Every Great Love Has a Story to Tell

We went car shopping today and test drove a Suzuki, an Opel and a Volvo. I couldn't have imagined that I would care about which car we might get this summer but I actually do. Later in the afternoon, the kid and the husband went to the pool while I enjoyed a writing session on the balcony. I'm finally venturing into fiction, a novel, complete with Microsoft Word manuscript templated formatting, inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, which I started reading earlier today. I was hoping for an existential first chapter but so far, the words read like a romance novel. I'm desperately searching for a nom de plume as I cannot possibly publish this cold mush under my own.

After a page and a half, I'm now on my way to the hair salon downstairs to get a blow out.

Every Day is a Saturday

It is perfectly fitting that the go-to bottle of choice should be called Cumartesi (Saturday), with a devilishly entertaining cork featuring caricatures of what I'm assuming are its founders and a web site called Bize Her Gun Cumartesi (Every Day is a Saturday for Us). At this very moment, I'm trying out their white, in preparation for the official start of summer this weekend. The husband and his buddies went to see Hulk and the kid is peacefully sweating out the day's heat in her bed, possibly practicing her jump into the pool in her dreams. I'm alone with my book and a half-full glass enjoying the post-rain breeze on the balcony.

A Tourist in Istanbul

Life Outside the Operating Room

Most of my days are spent in and around the apartment complex we now call home. The kid and I enjoy leisurely breakfasts in front of the tv or on the balcony, squabble over when to go to the pool and which store to frequent for our daily bread. Whenever I can, I steal fifteen-minute increments to read Because I Said So, a collection of essays by thirty-three mothers who confide in me about everything from poverty to poetry. I sprinkle a few mindless household tasks on our lazy days, dream of trips to IKEA and scheme to convince the husband to serve as my chauffeur.

As I write these words, I'm enjoying a breezy morning on the balcony, nestled in the single corner that affords a bit of shade. At 9:24 am, the sun is already burning but I don't complain as I don't wish it to ever go away. Visions of beach towels drying on the railing and yesterday's bathing suits hanging on the backs of chairs remind me of how lucky I am. Any minute now I will be interrupted by the kid wanting breakfast. She's been watching the Disney Channel since we got up about an hour ago and I'm painfully aware of how bad it is for her to be watching so much tv. Yet, I just don't want to give up these few solitary minutes I have managed to log in to write, fueled by the incredible humility I feel every morning.

What's crisis-worthy about this life is that unless I'm reading or writing, I don't know what to do with myself. I feel like I need a hobby, a job or a new project to fill in the gaps. Parenting a self-disciplining five-year old is not brain surgery, neither is making the beds in the morning or the massive amounts of laundry I need to tackle weekly. Yet, I need to operate. I always need to be researching, diagnosing, strategizing, operating and curing. What's crisis-worthy is that this life is incredibly disease-free. Or so it seems.

I'm afraid my need to always be solving problems may just create the next big crisis.

In the meantime, we had our first guest from New York, who enjoyed shopping sprees at the Grand Bazaar, antiques in Cukurcuma, a boat tour up the Bosphorus, lazy days by the pool, midnight feasts in Ortakoy, only to crash on a blow-up mattress at the end of the day in a room with no working light fixture. She didn't complain much, even when the kid's squeeky voice echoed in the empty hallways searching for her, as she tried to enjoy a cooling morning shower in a bathtub with no shower curtain. I know it was a good trip. It made me happy to share a part of this life with someone from my past. It made me happy to play host, to fluff up her pillows, place miniature soaps stolen from a Las Vegas hotel on top of the pile of towels I set out for her. Seeing my idyllic life through the eyes of a New Yorker who sells ad space for magazines (just like I used to) made me realize how far I traveled since March. This life is not for everybody. With or without a kid, this life is exactly what I needed during this stage of my life. I'll just have to learn to live disease free.

In the meantime, I'm happy to say I called my father to wish him a Happy Father's Day. A first in sixteen years.

The Battle Within

It's the monthly countdown to you-know-what and once again, my hormones are wreaking havoc in my brain. The emotional baggage, the tears, the heart palpitations, the incredible sadness. Luckily, I made a friend today (so the husband was spared!) who was willing to let it all rage, throughout the day as well as during a 9:30 pm Sex and The City: The Movie screening. (Not a great movie to watch while PMSing but a dreamy escape otherwise.) She told me that dramatic hormonal changes experienced in your thirties could be a sign of early menapouse which reminded me that my mother went through it at the ripe age of 39. Great! One more thing to add to my list of worries during this year of midlife crisis.

Last night, the husband and I overpaid a babysitter to attend a corporately-sponsored screening of Troya, a performance reminiscent of Riverdance, most of which was about the joyous multi-ethnic dancing one did following some of the most legendary battles fought on the shores of the Aegean. As one could only do in 1250 B.C. of course. The only dancing I'll be doing this summer is at a friend's wedding and I doubt this battle within will get resolved by then.