April 2019

Pamukkale, Turkey

April was all about transitions, as the spring season should be. In April, I slowly wrapped up two major work projects and transitioned into having much more unscheduled time. I had a birthday and became one year older. April is also the month when my new apartment finally transitioned into a home.

Hierapolis, Turkey

Best Of The Month

The easy highlight of the month was my mother’s weeklong visit to Turkey. She’d been before with my family but was never really enthusiastic about Istanbul. This was her most laid-back trip, and also the best— we spent the time pulling the apartment together and enjoying the regular day-to-day life I live here. Plus we took a fantastic day trip to Pamukkale and she ADORED it.

Yenikapi, Istanbul, Turkey

I also ran my second 10k in six months, and this one felt so much better than the first. The route was less glamorous— instead of running from Asia to Europe across the Bosphorus Bridge, we ran from the neighborhood of Yenikapı to the Sirkeci Train Station and back again— but I was much more mentally prepared and much less stressed. Afterwards, I felt like superwoman.

Goztepe Park, Istanbul, Turkey

Worst Of The Month

Transitions are good but the winding down of my consistent work makes this freelancer nervous, of course. I know more will come, but it’s strange moving mentally from busy all the time to hustling, again.

Istanbul, Turkey

What I’m Loving

Reads: I brought back a huge stack of books from the US in December and I’ve been working through the (mostly nonfiction) pile; the two best that I read this month are from that haul.

In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson was a riveting account of the American ambassador and his family in 1930’s Berlin. I read Larson’s Devil In The White City years ago and loved it; he has a way of making historical non-fiction feel as vibrant and alive as a thriller.

I also read The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu by Joshua Hammer, which detailed attempts to protect Timbuktu’s stunning historical manuscripts when the Cory was taken over by Islamic extremists in 2012.

Music: Reading the book about Timbuktu made me want to revisit Malian music, so I’ve been revisited my old favorite Tinariwen, who actually show up in the book. I also listened to the band Tashkezar, which Natalie pointed me towards.

Pamukkale, Turkey

TV/Movies: April was the month of the Istanbul Film Festival, and they were showing nearly every Stanley Kubrick film, so I saw four of them (plus a couple non-Kubricks). My favorite films from the festival were the three horror films I saw, weirdly— I am generally not a horror fan. Rosemary’s Baby was SO GOOD, I was kicking myself for not watching it earlier. I randomly popped into a screening of the British horror film In Fabric, which I wrote about for Cornucopia. Then I saw The Shining as my last Kubrick film of the festival, and it quickly became my favorite. What an incredibly creepy, fun movie. Jack Nicholson is clearly having the time of his life.

Podcasts: I really enjoyed the episode The Many Deaths of a Painting from 99% Invisible, about the strong and violent reaction to a Barnett Newman painting.

Goztepe Park, Istanbul, Turkey

The Film Files

I took advantage of April’s tulip festival to shoot some doubles of my Nadas portrait project with the flowers. The results were splendid; I’ve shared one so far on my film Instagram account.

Istanbul, Turkey

Ephemera

I returned to sketching class for a night this month, and I’m going to take a watercolor course this coming month. I’m enjoying pushing myself to explore this new art form!

Goztepe Park, Istanbul, Turkey

Upcoming

Well, I’m writing and posting this quite late, so usually I would say that I’m looking forward to an upcoming trip hiking in Greece… which I’ve actually just returned from (hence the lateness of this post). My other big trip this month is to the east coast of the US, where I’ll go to DC for the first time in ages to attend my cousin’s wedding before spending some time in NYC and my sweet home city of Boston.