Celebrations

A couple of mornings ago, this was the treat that was in my Gmail inbox, while the image above was the treat outside my window that morning, looking not at the harbour but at the white birches between our house and our neighbour’s.  Those are certainly two things to celebrate.  This blog is titled Field Days: A Miscellany with the subtitle A Day Book of Sorts, and this post is an observation and celebration of that day and some other days in the past couple of weeks.

Just over forty years ago Lorraine was in the Grace Maternity Hospital with our first child, who was born after a long and difficult labour.  It was profound and life-changing for both of us, but more especially for Lorraine, who had been confined to her hospital room for quite a few days.  She went to the window to look at the world outside and was amazed to see that things were carrying on quite normally out there, people walking along the sidewalks, waiting at crosswalks, talking to each other, all apparently oblivious to the fact that our first child had been born.  The night he was born I wrote the following as part of a much longer poem:

              I am not artiste

c’est tres simple

aujourdhui je suis

tous hommes

this baby born the first

ever in the world

and I the first father

On his 40^th birthday we celebrated, and perhaps the most wonderful aspect of this celebration was the great joy and pleasure our two granddaughters took in the celebration, especially when they got to shoot their aerosol cans of “party string” at their beloved dad and when they got to watch him blow out his candles and enjoy their slices of the chocolate cakes.

Later on that same weekend I participated in a reading that was part of Word on the Street, a celebration of books and of both writing and reading, held on the Halifax waterfront.  I was very happy to be there, along with the other winners in the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia 35^th Annual Atlantic Writing Competition.   

My entry, “Orientations, Syria”, included five poems that explored my experience of, and orientation to, being In Syria with Lorraine to help her with the completion of her photographic work there.  It was great to have my work recognized in this competition and to have the opportunity to share it with others, though this celebration, like any celebration involving Syria must be tempered by our knowledge of what is still happening there.  Here is my introduction to my reading:

My submission, “Orientations, Syria”, is part of a larger series, Orientations, I have been working on.  The verb “orient” means to locate and understand one’s self in relation to the east.

I want to dedicate this reading to my intrepid wife Lorraine Field, who has been travelling to Syria since 2004 to make and exhibit photographic work (her last visit there was in February, 2011, just as the Dera’a demonstrations were beginning to spread); also to our stalwart friend and guide G. and his extended family; and most especially to the Syrian people, whose spirit, courage, and heroism have inspired them to continue resisting and fighting back against the Assad’s cruel regime through a time of heartbreak, injury, and death.

These poems are from a quieter time in that brave and broken country.

The reading went well, and I was very happy to be able to do it and get such a positive response from those who attended.  As to celebration, I am always happy to join in celebrations of the written word, and I was also happy to watch this shortvideo clip on Al Jazeera today that may hold hope for a future Syria without the Al Assad family crushing its own people so ruthlessly.  So, from our positions of relative privilege, comfort, and safety, let us hope for the dawning of better days for Syria’s freedom fighters – it is the least we can do.

RECUPERATION #2 -- Yesterday, Monday, was a busy day, and I cried several times.

The first was early in the morning.  I had watched CNN late on Sunday when Anderson Cooper  interviewed a British reporter who was inside the Free Syria Army about the battle for Aleppo (“the mother of all battles” according to Bashar and/or Maher, the last and perhaps the craziest of the coldblooded al Assad killers still clinging to power).  The news for what seems like aeons has been declaring that  the FSA could never win against the huge armaments of the Syrian military, yet here they were, not being massacred as so many had been predicting.  The account of that reporter of the spirit of the FSA as they defeated a heavily armed military outpost in Anadan, plus reading the insightful and hopeful account of the battle, Tarek Barshawi’s “Victory for a Free Syria”, moved me.

Watching the TV report and reading the Al Jazeera analysis/opinion piece did affect me deeply Sunday night, but what actually made me cry was trying to tell my drowsy beloved as she struggled from early Monday morning sleep this good news, this something we could try to hold onto after being immersed in Syria’s conflict of cruelty and possible hope for over seventeen months now.  So I cried for Syria (tears of hope and heartbreak and outrage) as I told her.

Later in the day, after unsuccessfully looking for live crabs under the draped seaweed of Cleveland Beach while family was delighted to be on the sand and in the sun swimming out in the waves (a first for our Ontario granddaughter), Lorraine and I were explaining things about my recent illness to an intelligent, sympathetic, and knowledgeable young naturopath.  I started to tell him that one of my other doctors had said I was doing really well.  Saying so made me cry.  Don’t know why exactly -- I mean it was good news -- but it did.  I cried as I started to tell him and my Lorraine filled in the details while I snuffled in his office.

Even later in the day (early evening), I opened an e-mail from one of the smartest, dearest,  most capable young people I know  Her name translated into English means "emotion", which is one part of what I love about her.  She wrote from Türkiye of her struggle to find words to write to me (she had recently had word of my illness). 

Here’s part of what she wrote:

I can only hope that you are doing better now. I'd read somewhere that in Greek mythology, when people wanted to make wishes, they'd offer a lock of their hair to the gods. I don't know how true that is but I've buried a lock of my hair in the Artemis temple for you. I don't think health is her forte, but she is supposed to watch over young women and since I am one, it seemed only appropriate to give it a try.  

The Artemis I know best is the giant broken statue at Claros near Ephesus and she’s a tower of strength. So it doesn’t matter what Artemis’ actual forte is -- just having my powerful young friend bring the power of Artemis into this picture makes me cry again, even as I reread her message this early Tuesday morning.

So.  Crying yesterday.

