Big Love, Bahriye, and Not Giving Up

30 Days in Istanbul: Day 30

The year is 2021. It’s Christmastime in Fethiye, Turkey.

I’m sitting at the dining room table at my dad’s place, staring at my laptop. Dad is putting breakfast plates on the table.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Applying for copywriting jobs.”

“Why are you doing that?”

“Because I need more work.”

“But you don’t want to be copywriting.”

I look up at him, startled. My dad never argues about anything to do with

a) making more money, or

b) being more practical.

“No. But it’s what I know how to do.”

“What about the other stuff you want to do?”

Now I’m speechless. Other stuff?

“I… I don’t know. That stuff isn’t earning me any money.”

“Give it some time,” he says.

---

In that moment, I was struck very hard in the face with the following facts:

1. Somewhere around March of 2020, I gave up.

   Along with millions of people, I got so sucked into the quicksand of worry and despair and trying to get through each day that I put aside my dreams—the ones I’d spent two decades working on—and never picked them up again. If my teenage or 20- or 30-something self could see this, she’d be horrified.

   Also:

2. If Pete Karneef is willing to have my back, I should be willing to have it, too.

Since arriving in Turkey last August, I’ve been putting together… something. I’ve been writing down little stories and details of everyday things, around being a single, middle-aged feminist living between East and West, with her Lebanese dad who’s 76 and in denial about it, trying to be useful in a very strange and divided time, with a 7kg dog who thinks he’s a pit bull.

I didn’t know what it was, or what I could “do” with it. And I’d still mostly given up. But one day, in meditation, the 30 Days in Istanbul idea appeared in my brain. And you all joined in, offering me your words, your feedback, and, most importantly, your time. I’m so honoured and grateful for that: for getting to share these imperfect, almost-in-real-time stories with you when I know you’re all so screened out.

So I’m going to keep going.

It won’t be every day. It will be sometimes in Istanbul, sometimes in Fethiye and sometimes in other places. It will still be about trying to work through the divisiveness that’s trying to break us all apart, and trying be helpful to the world, and also about love. Not romantic love, but maybe sometimes romantic love. Always Big Love, the kind that will win if we can just remember that it’s what we were all put on this earth to do.

I chose this Substack platform because I’m really over social media, but also because it offers the opportunity for me to ask for some payment for some of these tales. I do feel strange and uncomfortable asking for money

a) after blogging for free for two (decades (Jesus), and

b) for doing something I love doing so much.

But we all know what kind of world we live in, etc. So if you feel called to toss a few bucks this way for future posts, which will be a lot more full-bodied and thought out, amazing. If you don’t, they will still be available.

That’s it.

No, that’s not it.

This morning, on our walk in the Little Green Park, I noticed a statue I hadn’t seen before.

I’m almost positive she’s the only woman statue in that park. Her name was Bahriye Üçok, and I looked her up when I got home. She was a left-wing politician, a theologian, a columnist and a women’s rights activist.

RIP, Bahriye

Bahriye was assassinated in 1990, an act which remains unresolved.

So I’m dedicating this space to her, and to every woman whose stories are silenced.

There’s a reason they have tried to keep us quiet. That reason is coming to light. And other, bigger reasons to listen to us, to respect us, and to understand that we are all equal are squeezing themselves through the cracks. I know it doesn’t seem that way some days, but it’s happening.

Here’s to every woman-identifying person in your life who has had to shut her mouth and bite her tongue and swallow her will; who has fought for her right to be seen, heard and respected.

Big Love includes everybody.