darkening air

this was in november, late november, as the weather and your mind starts to grey. the world slows around you and the winter light dawns on the bare branches. there is something about the empty spaces, something lonely, something stolen, stolen from the air and given to the ground.  

my brother and i, on an adventure, had parked in the woods, just off the main road so we could still see silhouettes of cars through the darkening air.  cold rain was starting to eclipse the clear air and our breath rose before our faces. fog seeped from the earth and cucooned us in its ghostly grasp. secrets were held and secrets fell in the drops around us.  

we stepped lightly through the thorns and they snapped and i could feel my brother right behind me. in the shadows of dusk, we followed a path shown only to us.  we came to a clearing where the ice met the roots of tall slate trees and through the ice we could see the shapes of lives past waiting for the spring thaw.  a train whistle, the call of a lone crow, we were miles from home. 

and though the light was low and the wind had stolen the warmth, there, in the darkening, silent air, i was happy with my brother.  words are not necessary between the closest souls, and just like the sun says nothing to the moon as they make their grand movements, i know he can hear me though we are miles apart.

HOME and why i have not written for 3+ weeks

we went to yalikavak and the Aegean was so lovely. and we ate and we ate and everything tasted of olive oil and salt.

we went to new hampshire later. and everything tasted up dew and sunshine.

life is easy in nh. it is unpretentious and the trees cradle you in their shade as the peepers call the night in.  it is lovely and my family is like peas and carrots and i miss them everyday.  

coming back to this big city is difficult for me; not culturally or physically, but mentally, spiritually. i was raised among trees not buildings, my body prefers 2 wheels to four, and the emptiness and silence of the world, to me, is beautiful; natural solitude and space are rare commodities in istanbul and i find that my skin craves the grass, the roughness of bark, my limbs the breath of wandering summer air, beach sand, resting on sun-baked stones.

living in a foreign place is exhilarating, illuminating, gratifying and i love the life that surrounds me; but, as im sure many wanderers would agree, the best part of being abroad is leaving, is the return to a smaller world, simple loves, the things that you hold with you wherever you go...home.