The Things We Do for Love

30 Days in Istanbul: Day 4

I wake up on Valentine’s Day to a text from Jimi: 

“I am nearby! Want to have breakfast?”

Django and I go outside to meet him, Django leaping around like he’s known Jimi his whole life. Then Jimi cooks, and I try to make evening plans with my friends. 

Willow lives in Fethiye, but has been away for the past month, and is in Istanbul today and tomorrow. Emily lives here. We all spent 4 days in Istanbul over New Years together, which, aside from being the most fun I’d had in 2 years, was part of the reason I decided to try living here.

Willow’s husband is here too, and his friend and Emily’s brother will join us. It’s decided that the 6 of us will have dinner in Sultanhamet, the oldest and most touristy location in Istanbul, where the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are. At a restaurant where, unlike most places in Turkiye, I cannot bring a dog.

wonder-filled in a mosque near Balat, Istanbul, with Emily and Willow

Jimi is appalled. 

“Why on earth are you going to Sultanhamet?” he asks, shaking his head as he stirs the eggs.

“Apparently there’s a great seafood restaurant there.”

“There are one hundred thousand great seafood restaurants in Istanbul.”

“I know, Jimi.”

“When you eat with Jimi, you can always bring the dog!”

“I know, Jimi.”

He adds some red pepper and pauses. 

“Why don’t you leave Django with me?”

Jimi is staying in Kadikoy, which is on the other side of the city - on another continent, in fact. But it’s not like I have many other options. I can’t bring a dog sitter (not that I have one) into someone else’s apartment. And I am dying to hang out with my friends again. Plus, there's another dog in the Kadikoy flat.

“Burcu’s dog will love having company! Django will be so happy! Won’t you Django! Yes! This is the best idea! Let’s do it!!!” 

That’s really how Jimi talks. 

Sultanhamet by Imad Alassiry [courtesy of unsplash]

Django and I are invited to have tea with Burcu (and her dog) at her home. Given how massive Istanbul is, we leave the house at 3 o’clock. Following Jimi’s detailed instructions, we find where we have to catch the ferry, and, to the amusement of several onlookers, I stuff Django into his non-airline-approved carrier. I try my Turkish out on two of them, only to realize later that I have just told them that they live in Fethiye.

Jimi meets us near the ferry stop in Kadikoy and we walk back through Moda to Burcu’s. We sit with her elderly aunt and have tea in tiny glasses and chat in 3 languages, and then Jimi walks Django with me back to catch the ferry to go back to the European side. I watch my dog look beseechingly at me as he trails behind this man, who was once a street junkie in Hamburg and still smokes not uncopious amounts of weed.  

“Oh god,” I think. “I’ve made a huge mistake.”

“Jimi,” I call out over the noise of the traffic, trying to keep up with him as he strides across the cobblestones. “You have to watch Django when you’re walking. He doesn’t pay attention. He walks in front of cars.”

“I feel him,” Jimi yells back, striding along.

“If it gets too crowded, just pick him up!” I yell, louder.

“I have never killed a dog in 48 years!”

Oh my god. Oh my god. 

Django keeps looking back at me, helplessly, stumbling over himself as he tries to keep up with Jimi and not lose sight of me. As we get closer to the ferry terminal, I think about grabbing my dog and going home. I think about how it will feel if something happens to him tonight because I left him with a dreadlocked hippie and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life… a life without my dog.

I am almost falling apart.  

We get to the ferry. Jimi makes sure my public transport card is topped up and that I know which tram stop to go to after I get off the ferry. 

“Call me if there’s ANYTHING,” I tell him. 

“I’ll call you if he starts speaking Japanese or playing chess. Now go and have fun. We’re going to get falafel.”

I watch them walk away, Django, I am certain, silently calling out for me.

This is a terrible, horrible idea.

I get on the ferry. It’s dark now, and the city lights are sparkling along the Bosphorus. Normally I’d drink in a moment like this, crossing from one continent to another in this crazy, beautiful city, surrounded by thousands of years of history.

Instead, I am rigid with panic.

Will he really call if something happens? Or will he try to deal with it himself?

How soon is too soon to text?

What if he calls and I don't get it because my phone is at 17%? I’m going to have to charge it at the restaurant? What if my phone doesn’t last until I get to the restaurant?

I do some Buddhist long life mantras for my dog. Then I send Burcu a text thanking her for having Django as an evening guest, hoping she will respond so I’ll know everything is alright.

She does not. 

view of Maiden’s Tower at night, by Ozman Ozavci

Lately I’ve been trying to remember that I have no clue about anything. That none of us do. We don’t know what will happen in the next 3 minutes, much less the next 3 hours. And yet I’ve spent a lifetime trying to I control everything, because if I just get everything right, I won’t have to feel any pain.

Except it doesn’t work. It’s never, ever worked. 

So I repeat my favourite non-Buddhist mantra:

You’re doing your best. 

I left my dog in the care of someone who seems like he has a good heart, so that I can see friends I love and have missed during a very long, isolated January.

The chances of anything happening are very slim.

They’re probably already home by now, enjoying falafel. 

Oh my god. What if Jimi SELLS Django?

I get on the tram and then off the tram and walk through the main square of Sultanhamet, past the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia, lit up perfectly under the night sky. I pass couples with roses and bouquets and heart-shaped tinfoil balloons. As I turn the corner to the restaurant, Burcu texts. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you and have Django as our guest!” she says. 

My tinfoil heart gets a little bit lighter.

Photo by Umit Karabayir [courtesy of unsplash]

Dinner is great. I mean the food is good, but we laugh so hard the food doesn’t matter. I’m so happy to see my friends I could burst. Willow brings Emily and me red boxes of chocolate bonbons, which I’ve always secretly wanted someone to get me for Valentine’s Day. Emily keeps leaning her head on my shoulder, wiping tears from her eyes, while Willow’s husband is doubled over, snorting.

I share a cab back to the Asian side with Emily and her brother. Django is beside himself to see me when I arrive, but I can tell how much fun he’s had with his new friends. Jimi regales us with how popular Django was at the falafel counter.

“I’ve never SEEN so many people want to touch a dog! Never!"

I don’t care that my taxi driver going back yet again to the European side rips me off. I am the luckiest person who ever lived. I will remember this, I vow, as we climb the stairs to the apartment. I will be grateful and thankful. I will not obsess over the small stuff. I will never worry about anything else ever again. 

Or, at least, until tomorrow.