Folding

Re: Tidings

Hi B. Sorry for my long overdue reply - you know how it is with moving. I’m glad you managed to get out of the city this summer. As it is, I’m still exactly where you left me - still unpacking and settling in, while racked by paroxysms of guilt and self-loathing for not getting any work done in the meantime.

How’d I know you would be more intrigued by the courtyard below than anything I’ve written you about the building or even my own flat? I am too, in a way. It feels like such a classic Istanbul mystery. To answer your question: no, I don’t know who owns that flat. ​​​​Either she got too old to keep coming or she’s dead, but either way, none of us transplants have actually seen her. She used to come here with her mother every summer, as the earliest proprietor of the building, a tennis-y gentleman who cracked an unfunny joke about their swooping in on brooms come 1st of May, told us during an apartment meeting. Get it? Two single women gonna be witches, amirite? Hilarious. Anyway, he’s tried to get ahold of her for a while, in vain. It is a bit infuriating - I don’t care what you do with your flat, but send someone to clean up your shit, maybe? And I could swear there is some new junk down there every single day.

Part of the reason I’ve been so busy is that a few weeks back I took it upon myself to also sort out the courtyard. I told E. I needed to do it because all the muck is generating moisture and mosquitoes and making it harder for me to sort out our own veranda, but the truth is I’m kind of drawn to the place. It seemed to conceal something familiar during a time when everything was unfamiliar that was going to help get me out of this rut.

But you know me - it’s probably more the usual instinct to evade reality. Either way, I don’t like staring at this dump all day. It looks like the personification of my garbage mind. So I went for it.

I cleared out the plastic chairs and stuff first, the stuff I told you about - real old, mid century-looking plastic chairs. Then I started clearing out the smaller stuff which, I’m telling you, is super random and I still haven’t gotten to the last of it. So far, I’ve found all sorts of trinkets, coins, soda caps, IDs, some super old - like ID’s of people from the 50’s and that. I know you think I’m a hoarder as it is, but some of this stuff could be valuable. Or like I said, inspiration. (I can hear you say that’s how people end up hoarders - shut up.) 

I found one of those Akbil smart tickets - turquoise, same as the one I had when I first moved to Istanbul. They were already phasing it out and all they had left was turquoise. I used it a bunch anyway and kept it on my keychain for years after that, but it got lost eventually. Istanbul legend, am I right? 

Anyway, enough gushing about the gross courtyard above which I have incidentally started living and my wonderful life in general. How is the road trip going? Maybe on the way back you’ll stop by? LMK. Kisses, Z.

Re: re: re: re: Tidings

Thank you for being as excited about this as I am. Yes, I am still digging around and finding more stuff, even though E. thinks I’m disgusting and obsessed. He thinks I’m going to “bring fleas into the house” - I think he means scabies? XD At any rate, the courtyard has been yielding some interesting things.

You ask if people could be tossing crap into it from the apartments above. Fair question, but we’re the only ones directly above them. The apartment above us is a duplex, they only come a few times a year and their place has been shuttered all summer. Trust me, I would know if anyone came. 

Anyway, I keep thinking I’ve gotten rid of most of the stuff and swept the place so it looked halfway decent. Then I don’t know, over the night I guess the wind blows more stuff around, so I’ll go down there to sweep it again. And the next day, repeat. Metaphor for artistic process much (or reminder I should be doing my job instead)? It was funny at first, but now it’s starting to give me the heebie jeebies. And on top of that I’ve been unearthing all these toys out of what’s starting to feel like the post-apocalyptic rubble of some creepy toy museum. Not even cool ones but like, a lot of dollar store figurines from the ‘90’s and Kinder Chocolate Surprises. Do they still have those? And the weirdest of all: this toy soldier that looks super archaic, more WWI soldier than GI Joe, with a helmet and straight up what looks like a bayonet. Super sturdy, I’m guessing Bakelite or whatever they used back then. And it doesn’t have that flat part around the feet that this type of toy soldier would have. 

Maybe that’s a weird thing to notice but it reminded me of this story my dad told me when I was little. He had this big white scar in the fleshy part under his left thumb and one day I asked him about it. He said that when he was a kid, he had a fixation with cutting off those flat puddles that toy soldiers have around their feet to keep them upright. He would just take a knife and cut that part off and free the feet. He just thought it looked janky, I guess.

So one day he’s cutting off the flat part - he was maybe what, nine, around the same age I was when he told me that story - and the knife slipped and he straight up stabbed himself in the other hand. He said that the knife went right in.

I remember him telling me he was fascinated because there was no pain and no blood, even when he removed the knife. He said he could see white stuff - fat - and sinews and stuff. He excitedly runs off to show one of his aunts. The aunt flipped out. She grabbed him and ran the tap and shoved his hand under it, and he said that’s when the blood came like a faucet, along with pain, and he started screaming.

Yeah anyway! There are other trinkets with similar evocations but I just wanted to give you a preview. Too morbid? Anyway, the pics are adorable. Hope you guys are still having a good time. Let me know when your plan materializes further xx

Re:re: re: re: re: Tidings

Great tidings indeed! Incidentally, you’ll be coming at the best time to enjoy it here - the crashing wave of September deadlines has ended, the weather is bearable. Hygiene in, around and below our flat has been achieved and as I’d predicted, there is a considerable decrease in mosquitoes at our level, too. As for the latter, I haven’t found any objects lately, but for sure we can check it out - still not a peep from the purported owners. 

One of the last things I found there - and I would have missed this one because it was practically buried in some, like, half-disintegrated garbage bag in a corner that was full of damp soil, leaves, worms and mosquitos all coagulated together into a single lump... 

You remember Rubik’s cubes, right? Back in the 80’s and 90’s, when we were kids, there was this whole puzzle craze? That brand had a whole line of similar puzzles, I don’t know if you remember. I kept an eye out for this particular one for years but I think it was discontinued. Thanks to Google I’ve just found out that it was called Rubik’s Magic. 

It was one of my first toys. Obviously it was no toy intended for a toddler. It was my dad’s and then became mine. I remember being obsessed with it and I can either also remember, or was told, that I used to gnaw on it when I was teething. Makes sense, because it kind of resembles a bendy biscuit or a chocolate bar, one that’s made out of something like clear resin. It has eight tiles with five multicolored hoops against a black background - super ‘80s - and your objective is to interlink them by folding and unfolding the puzzle into all these configurations. 

It always seemed kind of mysteriously esoteric to me, like a live Mobius strip or a demonstration of space-time folding in on itself, discontinuous but never separate, connected by wormholes or whatever. I feel like this thing informed my outlook on life somehow, or my drive for finding out how the world works. Unless, of course, that’s more likely just my dad’s geekiness that permeated every aspect of our lives, including his choice of baby teether.

It’s so weird that I can so clearly remember on a visceral level the exact same almost-subaudible sound the wires make when you fold and unfold the puzzle. I’m surprised the thing is still in good working condition - aside from a very fine patina of micro-scratches. I just noticed that there are these, I’m loath to call them tooth marks, but that’s what they look like. Maybe a dog has been at it. Or a teething baby, lol!?

But - as usual - I digress. Text me once you cross the border, yeah? xx, z.