Seven Years Abroad

My seventh year in Istanbul kicked off with a big move, and that set the tone for this entire year.

This felt very much like a transitional year— first I thought it was a month of transition, or maybe a season, but really the whole year felt like a road unfurling between THEN and NOW.

At the beginning of February, as I was packing boxes and boxes to move to a new (glorious) apartment, I found myself confronted with the detritus of my first six years in the city. Here was a pile of dresses I moved to Istanbul with in 2013 that I haven’t worn in years. (Donated.) There was a stack of birthday cards and letters from 2016 and 2017 and 2018. (Saved, cherished.) Insurance policies from years past, filled-up moleskine notebooks, mangled USB cords, well-loved running shoes. I kept some, I tossed a lot. It was spring cleaning a bit early, and I entered my seventh year abroad with a cleaner slate, with freshness and newness.

A dear friend reminded me constantly that moving is a process, and to be patient and enjoy the slow unfurling of this new chapter. I am impatient by nature but I took that to heart, and tried to remind myself of that as this transitional year moved slowly but surely towards… something.

I didn’t know where my seventh year would bring me and I have no idea where I will be at the end of year eight. But I will continue to trust the process, the steady growing, the exuberant bloom.

Best Of The Year

A new apartment

The biggest, best thing about this year was that I moved! I finally made the leap and moved into my own apartment and got to live out all my Pinterest home decorating dreams. While there were frustrations and difficulties with the process, the experience on the whole was positive. I am obsessed with my space, with having a home office and a lovely little rooftop terrace to wile away the summer days. It’s just been such a completely lifestyle upgrade that it’s hard to remember why I put off moving for so long. Every time I am home, I am happy.

My mom’s visit

The other wonderful thing about moving is that it finally lured my mom to Istanbul and made her love the city. She’d visited before with my dad and sister, but it’s was always a TOURIST visit. When I moved, though, she decided she wanted to help me get my place together, and (bravely!) booked a ticket to come to Istanbul alone. She arrived at the exact moment I hit peak decision fatigue, so having her there was a real gift. And she finally loves Istanbul! Maybe it’s because of all the boozy lunches and lovely dinners I took her to, or maybe it’s because daily life in Istanbul is the most seductive thing of all. Now she wants to come visit every year, and I am thrilled.

Swimming every weekend

I managed to swim almost every weekend this summer, in pools and seas and the Bosphorus Strait. It’s a small thing, but made my summer SO much better.

An exhibition

I’ve wanted to have a photography exhibition for the last couple of years, and it FINALLY happened. I started my double exposure project at Nadas Istanbul at the end of 2018, and finally had it ready for exhibition in September. The process of actually getting an exhibition together is stressful and exhausting, but it was worth it for the end result. My opening was extraordinarily fun, and I sold quite a few of my photographs. And now I am going to take a break from exhibitions.

Lavender

Every summer, the lavender fields outside of Isparta burst into bloom, and this year, a few girlfriends and I took a trip to experience it. We only went for a weekend but it was such a glorious, heart-expanding trip. At one point, we all sat in a lavender field at sunset in deep contemplation, lavender crowns on our heads, soaking in the moment. I will write more about this later, but— it was an exuberant weekend.

My summer Eurotrip (Spain and Berlin)

I felt reluctant to travel a lot this year— maybe it was because of my new apartment, but I wanted to stay in Istanbul. However, I planned a weeklong trip to visit a friend in Madrid and a friend in Berlin, and immediately started panicking about how long my trip was. (A week, it was only a week.) I shouldn’t have worried so much. My week in Madrid and Berlin was so light and lovely and truly felt like a summer vacation. In Spain, I stayed with my friend Nacho and his family and we spent the time swimming in their pool, biking around Madrid, and consuming massive amounts of gazpacho. In Berlin, I finally got to experience the city at the peak of its summertime glory, and understood why people love Berlin so much. I smiled so hard.

Family time in DC

In January, I got a text from my cousin Elissa that she’d gotten engaged and wanted to know if I could come to her wedding in Maryland… in May.

“oh my gosh elissa that’s very soon,” I wrote.

But short notice be damned! I went to the US in time for the May wedding and spent a perfect weekend with my extended family in DC and on a vineyard in Maryland. We made all the most terrible puns and tore up the dance floor and it was SO much fun.

Learning to paint and draw

I try to have hobbies that aren’t related to work, and like to push myself to try things that’s I’m not already good at. In that spirit, I started taking painting and drawing classes this year, mostly using pen, watercolors, and charcoal. I’ve loved it, there’s something so meditative about making art, and I love the excuse to intensely focus on something that doesn’t involve a screen. And I think I’ve gotten better and better as the year has gone on— I hope to continue to improve.

That blog post

I felt stuck with my writing this year (see below), but I also wrote a piece that I’m more proud of than any other— a contemplation about how to write about travel and migration, and a story about a dear friend. I’m so grateful for all the heartfelt reactions I got for this piece and all the conversations that came from it. So many people read it, and I’m very proud.

Worst Of The Year

Writing block

This is something that shaped the last year, this smothering feeling of writer’s block. It seeped into all aspects of my writing— I struggled to write blog posts, come up with ideas to pitch, and finish personal essays. Since writing is both my job and something that defines who I am, this was an upsetting, identity-shaking problem. By the end of the year, I felt like the father of the main character in the Salman Rushdie novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories— he is a storyteller, but when he gets up in front of an audience and opens his mouth, all the comes out is the sound “ark, ark, ark.” That sticky stuckness was the worst part of this year— sort of made worse perversely by also writing an essay I was so proud of. Anyway, impostor syndrome is real, writer’s block is real, and I think I am finally starting to stretch out of this funk.

