friday refract.

There are many ways we refract the light of our lives. Our views. I see light coming from several different directions and dimensions. Take the refraction of time, for instance. We create calendars and dates to lean it straight. But (in reality) time may note even exist. Maybe it's just a bunch of nows. And now. And now. And now. Now. Now. What we've done is carved a prism of nows. We witness our now through this prism. Some people are stuck projecting and experiencing current life through (mostly worries of) the future. Me, I'm more prone to witness my nows through the prism of my past.

Today, for instance, while Serkan and I ate porridge for breakfast, I remembered how his sister, Sevgi, and her family picked me up one early morning after an overnight bus trip from Samsun. Serkan was working in a remote place for a while, and I found a dirt cheap ticket to Amsterdam to visit a friend, and later go to a yoga farm for some intensive practice. Serkan's brother, Selim, and his family had taken me to the bus station in Samsun the night before. They waited for me to board the bus and waved me off. I felt so welcome and protected in that moment, I probably welled up a little.

I arrived to Istanbul, probably around 7 or so in the morning, with my flight to Amsterdam later that evening. I was just planning on finding my way to the airport somehow and waiting there, but, no. The whole fam came to get me, groggily, in the morning. They took me up some winding hills to see their old house with a crystalline view of the Bosphorus. Then we zipped our way back down to the coast and to a lively outdoor cafe in the Bebek barrio. Murat explained it was one of the oldest in the area, maybe more than 100 years old. The huge trees we breakfasted under backed his claim. I ordered fresh yogurt, fresh honey, and dried fruits. Maybe it doesn't sound like much. It's certainly more gringa than Turkish. But Turkish yogurt and honey are divine! I drank coffee and Turkish tea.

A kind of fairytale morning. Instead of wandering somehow to the airport by myself and likely a bit stressed, I was whisked up in this family environment full of love. Add beautiful crisp and then warm morning weather to this. (I can't imagine eating or sitting still anywhere outside these days!) We went back to their house for a few hours and later in the afternoon, they dropped me off at the bus service that would drop me off at the airport.

I've had other moments like this, moments where family has made a return or a journey so much easier. There are so many small ways people can rescue each other.
I remember one time in particular, my Uncle Jim and Aunt Vicki picking me up from the airport one dark evening, probably after a Christmas visit to see my dad, brother and Carol. Uncle Jim drove my car while Auntie Vicki drove theirs. Mine was freshly washed, shiny on the inside and vanilla scented. It was a quick hello/goodbye, a surreal moment, with Riders on the Storm playing as I slid into the driver's seat.

With Sevgi and Selim and fam, I probably felt a tinge uncomfortable at the time, because of difficulties in communicating. As in I don't speak Turkish. I certainly understood much less then, than I maybe do now. (Not to say that I understand much now...) But this morning. That random memory--which probably surfaced on account of the dollop of yogurt I plopped on my cereal--made me happy. A calm and content nostalgia. Not wrought with longing or anything close to lament. And it led to other happy memories.

So it was a happy prism. But so many times we live our lives--our presents--through frazzled prisms. Mine have typically been backward looking. But lately my prisms seem to be refracting some future line. Since I've been experiencing a wee flood of memories and moments, I thought it would be a good idea to purposely dive into them... on Fridays. Why Friday? Because, as I wrote yesterday, it's a day meant to honor love. Though every day is honor-love day.