Goztepe Park, Istanbul, Turkey
I spent all of April in Istanbul, a break I desperately needed— I was so tired by the end of March, and I had so much work to do. Plus, April in Istanbul is the blooming season, with tulips bursting in the parks and the Judas trees fringed with pink. I realized that I need to be more deliberate about making balance in my life. I worked a lot this month, which is great, but I felt like I was on the cusp of going a little crazy.
Best Of The Month
Istanbul, Turkey. By Simone Sohl
April is my favorite month, because it’s my birthday! Often I feel a certain amount of pressure to make sure I have an amazing day, but this year I decided to chill out. I went out to a leisurely breakfast in the sunshine, got a mani-pedi, took a nap, and then spent the evening celebrating with some of my favorite Istanbul people, and it was perfect.
Haydarpasa Cemetery, Istanbul, Turkey
I also welcomed many, many guests to Istanbul, and it was fun to show them all different aspects of this city— it’s been so long since the glory days of 2013-2015 when I had guests constantly.
Sultanahmet, Istanbul, Turkey
Worst Of The Month
I was glad to have so much work, but I think I spent too much time glued to my screen. The silver lining of this is that I ran more regularly, just as a way to get myself out of the house.
Also, two of the lovely ladies I went to Van with left Istanbul in April, and I already miss them.
Goztepe Park, Istanbul, Turkey
What I’m Loving
Reads: My friend Lauren lent me Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff, a book I was pretty skeptical of at first but ended up loving. The two main characters, Lotto and Mathilde, seemed too perfect… and then, halfway through, everything turns around. The whiplash of the midway twist reminded me of Gone Girl, though this book is much less psychopathic than that one. When I finished this novel, I read it again, just to see how cleverly the author had hinted at what was true all along. Highly recommended.
Music: Is it any surprise that I’m obsessed with the new Janelle Monae album? I get fangirly about very few musicians, but Janelle is one of them. The whole album is wonderful, and my personal favorite song at the moment is I Like That.
I’ve also loved this album Silk Noise Reflex by James Tillman, which came up on my Spotify shuffle. I have complicated feelings about the Spotify algorithm (on the one hand, it introduces me to new music; on the other hand, it’s so much less personal and random than the way I used to find music, plus, not everything is on Spotify) but I am grateful it pointed me towards this album.
Uskudar, Istanbul, Turkey
Movies/TV: The Istanbul Film Festival was in town, so I took a break from my computer screen to go to the cinema. I was most excited for the festival’s Ingmar Bergman series, since I’d never seen any of his movies. My favorite of the two I caught was Wild Strawberries, a rambly road trip with an old Swedish doctor on his way to accept an award. The dreamy flashback sequences and bursts of unexpected humor made me really love this film.
I also saw the ‘80’s cult film Liquid Sky, which was visually stunning (if a little ridiculous plot-wise). It’s a movie that clearly would be best seen at midnight in a dingy art theater (rather than at a 1:30 matinee in a shopping mall cinema in one of Istanbul’s posher districts). The scenes in the film are soaked in neon and grime, with black light face paint and rooftop androgynous fashion shoots peppering the action. No surprise that they name-dropped Bowie.
Podcasts: I listen to true crime podcasts only while I run, as an incentive to get myself out of the house and onto the seaside in the morning. Recently I’ve been listening to Atlanta Monster, about a prolific child murderer in 1970’s Atlanta. It’s riveting, and keeps me running.
But the best podcast episodes I listened to this month were Radiolab’s border wall trilogy, which delved into WHY exactly so many people are dying in the Sonoran desert (and how the number is probably much higher than any official statistic). It’s surprising, shocking, disturbing, and necessary. I had no idea how a victorious civil rights suit about profiling in a Texas border high school led directly to the increase in migrant deaths over the last 20 years. Really, I can’t recommend these three episodes enough.
Kadikoy, Istanbul, Turkey
The Film Files
I got my film developed from March, and I’m so glad I stuck mostly with monochrome— the black and white rolls from Ukraine and Italy and Turkey are much more interesting than the color rolls. Now I’m in the process of finishing up some double exposure rolls, let’s see how that goes!
Istanbul, Turkey
Ephemera
One of my favorite things about April is that it’s artichoke season, and outside of the produce shops there will always be a person carving out the hearts. It’s a lovely thing to watch, and eat.
Galata, Istanbul, Turkey
Upcoming
I’m going to Sweden! And even better, my family is meeting me there! A branch of my family is living in Stockholm for the year, so my parents and sister are flying over from California and we’re having an old fashioned family vacation, with a side-jaunt to Riga, Latvia. I’ve never been in Scandinavia, but let’s be honest— I’m most excited about hanging out with my sister.
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