wishing you all a joyous 2014, for the eleven months that remain of it!

p.s. I wrote a letter to Vogue in response to an article a few months ago and they published it, most likely because they cannot resist a good brava. Click here to read, pp. 42.

gelukkige kerstmis

 Wishing you joy, peace & love!

party party party

It's that time of year again. While others have turkey in the oven or travel to see loved ones for a feast of giving thanks, we give thanks by staying home and celebrating the births of our babies. After last year's dual blow-outs, we swore it would be quiet family outings only going forward, but how do you resist throwing a party for your six-year-old who is at a new school in a new country? We couldn't.

 

  Invitations went out via Paperless Post to all the girls in her class and within a couple of days we had fourteen positive responses, leaving us with the question of what to do with fifteen six-year-old girls. Decorate cookies, pin-the-necklace-on-the-donkey, and open presents! Pictures do not capture the squeals reverberating from every surface in our home, but trust me, it was a rave.

Perhaps it was the residual memory of those supersonic sound levels that led Townsie to cry No! when we greeted him with smiles and Happy Birthday! as he woke the following Saturday. We kept it low-key. For the boy whose mealtime prayers of thanks go something like:

Heavenly Father

Thank you for pancakes

Bless Rich on his mission

Amen,

Steve arranged a birthday pancake feast. It was a quiet success.

 

And now, let the holiday festivities begin!