Hiking without a raincoat

In May, I went on a glorious 4-day hike through the Greek Peloponnese. However, I didn’t do much prep and neglected to actually look at the weather. Turns out it’s was forecasted to be cold and rainy, and I had one sweater and no raincoat. Unsurprisingly, I ended up frequently wet and cold, and it was completely my own fault.

Oh, Boston

Speaking of cold weather… I love visiting Cambridge and Somerville, but it was SO cold and dreary when I was there at the end of May/beginning of June. After delicious summer weather in DC and NYC, Boston reminded me of the main reason it is bittersweet: its fucking weather. I had to buy new clothes there because I hadn’t packed much for dreariness. I still love you Boston, but, BRRRR.

Nacho leaving

My best Istanbul friend left this summer for an extended adventure in Southeast Asia. Nacho will be back, but that wasn’t a sure thing when he left. Nacho has always gone home for a month or so every summer so it didn’t feel so strange that he was away then, and I visited him in Madrid in August, but by the time autumn came, his absence was much louder. Anyway, I miss him, and I’m relieved he’s coming back soon.

Biennial exhaustion

September was an absolutely mad month, thanks mainly to two things: my photography exhibition, and the Istanbul Biennial. I attended all the press events, which were wildly fun and informative— guided tours of the exhibition, the best party of the year at the Palais de France, flowing champagne at the Splendid Palas Hotel, and more— plus I kept up my regular busy social life and after a week of too much booze and too little sleep, I utterly collapsed, like, fell asleep in the middle of my yoga class. It’s that familiar warning: balance is key.

Navigating emotional minefields

There were a couple of emotional situations this year that just knocked me out. As usual, I am unbelievably grateful for my wonderful friends, who held my hand and got me through.

Frankencomputer

My poor pathetic computer found new and weird ways to work badly— the keyboard has been on the fritz since the first year I had it; this year the battery completely died, and then the cord that charged the battery also sputtered. I threw up my hands and gave in— and got a new computer.

Best Book I Read

The City and the City by China Mieville

I started this year reading primarily nonfiction, so no one is more surprised than me that my favorite read of the year ended being emphatically fiction. The City and The City revolves around a murder mystery (and I do LOVE murder mysteries) and complicates it with a premise that is slowly revealed, relating to the two cities where the action takes place. I don’t want to say too much, because the unfolding is such a pleasure, but I found myself thinking about this book constantly after I finished it— and it’s a thoroughly enjoyable read, to boot.

My Year of Podcasts

I listen to podcasts constantly— while I cook, while I run, when I fly. There are many shows that are consistently brilliant or have mind-blowing one-off episodes (a constant favorite, 99% Invisible, is quite good at this.) But there are a few contained series I listened to this year that hooked me completely, and they’re all quite different.

The first season of Power Corrupts had 19 long episodes and every single one was rich and complicated and entertaining. Per its title, the podcast deals with the way power can corrupt in all forms, touching upon election rigging, conspiracy theories, disinformation, smuggling, assassinations, money laundering, and more. The two-parter about the death penalty was particularly nuanced and moving. There’s a second season coming and I am so ready for it.

My mom recommended Root of Evil, which is easily the darkest podcast I listened to all year (thanks, Mom!). The show delves in the Hodel family (two of the members are hosts) and their evil patriarch: a man who was friends with Man Ray and lived in a Lloyd Wright house in LA, and who also committed incest with his 14-year-old daughter and was probably the Black Dahlia murderer. His family grapples with that complicated legacy and the generational trauma that resulted. It is riveting and I couldn’t listen to it at night, it’s a bit intense.

A lighter podcast that I came to skeptically but ended up loving is Cautionary Tales. The style is a bit whimsical and actors recreate quotes (rather than using real audio), but the subject matter is so fascinating that I was quickly won over. The show was created by Tim Harford, a British economist, and he somehow manages to bring things like behavioral economic theory into the podcast without it feeling dry and boring, Instead, it feels like he is telling you campfire stories. I loved it and want more.

My friend Bradley recommended The Missing Cryptoqueen podcast and it was my favorite binge of the year. There are only 8 episodes and I flew through them. The story of Dr. Ruja and her fake cryptocurrency-MLM scam is riveting, and I would be surprised if stories like this don’t happen more often. Crypto is difficult to understand, and desperate people make easy prey—especially for serial scammers like Dr. Ruja.

And my last podcast series recommendation is one that is out of left-field for my usual interests: a fiction podcast! I started listening to Passenger List and impatiently waited every week for the next chapter. Plus, they landed the ending. If you get freaked out by stories about airplane crashes, do NOT listen to this podcast. If you like a good suspenseful serial, dive in.

My Year of Earworms

My music diet this year was completely changed by Cerys Matthews’ BBC 6 radio show, which Natalie turned me onto and has consistently become my favorite place to find new music. Cerys has such a wonderful eclectic taste in music, with playlists that include Turkish psych and David Bowie and Verdi operas and British hip hop and more all smashed together. Her show gave me my all-time favorite song of the year: Sah by Al Massrieen. Literally every time it comes on, I have the rush of “oh my god I LOVE this song!”

Here’s a playlist of the other songs I recommended on my blog throughout this year:

And here I am, about to embark on an unimagined seventh year. I feel light and excited for whatever will come… I hope with all my heart that it will be expansive, exuberant, and beautiful.

For a review of years past: A Year Abroad, Two Years Abroad, Three Years Abroad, Four Years Abroad, Five Years Abroad, Six Years Abroad.