I’ve told you of three significant times in one day.  There were more as you might expect – it was a day that included tears.  Of love, of distance, of closeness, of hope and of healing, of joy. 

A day like that has to be a good day and good cries like that have to be part of the recuperation/recovery process I have lately embarked on!

A Brief Footnote, or Paradise Lost?

After posting this morning a fairly detailed tribute to the attractions and quiet beauty of Çiralı and enjoying a wonderful breakfast here at Baraka House, we decided to drive in to one of the markets by the bridge in downtown (so to speak) Çiralı.  The road is not wide anywhere along the seashore and you always check carefully before pulling out because there could be cyclists or pedestrians or cars or small trucks.  So I did check, and something was clearly coming.  The first thing that crossed my mind was that a Boy Scout group was parading through.  It was the berets, the khaki shirts, and the red neckerchiefs that did it, but then I realized these were men, not boys, and something else was going on; they were, in fact, jandarma, serious people you don't mess with here.

We sat in the car, waiting for a break in the parade, and wondered.  We wondered even more when a small squad in riot gear went by, their clear plexi shields at the ready.  What was this?  Some big jandarma paddy wagons were next, followed by a couple of TV cameramen, many people walking, then two big flatbed floats with large excavators on board, and then more jandarma.  This was not cennet gibi; this was the big mean world of confrontation between people and state marching into Çiralı.

Finally the road cleared, and we asked a young German woman who had been walking and taking pictures what was going on.  She told us that the local citizens had blockaded the bridge this morning in protest against a planned government move to tear down some houses and maybe some trees.  She said that her boss, who owned the pansiyon where she worked, had been arrested at the protest and thrown into a vehicle with many other local citizens.

We asked at the shop and learned only that there had been a protest, that it was a buyuk problem (a big one), and that it seemed to have been caused by buyuk para (big money).  We drove around the back road to try to find out and saw the two empty float trailers down by the football area but no sign of the excavators.  Coming back along the sahil yolu, we came to crowds of people and cars with jandarma lining both sides of the road outside Fehim Pansiyon, the first place we ever stayed here in Çiralı.

Later Ihsan told us that there was a problem with some people's deeds to their properties and that some of it had to do with orman (forest) being improperly used (olive and citrus groves, pansiyons, etc.).  It seemed clear that there may be a push going on to change the character of Çiralı by pushing small operations out and letting big hotels in, and clear that many people were very unhappy.  We learned later that some or all of Fehim Pansiyon was torn down, even though there were guests staying there, and that Peace and a couple of others were gone or going.


There is much concern and puzzlement here and many conflicting stories, including that many businesses had no deeds to the property they were on and that the government had offered the land to them.  Who knows?  There are two newspaper stories here and here (for Turkish readers, who probably know much more about this than I do) and a typically poor Google translation here (for non-Turkish readers like me, and you'll have to scroll down a bit to find it).


So we still swam today, still walked way down to Olimpos and had a picnic supper there, and still photographed the ancient harbour and ruined walls and doorways from Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Crusader, and Ottoman times.  

The whole place is still magical, still beautiful, but also now somehow a little more ephemeral.

Cennet gibi, or A Little Bit of Heaven

It’s late on Monday night here, and we’ve just spent our first full day of a one-week stay here in Çiralı.  We arrived last night after driving in our rented Hyundai Getz from Antalya Airport through city and suburbs, mountains and tunnels, until we came to the turnoff, wound our way down in the dark for 7 km through showers and mist, and arrived at the village of Çiralı and the beach and all of its little restaurants, souvenir shops, citrus groves, and pansiyons.  We had a late and friendly dinner at the Oleander, drinking a little rakı (bir az sadece) and remembering with the staff Lorraine’s birthday celebration there on our last visit two years ago.

We tried on the beach today to remember how many times we’ve been here, when it was, where we stayed each time, and what we did.  The first time was in 2003 with our daughter E., having driven all the way from Kapadokya and winding down the small road in rain and darkness to find Fehim Pansiyon where we stayed for a night before heading on to Patara Beach and the coal-choked atmosphere of Muğla the next morning.  We have learned a lot since then; for example, find a place you love, go there, and stay there.  Which is what we did yesterday.

It wasn’t until our third visit that we discovered Arcadia, where we have now stayed on several visits, loving the wooden bungalows with verandahs and thatched roofs, the gardens and groves, the proximity to the sea, and the tables with white cloths at the crest of the beach where the most wonderful breakfast anywhere is served to you every morning.  We have told others about it and regaled those not fortunate to have got there yet with tales of those breakfasts just above the morning Mediterranean.

I love that Çiralı is hard to get to, surrounded by high rocky hills, that huge loggerhead turtles come to lay eggs (check here for the hatch) all along its protected beach, that the pansiyons and hotels are small and intimate, mostly  set in citrus groves, that the water is so clear and so warm, that you can walk to the far end of the beach and see the cut stone piers of the ancient port of Olimpos, that you can climb partway up the mountain at our end to see the amazing flames of the chimaera, and that there’s a Mount Olimpos looking over it to connect us with a rich and resonant heritage of travel by sea and small settlements around the edges of the Med, the sea that was (and sometimes still seems to be) the sea at the centre of the earth.

So Lorraine and I are staying at Baraka House, checking out this new enterprise of our friend Ihsan and following the advice in the top picture, remaining calm, deciding difficult things like whether to have another cup of tea or coffee at breakfast or whether one more piece of toast with bal kaymak is too much, what we will read, or where we will swim today.  It’s difficult, but we are moving slowly, like the tortoise on our walkway, and we think we will manage.  It is, after all, cennet gibi, or a little bit of heaven, and there's no need to rush anything here.