I feel as though I have lived an entire lifetime in Turkey.

The Clearest Water

So, not knowing quite where I was going, I got on the back of the little motorcycle and held on tight.

After about 15 minutes of driving between orchards and green rolling hills, we meet with a shallow stream full of very tall reeds. The water is brown and silty. We stand on the bridge and watch the fish kiss the surface, snapping flies. There are so many fish the water looks like a pot coming to a slow boil. We watch for a minute. "Come over here," my self-appointed guide says. 

We go around the side of the mountain, where rock is sticking out the side. It looks like raw marble; uncut blocks of centuries-old statues, pillars and royalty's flooring. And feeding into the sluggish stream is a deep pool of still water, literally clearer than glass. I gasp in suprise. It is so beautiful - the magnified rocks on the bottom, and the grains of sand glinting sunlight to the surface, the green of the reeds around the edges tinting the sides. 

"Listen, it's coming out here," my self-appointed guide says. He brings the sound of water to my attention, not torrential but still with some force, coming out of a crack in the marble. 

I'm so drawn to this crystalline pool - I come closer, feeling slightly hypnotized, and kneel to touch the water. I am reminded of Narcissus, if his face were both the sky and the earth at the same time. It seems like my hand doesn't even ripple the surface. When my fingers slip below the surface, I'm astonished - the water coming from underground has no bite of cold like an underground spring should have. It's warmer than the air, as warm as the sun on the marble. Pleasant to the touch... it almost feels like it has a soft texture, like a blanket that's been sitting in the sun. 

I'll never forget that moment.

Andrew observed yesterday outside the Blue Mosque that people create these gorgeous, ornate structures to replicate the beauty of God, and fall far short every time; how many come to these palaces of worship and look blandly at their splendor, half blind to the wonder humans create and completely oblivious to the much greater glory we cannot attain. 

We got back onto the bike and went to the sea. "There are my friends," the guide says, waving at a small boat on the water. We watch them pull up their nets and come back to shore. They had about four different kinds of fish today, plus two cuttlefish and an octopus. We helped them sort through the catch and bought about half - a good 5 kilos - all the favourites of my guide. I learned how to clean and gut them, bread them and fry them. Then a troop of us sat down to eat, ravenously, with our hands - good bread, delicious salad with greens just picked, perfect tomatoes, clean lemon and oil dressing. We ate one entire batch of fishe, cooked the rest, and ate that, too. Fresh out of the Mediterranean. I could try to tell you how delicious it was... but there are no words. I'm sure you expected as much.

Selshuk, you are your own world. I am so grateful to be here.

Afternoon in Tel Aviv

I have nothing profound to tell you, but I want to tell you I'm still here.
I am back in Israel, hopefully briefly on my way to Turkey, but I may come into some difficulties. I miss Egypt. Israel is cleaner, and there is more English, and the buses have a schedule, and the food is served on white plates with heavy silverware. Of course there are some cultural differences to what I'm used to "back home," but in general I understand the mindset, the gestures, the body language, the train of thought. I feel like I know the culture well enough to manipulate it a bit to my desires; I can walk alone in the streets in shorts, or go busking, or sit and read with a coffee, or any number of things I have learned to do in Canada to get by and float easily through life. But there is something missing...